Speaker 1: The volume. It's Oops Tonight, presented by FanDuel. The NBA
Speaker 1: season is kicking into gear, and there's no better place
Speaker 1: to get in on the action than with FanDuel. The
Speaker 1: app is safe and secure, getting your money out is
Speaker 1: super easy. You can jump into the action at any
Speaker 1: time during the game with live betting, and I love
Speaker 1: building those same game parlays. And FanDuel is now live
Speaker 1: in Ohio, So use promo code Jason T and download
Speaker 1: the FanDuel app today to start making every moment more
Speaker 1: twenty one plus. In select states, gambling problem called one
Speaker 1: eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com. Slash rg
Speaker 1: in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and Ohio called one eight hundred, next step or text
Speaker 1: next step to five three three four two In Arizona
Speaker 1: called one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven
Speaker 1: seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org. Slash chat in
Speaker 1: Connecticut called one eight hundred nine with it. In Indiana,
Speaker 1: visit KS gamblinghelp dot com. In Kansas call one eight
Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven zero stop. In La visit www
Speaker 1: dot MD gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland dial one eight
Speaker 1: seven seven eight Hope and Why, or text Hope and
Speaker 1: Why to four six seven three six nine in New York,
Speaker 1: Call one eight hundred and five two two four seven
Speaker 1: zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www Dot one eight
Speaker 1: hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome
Speaker 1: to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are
Speaker 1: having a great weekend. What an incredibly couple entertaining games
Speaker 1: that we had here on this Sunday, following up an
Speaker 1: incredible game last night between the Philadelphia seventy six ers
Speaker 1: and the Boston Celtics, We've got a ton of good
Speaker 1: basketball to talk about today. We're gonna hit on all
Speaker 1: three of those major nationally televised games, as well as
Speaker 1: the Memphis Grizzlies notching a signature win of sorts against
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets yesterday. We are live on AMP. Don't
Speaker 1: forget those of you guys who are watching on YouTube
Speaker 1: or or listening on our podcast feeds, that AMP is
Speaker 1: the very first place that you guys can get these shows.
Speaker 1: And don't forget before we get started to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Volumes YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at underscore Jason lts you guys, don't miss any
Speaker 1: show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: you miss one of these and you can't get back
Speaker 1: over to YouTube, don't forget. You can find them wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Underhoops tonight, All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. So a very very unfortunate start to this
Speaker 1: game for Lakers fans the MAVs came out. I had
Speaker 1: a feeling that the MAVs would come out with a
Speaker 1: lot of fire in this particular game. You know, physical
Speaker 1: disadvantages will play out in fury over the long run,
Speaker 1: and you did over the course of that game. But
Speaker 1: a lot of times, especially in a smaller sample size,
Speaker 1: competing and playing hard, you can play a lot bigger
Speaker 1: than you actually are. And earlier in this game, the
Speaker 1: MAVs went to a couple of different things that I
Speaker 1: thought worked really well. First of all, they were switching everything,
Speaker 1: and when you do that, it stagnates offenses, and a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the Lakers offensive sets are
Speaker 1: like they have like an early offense flow. They'll get
Speaker 1: into their horns actions and they'll have, you know, Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis and Lebron at the high post, and they'll run
Speaker 1: a couple interchanges to flow into their pick and roll.
Speaker 1: And they've been getting a lot of good stuff out
Speaker 1: of that over the course of the previous four games,
Speaker 1: in large part because they have more offensive skill than usual.
Speaker 1: But when you switch those sorts of things, it doesn't
Speaker 1: become an issue of what coverage your are, like, how
Speaker 1: you're going to contain that ball handling shooter coming over
Speaker 1: the top, or dealing with Anthony Davis in a drop
Speaker 1: coverage at the rim, or excuse me, Dwight pal and
Speaker 1: a drop coverage at the rim. It just turns into
Speaker 1: a switch and now it's like who's going to create
Speaker 1: the advantage. And in so many cases earlier in that
Speaker 1: first half, Lebron and Anthony Davis weren't very aggressive. They
Speaker 1: weren't trying to get to the basket. There was one
Speaker 1: Lebron ripped through where he got to the rim for
Speaker 1: a basket. Anthony Davis had a couple of shots, but
Speaker 1: for the most part they were passive. Those two guys
Speaker 1: were six for sixteen in the first half, so as
Speaker 1: a result, What ended up happening is the Lakers were
Speaker 1: getting pretty poor shot quality. They were getting threes, but
Speaker 1: they weren't high quality threes, and they were missing them.
Speaker 1: And I think they started the game over fourteen from
Speaker 1: three while the while the Mavericks were making a bunch
Speaker 1: of shots on the other end, and that kind of
Speaker 1: could flow. I always talk about that cascading effect on
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor as the Lakers were
Speaker 1: not getting their defense set in the you know Tim
Speaker 1: Hardaway juniors dribbling up the floor and just walking into
Speaker 1: easy threes as he's in rhythm when the defense is
Speaker 1: in set. And it was a really interesting you know,
Speaker 1: I always talking about the at the give and take
Speaker 1: of switching defenses. Like the Lakers did have like six
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds in that stretch when they were down forty
Speaker 1: one to nineteen or whatever it was. They were down big,
Speaker 1: but they were getting a bunch of offensive rebounds. But
Speaker 1: that's the trade off. You're trading a little bit of
Speaker 1: a size disadvantage. You're gonna give up some offensive rebounds,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some issues. But on the other side
Speaker 1: of things, you're stagnating their offense. You're turning them into
Speaker 1: an isolation team, and then you're loading up on Lebron
Speaker 1: in a D they're not trying to force their way
Speaker 1: through traffic, so they're kicking to inferor your shooters and
Speaker 1: they're not making shots. And honestly, when you trade for
Speaker 1: two skill guards and D'Angelo Russell's unavailable with an ankle sprain,
Speaker 1: and then Malik Beasley couldn't hit the side of a barn,
Speaker 1: especially in the first half. He did end up hitting
Speaker 1: a huge three in the fourth quarter out of the
Speaker 1: right corner, but just in general, the offensive skill wasn't
Speaker 1: there as a result of Beasley's rough night and D'Angelo
Speaker 1: Russell just not being available, and so they dug themselves
Speaker 1: in a massive hole and the game turned around on
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt. Now, Lakers fans have been begging for a
Speaker 1: real wing for a long time for a lot of
Speaker 1: different reasons, but primarily for the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis are capable of that type
Speaker 1: of perimeter defense. We've seen that a lot over the
Speaker 1: course of these last four seasons, where especially in big moments,
Speaker 1: you can count on Lebron or Anthony Davis to switch
Speaker 1: onto the other team's best player and guard them and
Speaker 1: get stops. You guys might remember Anthony Davis blocking Tyrese
Speaker 1: Haliburton a few weeks ago. You might remember back in
Speaker 1: the bubble, like Lebron James on back to back possessions
Speaker 1: like switching out onto Kawhi Leonard and then switching out
Speaker 1: onto Paul George and getting a stop, and like, they
Speaker 1: have that in them, but it's just too much to
Speaker 1: ask them to do that on a possession by possession basis,
Speaker 1: especially with everything that you need from them on the
Speaker 1: offensive end of the floor. And so the Lakers fans
Speaker 1: in particular, especially in the Russell Westbrook trade, when they
Speaker 1: lost guys like Kyle Kuzma that they could deploy like that,
Speaker 1: or Danny Green who they could deploy like that, or
Speaker 1: the contagious call Will Pope who they could deploy like that,
Speaker 1: they ended up in a situation where they were really,
Speaker 1: really undermanned on the perimeter, especially on the wing. And
Speaker 1: so when Jared Vanderbilt came in and he started playing
Speaker 1: really well, he had a great performance against Brandon Ingram
Speaker 1: in his first game where he was like the first
Speaker 1: guy in the month of February to hold bi to
Speaker 1: under fifty percent shooting in a game. And then he
Speaker 1: did a pretty good job on Clay Thompson in the
Speaker 1: next game. And the question was is like, who else
Speaker 1: can he guard? Who else can Laker? Who else can
Speaker 1: Darven him deploy him on? Because if they can deploy
Speaker 1: him on the other team's best player, regardless of circumstance,
Speaker 1: that's a huge weapon. And so Luca Donschitz became the
Speaker 1: next challenge, and it's a very different challenge. Brandon Ingram
Speaker 1: is an isolation scorer that has that likes to shoot
Speaker 1: over the top of the defense, and so Jared Vanderbilt's
Speaker 1: length is an advantage there, but he's not overly strong, right,
Speaker 1: you know. A guarding an off ball shooter puts him
Speaker 1: in a situation where he has to he has to
Speaker 1: navigate off ball screens, and that's an entirely different situation.
Speaker 1: He did pretty well with that. Well, here comes Luca.
Speaker 1: He's this giant, big, strong point forward that is great
Speaker 1: at drawing fouls, that destroys thin defenders, and just about
Speaker 1: every single matchup that he has in the NBA, it's
Speaker 1: a completely different type of matchup. And I was really
Speaker 1: curious to see how he would do in it, and
Speaker 1: he did freaking incredible. He was he's got like he's
Speaker 1: One of the advantages of him being thin is that
Speaker 1: he can kind of make himself into a low profile
Speaker 1: physical frame and he can slide up over the top
Speaker 1: of screens. He did a really nice job navigating those
Speaker 1: ball screens with Luca Donte and then when he did
Speaker 1: get caught, instead of giving up on the play, all
Speaker 1: he did was just pursue as best as he can
Speaker 1: and use his length to bother that next pass from
Speaker 1: Luca dontchich and as a result, he forced a bunch
Speaker 1: of turnovers and got the Lakers going in that second
Speaker 1: quarter run. He also did it with all of his
Speaker 1: classic work that he's done in his entire your career
Speaker 1: in the NBA, crashing the offensive glass. He was just
Speaker 1: an absolute wrecking ball on both ends of the floor
Speaker 1: and single handedly changed the outlook of that game and
Speaker 1: at least got the Lakers to position where they had
Speaker 1: a chance going into the second half. I believe they
Speaker 1: were down fourteen at that point. From there, you gave
Speaker 1: yourself a situation where Lebron and a d could kind
Speaker 1: of wash the hands of that first half and be like,
Speaker 1: we sucked, we didn't do our job, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: focus in in the second half and we're gonna get
Speaker 1: the job done. And that's exactly what they did. Like
Speaker 1: I said, they were six for sixteen in the first half,
Speaker 1: which was unacceptable with all of the front court mismatches
Speaker 1: that Dallas presents for them. And despite that, you know,
Speaker 1: and again like a lot of times it will happen
Speaker 1: is they'll catch on the block and then you know,
Speaker 1: guys will kind of dig down into the driving lanes
Speaker 1: right and so you'll have an opportunity where you have
Speaker 1: a size advantage over the guy in front of you,
Speaker 1: but there's two guys right there next to you, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times, you know, especially in that first half,
Speaker 1: they look at that and they would just pass out
Speaker 1: of it instead of understanding that, yes, it's gonna be hard,
Speaker 1: Yes you're gonna have to go through contact. You might
Speaker 1: have to score over two or three guys, but it's
Speaker 1: two or three guys that are way way smaller than you,
Speaker 1: and you will be able to finish through all of
Speaker 1: that congestion in traffic on the perimeter and in the
Speaker 1: post and so in that second half, they just didn't
Speaker 1: care who the hell was around them. They didn't care
Speaker 1: what the situation was. They were just dropping their shoulder
Speaker 1: and going to the rim. And they both were incredible
Speaker 1: in that second half. It's way too often over the
Speaker 1: course of the last few years, we've looked at other things,
Speaker 1: and there are other things that have gone wrong with
Speaker 1: the Lakers, but nothing matters if Lebron James and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis don't play like superstars. They didn't in the first
Speaker 1: half they were down fourteen. They did in the second half.
Speaker 1: They came back and they won the game. Lebron's performance
Speaker 1: was a little uneven in that second half. I mean,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even really blaming him. He's out of
Speaker 1: rhythm because he hasn't been on the floor much because
Speaker 1: of this foot injury. Then he hurts his right foot
Speaker 1: in the super bizarre situation where there's a non contact
Speaker 1: injury where he doesn't land on anybody falls to the ground.
Speaker 1: He's telling all of his teammates that he heard it pop.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, oh, that's it. And then the dude comes
Speaker 1: back into the fourth quarter and just literally wills his
Speaker 1: team while he's on the floor just I tweeted it
Speaker 1: out afterwards because I was so surprised, so far from
Speaker 1: where he needed to be physically, they couldn't use him
Speaker 1: on defense, So that like Lucas calling him to run
Speaker 1: constant ghost screens with Justin Holliday trying to get Lebron
Speaker 1: to navigate those screens and he can barely move, but
Speaker 1: he's just doing the best he can. And then on
Speaker 1: the other end, he wasn't. Sometimes it's better just to
Speaker 1: cut the crap and keep it simple. He had a
Speaker 1: huge size advantage just getting it on that left block
Speaker 1: every single time and working his way into the lane
Speaker 1: for easy layups. Handful of times he weaponized that pump
Speaker 1: bacon step through. That's a big time move for players
Speaker 1: when they pursue up on your umpook, you pump fake
Speaker 1: that and then you can step through and get all
Speaker 1: the way to the rim. He did that twice. He
Speaker 1: just threw sheer force of will and basketball IQ and
Speaker 1: veteran savvy in size and strength on two bad wheels,
Speaker 1: just willed his way to making an impact on that
Speaker 1: game and then a d Obviously, being the in his
Speaker 1: late twenties and much more healthy the way that he
Speaker 1: is was just a complete two way monster. He's making
Speaker 1: every defensive play in the second half, making those out
Speaker 1: of area plays that I talk about so much that
Speaker 1: are so important. And then most importantly, he was hitting
Speaker 1: his jump shot. Not just three point shot is three
Speaker 1: point shot is a disaster right now, But he was
Speaker 1: hitting his short jump shot. Those short turnaround fade away
Speaker 1: jump shots. There's kind of like a like a range
Speaker 1: with Anthony Davis where his jump shot falls apart, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like right around fifteen feet. If he
Speaker 1: can stay inside at fifteen feet in their short fade
Speaker 1: away jumpers, he's money on those. But once you get
Speaker 1: outside to that seventeen eighteen feet and out, it just
Speaker 1: has really fallen apart for him. No your strengths, and
Speaker 1: he stuck with that and he made a huge game
Speaker 1: icing fade away on that left baseline in front of
Speaker 1: their bench that ended up being the biggest shot of
Speaker 1: the game that I thought. That had to have been
Speaker 1: super encouraging, because what if Lebron does have to miss
Speaker 1: some time, you could be in some trouble. But if
Speaker 1: if Anthony Davis is the superstar that he is, you
Speaker 1: have the complimentary role players that you have D'Angel Russell
Speaker 1: hopefully returned soon. If eighty plays like that, you can
Speaker 1: buy Lebron the time to nurse that foot as much
Speaker 1: as he needs. But I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the Lakers defense, because they were third in
Speaker 1: defensive rating over their previous four games compared to the
Speaker 1: rest of the league. In their previous four games, again,
Speaker 1: they were three and one in those games. They had
Speaker 1: that rough night in Portland where they just got their
Speaker 1: eyes shot out by the Portland Blazers or by the
Speaker 1: Portland Trailblazers. But you've seen, especially after they were able
Speaker 1: to cool off that Dallas run, they held him to
Speaker 1: just forty seven points in that second half. This is
Speaker 1: like a real defensive team now, and I think it
Speaker 1: comes down to a couple of differ and things. First
Speaker 1: of all, getting Jared Vanderbilt and Anthony Davis together. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis playing at the defensive player of the Year level
Speaker 1: that he's capable of, but Jared Vanderbilt has that complimentary
Speaker 1: forward that they can deploy on perimeter assignments, puts them
Speaker 1: in a great spot. Austin Reeves did a great job
Speaker 1: defensively in this game. Dennis Schroeder the job he did
Speaker 1: on Kyrie Irving. We're gonna talk about that and just
Speaker 1: a little bit, but Kyrie, like Dennis Ruder, was in
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving's shirt the entire game and did an amazing
Speaker 1: job in that point of attack role. When you put
Speaker 1: all of that together, and guys like Lebron James was
Speaker 1: a shell of himself because of the foot injury, there's
Speaker 1: a version of this that comes together where Lebron can
Speaker 1: be more impactful defensively and it could go up another
Speaker 1: level from there. The Lakers have won four out of
Speaker 1: five since the trade pieces started playing. Obviously, their one
Speaker 1: loss was a game up in Portland where Lebron James
Speaker 1: didn't even play and they just got shot that. They
Speaker 1: just got shot to pieces by that Portland Trailblazers team.
Speaker 1: And they are now just two and a half games
Speaker 1: back of the sixth seed. And now one of my
Speaker 1: biggest fears. I told you guys, I said, the Lakers
Speaker 1: have the talent, they are capable of doing this, but
Speaker 1: they've got to hit the Jets from now to the
Speaker 1: end of the season. And that's just a lot to
Speaker 1: ask physically of Lebron James and Anthony Davis Lebron suffered
Speaker 1: his first little setback today. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: fallout of that's gonna be. We'll see if he plays
Speaker 1: the rest of this road trip. But that was what
Speaker 1: my worry was. Yes, you got a better package. You
Speaker 1: got better players by some amount over Miles Turner and
Speaker 1: Buddy Yield and whatever else you could have gotten. You
Speaker 1: probably still can get ruey Hot to Murray, you still
Speaker 1: can get mo Obama. But the point is is you
Speaker 1: got something a little bit better, But you put yourself
Speaker 1: in a predicament where you've really got to hit the
Speaker 1: Jets now throughout the end of the season, and it'll
Speaker 1: be really interesting to see if those guys hold together
Speaker 1: physically Dallas really quickly before we move on. This is
Speaker 1: a great example. Now, not every team they're gonna play
Speaker 1: is gonna be Lebron James and Anthony Davis, who are
Speaker 1: the better front court bulleyball players in the league. But
Speaker 1: this is what it looks like when you have physical
Speaker 1: disadvantages at every single position. If you don't get other
Speaker 1: worldly offensive performances from Kyrie and Luca don Chi, which
Speaker 1: you did not in this game, then you're just not
Speaker 1: going to be able to overcome giving up that kind
Speaker 1: of size and strength on the interior. So part of
Speaker 1: it you got to tip the cap right, Like Dennis
Speaker 1: Schrder did an amazing job on Kyrie Irving, Jared Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: did an amazing job on Luka don Chich. But it's
Speaker 1: just gonna be really hard for you to win games
Speaker 1: when you have to expect near perfection from your stars
Speaker 1: because you're giving up so much ground on the interior.
Speaker 1: I believe they're now one one in three or one
Speaker 1: in four since Kyrie and Lucas started playing together. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Kyrie notched a couple of wins by himself before that.
Speaker 1: But they're gonna have to figure out some stuff in
Speaker 1: the front court this offseason, I think, to have any
Speaker 1: real chance of contending, because if the Lakers could do
Speaker 1: it to him, guess who else is going to do
Speaker 1: it to him? Memphis, that's a bullyball team. They're gonna
Speaker 1: bully them. You know that's you know, you don't think
Speaker 1: Nicola Yokichen Aaron Gordon are going to be able to
Speaker 1: have a ton of success on the interior against that
Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks team that they're just given up too much
Speaker 1: on that front. Line to contend within this season. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hit three games pretty quickly here the Sun's Bucks,
Speaker 1: Celtic Sixers, and Nuggets Grizzly. So the Sun's Bucks game.
Speaker 1: I only caught the end of this one, but I
Speaker 1: was super impressed by Milwaukee's defense down the stretch. Phoenix
Speaker 1: scored just seven points over the final five minutes and
Speaker 1: change of the fourth quarter. Brook Lopez had two massive blocks.
Speaker 1: He blocked Devin Booker at the rim, and then he
Speaker 1: swatted a DeAndre Ayton pull up jump shot in the
Speaker 1: mid range. He's been amazing for them all year on
Speaker 1: that end. But Drew Holiday, you know, Devin Booker has
Speaker 1: made a lot of tough shots over the years in
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday's face, including a bunch in that twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one NBA Finals series. But that's gonna happen with great scores.
Speaker 1: It happened again towards the end of this game. I
Speaker 1: think he was one hundred ninety eight. Devin Booker forgets
Speaker 1: the ball screen, dribbles down to that at left block
Speaker 1: and gets Drew on his hip and takes that patented
Speaker 1: fade away over his left shoulder, knocks it down it's
Speaker 1: great defense. That's just an unbelievable player making an unbelievable shot.
Speaker 1: But what you have to do as a defensive player
Speaker 1: in that situation is understand that that's not your job.
Speaker 1: Your job is not to get a stop every time.
Speaker 1: Your job is just to make it difficult and trust
Speaker 1: the results. And on that final possession, after Devin Booker
Speaker 1: ties it, but the Bucks go down and Chris Middleton
Speaker 1: comes off of a screen and draws a second defender
Speaker 1: draws DeAndre Atan up out of his drop coverage, and
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton throws a really nice over the top past
Speaker 1: to Brook Lopez for effectively the game winner. And on
Speaker 1: the other end, Devin Booker stares down Drew Holiday fights
Speaker 1: through a ball screen. Drew Holiday fights through a Jay
Speaker 1: Crowders screen to get back onto Devin Booker. Excuse mean
Speaker 1: he switched it, prevents the switch and stays on Devin
Speaker 1: Booker got I'm getting my names confused today, but Drew
Speaker 1: Holiday gets back to Devin Booker. Devin Booker gets a
Speaker 1: little bit of an angle on a dribble move and
Speaker 1: gets to his left hand and has a step. But
Speaker 1: I always talk about how there's a lot more physicality
Speaker 1: that takes place in NBA games than people realize, and
Speaker 1: you're actually allowed to do quite a bit in terms
Speaker 1: of grabbing and holding. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: you can pretty much get away with at every level
Speaker 1: of basketball is your inside hand. So like, if you're
Speaker 1: driving towards your left hand and I'm sliding to my right,
Speaker 1: if I hold that right hand up, I can do
Speaker 1: I can get my left hand up in there as
Speaker 1: much as I want. I can kind of like give
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a forearm, I can hold
Speaker 1: my ground, I can try to bump you off of
Speaker 1: your line. You're gonna get away with a lot of
Speaker 1: contact with that left hand. And as Devin Booker was
Speaker 1: going downhill, drew holiday right hand up so there's no
Speaker 1: foul call, left hand in the pocket. And then as
Speaker 1: soon as he looked down, he saw he had just
Speaker 1: a second where Devin Booker had kind of like tucked
Speaker 1: the ball as he was going to go up to
Speaker 1: the rim, and he just pushed that left hand through
Speaker 1: and knocked the ball out and got a huge deal.
Speaker 1: So again to have the mental fortitude to just get
Speaker 1: you know, Devin Booker scoring over the top of you
Speaker 1: in a clutch moment like that and to turn around
Speaker 1: and get a stop on the next possession. I thought
Speaker 1: was a big time play from Drew Holiday. In addition
Speaker 1: to all of the scoring work that he did in
Speaker 1: this game, That Bucks defensive trio is super interesting. I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about how I really like it when NBA.
Speaker 1: The core all stars of an NBA team are guys
Speaker 1: who like to do it on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: And you know, Jannis is one of the five best
Speaker 1: offensive players in the league. Drew Holiday is a really
Speaker 1: good skill guard who's a good pull up shooter. Chris
Speaker 1: Middleton's kind of your classic three level score, pull up shoot,
Speaker 1: over the top type of guy. But on the other
Speaker 1: end of the floor, they represent the three most important
Speaker 1: defensive archetypes that we have in the NBA. Drew Holiday
Speaker 1: is a point of attack guard that is great at
Speaker 1: navigating over the top of ball screens and pressuring all
Speaker 1: of the great guards in this league, while at the
Speaker 1: same time having the positional versus atility to guard up
Speaker 1: a position. Janna Santana Coopo the exact opposite. He is
Speaker 1: your classic rim protector that has the versatility to contend
Speaker 1: in perimeter matchups, including guarding other teams wings. And then
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton is more of your classic wing defender. He's
Speaker 1: not some sort of all defense caliber guy, but he
Speaker 1: is a very good wing defender when he's locked in.
Speaker 1: And then you pair that with Brook Lopez, just a
Speaker 1: classic NBA rim protector. They just have arguably the best perimeter.
Speaker 1: They have arguably the best defensive personnel in the league,
Speaker 1: and that's a big part of why they've been able
Speaker 1: to grind out wins even with guys in and out
Speaker 1: of the lineup throughout the year. That's a huge windstreak.
Speaker 1: What's that fourteen games in a row. Now, We're expecting
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant to make his debut on Wednesday, and we
Speaker 1: will be covering that game here on AMP. All Right,
Speaker 1: moving on to Celtic Sixers, this is a huge moment
Speaker 1: for Jason Tatum knocking down that game winning shot. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about star players as they grow
Speaker 1: into the prime of their careers is wavering confidence and
Speaker 1: if always you know, we talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit with Nikola Yokis the other day in the Cleveland game,
Speaker 1: but I'm always impressed when star players have rough games
Speaker 1: and are able to bounce back and make big plays
Speaker 1: down the stretch of a game. We talked about that
Speaker 1: a little bit with Lebron James and Anthony Davis earlier.
Speaker 1: Tatum was not having an especially good game against the Sixers,
Speaker 1: but he rose into that final shot with the same
Speaker 1: confidence that he does when he's having a great game,
Speaker 1: got great lift, and he knocked it down. I love
Speaker 1: the play design. Apparently that's originally a Brad Stephens special,
Speaker 1: but it's a great counter to ball pressure and ball
Speaker 1: denial because a lot of teams are going to opt
Speaker 1: to pressure the ball with Jason Tatum because he's kind
Speaker 1: of not known as being the best ball handler in
Speaker 1: the league. But most importantly, especially in late game situations
Speaker 1: when there's not very much time left, a lot of
Speaker 1: coaches think, if I pressure you and make it difficult
Speaker 1: for you to get to your spot, then I might
Speaker 1: be able to eat enough clock to where it won't
Speaker 1: be easy for you to get to a spot that
Speaker 1: you want and a shot that you want, all in
Speaker 1: that short period of time. So they're pressing up on
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum all the way out at backcourt, and then
Speaker 1: since Tatum doesn't have the ball, he can just focus
Speaker 1: on making a really hard cut, and that's what he
Speaker 1: did after Marcus Smart got the ball, just a hard
Speaker 1: cut towards towards the top of the key. Marcus Smart
Speaker 1: throws a beautiful pass that leads Jason Tatum right right
Speaker 1: to where he's running and then just immediately hits the
Speaker 1: brakes and steps back. It's all kinds of separation, goes
Speaker 1: straight up and down, no fade, no anything special, just
Speaker 1: went to his bread and butter jump shot and knocked
Speaker 1: it down. Big time moment for Jason Tatum. Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: was also fantastic at the end of this game, once
Speaker 1: again just using his otherworldly athleticism to pressure the rim
Speaker 1: and his creative shot making. He had like a just
Speaker 1: a disgusting step back jump shot at the free throw
Speaker 1: line in the fourth quarter of this game where he
Speaker 1: created like a solid ten feet of separation. It's been
Speaker 1: really interesting to see how that combination of his athleticism
Speaker 1: and creativity has made him one of their better fourth
Speaker 1: quarter players. And his point per game average in fourth
Speaker 1: quarters is right there with Tatum, but he's been more efficient.
Speaker 1: He's shooting fifty two percent from the field and forty
Speaker 1: percent from three and fourth quarters this year. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about Boston's guards for a minute, because
Speaker 1: they're the unsung heroes of the Celtics team. Jason Tatum
Speaker 1: and Jalen Brown get a lot of credit and they
Speaker 1: deserve it, but Boston is a ridiculously talented guard corps.
Speaker 1: And during that big run, because like as you watch
Speaker 1: that game, right, James Harden hits a three, puts him
Speaker 1: up fifteen in like mid third quarter, and the Celtics
Speaker 1: go on some ridiculous run. It was like twenty two
Speaker 1: to two or something like that, And for the most part,
Speaker 1: it was their guards that did the work. That trio
Speaker 1: of Marcus Smart, Derek White, and Malcolm Brogden, that's as
Speaker 1: good a guard core, at least in the top three
Speaker 1: that you'll find anywhere else around the league. All three
Speaker 1: of those guys are up over a point possession in
Speaker 1: pick and roll this year. A specifically, Marcus Smart and
Speaker 1: Derek White have been amazing in pick and roll this year,
Speaker 1: so they can be excellent creating that initial advantage to
Speaker 1: get Boston into their driving kick. I really thought this
Speaker 1: game swung on perimeter defense, Boston's guards getting dribble penetration
Speaker 1: while on the other end, containing Tyrese Maxie and James Harden,
Speaker 1: making them take tough shots because defenders did not have
Speaker 1: to help because they were not giving straight line drives.
Speaker 1: Defenders don't have to help unless you get dusted. And
Speaker 1: so that perimeter defense dynamic I always compared to like
Speaker 1: offensive line, defensive line dynamic and football. That push or
Speaker 1: pull on either side is gonna have a lot to
Speaker 1: do with how tough your job is elsewhere on the floor.
Speaker 1: And if you're constantly in rotation because you're getting beat
Speaker 1: off the dribble, it's gonna be really hard to play defense.
Speaker 1: But if the guy who's guarding the ball is keeping
Speaker 1: him in front, you don't have to help. Now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, things get way more, way more difficult
Speaker 1: for the offense they had. They had a huge impact
Speaker 1: on Boston's comeback before the Jays ended up closing the
Speaker 1: deal there in the fourth quarter. I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of Celtics fans tell me this year, when will you
Speaker 1: trust Boston's ability to close games? And I wanted to
Speaker 1: answer that a little bit here. To be clear, I
Speaker 1: do trust them a lot more than last year. You
Speaker 1: could see that based on the way they've played, They've
Speaker 1: demonstrated better late game execution than they did last year.
Speaker 1: Last year, the Celtics are one of the worst clutch
Speaker 1: teams in the league. They were thirteen and twenty two
Speaker 1: when a game was within five with less than five
Speaker 1: minutes left. This year they're twenty and eight. So they've
Speaker 1: been much much better, to be clear, But you guys
Speaker 1: know the drill. I've always valued the postseason more and
Speaker 1: I just you know, especially when I'm comparing him to
Speaker 1: other teams at the top of the league, like Milwaukee
Speaker 1: has demonstrated that on that stage, whereas Boston struggled with
Speaker 1: that a little bit last year. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The Celtics are twenty eight and twenty and eight in
Speaker 1: clutch situations this year. That second best in the league.
Speaker 1: Guess who's first, The Milwaukee Bucks. They're twenty three and
Speaker 1: six in games that evolved clutch situations. So I feel
Speaker 1: better about Boston. They've had a damn good season. But
Speaker 1: before the season, I picked Milwaukee to win the Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference by a hair. If you look at this season
Speaker 1: in totality and the way that both teams have played,
Speaker 1: do you think that there's been enough from both teams
Speaker 1: Bad Bucks Good Celtics for me to swap them, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I have not seen enough from either team,
Speaker 1: good or bad to justify switching my preseason pick. That
Speaker 1: does not mean that I don't think the Celtics can win.
Speaker 1: I absolutely think they can win. I think they have
Speaker 1: a great chance. I did Championship Tiers again last week
Speaker 1: for our snapchat show. Yes, we actually have a snapchat
Speaker 1: show as well. It goes once a week. That's under
Speaker 1: Hoops tonight, and I only had two teams on my
Speaker 1: top tier, the Boston Celtics in the Milwaukee Bucks, not Denver,
Speaker 1: not Philly, no one else, just those two. So I
Speaker 1: think Boston has a damn good chance to win the title.
Speaker 1: But only one of the thirty NBA teams gets to win.
Speaker 1: And I think that Milwaukee has shown just a little
Speaker 1: bit more in terms of my ability to trust them
Speaker 1: on that stage, and I believe they had the best player.
Speaker 1: So again, it's not a slight at Boston fans. It's
Speaker 1: just I haven't seen enough bad Milwaukee to make a
Speaker 1: flip in that particular pick. One final note on the
Speaker 1: Philly side of things, I continue to be super impressed
Speaker 1: by Joel Embiid, specifically with the fight that he has
Speaker 1: as things start to go poorly for him. I mean,
Speaker 1: the wheels were really coming off last night, and he
Speaker 1: fought like hell to get the Sixers a chance to
Speaker 1: win that game. At the end of this game, he
Speaker 1: made every single offensive play bullying I'll Horford on the
Speaker 1: base line to get it to get two free throws.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of inevitable when he puts his head
Speaker 1: down like that that he's gonna get a bucket or
Speaker 1: a foul. He had a nasty step back too, on
Speaker 1: the left elbow over a double team. I've always talked
Speaker 1: about like Joel embid is almost better off shooting over
Speaker 1: double teams than he is passing over double teams, and
Speaker 1: he did struggle quite a bit with double teams in
Speaker 1: this game again. And then that classic little free throw
Speaker 1: line jumper that he gets off those James Harden picking rolls.
Speaker 1: He made one of those at the end of the
Speaker 1: game too. They had a massive block defensively at the
Speaker 1: Remember that was the big impact that he had in
Speaker 1: that Memphis game. When he hits the Jets. He's just
Speaker 1: an absolute force of nature, and his season is being
Speaker 1: overshadowed by Jannis and Nikola Yokich a bit, but he's
Speaker 1: every bit as good as those guys. It was fun
Speaker 1: to watch, and to be honest, if he plays like that,
Speaker 1: the Sixers have a real chance to win it all
Speaker 1: all right. Before we get out of here, Nuggets Grizzlies
Speaker 1: just really quickly. The Grizzlies finally got a signature winner,
Speaker 1: at least for the first time in a while. They
Speaker 1: beat the hell out of the Nuggets yesterday one twelve
Speaker 1: to ninety four. All the Nuggets have been on a
Speaker 1: road trip for a little while. There were a couple
Speaker 1: of specific factors that really swung this game in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Xavier Tillman did an excellent job in isolation defense or
Speaker 1: one on one defense with Nikola Yoki got a big,
Speaker 1: strong body, low center of gravity, places physical a couple
Speaker 1: of specific things that he did really well. First of all,
Speaker 1: navigating ball screens. So one of the main things that
Speaker 1: Denver will do in their early offense before they run
Speaker 1: their sets is a lot of times they'll just have
Speaker 1: nickel yokes. If he gets the rebound and everyone runs
Speaker 1: the floor, Yokis will just bring the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor and then just come off of a guard screen
Speaker 1: or maybe even two with the intent on just getting
Speaker 1: a switch, because big guys typically struggle to navigate those
Speaker 1: screens because they're just big bodies. They're easy targets and
Speaker 1: you can get a lot of switches that way. And
Speaker 1: then Yokis has just been absolutely barbecuing switches and postops
Speaker 1: all season long, but Zavier Tillman was just navigating those
Speaker 1: and not giving up the switch. Then a lot of
Speaker 1: times Yokis will default to turning his back to the
Speaker 1: basket at that point and then he will try to
Speaker 1: post up whoever the center is, but he just wasn't
Speaker 1: giving ground, and because he wasn't giving ground, the Grizzlies
Speaker 1: did not have to dig as much off ball. It's
Speaker 1: a very similar concept to what we were talking about
Speaker 1: that driving kick stuff with the Boston Guards. When you
Speaker 1: don't have to bail out to help a guy and
Speaker 1: you can kind of stay in that in between zone
Speaker 1: where you're ready to help, but you're also back with
Speaker 1: the shooter, it just makes it so that those kickout opportunities,
Speaker 1: and Yokich was still making those kickouts, but now you
Speaker 1: have a fighting chance to rotate, and so now those
Speaker 1: open shots are now less open, and so now contiviuous
Speaker 1: call Will Pope, who's been dead eye all season, is
Speaker 1: missing these shots because they're not great looks, they're just
Speaker 1: okay looks. And then as a result, Denver couldn't set
Speaker 1: their defense because they couldn't score in Memphis killed them
Speaker 1: in transition. In this game, according to Synergy, Denver was
Speaker 1: outscored in transition thirty two to fourteen. Denver starters shot
Speaker 1: just thirty six percent from the field. So big shout
Speaker 1: out to Xavier Tilman. I thought he did it. I
Speaker 1: thought he did it again. It's Yoki has even solved.
Speaker 1: No gives Yokich a seven gamer against Hillman. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he'd figure it out. But in a one game sample
Speaker 1: size when the Grizzlies really needed to win, I thought
Speaker 1: Xavier did a really nice job. Memphis also did the
Speaker 1: things they usually do. They dominated points in the pain
Speaker 1: I think it was sixty to forty two, and then
Speaker 1: they outrebounded their important their opponent. But most importantly, and
Speaker 1: this is the key detail, when you win big, you
Speaker 1: don't have to play the slowdown, half court execution game
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. Memphis has been a god awful
Speaker 1: fourth quarter team. This year, they're getting outscored by seven
Speaker 1: points per one hundred possessions in the fourth quarter, which
Speaker 1: is third worst in the entire NBA. But it's a
Speaker 1: great way to avoid that situation. Beat the hell out
Speaker 1: of your opponent. And you know, that's what they did.
Speaker 1: And this is where I keep coming back every time
Speaker 1: Grizzlies fans will be like, hey, well, if you don't
Speaker 1: think they have the amount of offensive skill, what's their chance,
Speaker 1: what's their fighting chance to win? I keep telling you,
Speaker 1: just like the twenty twenty Lakers and the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one Bucks. Now they had better players. They had Lebron
Speaker 1: and Giannis, they had Anthony Davis and everyone else who
Speaker 1: played for the Bucks, but both of those team struggled
Speaker 1: with half court offense in the regular season because of
Speaker 1: a general lack of perimeter shooting both of them. But
Speaker 1: they leaned on their defense to get transition opportunities throughout
Speaker 1: their postseason runs and it was not a problem. A
Speaker 1: great way for Memphis to mitigate their half court offense
Speaker 1: problems is to be a better defensive team than they are,
Speaker 1: and they've been a good defensive team in the aggregate
Speaker 1: of the regular season, but they've struggled, especially in late
Speaker 1: game situations. If they can solve their defense in those situations,
Speaker 1: get better at hiding John Morant, get better at springing
Speaker 1: those transition opportunities, they do have a fighting chance. I
Speaker 1: just think at this point it's a very very small
Speaker 1: fighting chance. All Right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and
Speaker 1: I'll see you guys next time. The volume