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Speaker 1: You're at the volume. Have you Monday, everybody? Hope all
Speaker 1: of you guys had an incredible weekend. We have a
Speaker 1: jam packed show for you today. We're gonna start with
Speaker 1: that absurdly entertaining matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets last night, ended by a legendary Kyrie Irving shot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna break that game down from the perspective both teams.
Speaker 1: After that, the Phoenix Suns went on the road into
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and got their ass kicked. A nuclear shooting performance
Speaker 1: from them wasn't enough for the even more nuclear performance
Speaker 1: that gave up from Milwaukee. So we're gonna break that
Speaker 1: game down After that there was a lot of talk
Speaker 1: going on yesterday after Tyrie's left handed hook shot to
Speaker 1: win the game, but also after Damian Lillard said that
Speaker 1: he's the most skilled player ever about whether or not
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving is the most skilled player ever. And so
Speaker 1: I have a take on that front, kind of diving
Speaker 1: into what I interpret to mean basketball skill, where I
Speaker 1: do think Kyrie has an edge who I would name
Speaker 1: if I had to pick a most skilled We'll do
Speaker 1: that as our third segment, and like we do every
Speaker 1: single Monday, at the end of the show, we'll have
Speaker 1: our latest edition of the Power Rankings. You guys know
Speaker 1: the Joe Foberge started subscribe to our brand new YouTube
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Speaker 1: as well as show announcements. I did a film thread
Speaker 1: this morning on like five or six examples of some
Speaker 1: of the really really poor defense that Phoenix was playing.
Speaker 1: Against Milwaukee. You can find out on my Twitter feed.
Speaker 1: The last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of this week. We'll have a mail
Speaker 1: bag intomorrow's show, and then before we get started. This
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Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So on Nuggets maps. I want
Speaker 1: to start with the end of the game, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get to some of the stuff later on, because
Speaker 1: it really was a super entertaining finish. It basically came
Speaker 1: down to match up hunting late, the same kind of
Speaker 1: stuff we're always accustomed to seeing from Denver. Right the
Speaker 1: Jokich Murray two man game, they were specifically targeting Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic in every action that they could on that end
Speaker 1: of the floor, and then on the other end of
Speaker 1: the floor, Kyrie and Luca were constantly trying to pick
Speaker 1: on Jamal Murray. And we're gonna dive into this a
Speaker 1: little bit later when we get into some of the
Speaker 1: stuff with Denver. But I did not think Denver did
Speaker 1: a good job trying to avoid those switches. I thought
Speaker 1: they conceded those switches, and honestly, they got away with
Speaker 1: it because the Mavericks were up by nine with about
Speaker 1: four minutes left, and they turned that. Denver turned that
Speaker 1: nine point deficit into a tie game at one O
Speaker 1: two in about three minutes. And a big part of
Speaker 1: that was there were some possessions where Luca and Kyrie
Speaker 1: got Jamal Murray onto switches, got really good looks for
Speaker 1: them and missed both of them. The one I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of is the floater that Kyrie had in the middle
Speaker 1: of the floor, and then Luca had like a turnaround
Speaker 1: jump shot kind of one like fadeaway around the foul line.
Speaker 1: That one went in and out as well, and so
Speaker 1: like a lot of it was just kind of good fortune.
Speaker 1: But I thought, I thought Denver could have done a
Speaker 1: better job of trying to prevent those switches from happening,
Speaker 1: because it just, you know, they're just they have the
Speaker 1: ability with Aaron Gordon to keep a big body on
Speaker 1: Luca and to make it tougher on him. They have
Speaker 1: the ability with a guard defender like KCP to to
Speaker 1: make him take tough shots over an excellent defender. And
Speaker 1: so we'll get a little bit deeper into that into
Speaker 1: when we get to the Denver side of things. But
Speaker 1: it was a lot of matchup hunting. And then on
Speaker 1: the Dallas side they were attacking Jamal Murray and on
Speaker 1: the Denver side they were attacking Luka Doncicic, and in
Speaker 1: that stretch they were just getting better stuff. On the
Speaker 1: other end, Denver scored on almost every single possession during
Speaker 1: that stretch, just either getting you know, Luca switched onto
Speaker 1: the Jokic and Jokicic just taking him down in the
Speaker 1: post and getting an easy basket, or like Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: in a two man game, getting Maxi Kleebudy. You know,
Speaker 1: we have all this talk about Kyrie's finished, which obviously
Speaker 1: was incredible, and we're gonna get to but Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: had a pretty nasty left handed finish himself where he
Speaker 1: got Maxi Kleiba on his right shoulder, kind of worked
Speaker 1: him down the lane. Daniel Gafford came over and he
Speaker 1: just went way out to the side and scooped in
Speaker 1: a nasty left handed finish off the glass. And then
Speaker 1: the final one when it was one O two, one
Speaker 1: O two, so it's one of two, one or two.
Speaker 1: Luca gets the switch on Murray misses that little turnaround
Speaker 1: jump shot, but down on the other end at one
Speaker 1: O two, one O two, Murray gets Luca on a
Speaker 1: switch and he makes a really smart play. So Kleiba's
Speaker 1: back on Jokic at this point. Jamal kind of drags
Speaker 1: Luka out to the left side and Jokic comes up
Speaker 1: to set another ball screen and Jamal Murray identifies something
Speaker 1: where he knew he was gonna be able to get
Speaker 1: a clean look Luca. When he saw the screen coming
Speaker 1: from Jokic, Luca backed off and then prepared to go
Speaker 1: underneath Jokic so that he could switch, but stay in
Speaker 1: position on Jokic to not give up an easy, you know,
Speaker 1: over the top pass where he could just rumble into
Speaker 1: the pain without anybody in front of him. Right, So,
Speaker 1: Luca's preparing to duck underneath Jokic to switch, and Kleiba's
Speaker 1: getting ready to jump out on the other side. But
Speaker 1: again there's a gap there between where Jamal Murray is
Speaker 1: and where Kleeba is gonna be coming on the other
Speaker 1: side of the screen and Luca's ducking under. There's a
Speaker 1: little opening in there, and Jamal Murray really smartly just
Speaker 1: throws a little bit of a fake with the dribble
Speaker 1: to get Luca to commit to the switch, and then
Speaker 1: he pulled back into that opening, got a really good
Speaker 1: look at three, knocked it down as one oh five,
Speaker 1: one oh two. We go down to the other end
Speaker 1: and Aaron Gordon makes a huge mistake in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic comes off of a pin down. He's starting
Speaker 1: kind of at the right elbow. He comes down and
Speaker 1: Tim hardaway Junior is setting a screen kind of around
Speaker 1: the top of the key. Luca's not trying to come
Speaker 1: off for a shot. Luca's just coming off to try
Speaker 1: to get the basketball because there's like I think there's
Speaker 1: like twenty six seconds left or something like that. So
Speaker 1: Luca pops out catches the ball like thirty feet but
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon again, like imagine in the top of the key,
Speaker 1: there's Tim Hardaway Junior, there's Luca coming out thirty feet
Speaker 1: from the rim. Gordon's down here as he's gonna trail Luca,
Speaker 1: but instead of just running out to meet Luca, he
Speaker 1: tried to duck under Tim Hardaway on the opposite side
Speaker 1: of the screen, and so as a result, he was
Speaker 1: taking a weird kind of banana route to get to
Speaker 1: where Luca was when that screen wasn't really in position
Speaker 1: to stop him. He could have just sprinted out, and
Speaker 1: again Luca wasn't looking to shoot there, but Luca caught
Speaker 1: and he was so wide open because Aaron Gordon tried
Speaker 1: to go around the other side of the screen. He
Speaker 1: just had all day and he's like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot this. And it was catastrophic for two reasons.
Speaker 1: Not only was it the three point shot that tied
Speaker 1: the game, but they didn't take any time off the clock,
Speaker 1: like if that exact same thing, like if Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: takes a better angle instead of trying to jump the screen,
Speaker 1: but just just trails behind Luca the way you're supposed to.
Speaker 1: He catches, he turns, probably calls for a screen. By
Speaker 1: the time he actually gets a quality three point shot up,
Speaker 1: it could be another five to ten seconds. And if
Speaker 1: it takes five to ten seconds and they make the shot,
Speaker 1: then it's one oh five, one oh five, But the
Speaker 1: shot clock is turned off, and then you could take
Speaker 1: your time to get a great one. And instead there
Speaker 1: was just a little bit of a gap, which put
Speaker 1: Denver in the predicament because Dallas had a time out.
Speaker 1: It put Denver in that predicament where they kind of
Speaker 1: had to leave some time on the clock. So at
Speaker 1: that point you just want to get the best possible shot.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray got a great look. They had another Yokic
Speaker 1: ball screen. PJ. Washington actually was switching out on Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray and in his backwards kind of like recovery step,
Speaker 1: he tripped and fell, and so Jamal got great lift
Speaker 1: great separation, one of the easiest shots he got all
Speaker 1: night there around the right elbow, and he just missed it,
Speaker 1: but again because of the bad angle Aaron Gordon took
Speaker 1: on the other end of the floor, they were in
Speaker 1: a position where they had to shoot before the end
Speaker 1: of the shot clock. So then we go down to
Speaker 1: the other end. Just a couple seconds left. Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: comes off of that ball, off of that off ball action,
Speaker 1: and Yokic switches and Yokic defends it as perfectly as
Speaker 1: you possibly can, even given the insane shot that Kyrie took.
Speaker 1: It was very very good contest form Nikole Jokic. But
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving just goes into that that rip through news
Speaker 1: left and gets to that left handed floater or half
Speaker 1: hook or whatever the heck you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and knocks it down. Crowd goes crazy. Really one of
Speaker 1: the most impressive game winners that I've seen, because that
Speaker 1: was not luck. That is something that Kyrie Irving is
Speaker 1: capable of doing. There are two things that I want
Speaker 1: to hit about Kyrie's lefty runner that were so interesting
Speaker 1: to me. First of all, improvisational shot making. When I
Speaker 1: talk about scoring the basketball, and you know, there's all
Speaker 1: these different roles that a player has on a basketball team.
Speaker 1: But to me, one of the specific traits that identifies
Speaker 1: a player as a scorer is it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a natural knack for finding ways to put the ball
Speaker 1: in the basket. To me, that comes down to a
Speaker 1: combination of obviously the skill set, but there's two additional
Speaker 1: elements to it. It's audacity and improvisation. Audacity is confidence.
Speaker 1: Audacity is like, you bet your ass I can take
Speaker 1: and make this left handed floater, like a Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: for instance, Like he's playing on a basketball team with
Speaker 1: the best player in the world, and that dude has
Speaker 1: the audacity to look him off and take his own
Speaker 1: shots sometimes and it's the right decision because of his
Speaker 1: abilities as a shot maker. Again, that first piece is
Speaker 1: the most important part. You have to have the skill set,
Speaker 1: but from there, if you have the audacity to confidence
Speaker 1: and you connect it with the improvisation, which to me
Speaker 1: is the natural ability of a score to just find
Speaker 1: kind of funky combinations of skill. So, for instance, you
Speaker 1: might see that left handed runner and you might think
Speaker 1: to yourself, Kyrie probably doesn't practice that, and you're right,
Speaker 1: I doubt sincerely that Kyrie has a drill where he
Speaker 1: takes a fifteen foot drifting one leg floater moving to
Speaker 1: his left hand side off of that specific footwork. He
Speaker 1: probably doesn't, but what he does do is all the
Speaker 1: individual pieces of that put together. I've talked about this
Speaker 1: with a step back three before. The step back three
Speaker 1: looks like a complicated dribble combination and footwork combination in
Speaker 1: to a shot, but it's really not. Like if I
Speaker 1: do an in and out dribble and then between the
Speaker 1: legs dribble and then an advanced dribble, but instead of
Speaker 1: continuing that step, I plant that right foot and push back,
Speaker 1: I stick my left foot way out to catch my
Speaker 1: momentum so that I go straight up and down, and
Speaker 1: at the end of the shot, I'm just going straight
Speaker 1: up and down. So as long as I have the
Speaker 1: handle to be able to do an in and out
Speaker 1: between the legs dribble and then another in and out
Speaker 1: on the other side, I'm good. As long as I
Speaker 1: have the footwork to be able to make all those
Speaker 1: plants and control my body weight in those angles, and
Speaker 1: as long as I have good catch and shoot straight
Speaker 1: up and down jump shooting ability, I can put all
Speaker 1: of that together and make this advance to play. Now again,
Speaker 1: does Kyrie practice a drifting left handed floater. Probably not.
Speaker 1: But what he does practice is a huge variety of
Speaker 1: left handed shots around the rim, left handed floaters and
Speaker 1: scoops and high finishes, low finishes, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: sneak by defenders, trying to finish over the top of defenders.
Speaker 1: He does a ton of stuff with his left hand.
Speaker 1: That move is a combination of things that Kyrie does,
Speaker 1: work on the footwork to get that little bit of
Speaker 1: separation right the handle, to get the ball into his
Speaker 1: left hand in a position where he has command of it,
Speaker 1: and then from there the touch takes over. But that,
Speaker 1: to me is what improvisational shot making is. And all
Speaker 1: the best improvisational scorers in the league, they do take
Speaker 1: shots in games that don't necessarily resemble shots that they
Speaker 1: take in practice, but it's pieces, little bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of things that they do practice that they in the
Speaker 1: moment go, wait, I see this opening, and it's all
Speaker 1: happening in a fraction of a second. I see this opening.
Speaker 1: I think I can get to that spot, and then
Speaker 1: from there I think I can kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe just go into like a left handed kind of
Speaker 1: half hook, kind of like I do, closer to the rim,
Speaker 1: but I'll just have to put a little more juice
Speaker 1: on it, you know that kind of thing. It's it's
Speaker 1: like an instantaneous interpretation of the situation and then the
Speaker 1: ability to quickly pick from your skill set to grab
Speaker 1: these little things that you can piece together into a
Speaker 1: move to make a shot in that specific situation. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's what separates the best scores in the
Speaker 1: world from the guys beneath them is it's they have
Speaker 1: the skill set, but they also have this overwhelming confidence
Speaker 1: or audacity as I call it. And then the improvisation,
Speaker 1: the ability to think quickly on their feet to find
Speaker 1: ways to get to a shot they can make right.
Speaker 1: And so that to me is what kind of sets
Speaker 1: that apart. It's the improvisation and the second thing, the
Speaker 1: fundamental foundation. That was a crazy shot, but make no mistake,
Speaker 1: it was about his baseline foundation of ball handling, his
Speaker 1: baseline foundation of footwork, and his baseline foundation of touch.
Speaker 1: That is fundamental basketball that has been pieced together into
Speaker 1: basically an art form. Right, But like, don't don't make
Speaker 1: the mistake of thinking that that doesn't come from a
Speaker 1: fundamental foundation, because it absolutely does. Now moving to the
Speaker 1: rest of the game, I thought the story of the
Speaker 1: game for Dallas was dominating the bench groups for Denver,
Speaker 1: specifically on the offensive glass. And Denver's a weird team,
Speaker 1: like when you look in the big picture, they're sixteenth
Speaker 1: in defensive rebounding percentage, their bottom half defensive rebounding team,
Speaker 1: but they're excellent at rebounding with their starters. Even last
Speaker 1: night with the starting lineup, so Jokic with Gordon, Michael Porter, Junior,
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray and KCP, those guys grabbed almost seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of available defensive rebounds, which is excellent. So that
Speaker 1: wasn't the issue. But those bench groups what they do again,
Speaker 1: like instead of going with a slower, you know, limited
Speaker 1: center like DeAndre Jordan, they just go with Zignaji. They
Speaker 1: do a ton of switching, and they just give the
Speaker 1: ball to Jamal Murray and just basically let him go
Speaker 1: to work. And again, like they're in a predicament. Denver's
Speaker 1: been in this predicament for a long time where they
Speaker 1: they really struggled to kind of maintain leads without Jokics,
Speaker 1: that's been a thing forever, that was the thing last
Speaker 1: year when they won the title. This is just their
Speaker 1: best pathway to try to float the ship without Nicole
Speaker 1: Jokic is to go small, do a lot of switch
Speaker 1: and rely on Jamal Murray to make shots. And he
Speaker 1: just didn't quite have the same shot making game that
Speaker 1: he's capable of having, and they got absolutely demolished on
Speaker 1: the glass. In those units, particularly Derek Jones Junior and
Speaker 1: Derek Lively were doing a ton of damage. Dallas had
Speaker 1: twenty two offensive rebounds in this game, leading to twenty
Speaker 1: three second chance points, and as a result, even though
Speaker 1: they were plus ten, Denver was plus ten in Nikola
Speaker 1: Jokic's minutes, Dallas was able to get out of there
Speaker 1: with the win by dominating those specific lineups. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I did think was interesting, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a complete coincidence that Phoenix and Dallas
Speaker 1: were the two teams that got wins against Denver since
Speaker 1: the All Star Break, because this again, for people who
Speaker 1: are not aware, Denver has won every other game they
Speaker 1: played since the All Star Break. They're eleven to two
Speaker 1: I think in the thirteen games since then, and their
Speaker 1: two losses were Phoenix and Dallas, both games where they
Speaker 1: led by three points with just a few seconds left
Speaker 1: and then crazy shot making at the end of the
Speaker 1: game took the game away from them, right. So, Like,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: Dallas is Dallas and Phoenix both they're uniquely capable of
Speaker 1: picking on matchups and actually getting some of Denver's more
Speaker 1: limited on ball defenders into space. Right. So, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: they're really diligent about getting the switches they want. They
Speaker 1: make sure that they get the right matchup before they
Speaker 1: get into their one on one play. Now, again, we've
Speaker 1: talked about it a little bit on the Denver side.
Speaker 1: We'll get a little further into it, but I think
Speaker 1: Denver needs to do a better job of trying to
Speaker 1: fight against those switches just by you know, we'll get
Speaker 1: into that in a minute. But like, Dallas was very
Speaker 1: pretty good about diligently getting the right matchups before they go.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, they are a team that has
Speaker 1: some speed advantages, right, Like, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: There's a random play mid fourth quarter where Derrek Jones
Speaker 1: Junior was on the right wing and he had Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Junior on him and he just got him with
Speaker 1: a basic rip through moove to the left and got
Speaker 1: all the way to the rim for a layup. And
Speaker 1: then like so when you look at it, and it's
Speaker 1: like they're getting a lot of shots where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're getting Michael Porter Junior on a switch and then
Speaker 1: going to work. They're getting Jamal Murray on a switch
Speaker 1: and they're going to work. So they can be very
Speaker 1: diligent about getting the right types of shots against the
Speaker 1: right matchups. And I think that's something that Dallas and
Speaker 1: Phoenix in particular are are really good at. Now both
Speaker 1: of those matchups Denver had extended stretches where they kick
Speaker 1: their ass because they're so much bigger and there they
Speaker 1: do have better personnel that they can kind of go
Speaker 1: to on both ends of the floor to kind of
Speaker 1: get these jobs done. So like I would pick Denver
Speaker 1: in a series against both of them, but I do
Speaker 1: think it's interesting and something to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: in terms of like a threat to beat Denver that
Speaker 1: both Dallas and Phoenix are these like kind of high
Speaker 1: level matchup attacking teams that rely a lot on helio
Speaker 1: centric kind of a ball screen attack and that can
Speaker 1: really kind of get Denver's limited defenders in space. On
Speaker 1: the Denver side of things, getting bullied on the glass
Speaker 1: and the Yokachov groups is totally normal. Like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: like they yokichen groups this season have almost a seventy
Speaker 1: five percent defensive rebound percentage, and they had almost a
Speaker 1: seventy five percent defensive rebound percentage yesterday. This is kind
Speaker 1: of just an issue with their bench. And again, they
Speaker 1: won last year under the same circumstances. It's never been
Speaker 1: about like, oh man, you know, Denver can't overcome its bench.
Speaker 1: It's like they do overcome their bench. It's like they
Speaker 1: have a bad bench and then they win. Anyway, That's
Speaker 1: that's pretty much been the story for Denver forever. Right
Speaker 1: that said, they need to hold up better on the
Speaker 1: glass than they did, and I did think a lot
Speaker 1: of it was just not being as quick to the ball,
Speaker 1: and that's something I think they have a room for
Speaker 1: improvement on. And then again, like this game and the
Speaker 1: Suns game, they executed perfectly down the stretch in both games.
Speaker 1: So like if you remember in the Suns game, there
Speaker 1: was a twelve zero run that turned a what was
Speaker 1: it a ninety nine to ninety lead into a one
Speaker 1: oh two to ninety nine lead for Denver. And then
Speaker 1: in this game, what was it It was one oh
Speaker 1: nine to one hundred, I think, and then they scored.
Speaker 1: They won on a fifteen to three run to go
Speaker 1: up one fifteen to one twelve. So very similarly in
Speaker 1: both games, Denver went on like a dominant run down
Speaker 1: the stretch, but they played better defense on the KD
Speaker 1: shot like that one was like Aaron Gordon ended pretty
Speaker 1: damn well and ad just made the shot. I thought
Speaker 1: that they had a couple of execution lapses on the
Speaker 1: defensive end at the end of this game, not just
Speaker 1: the Aaron Gordon one where he went on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of that pick, but they were just way too
Speaker 1: willing to give the right matchups, better matchups to Dallas
Speaker 1: down the stretch offensively. And the last thing before we
Speaker 1: move on to the next game, there's a reason why
Speaker 1: I'm not a big believer in just conceding those switches
Speaker 1: so easy. First of all, especially when you're like Denver,
Speaker 1: has the ability to put teams in a predicament where
Speaker 1: if you don't switch, or you hedge and recover, or
Speaker 1: you help or you do anything that leaves a shooter open.
Speaker 1: There's such high level shooters that it's a problem, right,
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, some of the offensive talent surrounding Dallas
Speaker 1: in these groups is they're not as good at beating
Speaker 1: some of these some of these aggressive defensive coverages. So
Speaker 1: for instance, like there was a play where they doubled
Speaker 1: Luca on a switch and Nexic cleve at airball to
Speaker 1: three over the backside of the rint, And like there
Speaker 1: there are guys with Dallas where it's like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't want to just leave him wide open all game,
Speaker 1: but like a late contest we can live with kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Whereas you can't do that with Michael Porter Junior.
Speaker 1: You can't do that with KCP and Aaron Gordon's under
Speaker 1: the rim where he's not missing much, right, So like
Speaker 1: that is that is one of those things where like
Speaker 1: I would be more willing in those situations rather than
Speaker 1: having Jamal Murray just switch, I would hedge in those
Speaker 1: situations and essentially rotate on the weak side and make
Speaker 1: sure that you're just leaving the right guy open. Because
Speaker 1: ky both Kyrie and Luca are aware of the fact
Speaker 1: that for them, a tough contested shot is probably better
Speaker 1: than an open look for some of these other guys,
Speaker 1: and so they probably will allow you to chase over
Speaker 1: the top and to recover and get back in front
Speaker 1: and not give up the switch. Then as the shot
Speaker 1: clock winds down, they'll have no choice but to ISO
Speaker 1: Kyrie against KCP or Luca against Aaron Gordon. If you
Speaker 1: chase over the top, I think it'll inevitably end up
Speaker 1: in a Luca Kyrie ISO, just against a better matchup.
Speaker 1: I don't think Lucas gonna pass out and just live
Speaker 1: with you know, MAXI Kleeba taking threes down the stretch
Speaker 1: of these games like they want to get the right
Speaker 1: player to take the right shot, right, And there's just
Speaker 1: more flexibility with Dallas to leave openings than there is
Speaker 1: against some of these other better teams like Boston or
Speaker 1: like Denver for instance. Right. So, like again, I thought
Speaker 1: that was something execution wise that they could have been
Speaker 1: better at down the stretch. But we're being nitpicky. I
Speaker 1: actually had this in my power ranking segment, but I'll
Speaker 1: just say it right now. They're eleven and two since
Speaker 1: the All Star Break, and their two losses are games
Speaker 1: that they led in the final seconds by three points,
Speaker 1: and crazy shot making took the games away. So make
Speaker 1: of that what you will, but to me, that's pretty
Speaker 1: scary and it looks a lot like a Denver team
Speaker 1: that is hell bent on repeating, and that's why I
Speaker 1: feel so confident in them, all right. Moving on to
Speaker 1: Sun's Bucks. This was an interesting game because what if
Speaker 1: I told you that Phoenix took fifty jump shots in
Speaker 1: this game. They got sixty five points out of them,
Speaker 1: so one point three points per jump shot, and they
Speaker 1: got blown out. And that's because the Bucks took fifty
Speaker 1: six jump shots and got eighty eight points out of them,
Speaker 1: which is one point five to seven points per shot.
Speaker 1: So Phoenix had this incredible shooting performance on the road
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee and got killed because Milwaukee shot them out
Speaker 1: of the gym to an even greater extent. Now I
Speaker 1: want to I'm gonna start with the Milwaukee side, but
Speaker 1: this was one of Phoenix's worst defensive performances of the season.
Speaker 1: We'll get a little bit deeper into it in a minute,
Speaker 1: but really the story of the game early on was
Speaker 1: Bobby Portis. And I've been defending Bobby Portis all year
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of Bucks fans that are
Speaker 1: low on him just because he's a backup center. And
Speaker 1: you know, backup. Anybody in the league who's a backup
Speaker 1: is a backup for a reason, right, Like if Bobby
Speaker 1: Portis was everything he is offensively, but like less prone
Speaker 1: to cold spells and just way better defensively, then he's
Speaker 1: making twenty five million a year and he's starting for
Speaker 1: somebody Like it's it's unrealistic for people to have those
Speaker 1: levels of expectations, and like, to me, you can't do
Speaker 1: much better than Bobby Portis as a backup center. Ask
Speaker 1: Nuggets fans if they'd take Bobby Portis as a backup center.
Speaker 1: Ask Lakers fans if they take Bobby Portis as a
Speaker 1: backup center. Like that, you could do a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot worse than Bobby Portis. And he was incredible
Speaker 1: at the start of this game. And for the record,
Speaker 1: he's been a good offensive player all season. Just a
Speaker 1: couple quick numbers for you guys. Two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: points and two hundred and twenty seven post ups including
Speaker 1: passes to over a point per possession one point one
Speaker 1: zero points per spot up possession. That's sixty seven percentile
Speaker 1: so he's a great shooter and close out attacker, picking
Speaker 1: and popping, picking and rolling. He personally shoots sixty one
Speaker 1: point four percent in effective field goal percentage on shots
Speaker 1: on pops and rolls. That's one point two points per possession.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. He personally shoots over fifty one percent on
Speaker 1: unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which is gonna be
Speaker 1: a theme because Phoenix was leaving him open to start.
Speaker 1: This game started with the coverage opening. Uh, this was
Speaker 1: when Drew Eubanks came into the game. Well, I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about this concept before, but when you run
Speaker 1: drop coverage, and again, drop coverage is real basic. The
Speaker 1: big guy who's guarding the screener is going to drop
Speaker 1: back and keep the ball handler and the roll man
Speaker 1: in front of him. Right the on ball guy's chasing
Speaker 1: over the top. So here comes the screen guys chasing
Speaker 1: over the top. He's trying to funnel into the screen
Speaker 1: defender that's waiting. So if the guy rolls to the rim,
Speaker 1: if the guy screens and rolls, he can effectively kind
Speaker 1: of guard both, right, especially if he's an elite defensive player,
Speaker 1: and he can kind of kind of lunge and stunt
Speaker 1: and be in the right places. But if he pops
Speaker 1: any sort of drop coverage has no counter for the
Speaker 1: drop or for the pop other than just to offer
Speaker 1: a late close out. That's all he can do. So
Speaker 1: the guy comes over the top screener pops right. The
Speaker 1: big guy's waiting. As soon as the pass goes, he's
Speaker 1: got to close out, or you have to close out
Speaker 1: from the weak side, which leaves another guy short open, right.
Speaker 1: So it is a fundamental baked in opening of the coverage.
Speaker 1: You run pick and pop against the drop coverage, you're
Speaker 1: going to get wide up in threes for your big man.
Speaker 1: It is just like how it works. That's just how
Speaker 1: the coverage works. Right. So Drew youu Banks early is
Speaker 1: just getting absolutely barbecued by Bobby Portis screening and popping right.
Speaker 1: But then he gets hot, right, and again when the
Speaker 1: guy gets hot, you kind of have to make a
Speaker 1: certain adjustment. Right at this point, use if Nurkic comes
Speaker 1: back into the game and he's doing a better job
Speaker 1: in his coverage of kind of like lingering by Portas,
Speaker 1: but he's not offering hard contests. And I'm literally sitting
Speaker 1: here and I'm like, I like, this guy is engulfed
Speaker 1: in flames and is like six for seven from the
Speaker 1: field and all six of his makes have been jump shots,
Speaker 1: or I think five of his first six makes for
Speaker 1: jump shots, and you're offering like a like again, uh,
Speaker 1: did you guys remember earlier this year when the uh,
Speaker 1: when the San Antonio Spurs scouting report got released or
Speaker 1: the I think it was a Dallas' scouting report of
Speaker 1: the Spurs for a preseason game, and it was like
Speaker 1: all the breakdown and they talk about like how you
Speaker 1: close out on shooters. We had very similar scouting reports
Speaker 1: when I was in college at the Naia School, which
Speaker 1: was the best coaching staff that I personally played for,
Speaker 1: and like they do all the research and they tell
Speaker 1: you it's like, okay, this guy, you're closing out hard,
Speaker 1: meaning like you have to be like completely up in
Speaker 1: disrupting the shooting pocket, Like even a contest doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You have to disrupt the shooting pocket before he gets
Speaker 1: up into his release. When he gets up into the release,
Speaker 1: it's over right. And then they have everything from there
Speaker 1: to like closing out short, which is like I'm literally
Speaker 1: going to run out at you, but I'm purposefully gonna
Speaker 1: stop short and then if you shoot, I'll offer a
Speaker 1: late contest. And it's like, Bobby Portis is fifty one
Speaker 1: percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots field goal
Speaker 1: percentage not waited for threes. That's like he just makes
Speaker 1: more than half of them. And so like at this point,
Speaker 1: he's already scorching hot and you're throwing short close outs
Speaker 1: at him. And if you guys want to see a
Speaker 1: visual example of what I'm talking about, go to my
Speaker 1: Twitter feed. I underscore jsonlt. I clipped like five or
Speaker 1: six examples of this. But Yusuf Nurkitz was just straight
Speaker 1: up just not paying attention and just letting Bobby Porters shoot.
Speaker 1: There's another one. He comes out Bobby Porter's in a transition.
Speaker 1: Possession cuts through along the baseline and Kevin Durant points
Speaker 1: and tells Nurkics to pick him up, and Nurkics just
Speaker 1: doesn't run with him. So Portas catches on the on
Speaker 1: the right wing, and then all of a sudden, Nurkis
Speaker 1: is like, oh shit, I left him open again, and
Speaker 1: he sprints out at him. At this point, but Bobby
Speaker 1: just kind of pump fakes and takes a side step
Speaker 1: and knocks down another three. It was bad defense. Then
Speaker 1: Malik Beasley hits a couple threes in a row. Now
Speaker 1: we're into that, like late second quarter stretch. There's a play.
Speaker 1: They're running a ball screen on the right side of
Speaker 1: the floor. Dame is and Bradley Beal, who's guarding Malik Beasley.
Speaker 1: Straight up, Malik Bezzy's Malik Beasley's on the left wing.
Speaker 1: Dame's running the ball screen on the right wing. Okay,
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal straight up turns his back like like, Malik
Speaker 1: Beasley's behind me, turns his back to go like offer
Speaker 1: a third defender at the ball screen. The ball screen
Speaker 1: hasn't accomplished anything. They haven't even run it yet, so
Speaker 1: no one's open. So Beal's helping for no reason. So
Speaker 1: Dame just goes, okay, just throws a swing pass to
Speaker 1: a wide open Malik Beasley. They had already made sixteen
Speaker 1: threes to this point, and they're just leaving dudes wide open.
Speaker 1: Malik Beasley, by the way, went into the night as
Speaker 1: the ninth best three point shooter in the entire NBA.
Speaker 1: Right after that, Vogel tries a little bit of zone
Speaker 1: they were on like a three to two zone, which
Speaker 1: a three two zone. The way it looked like they were,
Speaker 1: I think what Frank Vogel was thinking in this three
Speaker 1: two zone was essentially having all five three point shot
Speaker 1: spots occupied. But again, it's about execution. Kevin Durantz in
Speaker 1: the left corner guarding in the three two, but because
Speaker 1: it was unoccupied, he kind of started down at the block.
Speaker 1: Malik Beasley runs to the corner and Kadie's just too
Speaker 1: slow getting out there, and Malik Beasley gets open again.
Speaker 1: He had just made that three, beating Bradley Beal. Now
Speaker 1: they're down twenty two points in the game's over. Like
Speaker 1: it was. It was honestly one of phoenix worst defensive
Speaker 1: performances of the season. And they like again, like we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about shooting luck and and look, I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, I do believe that there's a
Speaker 1: variance element to shooting, and we'd be all foolish to
Speaker 1: pretend that like that doesn't exist, But there are so
Speaker 1: many different things that factor into it that go way
Speaker 1: deeper than just like nearest defender. And it's like you
Speaker 1: let a guy get comfortable, you let a team get comfortable,
Speaker 1: with wide open looks, and then even when you do
Speaker 1: start offering token contests later that qualify as like a
Speaker 1: the defender got within you know whatever distance, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter because they're confident they're in rhythm, and there's
Speaker 1: a difference between being there on time and being there late,
Speaker 1: because like, if you get there and you get the
Speaker 1: hand up, but you didn't actually disrupt the fluidity of
Speaker 1: the of the upward shooting motion, it's gonna go in
Speaker 1: when they're like that. Even further, like, I've seen teams
Speaker 1: that can concede shots into teams missing, but they're get
Speaker 1: They're like teams that drag games down into the mud.
Speaker 1: Teams that like are super physical and they kick your
Speaker 1: ass for forty eight minutes to where even when you're
Speaker 1: wide open, you're exhausted and you can't knock the shots down.
Speaker 1: Phoenix is not one of those teams. They're not physically
Speaker 1: imposing like that. They're not going to be a team
Speaker 1: that can get away with packing the paint and leaving
Speaker 1: guys open. They're gonna have to be better about getting
Speaker 1: out to shooters. So if Phoenix goes on a run,
Speaker 1: they get it back to six on an Eric Gordon
Speaker 1: kind of like janky pump fake give and go situation
Speaker 1: where he kind of like takes a goes up like
Speaker 1: he's gonna take a bad shot, nearly gets blocked, throws
Speaker 1: it down to the block, cuts down, gets a little
Speaker 1: lay up. It's one hundred and ninety four, so they
Speaker 1: get it down to six. There was only there was
Speaker 1: like a minute and some change left in the third
Speaker 1: quarter when that shot went in. Milwaukee went into the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter up fifteen. They turned it from six to
Speaker 1: fifteen in less than two minutes, and it was mostly
Speaker 1: dang driving a lot of downhill pressure. Drew a foul
Speaker 1: on Devin Booker, if I remember correctly, drew another foul
Speaker 1: I can't remember who the second one was on. Got
Speaker 1: to the foul one a couple times, and then right
Speaker 1: before the buzzer just kind of takes that same kind
Speaker 1: of drifting to the right pull up three or drifting
Speaker 1: to the left pull up three when he hit the
Speaker 1: game winner a few months ago. But just a quick
Speaker 1: little slurry from Damian Lillard and whatever run or hope
Speaker 1: that Phoenix had to get back in the game was
Speaker 1: gone like that. And I do think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: Dame has looked a lot more in rhythm in these
Speaker 1: games that Giannis has been out, and to me, that's
Speaker 1: a strong indicator that more of his issues this year
Speaker 1: have been about rhythm rather than about his decline. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's super encouraging. And for the record, if
Speaker 1: you go back in this recent stretch, he's he's like,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact stretch of games that I
Speaker 1: pulled this morning, but the last sample of the last
Speaker 1: few weeks, he's up around like thirty eight percent from
Speaker 1: three and s field goal percentage is like forty four percent,
Speaker 1: and scoring volume hasn't been great, but he's been knocking
Speaker 1: down shots at a higher cliff than he did to
Speaker 1: start the season. Chris Middleton looked great twenty two points
Speaker 1: on only fifteen shots. He had seven assists. Super important
Speaker 1: element to Milwaukee reach whatever offensive ceiling they have is
Speaker 1: getting Chris Middleton out there and humming on offense. And
Speaker 1: then here's the thing. They did not defend super well yesterday.
Speaker 1: They gave up a one to twenty eight offensive rating
Speaker 1: to Phoenix, so technically they defended bad. There were a
Speaker 1: couple of smart things they did, though, like they really
Speaker 1: kind of removed kd's aggression from the game. And one
Speaker 1: of the things they did that was really smart is
Speaker 1: when KDI would have his cleared side ISOs, they would
Speaker 1: bring help from the baseline and then pre rotate like
Speaker 1: windshield wiper rotation from the weak side the skip pass.
Speaker 1: So basically normally like you'll see a double team from
Speaker 1: one pass away and it'll be super easy to make
Speaker 1: that hickout pass, right. But because they were doubling from
Speaker 1: the baseline side and rotating from the skip pass and
Speaker 1: taking advantage of Phoenix's issues sometimes when beating double teams
Speaker 1: with smart decision making and quick on time and on
Speaker 1: target passes, they were able to kind of effectively rotate
Speaker 1: out of those kt KD double teams without up too much,
Speaker 1: which was though one little silver lining defensively from an
Speaker 1: otherwise you know, you know, mixed bag of defense on
Speaker 1: the Phoenix side. It's really that simple to me, Like
Speaker 1: if they defend like that, they're gonna get beaten in
Speaker 1: the first round. They're not good enough in some of
Speaker 1: these other areas to get away with just leaving people
Speaker 1: open like that. And and again, like I've seen Phoenix
Speaker 1: have really good defensive performances. I know it's in there.
Speaker 1: It's just a question of consistency. I mean, I saw
Speaker 1: quote from Kyrie after the MAVs game saying the same
Speaker 1: kind of thing, like, oh, we know we can do that,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, that's great. But like like I
Speaker 1: talked about yesterday when we were talking about the Kings,
Speaker 1: if it's not a habit, then when shit hits the fan,
Speaker 1: I don't trust you to be able to do it.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a habit. It's got to be
Speaker 1: something that you It's unusual when you don't do it,
Speaker 1: not unusual when you do do it. And we're getting
Speaker 1: to that point with Phoenix in Dallas where both of
Speaker 1: those teams where it's like when they do it, it
Speaker 1: looks great, but when they don't, they can lose to anybody,
Speaker 1: and it's it's in. It's a problem, all right. I
Speaker 1: re irving as the most skilled player in the league.
Speaker 1: So obviously Kyrie makes a shot. We did a breakdown
Speaker 1: of the shot in our breakdown of the game, so
Speaker 1: I won't get into it right here. MAVs fans and
Speaker 1: Nuggets fans looking for a breakdown of mapvs. Nuggets, you
Speaker 1: can find that on our YouTube feed. In the full
Speaker 1: episode if you happen to be watching a breakout clip,
Speaker 1: but we have Damian Lillard come out after the game
Speaker 1: talking about whether or not Kyrie Irving is the most
Speaker 1: skilled player in the NBA. Now, this has been a
Speaker 1: debate around the game of basketball for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and specifically, I think this moniker is one that we
Speaker 1: use with Kyrie specifically because of the fact that he's
Speaker 1: kind of a confusing player. What I mean by that
Speaker 1: is like Kyrie is like super super good. There's a
Speaker 1: pretty substantial gap, in my opinion, between how good Kyrie
Speaker 1: is and how much he's valued by most basketball fans.
Speaker 1: This is something I've been pushing back on for years now.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, so you disagree with some stuff Kyrie
Speaker 1: did off the floor. Okay, so he's had some clear
Speaker 1: examples of for teammate behavior. But when the dude is
Speaker 1: on the court, he's incredible. He's literally incredible, And like
Speaker 1: we literally just saw the other night with Luca out,
Speaker 1: Kyrie almost single handedly hold his team to a win
Speaker 1: like they are they are. Like we over complicate this
Speaker 1: a lot of the times when we talk about basketball players,
Speaker 1: and we overlook because it's It's like it's almost become
Speaker 1: an expectation for a player. We overlook what a player
Speaker 1: is actually accomplishing on the court. Kyrie is a guy
Speaker 1: who can straight up be your number one if you're
Speaker 1: great everywhere else. Can he be the number one on
Speaker 1: a limited team? No? Is he a floor razer like that? No,
Speaker 1: But the dude can run an offense, and he competes
Speaker 1: hard enough defensively when he's locked in that he can
Speaker 1: be a positive defensive player. He's a positive defensive player
Speaker 1: on the twenty sixteen caves. So I think a lot
Speaker 1: of this is like Galaxy brain, right, And so the
Speaker 1: way people counteract that is when they have this half
Speaker 1: of their brain that's going like Kyrie's overrated, Kyrie's bad teammate,
Speaker 1: Kyrie's this, Kyrie's that they counteract that with like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, he's the most skilled player in the NBA,
Speaker 1: instead of just talking about the fact that he's just
Speaker 1: really great at basketball. And to me, that specific phrase
Speaker 1: most skilled, it really just depends on how you're defining that.
Speaker 1: To me, if I had to define what specifically Kyrie
Speaker 1: does better than most players in the league, it's a
Speaker 1: versatility of skills, He has the best combination of footwork,
Speaker 1: ball handling, and shot making from all of the various
Speaker 1: spots on the floor out of anybody in the league
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Like, there are guys who are better
Speaker 1: than him in ball screens, but they're not as good
Speaker 1: in the post. There are guys that are better than
Speaker 1: in the post, but they're not as good in ball screens.
Speaker 1: There are guys who are better than him in ISO,
Speaker 1: but they aren't as good in the other areas. Kyrie
Speaker 1: is literally capable of doing every conceivable basketball thing as
Speaker 1: about as well as anybody in the league, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily make him the most skilled in my opinion.
Speaker 1: For instance, I think when when people ask me who
Speaker 1: the most skilled player in NBA history was or is,
Speaker 1: it's very obvious to me it's Steph Curry. Who's the
Speaker 1: only player beneath the height of six ' five who
Speaker 1: is a top ten player in NBA history. It's Steph.
Speaker 1: I have him as the fifth best perimeter player of
Speaker 1: all time, and he's pretty much definitively a top ten
Speaker 1: player in NBA history. All the other dudes around him
Speaker 1: are big guys, either big forwards or centers, right or
Speaker 1: shooting guards that are six ' six and freaky athletic. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like Steph has proven just in what he's been able
Speaker 1: to accomplish on the court that when it comes to
Speaker 1: winning basketball games on the strength of his skill, no
Speaker 1: one's better than Steph. But to me, with Steph, it's
Speaker 1: focused in specific areas. So, for instance, Kyrie Irving in
Speaker 1: my opinion, has a more advanced ISO bag in terms
Speaker 1: of the numbers of moves that he can go to,
Speaker 1: but Steph's just way better than him at shooting, and
Speaker 1: Steph has been able to weaponize that shooting both on
Speaker 1: ball and off the ball to a greater effect than
Speaker 1: Kyrie has been able to weaponize all of his footwork
Speaker 1: and dribble combinations and shot making. So I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't in my right mind say Kyrie's more skilled than
Speaker 1: Steph because Steph's skill beats Kyrie's skill every single time.
Speaker 1: And I don't blame Steph like, for instance, Kyrie. Here's
Speaker 1: just one simple example. Kyrie Irving is a better vertical
Speaker 1: athlete than Steph. Steph is bigger and stronger, equally quick,
Speaker 1: but Kyrie is a better vertical athlete. He also has
Speaker 1: a shot where he shoots at the top of his jump,
Speaker 1: where Steph shoots a little bit more at the beginning,
Speaker 1: a little bit like on the way up in his shot. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, doesn't make any sense at all for Steph
Speaker 1: to work on, you know, complicated posts turnaround footwork, because
Speaker 1: he's never gonna use that. He's not enough of a
Speaker 1: vertical athlete and his jump shot release is not built
Speaker 1: to turn over his left shoulder and elevate over the
Speaker 1: top of a defender in a post up and knock
Speaker 1: down a shot. Now, that's not to say Steph has
Speaker 1: never hit a turnaround jumper. Of course he has, but
Speaker 1: it's extremely rare. It's not a shot he goes to
Speaker 1: and he usually needs a lot of separation to do it.
Speaker 1: That's not a shot he works on because it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense for him to work on it. So Kyrie,
Speaker 1: because he is a better vertical athlete, and because he
Speaker 1: does shoot at the top of his release or release
Speaker 1: at the top of his jump, he is a guy
Speaker 1: that actually can use and does use turnaround jump shots
Speaker 1: all the time. Famously, Game five of the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, in that four quarter run, I think he
Speaker 1: get two big left shoulder fades over Klay Thompson, where
Speaker 1: he drove hard to the left, planted and turned over
Speaker 1: his left shoulder, got great step got great lift, shot
Speaker 1: over the contest of Klay Thompson, and shotdown right like
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a difference. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like bottom line is Stepford damn near his entire career
Speaker 1: has come off of ball ball screens and off ball
Speaker 1: actions and hit threes at like forty five percent on
Speaker 1: massive volume, and and and and he's learned how to
Speaker 1: weaponize that into a playmaking element of his game, both
Speaker 1: on and off the ball. And Steph is able to
Speaker 1: weaponize his skill into more points and and therefore he's
Speaker 1: a better basketball player, and therefore he's the most skilled
Speaker 1: player in NBA history in my opinion. But if I
Speaker 1: was looking for some sort of claim to fame for Kyrie,
Speaker 1: to me, he is the most versatile skill set in
Speaker 1: the NBA. He can score like forwards do. He can
Speaker 1: score like shooting guards do. He can score like point
Speaker 1: guards do. He can do what Steph does and come
Speaker 1: off of a wide pin down and shoot a movement
Speaker 1: three over his left or right shoulder. He can run
Speaker 1: a ball screen and make a variety of pull up
Speaker 1: threes in pick and roll, but he's not as good
Speaker 1: at those things as Steph is. And that's why I look.
Speaker 1: I look at Steph as the most skilled player in
Speaker 1: the NBA. But again, like to me, that really is
Speaker 1: just in the eye of the beholder, and arguing arguing
Speaker 1: about it doesn't really make a ton of sense, just
Speaker 1: simply because like, most skilled to one person may not
Speaker 1: mean the same thing to another person. For instance, like Steph,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is a much better playmaker than Kyrie,
Speaker 1: But like, like does that factor in as a skill?
Speaker 1: Steph is a much better off ball player than Kyrie.
Speaker 1: The ability to move without the basketball and weaponize that
Speaker 1: is that a skill? It just depends if you're factoring
Speaker 1: it in, because if we're not factoring that in, if
Speaker 1: I'm just strictly looking at like one on one play,
Speaker 1: then I might lean more towards Kyrie or I, like
Speaker 1: I have to think about it, But like it's it's
Speaker 1: a different discussion, right, And that's my point, Like it's
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to kind of nail down the parameters
Speaker 1: of this. But what like if I had to based
Speaker 1: on my kind of interpretation of what most skilled is.
Speaker 1: It's the one guy in NBA history who's beneath the
Speaker 1: height of six five, who's a top ten player in
Speaker 1: the history of the game. That's Steph. He won with
Speaker 1: the skill and did it better than any other skill
Speaker 1: player in the history of the league. Therefore it's him,
Speaker 1: and that's why I give him that title, all right,
Speaker 1: Moving on our power rankings. Number ten the new team
Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks bounce back nicely from their disastrous East Coast
Speaker 1: road road trip in February. They've won five of their
Speaker 1: last six, their eighth in defense over that span. Remember,
Speaker 1: their defense really fell apart on the East Coast trip,
Speaker 1: so obviously that's encouraging. They legitimize it all with the
Speaker 1: gigantic win over the Nuggets yesterday kind of demonstrated some
Speaker 1: of the advantages they have in terms of their ability
Speaker 1: to capitalize on the lesser defenders in Denver's roster by
Speaker 1: being more deliberate about their matchup, attacking, and some of
Speaker 1: their perimeter speed. Number nine the LA Clippers. The bottom
Speaker 1: continues to fall out for them. They've lost four of
Speaker 1: their last five. They are also now just eight to
Speaker 1: ten in their last eighteen games, they are seventeenth in
Speaker 1: offense and twenty sixth and defense over that span. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, this what was kind of a slump
Speaker 1: is starting to look like something that's a lot worse.
Speaker 1: This is a quarter of a season where they've been
Speaker 1: mostly a bad team, and that's a problem. Last night
Speaker 1: against the Hawks, I only checked out the second quarter
Speaker 1: of this game when the bottom kind of fell out.
Speaker 1: Bad defense all over the floors, especially in transition, just
Speaker 1: like basic shit like not getting back and protecting the basket,
Speaker 1: really stagnant offensively as well. It just kind of looks
Speaker 1: like bad vibes. And like, again, this is one of
Speaker 1: those things you can build good habits, and the Clippers
Speaker 1: did for a long time, but they've now spent a
Speaker 1: long time building bad habits. And again, like this is
Speaker 1: one of those things where like sometimes it's really difficult
Speaker 1: to regain control of the situation, which is why it's
Speaker 1: so important when you identify your starting to let go
Speaker 1: of the rope a little bit, that's when you have
Speaker 1: to knuckle down and kind of regain your identity. They've
Speaker 1: let this drag on for a really long time now,
Speaker 1: and they could be in some trouble number eight, the
Speaker 1: New Orleans Pelicans two in one week. They beat the
Speaker 1: Clippers and the Blazers. They lost the Caves. Zion's last
Speaker 1: thirteen games twenty four point seven rebounds and six assists,
Speaker 1: fifty eight percent from the field, thirty three percent from
Speaker 1: three to seventy four percent from the line. Really the
Speaker 1: season turned around from them on the strength of their
Speaker 1: defense and Zion Williamson's offensive leap that he took. It
Speaker 1: kind of seems like circum kind of seemed like a
Speaker 1: part of the circumstance of him just kind of getting
Speaker 1: into shape over the course of the season as well.
Speaker 1: Zion's been one of the best and most versatile shot
Speaker 1: creators in the NBA this year. One point zero seven
Speaker 1: points per possession and pick and roll on four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen possessions. That's eighty second percentile, one point zero
Speaker 1: four points per ISO on three hundred and seventy three possessions,
Speaker 1: at seventy first percentile, one point zero five points per
Speaker 1: post up, which is in two hundred and forty eight possessions,
Speaker 1: which is fifty six percentile. He's personally shooting fifty one
Speaker 1: percent from the field in all of those situations, so
Speaker 1: really impressive shot creation season from Zion to make the mistake.
Speaker 1: They're winning on the strength of their defense, second best
Speaker 1: in defensive rating over their last fifteen games and also
Speaker 1: second best at forcing turnovers over the course of that
Speaker 1: fifteen game span. Number seven the Cleveland Cavaliers. They beat
Speaker 1: the Pelicans, but they lost to Houston and Phoenix. Still
Speaker 1: really struggling to score the basketball with Evan Mobley out.
Speaker 1: They've put it George' kneeing in at the four, and
Speaker 1: it just hasn't go well, gone well on both ends
Speaker 1: of the floor. He is getting attacked a lot on defense,
Speaker 1: and he's not making enough shots on the other end,
Speaker 1: probably in large part because he's having to work so
Speaker 1: hard on the defensive end with teams picking on him.
Speaker 1: Both Donovan Mitchell and Karris Lavert are slumping right now,
Speaker 1: so a little bit of a downturn going on in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Number six the New York Knicks three and oh week
Speaker 1: right win against Sacramento on Saturday really bullied the Kings physically.
Speaker 1: Ojan Andobi is back first three games the plus minus
Speaker 1: hero keeping it going there plus forty five in Ojan
Speaker 1: and Obi's minutes over the last three games. Number five
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kind of a light schedule week for them.
Speaker 1: They only had two games, super impressive defensive performance against
Speaker 1: the Clippers, Kawhi went down, and then they just strangled
Speaker 1: the life out of Paul George and James Harden to
Speaker 1: get a win. Then they blew out the Jazz. I
Speaker 1: still don't love Kyle Anderson at the four, but they
Speaker 1: got another month to kind of figure out what they
Speaker 1: want to do on that front. I'm sure they will again.
Speaker 1: I still lean towards either going with nas Reed for
Speaker 1: bigger matchups and then going with the kill Alexander Walker
Speaker 1: for smaller matchups. I just don't think Hayle Anderson at
Speaker 1: this phase is having enough impact on either end of
Speaker 1: the floor to justify it. Kind of feels like just
Speaker 1: putting a forward out there for the sake of putting
Speaker 1: a forward out there. Number four the Milwaukee Bucks. The
Speaker 1: West Coast trip was an absolute disaster. They went one
Speaker 1: to three and their defense got absolutely shredded. But they
Speaker 1: came back. They got a big bounce back win against Philly,
Speaker 1: and then their offense broke out in a huge way
Speaker 1: against Phoenix. An outstanding jump shooting game from them. Another
Speaker 1: game where Dame looked really comfortable with higher usage, which
Speaker 1: is encouraging to me, just kind of in terms of
Speaker 1: like whether or not this has to do with his
Speaker 1: kind of rough season, whether or not it has to
Speaker 1: do with decline, or just the fit, and I lean
Speaker 1: more towards the fit, which is encouraging because all you
Speaker 1: really have to do is figure it out by the
Speaker 1: time you get to Boston, and they have plenty of
Speaker 1: time until then. Chris Middleton's first game back, he looked great.
Speaker 1: Only thing that's concerning a one to twenty four defensive
Speaker 1: rating for Milwaukee over the last six games, which is
Speaker 1: really bad, even in the win against Phoenix that got
Speaker 1: lit up defensively of one twenty eight defensive rating in
Speaker 1: that game. So need to gain regain control of the
Speaker 1: situation on defense. Three Oklahoma City Thunder two in one week.
Speaker 1: They beat Dallas in Memphis, lost Indiana. Jalen Williams missed
Speaker 1: the Indiana game, so they're loss. Obviously they were short handed,
Speaker 1: but he came back and was incredible in a big
Speaker 1: win over that red hot Mavericks team. Just a really
Speaker 1: interesting example of high level shot making while also getting
Speaker 1: to the rim with his power defensive plays at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, making a big block at the rim,
Speaker 1: had a nasty dunk in kind of garbage time, I
Speaker 1: should say, like kind of the ice the game on
Speaker 1: a backcut. Just love his combination of talent and competitiveness.
Speaker 1: I think he's a star in the making. Number two
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets. They're lost to Dallas and Boston's undefeated
Speaker 1: week have Denver dropping to two in my power rankings.
Speaker 1: But here's all I'm gonna say. They have two losses
Speaker 1: total since the All Star Break, and both of them
Speaker 1: were games where they held a three point lead in
Speaker 1: the final seconds and lost basically just on supreme shot making,
Speaker 1: contested pull up three from Kevin Durant, a thirty foot
Speaker 1: bomb from Luka Doncic, and Kyrie Irving making a crazy
Speaker 1: left handed flav floater. Make of that whatever you will
Speaker 1: in terms of whether or not it's a matchup weakness.
Speaker 1: I go the other way. If you're eleven and two
Speaker 1: with two last second losses and you're the defending champion
Speaker 1: and you're ramping up going into the postseason, that to
Speaker 1: me is a big box checked for. Like primes to
Speaker 1: repeat and It's a big part of why I'm still
Speaker 1: so confident in Denver. Number one. Boston Celtics undefeated week
Speaker 1: some light games in their schedule against Portland, Utah, and Washington,
Speaker 1: but they had one of their most impressive wins of
Speaker 1: the season against Phoenix. I thought Al Horford was an
Speaker 1: absolute monster in that game, torching both of pretty much
Speaker 1: every Phoenix big man who played for overhelping in the paint.
Speaker 1: Tatum and Brown were both amazing in that game as well.
Speaker 1: They're clicking on all cylinders. It seems to me pretty
Speaker 1: consistently whenever Boston has a disappointment like those back to
Speaker 1: back losses to Denver and Cleveland, they tend to bounce
Speaker 1: back in a big way. And they really did. They're
Speaker 1: sitting at number one in our power rankings. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. Is always I
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Will be
Speaker 1: back from morning with another instant reaction as well as
Speaker 1: a mail bag. I'll see you guys. Then the volume