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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: We had a jam packed Monday night slate in the
Speaker 1: NBA that we are going to be breaking down today.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hit four games. Donovan Mitchell scoring outburst to
Speaker 1: beat the Bulls, Clay Thompson scoring outburst to beat the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Hawks, Joel Embiads scoring outburst to beat the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Pelicans, and Lebron James and yet another scoring outburst
Speaker 1: to beat the Charlotte Hornets. So we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about scorers today. You guys know the drill before we
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Speaker 1: them wherever you get your podcasts Under Hoops tonight. And lastly,
Speaker 1: January is gonna be an awesome sports month. We've got
Speaker 1: the National Championship Game, with college football coming up next weekend,
Speaker 1: the NFL playoffs are starting soon, and basketball around the
Speaker 1: country for college and the pros. It's heating up now
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Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be going through four games today rapid fire style. We
Speaker 1: had forty two from Joel Embiid, forty three from lebron
Speaker 1: fifty four from Clay Thompson, and seventy one from Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 1: A crazy stretch of scoring last night. So the Cavs
Speaker 1: are actually down. We're gonna start with Bulls Calves. The
Speaker 1: Caves are actually down two starters last night, Evan Mobile
Speaker 1: and Darius Garland were both out, and the Bulls of
Speaker 1: sneakyve been playing some pretty good basketball. Um. It's always
Speaker 1: interesting to me when things start to go south for
Speaker 1: a team, what happens. Do they show fight and try
Speaker 1: to save their season or do they let go of
Speaker 1: the rope? I think, for instance, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the Hawks today too, and then we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the Bulls and we're gonna talk about the Lakers. Those
Speaker 1: are three teams that, for various reasons, have had really
Speaker 1: rough seasons. And you're seeing the Bulls and the Lakers
Speaker 1: actively fight to try to save their season, and you're
Speaker 1: seeing the Hawks just to send further and further into
Speaker 1: the struggle. UM. The Bulls had come in five and
Speaker 1: two in their previous seven games with some impressive wins.
Speaker 1: They'd beat a Heat team that's playing good ball lately,
Speaker 1: they beat the Hawks, they beat the Knicks when they
Speaker 1: were playing really well, and they beat the Milwaukee Bucks
Speaker 1: in a really impressive comeback win. UM. They jumped the
Speaker 1: Calves early in this game too. They went up twenty
Speaker 1: one in the first half to Martin Rosen and Zach
Speaker 1: Lavine were absolutely cooking. Donovan Mitchell only had sixteen at halftime,
Speaker 1: but then the Mitchell Show began. He hung twenty four
Speaker 1: on them in the third quarter, eighteen in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: thirteen in the five minute overtime, perfect four for four
Speaker 1: from the field and three for three from three, and
Speaker 1: finished with seventy one points. UM. Yesterday, I had I
Speaker 1: appeared as a guest on Sam Vicenni's podcast, who has
Speaker 1: a podcast called Game Theory for the Athletic Um. Sam
Speaker 1: does great work. You guys gotta check him out. I
Speaker 1: tweeted out a link to that show you could find
Speaker 1: on my twitter feed. We went for about an hour
Speaker 1: and a half. We talked to m v P, talked
Speaker 1: a lot Lakers, a lot of good stuff. And in
Speaker 1: that show we started talking about just the wild scoring
Speaker 1: bursts that we're seeing around the league. And I presented
Speaker 1: to say in my theory, which is just that pull
Speaker 1: up shooting and the massive improvements league wide didn't pull
Speaker 1: up shooting and the fact that pull up shooting directly
Speaker 1: beats most NBA coverages is a big part of why
Speaker 1: we're seeing so many scoring oppers. You take away the
Speaker 1: easy stuff, you take away the rim, even on the
Speaker 1: defensive end, rotating around on the perimeter to shooters, you're
Speaker 1: chasing guys off the line and funneling them into the paint.
Speaker 1: There's all these openings in the middle of the floor
Speaker 1: for pull up midrange stuff. And then obviously in ball screens,
Speaker 1: anytime a guy gets caught on the screen, there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to shoot a pull up three and take advantage
Speaker 1: of the math that's available to you there, so having
Speaker 1: a guy that can knock down pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: if he gets hot, it's so difficult to guard pull
Speaker 1: up shooting that I think that that's why you're seeing
Speaker 1: more of these scoring outbursts. Like Alex Cruso was doing
Speaker 1: everything right last night, flying around screens and contesting shots,
Speaker 1: but Donovan's just making him and there's really nothing you
Speaker 1: can do about it. He was just sticking those pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots time and time again, and that's what
Speaker 1: he does. He's forty six point four percent on ten
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots per game. That's outrageously good. On
Speaker 1: six pull up threes a game, there are thirty two
Speaker 1: players in the NBA this year taking at least three
Speaker 1: pull up threes per game, and Steph Curry is the
Speaker 1: only player in the NBA shooting better than Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: on those shots. And that pull up three, in particular,
Speaker 1: is what makes Donovan Mitchell so difficult to guard, because
Speaker 1: it's not just in ball screens, it's also an ISO situations.
Speaker 1: He's got a really good pound through his right leg
Speaker 1: between the legs, step back three going to his left.
Speaker 1: He hit a couple of them last night. That what
Speaker 1: that does is it puts you in a really difficult
Speaker 1: predicament as an isolation defender, because when you're up on
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell, he's so good getting downhill to the rim
Speaker 1: that you basically have to make a decision. Am I
Speaker 1: going to concede these pull up threes to Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: at the expense of trying to contain him, Or am
Speaker 1: I going to press up on him and he's gonna
Speaker 1: go right around me all game long. They ended up
Speaker 1: having to sub Alex Caruso, who's one of the better
Speaker 1: perimeter defenders in the league. They had to sub him
Speaker 1: out of this game to try anything else that might
Speaker 1: be able to slow Donovan down. And you know again,
Speaker 1: and this is where pull up three point shooting adds
Speaker 1: an element that other pull up shooting does not. It's
Speaker 1: in iso enforcing defenders out on you. When you beat
Speaker 1: people off the dribble at twenty five feet, you can
Speaker 1: really get your head of steam going downhill before you
Speaker 1: get to the rim, as opposed to when defenders are
Speaker 1: meeting you lower, you know, seventeen eighteen, even twenty feet,
Speaker 1: you don't get as much room and not not as
Speaker 1: much of a runway to get a head start. You
Speaker 1: don't get as much momentum going downhill towards the room.
Speaker 1: I think that's a huge part of what makes Donovan
Speaker 1: so hard to guard. Donovan Mitchell on the season twenty
Speaker 1: nine points, four rebounds, five assists on sixty three percent
Speaker 1: TRU shooting, which is just otherworldly, one point one four
Speaker 1: points per possession, and pick and roll including passes, which
Speaker 1: is sixth in the league among players who have run
Speaker 1: at least two hundred and a solid one point zero
Speaker 1: four points per possession in ISSO. And now the Calves
Speaker 1: are just two and a half games back and the
Speaker 1: best record in basketball. I talked to Sam also about
Speaker 1: m v P and we did our rankings, and um know,
Speaker 1: we talked about how there's like eight dudes right now
Speaker 1: that have cases and eleven dudes that like realistically have
Speaker 1: a chance if things go one way or another before
Speaker 1: the end of the season. Donovan Mitchell's on that list.
Speaker 1: If the Calves go on a little bit of a
Speaker 1: run here and end up with the best record in
Speaker 1: the league, there's no reason in the world why Donovan
Speaker 1: can't win m v P, especially with how good he's
Speaker 1: been offensively. And it's just kind of it's a testament
Speaker 1: to how talented the top of the league is. It's
Speaker 1: a testament to Donovan Mitchell and the score that he's
Speaker 1: become in this league, and just how excited I am
Speaker 1: for the NBA as a whole. Moving forward, all right,
Speaker 1: moving on to Hawks Warriors. So this was a wild
Speaker 1: double overtime game. The Warriors jumped out too hugely. They
Speaker 1: were up twenty one early. Um the Hawks came all
Speaker 1: the way back and went up nine. Then the Warriors
Speaker 1: claud back and send it to overtime. Then the Warriors
Speaker 1: fell down big in the first overtime, claude back to
Speaker 1: send it to a second overtime. Then the Hawks fell
Speaker 1: down big in the second overtime and Jon T. Murray
Speaker 1: hits a pull up three, Trade Young hits a floater.
Speaker 1: Suddenly it's tied. But then Clay Thompson mrs the three
Speaker 1: and Covon Looney battling underneath the rim. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about some of the details of that particular play here
Speaker 1: in a minute. But Kevon Looney battles under the rim
Speaker 1: and gets a put back at the buzzer to win
Speaker 1: it for the Warriors, who continued to roll without Steph
Speaker 1: Curry going on a run and Clay Thompson finished with
Speaker 1: fifty four eight and three countless big plays down the
Speaker 1: stretch of this game since November in his last seventeen games.
Speaker 1: Remember how concerned Warriors fans were about Clay early in
Speaker 1: the season. In his last seventeen games, which is a
Speaker 1: massive sample size spanning over a month, twenty four points
Speaker 1: per game percent true shooting on eleven threes per game.
Speaker 1: That's a seventeen game sample size of vintage Clay Thompson.
Speaker 1: Maybe not quite some of his higher scoring numbers because
Speaker 1: he had some stretches earlier in his career where he'd
Speaker 1: go for like twenty eight a game for a while,
Speaker 1: but in terms of efficiency and production, that's really really
Speaker 1: high level stuff from Clay Thompson. My favorite thing about
Speaker 1: Clay has always been his jump shot form. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny when we talk about the Splash Brothers. Step
Speaker 1: is like the best shooter of all time, that's unassailable.
Speaker 1: I think Clay Thompson is the second best shooter of
Speaker 1: all time. Most of us would agree. But ironically, like
Speaker 1: Steph is a little more unorthodox um in terms of
Speaker 1: his form, Like he shoots a little bit down in
Speaker 1: front of his head. He uses his opposite thumb. None
Speaker 1: of that's wrong. I'm a big believer in who cares
Speaker 1: what your form is as long as you can replicate it.
Speaker 1: But if I was teaching a player from scratch, Like
Speaker 1: if my son one day was like, I want to
Speaker 1: learn how to shoot the basketball, can you teach me?
Speaker 1: I would teach him the way Clay Thompson shoots. And
Speaker 1: there's a couple of specific things that I wanted to
Speaker 1: focus on. Uh. First of all, absolutely no wasted motion.
Speaker 1: There's if you watch footage of Clay Thompson shooting, there
Speaker 1: is no unnecessary body movement. Everything is straight up and down.
Speaker 1: There's no weird back stuff, there's no weird legs stuff.
Speaker 1: And up top, he's very rigid with a natural release
Speaker 1: coming off of his right hand. First, the limited motion
Speaker 1: is so important because that allows you to replicate your
Speaker 1: muscle memory easier. When there are lots of moving parts,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more area for you to make a mistake,
Speaker 1: and that decreased margin for error makes it so that
Speaker 1: it's harder for you to replicate that release. When you
Speaker 1: have less movement, it's easier to replicate fewer areas for
Speaker 1: you to make a mistake that that's that's how you
Speaker 1: can get dialed in and get outrageously hot the way
Speaker 1: that Clay did last night. And the second thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to focus on was his wide base. Now, a
Speaker 1: lot of shooters, most shooters, I would say, kind of
Speaker 1: jump in a normal athletic stance where their feet are
Speaker 1: kind of even with their shoulders, maybe even a little
Speaker 1: bit more narrow. I think it's just a natural athletic
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of young basketball players do. Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson is a wide base his feet on and most
Speaker 1: of his three point attempts are outside of his shoulders.
Speaker 1: And I have a very wide base when I shoot
Speaker 1: as well, And so that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I've always looked at with Clay that I've related to
Speaker 1: because I've always done it that way for a very
Speaker 1: specific reason when you are moving, whether that's coming off
Speaker 1: of a screen to rise up with the one too
Speaker 1: off the catch for three, or that's coming off the
Speaker 1: screen and dribbling the way Clay did a bunch last
Speaker 1: night to get too difficult, you know, pull up two's
Speaker 1: um as defenders are chasing him over the top of
Speaker 1: the screen regardless, in any movement situation, a wider base
Speaker 1: gives you a much better chance of establishing balance while
Speaker 1: on the move. For instance, if I'm jumping way off
Speaker 1: to the right, if I jump and I keep my
Speaker 1: feet close together, I might keep leaning that way, but
Speaker 1: if I keep my feet wide, it's more likely that
Speaker 1: this foot will establish enough force coming back the other
Speaker 1: way to steady me so that I can go straight
Speaker 1: up and down. Watch watch some footage of Clay Thompson shooting.
Speaker 1: Watch how wide his feet are, and look at how
Speaker 1: it gives him the ability to get good balanced lift
Speaker 1: on his high difficulty three point shots that he takes.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to shout out well first of all
Speaker 1: before we move on. Um. But anyway, I told you
Speaker 1: guys earlier when Clay was struggling, that I wasn't worried
Speaker 1: about it because two reasons, he was still playing great defensively,
Speaker 1: and two teams were guarding him like he was. Clay Thompson,
Speaker 1: I care way less about the percentages on jump shots
Speaker 1: than I do about the way teams are guarding you.
Speaker 1: The reason why is Clay, let's say he takes eleven
Speaker 1: threes per game. If he makes four of them instead
Speaker 1: of six of them, that's only six points. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: might be the difference in the game one way or another,
Speaker 1: but who knows, Like, there's all this shooting variants that's
Speaker 1: taking place. But if he is being guarded like Clay Thompson,
Speaker 1: then over a hundred possessions we might score a lot
Speaker 1: more than six points off of the attention that he
Speaker 1: garners and the way it opens up things for other players.
Speaker 1: When you start shooting low percentages and teams aren't guarding you,
Speaker 1: that's where it becomes deeply problematic. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of players around the league that shoot thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: from three on wide open looks all game long because
Speaker 1: the team isn't guarding them, and it's easy to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent from three, that equates to well over
Speaker 1: fifty effective field goal percentage. That's great for us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but is he is his defender helping on every single
Speaker 1: one of your drives? Is his defender basically roaming around
Speaker 1: the floor blowing up other actions? Because if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then that thirty eight percent three doesn't really matter. You're
Speaker 1: losing a lot of points over the course of the game.
Speaker 1: I didn't worry so much about Clay because he was
Speaker 1: being guarded like Clay, and on the other end, he
Speaker 1: was defending at a high level. Now the shots are
Speaker 1: going in. Now you're getting that ultimate ceiling with Clay
Speaker 1: Thompson fifty percent true shooting on twenty four points per
Speaker 1: game over seventeen games. That's where you get that. That's
Speaker 1: just gravy. That's all just extra as it comes down
Speaker 1: to the result. But the most important thing is that
Speaker 1: they guard him like Clay. That's where the uh, the
Speaker 1: flow of the Golden State offense will come from. A
Speaker 1: couple of shout outs. So Draymond Green made a half
Speaker 1: dozen more just unbelievable defensive plays. He blew up another
Speaker 1: two on one break by blocking DeAndre Hunter, uh, stopping
Speaker 1: what should have been a dunk. I talked a lot
Speaker 1: about these load passes around the rim that he keeps
Speaker 1: blowing up with his back line help. There's a play
Speaker 1: in this game where a Congo rolled to the basket
Speaker 1: for a lob. He was guarding I believe John Collins
Speaker 1: in the opposite corner, and he came flying off of
Speaker 1: John Collins at the last second to blow up a
Speaker 1: lot at the rim. Defenders in the league, that's a dunk,
Speaker 1: but for Draymond Green, it's erasing two points from the board.
Speaker 1: And then he had a ridiculous block on a Trey
Speaker 1: Young pull up three and overtime as well. He's just
Speaker 1: been a defensive wrecking ball over the course of the
Speaker 1: last few weeks. And the Kevon Louney on the game winner.
Speaker 1: Understand your advantage. That Hawk's lineup was pretty small, uh,
Speaker 1: DeAndre Hunter and John Collins were the front court at
Speaker 1: that point in the game, and because of some transition
Speaker 1: cross matches after tray Young's lay up, the Gold Go
Speaker 1: and say quickly pushed the ball off the floor, which
Speaker 1: was a really smart decision because it kept things kind
Speaker 1: of chaotic. Now, transition defensive principles take take a control
Speaker 1: as opposed to regular defensive principles, so people aren't going
Speaker 1: for their match, they're just guarding the guy that's nearest
Speaker 1: to them. Well, um, I believe it was John Collins
Speaker 1: got stuck out towards mid court. DeAndre Hunter ended up
Speaker 1: on Clay Thompson, so Kevon Looney had de gen Ty
Speaker 1: Murray on him. He understood that he had the advantage
Speaker 1: there just buried him under the basket, ended up actually
Speaker 1: getting two offensive rebounds in that final sequence, made the
Speaker 1: second one and the game was over. Another really, really
Speaker 1: impressive team win for the Golden State Warriors on the
Speaker 1: strength of a Clay Thompson nuclear explosion. The Atlanta Hawks
Speaker 1: have also lost four games in a row. They are
Speaker 1: now six and thirteen since November, which is the best
Speaker 1: record in the league over that span. For the season,
Speaker 1: they're only thirteen and sixteen when both at Trey Young
Speaker 1: and Degen Murray plays, so it might actually be crisis
Speaker 1: mode at this point. And again, it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of our long standing philosophies on the show. When you
Speaker 1: build your team around two smaller guards, there are just
Speaker 1: some limitations in what you can do from the standpoint
Speaker 1: of physicality. Alright, moving on Pelicans sixers, so Zion hung
Speaker 1: a smooth twenty six points on twelve shots before having
Speaker 1: to leave with a hamstring injury, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a bummer. Otherwise we might have had another forty point
Speaker 1: game tonight or like on Monday night. This game was
Speaker 1: actually tied at eighty nine. Early in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: James Harden and Montrese Harold just started spamming pick and roll.
Speaker 1: You know, so many of these Sixers games I watched,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of Joel and Beat stuff,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk to all and Beat stuff. But
Speaker 1: James Harden is having a fantastic season, just creating high
Speaker 1: quality shots with what he can do in pick and roll.
Speaker 1: They were getting all sorts of wide open dunks and
Speaker 1: threes in the early fourth quarter, just spamming that Harold
Speaker 1: Harden pick and roll, and they actually built a little
Speaker 1: lead there, and then Joel and Beat came in and
Speaker 1: they started is suing him right around the free throw line,
Speaker 1: and he hit a jumper, hit another jumper, and is
Speaker 1: So drew double team and kicked to James Harden. He
Speaker 1: knocked down at three really high level stuff from James
Speaker 1: Harden and Joel and Beat in the fourth quarter of
Speaker 1: this game to build a lead. But then the Pelicans
Speaker 1: threw a random curveball there in the middle of the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. They went to a three to zone, which
Speaker 1: kind of jumbled up the Sixers for a few possessions,
Speaker 1: and the Pelicans actually worked it all the way back
Speaker 1: to three and then there was this chaotic possession where
Speaker 1: loose ball just happened to bounce into the Anthony Melton's
Speaker 1: hands on the left wing. He hit a three that
Speaker 1: ended up essentially being the dagger as the Sixers went
Speaker 1: up by six and got the win. Um. James Harden
Speaker 1: and pick and roll this year done a really nice
Speaker 1: job passing. Like I mentioned earlier, a couple of specific things. Um,
Speaker 1: he doesn't always go directly to the rollman and they
Speaker 1: mix in a ton of pick and pop. Was Georges
Speaker 1: kneeing as well. And he's got this really nice like
Speaker 1: behind the back passes he's coming off of ball screens
Speaker 1: where he just whips it around as the defenders kind
Speaker 1: of chasing around his hip and the screen defenders coming
Speaker 1: up on him and bracketing him, he just whips it
Speaker 1: around lefty behind his back. That starts that four on
Speaker 1: three a different way by hitting that shooter, and you're
Speaker 1: you're just Georges kneeing on the wing. Um. But then
Speaker 1: he also did a nice job hitting Montress Harold as
Speaker 1: well throughout that game. But that's something he's done really
Speaker 1: well all season. The Sixers have scored one point zero
Speaker 1: five points per possession when James Harden has passed out
Speaker 1: of pick and roll, which is ex went. That's actually
Speaker 1: ninth in the league among players who have done it
Speaker 1: at least two hundred times this year. Um. And then
Speaker 1: also handling traps. Uh, you're seeing James Harden get trapped
Speaker 1: and pick and roll a lot more frequently lately. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's been the The Sixers are scoring almost two points
Speaker 1: per possession unplaced where James Harden has been trapped in
Speaker 1: pick and roll this year thirteen times for twenty two points,
Speaker 1: just getting rid of the basketball quickly. Again, that behind
Speaker 1: the back pass to the popping screener that I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, um. And then Joel Embiad and ISO.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about how he went to work
Speaker 1: a little bit from the free throw line with pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots there in the fourth quarter. He this
Speaker 1: season is scoring one point one six points per possession
Speaker 1: on ISO including passes, which is fourth in the NBA
Speaker 1: among players who have done it at least a hundred times.
Speaker 1: Joel Embiad has already run two hundred and fifty one
Speaker 1: ISOs this year, which is just an insane number. And
Speaker 1: a big part of it is the jump shot. What
Speaker 1: I've always said with Joel Embid, especially with Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: as well. Neither of them are great passers, and there's
Speaker 1: a case to be made that Joel Ebad has actually
Speaker 1: even been a little worse passing out of double teams
Speaker 1: this year. This year than he's been in previous seasons.
Speaker 1: He's turning the basketball more frequently than he used to.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's so important for both of those
Speaker 1: guys to be able to hit pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: because that's their best way to beat teams packing the paint,
Speaker 1: since they can't beat teams backing packing the paint with
Speaker 1: the pass. And Joel e Bead in his career, has struggled,
Speaker 1: particularly in the postseason, to knock down perimeter jump shots,
Speaker 1: but this season has been his best perimeter jump shooting
Speaker 1: season by far, and if that translates to the playoffs,
Speaker 1: that's monumentally important for Philly um. Joel e beats shooting
Speaker 1: on short jumpers out to seventy on long jumpers from
Speaker 1: seventeen ft to the three point line, and a respectable
Speaker 1: percent from three. But most importantly, he's doing all of
Speaker 1: this on volume. He's taken three hundred, almost three hundred
Speaker 1: jump shots this year, so he's efficient on a steady diet.
Speaker 1: Of jump shots, and it's also helping him beat double teams.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of plays this year where he's
Speaker 1: catching in the double was coming, but the double is
Speaker 1: not aggressive because teams are terrified of fouling him because
Speaker 1: he's so good at drawing fouls, and so he's actually
Speaker 1: able just to rise up with his height in the
Speaker 1: fear of fouling, to rise up over a double team
Speaker 1: and knock down a jump shot. It's ironic he's beating
Speaker 1: doubles just by shooting over the top of them. Um.
Speaker 1: The Sixers have now won ten out of twelve and
Speaker 1: they are just three and a half games back of
Speaker 1: the best record in the league, which is really interesting
Speaker 1: for Joel Embid potentially as an m VP candidate. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I expect the Sixers to go on
Speaker 1: a big run here in January now that Tyree s
Speaker 1: Max he's back and they're healthy and they're defending as
Speaker 1: well as they have been. Lookout for the Sixers to
Speaker 1: go on a run alright. Last game Lakers Hornets, really
Speaker 1: impressive win over a Hornets team that kind of punished
Speaker 1: them last week. UM, just with their size and physicality,
Speaker 1: especially in the offensive class. They won that game with
Speaker 1: the key offensive rebound back at Staples Center, I should
Speaker 1: say Crypto dot com arena. Uh, there's kind of a
Speaker 1: funny moment in the fourth quarter or Dennis Smith. Dennis Smith,
Speaker 1: when you're tried to dunk on Lebron and Lebron kind
Speaker 1: of protected himself a little bit. Dennis took took exception
Speaker 1: to it because he I guess he thought it was
Speaker 1: a dirty foul or something. Um. Then he started talking
Speaker 1: trash to Dennis Schroeder too, And so now Lebron and
Speaker 1: Dennis Struder like john back and forth with Dennis Smith
Speaker 1: while just killing them on the other end of the
Speaker 1: floor every single time down. Uh. Kind of ballsy to
Speaker 1: go at Lebron when he's playing as well as he
Speaker 1: has been. Um. And then Lebron just methodically worked his
Speaker 1: way to forty three eleven and six on sixty percent
Speaker 1: true shooting. Dennis Shudder also made a couple of big
Speaker 1: plays in the fourth hit some threes and had a
Speaker 1: nasty pullback druble crossover where he broke someone's ankles and
Speaker 1: knockdown a jumper. Lebron has had thirty plus on sixty
Speaker 1: on at least six shooting three times in the last
Speaker 1: six games, it's looking like two thousand thirteen all over again.
Speaker 1: The Lakers were plus nine with him on the floor
Speaker 1: and minus three with him off in Lebron's last eleven games.
Speaker 1: This is insane. Eleven games, that's almost a month. He's
Speaker 1: averaging thirty five seven and seven on six true shooting.
Speaker 1: What's wild is he's just from three on six attempts
Speaker 1: per game, So he's literally playing some of the best
Speaker 1: basketball of his career despite the fact that he's having
Speaker 1: this kind of relentless three point shooting slump that he
Speaker 1: just can't break through. Um, which is crazy because you
Speaker 1: have to think, with the consistency that he shot the
Speaker 1: three over the course of the previous you know, half decade,
Speaker 1: you expect him to eventually turn that around. I mean,
Speaker 1: if he just shot thirty seven percent from three during
Speaker 1: this span, which is respectable more or less what you
Speaker 1: would expect with Lebron playing as dialed in as he is. UM,
Speaker 1: if you're shooting thirty seven percent from three, he'd be
Speaker 1: averaging over thirty six points per game during this span.
Speaker 1: But somehow, against all odds, the Lakers are now five
Speaker 1: and five since the Anthony Davis injury, which just feels
Speaker 1: impossible because of an m v P level run from
Speaker 1: Lebron James over the course of this last month. I
Speaker 1: wanted to shout out one other Laker before we call
Speaker 1: it a day to day. Thomas Bryant. It's awesome again.
Speaker 1: Last night eighteen and fifteen five offensive rebounds had an
Speaker 1: amazing putback, dunk and crunch time. When the Hornets made
Speaker 1: a little bit of a run to get it somewhat close,
Speaker 1: offensive rebound rose up and dunked it. It It was just
Speaker 1: a monstrous momentum play to ice the game. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: as we look at Thomas Bryant, he does have some
Speaker 1: defensive limitations. He's a little bit short, and he's not
Speaker 1: a great athlete, so in vertical situations around the rim,
Speaker 1: he can struggle, which is something that you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of out of his control. I just simply doesn't
Speaker 1: have the tools to be a better defensive player than
Speaker 1: he is. But he is a very very good offensive center,
Speaker 1: and I would argue that his contributions on the offensive
Speaker 1: end in particular for this Lakers team has probably been
Speaker 1: the second most important thing behind this five and five
Speaker 1: stretch without a d behind Lebron, so he's been monumentally
Speaker 1: valuable to this recent stretch and a couple of specific things.
Speaker 1: He runs the floor super well. He's a great screener,
Speaker 1: which is opening things up and pick and roll. He's
Speaker 1: got great hands to catch those difficult feeds in traffic
Speaker 1: and pick and roll. And he's a really strong finisher
Speaker 1: around the basket. He shooting se restricted area this year.
Speaker 1: He just muscles people off balance in those under the
Speaker 1: rim confrontations. We talked a lot about post defense when
Speaker 1: we were talking about Yoka Chaw. It's like a battle
Speaker 1: of balance, like whoever can knock the dude off of
Speaker 1: their like a base first has the better chance to
Speaker 1: go up and score around the rim. And Thomas just
Speaker 1: knocks people off their base and then goes up strong
Speaker 1: to the rim. That prevents the taller, more athletic, longer
Speaker 1: defenders from getting up above him and blocking shots. He
Speaker 1: also crashes the offensive glass really well, and he's shooting
Speaker 1: the laces off the basketball for from three this year. Again,
Speaker 1: his offensive contributions have kind of been that other thing
Speaker 1: that has revitalized the Lakers without Anthony Davis, who again
Speaker 1: five and five since the A D injury is is
Speaker 1: just probably the absolute best case scenario under the circus stances.
Speaker 1: And what's crazy, as you can say, they blew that
Speaker 1: first Hornets game could very easily be six and four.
Speaker 1: But the Lakers again, you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons to let go of the rope, but they
Speaker 1: just keep fighting and riding the strength of what I
Speaker 1: believe is still a top five player in this game Lebron.
Speaker 1: I ranked him forward to start the season and he's
Speaker 1: held up his end of the bargain after a rough start.
Speaker 1: You guys, I sincerely appreciate your support. As always, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be taking tomorrow off. Um. We will be back
Speaker 1: Thursday night breaking down I believe it's Celtics Mavericks, and
Speaker 1: then Friday night I'm staying up to cover those games.
Speaker 1: They'll actually be put on the Beats on Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate your support and I'll see you
Speaker 1: guys next night. U