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Speaker 1: co slash ft ball. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight.
Speaker 1: You're at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. If all of
Speaker 1: you guys have had a great week so far, we
Speaker 1: got a jam pack show for you today. JJ Reddick,
Speaker 1: head coach of the Los Angeles Likers, did his first
Speaker 1: long form interview since taking the job. Was Zach low
Speaker 1: Over at ESPN. Got a lot of takeaways from that,
Speaker 1: so we're going to talk some Lakers off the top.
Speaker 1: After that, we're going to get back into our power
Speaker 1: Rankings season preview style with number ten the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 1: And at the tail end of that, I've got nine
Speaker 1: clips of film that we're going to go over all
Speaker 1: from their first round series as we talked about some
Speaker 1: of the things that the Suns can improve on heading
Speaker 1: into next year. So some Lakers off the top, a
Speaker 1: bunch of Suns after that, jam pack show for today.
Speaker 1: You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any
Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
Speaker 1: JCNLT so you guys don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about
Speaker 1: a podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight,
Speaker 1: and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments
Speaker 1: so we can keep getting to them over the course
Speaker 1: of the rest of the year. We had a mailbag
Speaker 1: on Monday with little light on questions, though I'm doing
Speaker 1: another mail bag on Friday. No mail bag today, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing one on Friday, so make sure
Speaker 1: you drop some questions in the comments. Underneath this video. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for anything about any of the stuff on
Speaker 1: this list. If there's a ranking that you disagree with,
Speaker 1: if this is your favorite team, or if we talked
Speaker 1: about your favorite team at some point in the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and there's a thought that you had
Speaker 1: about the team that we didn't get into in the
Speaker 1: season preview that you just want to get into in
Speaker 1: some more detail. Literally, anything's fair game. Drop those in
Speaker 1: the YouTube comments. So we're going to get to a
Speaker 1: mail bag on Friday. All right, let's talk to basketball.
Speaker 1: So JJ Reddick's first interview with Zach Lobe again his
Speaker 1: first long form interview since taking the job, so essentially
Speaker 1: our first opportunity to learn about JJ's philosophy as a coach.
Speaker 1: And so I have five major takeaways from that interview
Speaker 1: that I want to get into before we get to
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Sun. So number one, I think JJ is
Speaker 1: going to pretty quickly get buy in from the team,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be on the strength of his
Speaker 1: work ethic. I was on in ESPN LA radio last
Speaker 1: night with Andy Kimenenski, a friend of mine that covers
Speaker 1: the Lakers, and he asked me when I came on like,
Speaker 1: how is JJ going to get buy in, and then
Speaker 1: answer to me is very simple. These guys are competitors,
Speaker 1: and the leader of this team, Lebron James, is one
Speaker 1: of the greatest competitors of all time, if not the greatest,
Speaker 1: right and that means winning is what drives them, and
Speaker 1: people like that are typically very keyed in on the
Speaker 1: people that are in their corner and whether or not
Speaker 1: they're doing their part to help the team win. I
Speaker 1: think this is actually a big part of how Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham lost the locker room in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: over the course of the last year. I don't think
Speaker 1: the players, in particularly the Stars, felt like Darvin was
Speaker 1: pulling his weight. There were comments in postgame pressers about
Speaker 1: defensive game plan, a schematic things that they were doing,
Speaker 1: about some scouting report stuff that was off the kind
Speaker 1: of passive aggressive comments. I don't think that the Laker
Speaker 1: players felt like Darvin Ham was one of their foxhole guys,
Speaker 1: someone that they could count on to contribute to the
Speaker 1: winning context of the team. If JJ comes in quickly
Speaker 1: and can make it clear to the players that he
Speaker 1: is working his ass off behind the scenes and with
Speaker 1: them to make them a better basketball team. I think
Speaker 1: there will be immediate buy in, and I think immediately
Speaker 1: the players will do whatever JJS asks them to do.
Speaker 1: I think that's literally all it takes. I don't think
Speaker 1: they care about the personality or the cachet, or whether
Speaker 1: what your resume looks like, or the fact that he
Speaker 1: used to play in the league. As long as those
Speaker 1: guys feel like JJ's in their corner doing everything in
Speaker 1: his power to help them win games, I think they
Speaker 1: will buy in. There was an interesting quote from JJ
Speaker 1: in the interview where he talked about how it's very
Speaker 1: important for him and his staff to always be able
Speaker 1: to explain the why they're doing anything. That to me
Speaker 1: is like where you can, as a coach demonstrate that
Speaker 1: you've done the work if you can go to your
Speaker 1: players and you can be like, hey, we're making a
Speaker 1: tweak to our defensive scheme, or we're gonna shift more
Speaker 1: of our the percentage of our possessions defensively to this
Speaker 1: coverage versus that coverage, or this concept versus that concept,
Speaker 1: or this little detail to that detail, and you can
Speaker 1: be like, hey, look like here's our defensive rating when
Speaker 1: we you know, bring ad all the way up to
Speaker 1: the level versus here's our defensive rating when we sit
Speaker 1: ad back in a deep drop or when we hard
Speaker 1: help off the week side versus when we stay home
Speaker 1: off the ball, or we do this thing on the ball,
Speaker 1: or we do this different thing on the ball, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, if you can explain, like, hey, here's a
Speaker 1: bunch of video clips that clearly demonstrate why you know
Speaker 1: we need to do this, or here's some clear statistical
Speaker 1: evidence of why we need to do this. Right on
Speaker 1: the offensive end, the same kind of thing, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be pairing you with bench lineups with
Speaker 1: this group as opposed to this group, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have you play more like early second quarter instead of
Speaker 1: late first quarter, because if you look at these numbers,
Speaker 1: I can see that like when I pair you with
Speaker 1: these guys, you play really well and the lineup does
Speaker 1: really well, And when I pair you with these guys,
Speaker 1: you seem to struggle a little bit and the numbers
Speaker 1: aren't as productive. If you can make it very clear
Speaker 1: to your players that you're making your decisions based off
Speaker 1: of work, off of research, off of data, if they
Speaker 1: can feel like you're pulling your weight, they're going to
Speaker 1: buy in even extending to individual game plans, they can
Speaker 1: feel like every single night JJ's doing his part to
Speaker 1: help them win individual regular season games with game planning.
Speaker 1: I think as long as JJ brings that element, the
Speaker 1: buy in will be there. And that's just not something
Speaker 1: I'm worried about it. JJ is a psycho competitor who
Speaker 1: everything he's ever done with the game of basketball has
Speaker 1: always been about obsessive preparation, and so it's interesting, of
Speaker 1: all the things with JJ, I'm not worried about him
Speaker 1: getting buy in from the players. I think that there
Speaker 1: might be some personality dynamics that he runs into that
Speaker 1: could be challenging. I think there might be some like
Speaker 1: lulls over the core so the eighty two game season
Speaker 1: that he has to deal with, But in terms of
Speaker 1: overall buy in from the team, I think he's going
Speaker 1: to earn it quickly by virtue of his work Ethic
Speaker 1: Number two. The second interesting thing that stood out to
Speaker 1: me from the interview. JJ seems pretty keen on establishing
Speaker 1: organizational basketball competence. This has been one of the downsides
Speaker 1: for the Lakers in recent years, with them constantly having
Speaker 1: turnover at the head coaching position. Right like, there's kind
Speaker 1: of like two phases to an NBA team, Right, there's
Speaker 1: kind of like the ownership front office side, and then
Speaker 1: there's strictly the basketball side. The ownership front office side,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of business decisions being made. There's obviously
Speaker 1: payroll and roster decisions being made, and there is basketball
Speaker 1: philosophy there, and you do want to have connection between
Speaker 1: those two groups, and we're going to talk about that
Speaker 1: here in a minute. But then there's just the strict
Speaker 1: basketball side, which is like, what does practice look like,
Speaker 1: what does player development look like? What is the standards
Speaker 1: in practice? What are these and in practices of your
Speaker 1: basketball organization? Is it consistent down the line? Is it
Speaker 1: something that the G League team does and the main
Speaker 1: team does. Is it the same expectation and offseason workout
Speaker 1: that you get in a morning shoot around somewhere during
Speaker 1: the season In terms of just professionalism and overall basketball philosophy.
Speaker 1: I want to see JJ bring that consistency to that
Speaker 1: organization in a way that hasn't been there in recent years.
Speaker 1: And he was specifically talking about that in this interview,
Speaker 1: talking about having consistency with the G League and consistency
Speaker 1: with player development. I think having a basketball culture get
Speaker 1: established from the top down will help him squeeze more
Speaker 1: out of the sponge. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: big ways that you're going to see that is after
Speaker 1: the top guys on the roster, right, like having Lebron
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis on the floor with Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: and Dangela Russell is going to go a long way
Speaker 1: to winning basketball games, regardless of the surrounding context. Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham got fired after the Lakers looked pretty awesome over
Speaker 1: the last more than half the season, right, That wasn't why.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of reasons why Darvin got fired.
Speaker 1: I got a big one that I'm gonna share with
Speaker 1: you guys here in a minute. But like the team
Speaker 1: was winning in spite of that. Where you will see
Speaker 1: real advantage and organizational culture getting set properly by JJ
Speaker 1: is after those guys, So like in the time after
Speaker 1: Lebron is retired in the short term, when guys are
Speaker 1: in and out of the lineup, like that was a
Speaker 1: big problem over the last couple of years. Anytime the
Speaker 1: Lakers lost core rotation pieces, they struggled, and a big
Speaker 1: part of that was down the organization. There wasn't the
Speaker 1: same quality of like just basketball approach. And if you
Speaker 1: have those consistent standards in practices, then there's a better
Speaker 1: expectation for players to step in from lower levels of
Speaker 1: the organization into bigger roles and to have some success.
Speaker 1: And I was really by that in the interview Number three.
Speaker 1: I do think that JJ will be a useful basketball
Speaker 1: voice in the front office. This is a front office
Speaker 1: that is very it's like a mom and pop shot,
Speaker 1: right like Roblinka is a player agent, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: what I would call a basketball expert, right Like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are in Genie Buss's ear
Speaker 1: that are making basketball you know, kind of like providing
Speaker 1: basketball council, so to speak, that aren't necessarily people that
Speaker 1: are down grinding NBA film and metrics and trying to
Speaker 1: learn as much as they can about the modern NBA game.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's Joey and Jesse have done a
Speaker 1: really nice job and they've been a little boost in
Speaker 1: that department. But like having JJ Reddick as just a
Speaker 1: guy that is deeply and profoundly involved in the in
Speaker 1: the modern game and is nerdy about it and wants
Speaker 1: to talk about it. And is willing to be a
Speaker 1: pillar for that front office. I think that will go
Speaker 1: a long way towards helping them continue in you that
Speaker 1: basketball philosophy and culture that we talked about, in bridging
Speaker 1: that over to the front office, because again, there's a
Speaker 1: style of play, there's a general expectation on the basketball
Speaker 1: front that extends down the organization. You need to bring
Speaker 1: in players that fit into that, and there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of decision making by the front office that has
Speaker 1: been a lot more about agency politics than about actually
Speaker 1: fitting a basketball culture in philosophy. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it's been abundantly clear over the last few years that
Speaker 1: the Lakers don't really have an organizational basketball philosophy, right Like,
Speaker 1: they just keep going after different types of players every summer,
Speaker 1: and that's a clear sign that you don't really have
Speaker 1: a baseline foundation a basketball belief that you're making these
Speaker 1: decisions based off of. So that's kind of a combo
Speaker 1: with the second point that I was making in terms
Speaker 1: of establishing organizational competence, but it extends over to the
Speaker 1: front office where I just think JJ is going to
Speaker 1: help establish a better basketball culture within the Los Angeles Lakers.
Speaker 1: Number four JJ already seems to have a philosophy for
Speaker 1: how to get more out of this team. He talked
Speaker 1: about off ball movement. He talks specifically about Lebron being
Speaker 1: more active offball as a screener. He talks a lot
Speaker 1: about generating more three point shots. Now that's a little delicate.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get too much further into that
Speaker 1: right now, because I want to talk more about the
Speaker 1: overarching concept of like hunting three point shots when we
Speaker 1: get into the Phoenix Suns thing, because they were a
Speaker 1: very low three point volume team last year, and so
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking a lot about the three
Speaker 1: point shot here later on in the show. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the big ones that stood out to me, he
Speaker 1: talked about generating margins, and he mentioned the obvious fact
Speaker 1: that one of the good margins for the Lakers last
Speaker 1: year was the free throw line. Right, Lakers are a
Speaker 1: team that doesn't foul and gets to the foul line
Speaker 1: a lot, and so they constantly have large free throw margins.
Speaker 1: I know that every conspiracy theorist out there thinks it's
Speaker 1: because the league is force feeding the Lakers free throws,
Speaker 1: but that's just not actually what's happening. It's a basketball
Speaker 1: strength of that team. But as JJ pointed out, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much their only margin right now. It's the only
Speaker 1: like little thing that is outside of like typical half
Speaker 1: court scoring in defense that the Lakers are squeezing extra
Speaker 1: points out of. Right. And one of the things he
Speaker 1: talked about was increasing their offensive rebound output. So the
Speaker 1: Lakers were twenty ninth in offensive rebound percentage last year,
Speaker 1: and there's a reason for that. The large part had
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that they were a bad
Speaker 1: transition defense the previous year, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it was like, if we stop crashing the offensive
Speaker 1: glass and we just all get back on defense, then
Speaker 1: we'll stop getting bludgeoned in transition. And like that was
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of like unplugging one hole to
Speaker 1: plug another, right, And so that doesn't necessarily move your
Speaker 1: basketball team forward. One of the specific things he talked
Speaker 1: about was corner crashes. That is exactly what it sounds like, right,
Speaker 1: So when the shot goes up, the guys out of
Speaker 1: the corner will sprint in to try to get an
Speaker 1: offensive rebound before they go back on defense. That can
Speaker 1: work and drive additional possessions and can still maintain a
Speaker 1: quality transition defense as long as you have attention to
Speaker 1: detail with your floor balance. So, for instance, like if
Speaker 1: you crash out of the corners and you have a
Speaker 1: ball screen where Lebron's going downhill and AD's rolling downhill,
Speaker 1: and there's one guy above the break and he's kind
Speaker 1: of like fading off to the wing to try to
Speaker 1: create more space, and you have a missed layup and
Speaker 1: Ad goes to the offensive glass and both guys crash
Speaker 1: out of the corner. You could pretty quickly have d
Speaker 1: lo or Austin be the only guy back as they're
Speaker 1: sprinting the other way. But if you have your floor
Speaker 1: balance set up properly, like, oh hey, like Lebron and
Speaker 1: Ad are both barreling down towards the rim, and Lebron's
Speaker 1: driving on this left side, so I'm going to relocate
Speaker 1: out of the corner too, above the break, so that
Speaker 1: we constantly have two guys that are above the break
Speaker 1: to be able to get back in transition defense, then
Speaker 1: you crash with your other three because as long as
Speaker 1: those guys can stop the ball, that gives you time
Speaker 1: for the other three guys to recover back spread out too,
Speaker 1: because again you're taking away the ball first, then you're
Speaker 1: taking away the basket, and then you're spreading out to shooters.
Speaker 1: And so as long as you have your first two
Speaker 1: transition defense players that can take away the ball in
Speaker 1: the basket, then your guys that crash out of the corner,
Speaker 1: whoever it is that slashing to the basket can sprint
Speaker 1: back and spray out to shooters. And so it is
Speaker 1: possible to be a good offensive rebounding team and a
Speaker 1: good transition defense as long as you have attention to detail.
Speaker 1: And so it's like, don't just recklessly crash for the
Speaker 1: sake of crashing. Those corner crashes they can be part
Speaker 1: of your sprint back. Right, you're sprinting into the like
Speaker 1: kind of into that foul line area to see if
Speaker 1: a long rebound comes off if it's not, their sprint
Speaker 1: back in defense, right, and just paying more attention to
Speaker 1: the floor balance piece. A lot of possessions last year
Speaker 1: where the Lakers had an empty above the break area
Speaker 1: because they didn't have anybody that likes to pick and pop,
Speaker 1: and so because Ad doesn't shoot anymore, and so in
Speaker 1: Jackson Hayes's rolling and Christian Wood was hurt all year,
Speaker 1: So like they just had a lot of situations where
Speaker 1: their floor balance was off, and that can cause issues
Speaker 1: if you're crashing the offensive glass. But if you have
Speaker 1: that floor balance and you are crashing out of the
Speaker 1: right spots, you can generate extra margin there. And again,
Speaker 1: like these games are close a lot at the time,
Speaker 1: and squeezing an extra three to four possessions out of
Speaker 1: the game can go a long way towards helping you win.
Speaker 1: The Lebron off ballpiece, it's interesting because there is value
Speaker 1: there and Lebron's been an off all a lot, and
Speaker 1: I like Lebron off the ball. He's a very good screener.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like souped up Draymond when he rolls
Speaker 1: into the basket, and he can make plays, you know,
Speaker 1: with Austin Reeves two man game, and he's got good
Speaker 1: chemistry with d Angela Russell as well. There's all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff that you can do with Lebron as a screener,
Speaker 1: and obviously having a real movement shooter like Dalton connect
Speaker 1: can add even another element to that, right, But I
Speaker 1: actually want Lebron on the ball more. I think it's
Speaker 1: just about finding ways to use Lebron on the ball
Speaker 1: in a way that accentuates his regular season strengths. This
Speaker 1: is another thing I was talking about with the Indy
Speaker 1: Kamenski last night. Like the Lebron as we know is
Speaker 1: I'm not going to leverage his athletic gifts very often
Speaker 1: in the regular season, and that manifested on the ball
Speaker 1: sometimes on offense, where like I used to complain about
Speaker 1: this all the time in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: where like Lebron will come off of a ball screen
Speaker 1: and not really look to turn the corner because he's
Speaker 1: kind of conserving energy, and then he'll just try to
Speaker 1: jam a pocket pass in that's just not open because
Speaker 1: he hasn't engaged the screen defender the way you're supposed
Speaker 1: to by getting downhill, and so it'll be a turnover.
Speaker 1: AD will catch in a bunch of traffic and AD
Speaker 1: will turn it over or something like that. And those
Speaker 1: were just ending some ugly possessions or some of that
Speaker 1: in the Denver series in Game two, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: that part of that second half run was Lebron getting
Speaker 1: a little lazy in his pick and roll decisions there
Speaker 1: in that third quarter stretch, just because like he's fatigued, right,
Speaker 1: and so if you can find a way for Lebron
Speaker 1: to weaponize his brain, which is something that is always
Speaker 1: going to be there for him, then I like the
Speaker 1: idea of the ball being in Lebron's hands more. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? That means it's got to be a
Speaker 1: situation where Lebron is being used the way he was
Speaker 1: being used with Team USA, which is have Lebron operate
Speaker 1: as a decision maker from the top of the key
Speaker 1: while you're running off ball action. That way, it's not
Speaker 1: about Lebron pressuring the rim. Obviously, he can look to
Speaker 1: turn and score every once in a while if he's
Speaker 1: got the like strength and the wherewithal to do it.
Speaker 1: But if you're running off ball action like a wide
Speaker 1: pin down with Anthony Davis and Dalton connector Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: and Austin Reeves, and Lebron can just kind of sit
Speaker 1: at the top of the key and just kind of
Speaker 1: look to make those passes, just like he was doing
Speaker 1: with Team USA. Lebron can do a lot of damage
Speaker 1: there and he did. You saw it with Tim USA.
Speaker 1: He can pick defenses apart, catching them slipping in their
Speaker 1: switches or in whatever screen coverage they're running, he can
Speaker 1: catch team slipping and he doesn't have to move a
Speaker 1: muscle with his legs. I mean, he doesn't have to
Speaker 1: run or try to bully his way downhill or post
Speaker 1: a guy up. He can just sit there and make
Speaker 1: a pass fake and get the ball where he needs
Speaker 1: to get it. And so again, I do want to
Speaker 1: see Lebron off ball, but I think that the the
Speaker 1: best way to use Lebron at this phase of his
Speaker 1: career is to have him be a decision maker, and
Speaker 1: that in a lot of cases kind of calls for
Speaker 1: him to be on the ball, just in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't also require him to pressure the wrint. We
Speaker 1: all know Lebron can't big moments, clutch or when he's
Speaker 1: just feeling good. In a big national TV game, Lebron
Speaker 1: is going to be able to pressure the rim and
Speaker 1: do all those things on ball that you want, but
Speaker 1: we also know that he's going to conserve some energy
Speaker 1: in that department, and so setting him up as the
Speaker 1: fulkroum of off ball action as opposed to actually being
Speaker 1: off the ball to go a long way towards weaponizing
Speaker 1: that strike and then fit the final takeaway that I
Speaker 1: had from the presser was the big news drop, which
Speaker 1: is that JJ is going to keep the starting lineup
Speaker 1: from the end of last year austinvesd Angela, Russell, Ruey, Hatchamura,
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Was no hesitation from JJ
Speaker 1: when he was asked by Zach Low. Here's a crazy
Speaker 1: stat for you, guys. This is the Darvin Ham point
Speaker 1: that I was gonna make from earlier. That lineup Austin Dilo, Rui, Lebron,
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis did not play a single minute in the
Speaker 1: first forty three games of the season. They went twenty
Speaker 1: three and ten when those guys started. That's a seventy
Speaker 1: percent win percentage, which would have been higher than everyone
Speaker 1: in the league last year except for Boston, and Darvin
Speaker 1: did not use them for more than half the season.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of like straight up sabotage that Darvin
Speaker 1: Ham was doing to this team last year. Not a
Speaker 1: single minute, guys, not like, oh he didn't start him,
Speaker 1: Not a single minute did he put his five best
Speaker 1: players on the floor together. It's truly confounding stuff. But anyways,
Speaker 1: some encouraging numbers, right, twenty three and ten when those
Speaker 1: guys started, so that makes sense that JJ would lean
Speaker 1: on that as his starting group to start the year
Speaker 1: unlock a lot of stuff on offense. When Darvin did
Speaker 1: finally make the lineup change on January twenty first, the
Speaker 1: Lakers from that point forward had the fifth best record
Speaker 1: in all of basketball and an offensive rating of one
Speaker 1: to nineteen, which ranked third in the NBA over that span. Now,
Speaker 1: hard to figure out why you're partnering Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: too incredibly versatile offensive forwards who can play both on
Speaker 1: and off the ball with two really good skill guards.
Speaker 1: Austin and Di Lo are very different, but they are
Speaker 1: both really effective skill guards that benefit from the rim
Speaker 1: pressure that Lebron and Ad bring to the table. And
Speaker 1: then what kind of tied it all together was Ruy
Speaker 1: Hotchimura figuring out his role, just becoming a really reliable
Speaker 1: catch and shoot guy on the weak side, and also
Speaker 1: understanding when to cut along the baseline. It's very simple
Speaker 1: decision for a baseline cutter, for a spacer from the corner,
Speaker 1: it's if they're running a ball screen. The Lakers run
Speaker 1: a ton of ball screens, and the roleman comes downhill
Speaker 1: and Ruy's man goes over to tag the roller. Ruey
Speaker 1: needs to cut along the baseline so that ad or Lebron,
Speaker 1: who ever came on the roll, can drop it off
Speaker 1: to Rui and he can dunk it along the baseline.
Speaker 1: It's a higher percentage play than the corner three. Now,
Speaker 1: it's a tough decision because you have to make the
Speaker 1: read based on how much the lowman commits. If the
Speaker 1: lowman just kind of steps over but he's still on
Speaker 1: the baseline, it might end up being too much traffic.
Speaker 1: Although Rui's still got some good cuts off of that
Speaker 1: where he cut behind the guy and come around on
Speaker 1: the other side of the basket. That's how where we
Speaker 1: got all those reverse dunks. But like a lot of times,
Speaker 1: you have to make that read where it's like, eh,
Speaker 1: it's still a little clogged in there. I'm going to
Speaker 1: stay out here in the corner, or oh man, this
Speaker 1: is wide open. I got to make that baseline cut.
Speaker 1: Ruy got really good at that. All those five guys
Speaker 1: kind of fit together perfectly. They really took off offensively.
Speaker 1: So I do think JJ is making the right decision here.
Speaker 1: In the short term, they can win enough regular season
Speaker 1: games with that group, provided they stay healthy. They will
Speaker 1: stay afloat in the regular season. I believe in that group.
Speaker 1: Don't fix what is in broke is basically the ethos there.
Speaker 1: But I want to be clear, I do not think
Speaker 1: that that starting lineup can win four or playoff rounds.
Speaker 1: It has some glaring issues on the defensive end. Now
Speaker 1: what's interesting this is like really fascinating to me. They
Speaker 1: had a really solid defensive rating in the large sample.
Speaker 1: That lineup had a one to ten point five defensive
Speaker 1: rating last year in almost four hundred minutes. That's a
Speaker 1: higher defensive rating than any team in the league had
Speaker 1: last year except for Minnesota. So they were a good
Speaker 1: defense with that group, but it was mostly because they
Speaker 1: were really big and because Anthony Davis cleans up a
Speaker 1: lot of messes. In the large sample, they were very
Speaker 1: vulnerable to specific matchups. Like Austin was their best point
Speaker 1: of attack defender in that lineup, and he competed did
Speaker 1: the best he could. It was admirable, but he was
Speaker 1: only okay at it for obvious reasons. That is a
Speaker 1: role that is typically filled by a professional defender. Just
Speaker 1: go down the Western Conference standings. Who's the guy doing
Speaker 1: that job for the Oklahoma City thunder Lou Dort a
Speaker 1: professional defender. Who's the guy doing that for Denver? Well
Speaker 1: was CACP last year? Right, that is a guy that
Speaker 1: maybe isn't a professional defender, but is a professional two
Speaker 1: way player and is a very good guard defender and
Speaker 1: a very good athlete, right Denver. Now, Christian Brown professional
Speaker 1: defender right Minnesota? Who's doing that job? Jad McDaniel's professional defender.
Speaker 1: Who's doing that job for the Los Angeles Clippers? Terrence
Speaker 1: Mann professional defender who's doing that for the MAVs last year?
Speaker 1: Derek Jones Junior, that's a professional defender right for the Pels,
Speaker 1: Herb Jones for the Kings, Kean Ellis for the Warriors,
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins. You guys get the point. Aside from like
Speaker 1: the Sons, who were another team that leaned entirely into
Speaker 1: offense and also lost in the first round, like you
Speaker 1: have professional defenders doing that job. Austin is a skill guard.
Speaker 1: Deploying him as your best permitter defender is a misallocation
Speaker 1: of resources. Now, you have to right now because you
Speaker 1: don't have any options. But that is something that I
Speaker 1: think needs to get addressed in the long run. The
Speaker 1: reason why they don't have any options is because de
Speaker 1: Lo can't do it, sure as how can't do it,
Speaker 1: and Ruey is specifically terrible at tracking offensive players around screens.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing that again, it's fascinating that they
Speaker 1: were good in the large sample They even defended Denver well.
Speaker 1: In the first round series. They held Denver to a
Speaker 1: one to thirteen point four offensive rating. That's really good
Speaker 1: for against that Denver offense. It's nine points better than
Speaker 1: they did last year. The previous year when they got Sweat,
Speaker 1: they had like a one to twenty two offensive rating,
Speaker 1: So like they did pretty good. Austin did a really
Speaker 1: nice job on Jamal Murray throughout the series, held him
Speaker 1: well below his normal amount of his normal like efficiency.
Speaker 1: But Ruey Hatchi Mura got like absolutely worked by Michael
Speaker 1: Porter Junior, constantly losing him off screens for easy three
Speaker 1: point looks, including in massive moments when they couldn't afford
Speaker 1: to make mistakes and at the end of games. Regardless
Speaker 1: of how good Jamal Murray did in the short in
Speaker 1: the large sample size, in terms of Austin holding him
Speaker 1: in check at the end of games, Jamal Murray was
Speaker 1: able to get to his spot's relative hively comfortably against
Speaker 1: Austin because Austin has certain physical limitations. Right, So even
Speaker 1: though they got plenty of stops in the large sample, again,
Speaker 1: good defensive rating in the regular season, good defensive rating
Speaker 1: for the entire series against Denver, but in clutch situations
Speaker 1: against Denver, they allowed a one sixty two point five
Speaker 1: offensive rating that is like abysmally bat Remember I can't
Speaker 1: remember the exact stat off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but in Game two, Jamal's first game winner, the Lakers
Speaker 1: got one stop down the stretch. It was the play
Speaker 1: where Lebron kind of like got that tipped pass on
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray and then went out for a dunk. But
Speaker 1: I want to say, Denver scored on nine of their
Speaker 1: last ten possessions with that one stop being the Lebron stop. So, like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how good your defense was in the
Speaker 1: large sample. If Michael Porter Junior keeps getting free from
Speaker 1: Ruey because Rui doesn't know how to track shooters around screens,
Speaker 1: and if Austin isn't really capable of making the best
Speaker 1: guards in the league feel uncomfortable when he's trying to
Speaker 1: chase them around, no fault of Austin. It's just not
Speaker 1: a job that he should be doing right. And so
Speaker 1: even though I think that lineup is JJ's best path
Speaker 1: for the start of the regular season, I still think
Speaker 1: the Lakers inevitably need to convert one of d Lo
Speaker 1: or Rui into a legitimate two way athlete. If Austin
Speaker 1: is the second best perimeter defender on your team, next
Speaker 1: to a real athlete, then I think they can reach
Speaker 1: the necessary level of defense to win four rounds in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. But if they just run it back, I
Speaker 1: do not think they have a championship ceiling. We are
Speaker 1: going to be getting to the Lakers very soon in
Speaker 1: our power rankings, and when we get to them, there
Speaker 1: they're in this tier that if things go right tier,
Speaker 1: and for them, the main thing that needs to go
Speaker 1: right is they need to hit on a trade. They
Speaker 1: have two first round picks that they have access to,
Speaker 1: some talented young players, some mid level salaries. They've got
Speaker 1: the means with which to do it. They just need
Speaker 1: to hit on that deal. They need a legitimate upgrade
Speaker 1: at one of those starting spots, the starting two or
Speaker 1: the starting three, in a way that's slow everybody into
Speaker 1: more achievable Roles defensively, but overall, I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I liked the interview. I'm generally very encouraged by J. J. Reddick,
Speaker 1: and I think he's going to do a good job
Speaker 1: for the Lakers. All right, let's move on to our
Speaker 1: power rankings. Number ten, the Phoenix Suns. They lost Drew Eubanks,
Speaker 1: Eric Gordon Nase, your Little David Roddy, and Thaddius Young.
Speaker 1: They added Ryan Dunn, a late first round pick who's
Speaker 1: looked pretty solid in his summer workouts. Kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting young player, Tys Jones and Monte Morris. The much
Speaker 1: talked about point guard upgrades that the Sons have been
Speaker 1: clamoring for, We're going to talk a lot about that
Speaker 1: concept today. And then they upgraded their backup center position,
Speaker 1: obviously turning Drew you Banks into Mason Plumley's just bigger,
Speaker 1: better athletes, just a better backup center than Drew you
Speaker 1: Banks was. So let's start with the point guard concept.
Speaker 1: How much do the Suns need a point guard? It's
Speaker 1: a complicated topic because Devin Booker and Kevin Durant are
Speaker 1: both really high level playmakers in my opinion, but playing
Speaker 1: point guard goes a lot further than just play man.
Speaker 1: The Suns were specifically struggling with ball pressure in the
Speaker 1: World Series, so they averaged over fourteen turnovers per game,
Speaker 1: that was the third worst mark among playoff teams. They
Speaker 1: gave up twenty points per game off of turnovers, that
Speaker 1: was the worst among playoff teams. And even on possessions
Speaker 1: where they didn't actually lose control of the basketball, they
Speaker 1: often struggled to get into their sets until laid into
Speaker 1: the clock. They constantly looked rushed, they constantly looked out
Speaker 1: of sorts, and then all you got to do is
Speaker 1: look at the offensive rating and realize that they were
Speaker 1: really struggling to score the ball against Minnesota. Right, So,
Speaker 1: having a professional point guard who has spent every day
Speaker 1: of his life navigating ball pressure and getting a basketball
Speaker 1: team into their offense, that would certainly help things. Right.
Speaker 1: Those types of players, the Ties Jones types, the Monty
Speaker 1: Moores types, they've just been facing physical ball pressure since
Speaker 1: they were kids. It's all they've ever done. Whereas Devin
Speaker 1: Booker and Kevin Durant are scorers that have also learned
Speaker 1: to play on the ball and have also faced a
Speaker 1: good amount of ball pressure. But that's not necessarily like
Speaker 1: what they've grown up doing as basketball players, right, Guys
Speaker 1: like Monti Morris, guys like Tias Jones, they don't get rushed.
Speaker 1: That's their superpower as point guards. They're going to methodically
Speaker 1: navigate ball pressure and get you into the half court
Speaker 1: and get you into your stuff. Here's where that gets tricky, though.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the only benefit the Sun's need from
Speaker 1: a point guard. Once they actually get into their stuff.
Speaker 1: You want kd and Devin Booker with the ball. They're
Speaker 1: incredible playmakers. You want them running your ball screens, you
Speaker 1: want them coming off of your dribble handoff. So it's tricky,
Speaker 1: and the thing is is that Tias Jones is probably
Speaker 1: going to start. In his press release, he specifically used
Speaker 1: the phrase starting point guard. He also said, quote, the
Speaker 1: Sun's opportunity is where I can best maximize my value
Speaker 1: for a return to free agency next year. It's very
Speaker 1: clear Tis picked Phoenix because he thinks he's gonna win
Speaker 1: a lot of games and go on a playoff run,
Speaker 1: but also have a large role as the starting point guard.
Speaker 1: That's part of the agreement that was made to get
Speaker 1: him to take a veteran minimum deal to go to Phoenix,
Speaker 1: so he's probably going to start and play a lot.
Speaker 1: And that is a large role to give to a
Speaker 1: player that essentially ties you into a three guard look
Speaker 1: simply so that you can handle ball pressure better. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I do believe in three guard looks
Speaker 1: as long as you have a very physical, imposing front line.
Speaker 1: We were just talking about this with Memphis. I think
Speaker 1: Jaw and Marcus Smart and Desmond Band can all play
Speaker 1: together because you're playing Jaron Jackson at the four next
Speaker 1: to another massive center that can kind of offset some
Speaker 1: of the size limitations of that backcourt. Team USA is
Speaker 1: a great example. You're playing Steph Curry, Devin Booker, and
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday. It's three guards, but you have Lebron James
Speaker 1: and Joel Embiid or Lebron James and Anthony Davis as
Speaker 1: the front line. That offsets the three guard concept to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, right, especially in the small sample when
Speaker 1: Lebron's actually playing hard. Kevin ur and Musef Nurkic are
Speaker 1: not that type of frontline. They're gonna have a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on them here to play big, to be
Speaker 1: big and physical, to battle on the glass, to do
Speaker 1: a lot of work on that frontline. It's just a
Speaker 1: lot to ask. I do think Tias will really help
Speaker 1: on the offensive end. A lot of possessions in the
Speaker 1: Minnesota series died in the hands of Roy O'Neil, or
Speaker 1: died in the hands of Eric Gordon, died in the
Speaker 1: hands of Josha Kog. They'd bring him into the action
Speaker 1: as they were constantly trying to hunt, like Carl Towns
Speaker 1: or Mike Conley, and those guys would hedge and recover.
Speaker 1: There'd be a little delay in the switch and they'd
Speaker 1: swing it over to one of those guys in the
Speaker 1: possession just would fall apart from there because they couldn't
Speaker 1: capitalize on it right. Tias Jones will get them up
Speaker 1: the floor into their stuff, and he will be better
Speaker 1: at taking advantage of the openings that come his way
Speaker 1: after he gives away the basketball. He shot forty nine
Speaker 1: percent on unguarded catch and shoot threes last year forty
Speaker 1: nine percent field goals, so he makes half of his
Speaker 1: open threes. He has a nasty floater that he hits
Speaker 1: over fifty percent. He finishes well at the rim for
Speaker 1: a guard. All that's good. He's not the deadly high
Speaker 1: volume three point shooter that Grayson Allen is. But I
Speaker 1: think the ball handling improvement is enough to make it
Speaker 1: an offensive upgrade. Maybe not a massive offensive upgrade, but
Speaker 1: it will be somewhat of an offensive upgrade. But it's
Speaker 1: just also possible that this shift in the way you're
Speaker 1: deploying your resources opens up a bunch of other issues.
Speaker 1: Tyas is not a good rebounder. He's not a guy
Speaker 1: that's gonna move the needle for you on the defensive end.
Speaker 1: And so again, like it might be a marginal offensive upgrade. Again,
Speaker 1: don't don't underestimate Grayson Allen in this role here, because
Speaker 1: like what he was doing setting ghost screens and just
Speaker 1: being a fucking laser from three was a huge part
Speaker 1: of their offense last year, right, And Tyas Jones is
Speaker 1: a guy that can knock down wide open catches you threes,
Speaker 1: but he's not a guy that's going to be sliding
Speaker 1: his feet and quickly getting He's not a movement shooter
Speaker 1: the way that Grayson Allen can be. Right, So, like,
Speaker 1: I do think it's an upgrade overall, but like it's
Speaker 1: just a big role to devote to a player that
Speaker 1: gives you a marginal offensive improvement while not solving the
Speaker 1: real issue. So what is the real issue? What went wrong?
Speaker 1: Versus Minnesota? Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, Grayson Allen, Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: Yusuf Nurkic was a great lineup all year. There were
Speaker 1: twenty one lineups in the NBA that played at least
Speaker 1: three hundred minutes. Those guys, at plus eleven point one
Speaker 1: points per one hundred posessions ranked fourth out of twenty
Speaker 1: one lineups. They had a one to twenty five offensive rating,
Speaker 1: but they got absolutely thrashed by Minnesota. So what happened?
Speaker 1: It mostly came down to physical domination. Some of it
Speaker 1: was the ball pressure stuff we were talking about, right, Like,
Speaker 1: just that same lineup had a ninety three offensive rating
Speaker 1: versus Minnesota couldn't score one twenty five in the regular season,
Speaker 1: ninety three in the playoffs. Too many turnovers, too many
Speaker 1: possessions that started too late in the stock clock. It just
Speaker 1: wasn't working. But the physical domination went way deeper than that.
Speaker 1: They gave up an offensive rebound on thirty nine point
Speaker 1: two percent of Minnesota's missus. Almost forty percent of Minnesota's
Speaker 1: misses ended up back with Minnesota that was dead last
Speaker 1: among playoff teams. They also only rebounded twenty one percent
Speaker 1: of their own misses, that was third worst among playoff teams,
Speaker 1: so they weren't getting any of it back on the
Speaker 1: offensive glass. On the other end, they got thrashed in
Speaker 1: the paint. They gave up fifty one points in the
Speaker 1: paint per game, that was the second worst mark among
Speaker 1: playoff teams. Then we talked about turnovers earlier, just they
Speaker 1: gave up the most points off of turnovers out of
Speaker 1: any of the playoff teams per game. And the real
Speaker 1: damaging piece was their defense was just awful. They allowed Minnesota,
Speaker 1: by the way, who was seventeenth in offense in the
Speaker 1: regular season, who consistently looked terrible on offense against both
Speaker 1: Denver and Dallas Phoenix, allowed those guys to score one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three points per one under possessions. It
Speaker 1: was by far the worst defensive rating among playoff teams.
Speaker 1: Guys were constantly getting worked off the ball, they were
Speaker 1: getting back cut, getting ran by for offensive rebounds. They
Speaker 1: weren't picking up and transition at all. I'm gonnahow you guys.
Speaker 1: A sequence from Game four an elimination game where they
Speaker 1: just straight up forgot to guard their man three times
Speaker 1: in four possessions and gave up a bucket on every
Speaker 1: single one of them. And again, this was a bad
Speaker 1: Minnesota offense and they shredded Phoenix. So we can talk
Speaker 1: about point guards, and we can talk about ball pressure
Speaker 1: and offensive talent and all those things all we want,
Speaker 1: but they lost to Minnesota because they got bullied physically.
Speaker 1: And the concerning part is all year long, I talked
Speaker 1: about Phoenix as a team that was thin and that
Speaker 1: would struggle to win rock fights in the postseason, and
Speaker 1: that ended up being their downfall. They ran into a bigger,
Speaker 1: stronger team, got punched in the mouth, and they wilt
Speaker 1: it underneath that, And I don't see how anything that
Speaker 1: they did over the summer can address that issue. They
Speaker 1: will inevitably run into a team, even if it's not Minnesota,
Speaker 1: they will inevitably run into a big, physical team that
Speaker 1: pushes them on that level, and they're gonna have to
Speaker 1: rise to that equation at that occasion. So how does
Speaker 1: Phoenix unlock their full potential relative to their talent? To me,
Speaker 1: it comes down to two things. One, they have to
Speaker 1: be willing to do the work to win ugly. The
Speaker 1: Sun's played some of the prettiest basketball in the league
Speaker 1: last year when they had it going. If so much
Speaker 1: offensive skill on the floor, some beautiful advantage basketball, some
Speaker 1: beautiful drive and kick possessions, right, but inevitably they're gonna
Speaker 1: run into a Minnesota or Denver or a different Western
Speaker 1: Conference team that will drag them down into the mud.
Speaker 1: They have to be able to win games like that.
Speaker 1: That means taking the defensive end of the floor seriously
Speaker 1: from day one. You can't be making elementary school defensive
Speaker 1: mistakes in an elimination game because you're not serious on
Speaker 1: that end of the floor. Some of these mistakes I'm
Speaker 1: gonna show you are laughable. Like all I talked about
Speaker 1: them not picking up in transition, those are on made baskets.
Speaker 1: Wait till you guys see these clips are crazy. You
Speaker 1: can't be getting sliced and diced by a mediocre offense
Speaker 1: like Minnesota. The second piece of that is winning fifty balls.
Speaker 1: You were twentieth in defensive rebounding in the regular season,
Speaker 1: so I'm not surprised that you struggled the defensive rebound.
Speaker 1: You couldn't defensive rebound all year, so of course you
Speaker 1: struggled against Minnesota, and all of that is going to
Speaker 1: take a buy in down the roster, all the stars,
Speaker 1: all the role players, actively pursuing the basketball whenever it's available,
Speaker 1: being willing to get down and get dirty. That's number
Speaker 1: one really comes down to. They have to be willing
Speaker 1: to do the work to win ugly. Secondly, on the
Speaker 1: offensive end, they got to play advantage basketball. The Sons
Speaker 1: were at their best when they were moving the ball around.
Speaker 1: Their assists rate, this was a crazy stat. Their assist
Speaker 1: rate was six percent higher in wins compared with losses.
Speaker 1: It's one of the largest disparities in the league. I
Speaker 1: looked around. Most of the teams are like one or
Speaker 1: two percent different, six percent higher in wins than losses.
Speaker 1: When they hunted advantages and played drive and kick, they
Speaker 1: looked better. There's an interesting conversation to have about the
Speaker 1: running of sets. This was something that we heard from
Speaker 1: KD after the Serbia game, right He talked about how like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was really fascinating. We didn't really run
Speaker 1: anything down the end of that game. We just trusted
Speaker 1: each other and we just played basketball. And here's the
Speaker 1: thing that Serbia team that was real, high leverage basketball,
Speaker 1: and that Serbia team was legit. They punched Tusa in
Speaker 1: the mouth and brought the absolute best out of them
Speaker 1: in that fourth quarter. They're not Minnesota on defense, and
Speaker 1: against that Serbian team, playing kind of freelance basketball was
Speaker 1: enough because they were able to consistently get enough advantages
Speaker 1: just by playing basketball. But when you're playing against really,
Speaker 1: really really dominant, athletic, massive defenses, you're going to have
Speaker 1: a harder time finding those advantages. And so to Katie's point,
Speaker 1: like I agree with him that, like you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to call plays or run intricate five man action
Speaker 1: to run quality offense as long as you're able to
Speaker 1: get an advantage. But against teams that are not giving
Speaker 1: much in the way of advantages, that have the talent
Speaker 1: to make things harder on you, you have to find a
Speaker 1: way to make things harder on them. And the way
Speaker 1: to do that is to run more three man action,
Speaker 1: to run more side to side, getting multiple interchanges on
Speaker 1: the same possession, running off ball action, making it at
Speaker 1: least harder for the defense to do what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And so to Katie's point, it's about balance and about
Speaker 1: understanding time and situation. Okay, we're playing really good in
Speaker 1: the flow right now, let's stick with it. Or hey, guys,
Speaker 1: we're playing in the flow and we're really struggling to
Speaker 1: get advantages. This isn't working. This is where we have
Speaker 1: to settle down and run our stuff right and kind
Speaker 1: of feeling that out is a big part of what
Speaker 1: makes a successful basketball team. Generating more quality three point looks.
Speaker 1: These suns were twenty fifth and three point volume. This
Speaker 1: is also a delicate topic because you can't just take
Speaker 1: threes for the sake of taking threes. They need to
Speaker 1: be quality threes. I tweeted this stat out this morning.
Speaker 1: Eight of the top twelve three point attempts teams per
Speaker 1: game missed the playoffs last year, eight out of the
Speaker 1: top twelve, So there's no proof that if you just
Speaker 1: take a ton of threes you're gonna win games. Now.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the top two teams in three point volume
Speaker 1: were Boston in Dallas, and they actually went to the finals, right,
Speaker 1: But just go back one previous year and it was
Speaker 1: like Miami was tenth and Denver I think was twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: So there's no real correlation there necessarily, but there's a
Speaker 1: mandatory minimum. Right, Like, just because you don't want to
Speaker 1: be jacking up threes for the take of for the
Speaker 1: sake of jacking up threes, doesn't mean you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: looking for opportunities to try to generate more quality threes.
Speaker 1: Because again, if we're looking at shot diet, quality rim
Speaker 1: attempts are by far the most valuable shot in basketball.
Speaker 1: It's not close. That's that will always be the best
Speaker 1: shot in the game quality rim attempts, But the next
Speaker 1: best thing is a quality three point attempt. And so
Speaker 1: if you can find a way to turn some of
Speaker 1: the other things contested rim attempts, contested threes, mid range shots,
Speaker 1: post moves, anything that is not one of those two things,
Speaker 1: if you can find a way to convert some of
Speaker 1: those possessions into more high quality rim attempts or more
Speaker 1: high quality three point attempts, you improve the efficiency of
Speaker 1: your offense. Right. So, again, it's not about just hunting
Speaker 1: threes for the sake of hunting threes. It's about hunting
Speaker 1: the best possible shot on every possession. Like so, for instance,
Speaker 1: if I'm looking for more catch and shoot opportunities for Katie,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, who shot over forty percent
Speaker 1: from three last year. If I'm looking to hunt more
Speaker 1: three point shots for them, I need to get into
Speaker 1: drive and kick more often, right, Because if I'm running
Speaker 1: two man game and I'm taking a lot of pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots, I'm not going to get into that
Speaker 1: driving kick very much. Right. So that is a concerted
Speaker 1: effort from the team to identify when you see an
Speaker 1: opportunity to for a closeout. Right, Okay, I'm running this action.
Speaker 1: They're sinking in a little bit off of Bradley Beal
Speaker 1: on the left wing. Swing it to Bradley Beal. He
Speaker 1: rips to the left. He's got that baked in driving
Speaker 1: lane because that defensive player is closing out on his
Speaker 1: right shoulder. He gets into the lane, draws another defender,
Speaker 1: throws a kickout pass. Now Devin Booker has a close out.
Speaker 1: He beats that dude off the dribble. Now KD is
Speaker 1: standing wide open at the top of the key. Throw
Speaker 1: it to KD. He knocks down the three point shot. Right,
Speaker 1: you generate a high quality catch and shoot three for KD.
Speaker 1: By turning maybe a handful of those pull up jump
Speaker 1: shot possessions into more driving kick possessions. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: you got to take a certain amount of pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots to keep the defense honest, right, because that's
Speaker 1: how Phoenix gets teams into rotation. They're not a rim
Speaker 1: pressure team, they're not driving to the basket a lot.
Speaker 1: They get defenses into rotation because you're terrified of Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant coming off of these screens and shooting. So
Speaker 1: the Big comes up to the level. You're gonna see
Speaker 1: some examples of that in the film, right. And the
Speaker 1: only way you're gonna get the Big to come up
Speaker 1: to the level is if you demonstrate that you can
Speaker 1: knock down that pull up jump shot. But it's about balance.
Speaker 1: If I can't remember exactly how many they take off
Speaker 1: the top of my head, it's something like twenty three
Speaker 1: twenty four pull up jump shots a game. If you're
Speaker 1: taking twenty three twenty four pull up jump shots a
Speaker 1: game and you cut that down to twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: those all become high quality rim attempts and high quality
Speaker 1: catch and shoot threes, that's a way to squeeze a
Speaker 1: few more points per one hundred possessions out of your offense.
Speaker 1: So again, like it really just comes down to playing
Speaker 1: the right brand of offense, trusting each other, making those
Speaker 1: kickoutastic passes, playing drive and kick which generates more catch
Speaker 1: and shoot three point shot opportunities, which is going to
Speaker 1: increase your overall shot volume right, and then lastly, looking
Speaker 1: to run sets, especially against the elite defenses when your
Speaker 1: freelance attack isn't working as well. Those are the main
Speaker 1: driving forces, but behind improving Phoenix's offensive resilience. We know
Speaker 1: in the large sample they can score, but we got
Speaker 1: to find a way to avoid those really ugly stretches
Speaker 1: like they had against Minnesota. So again have to find
Speaker 1: a way to do the work and playing advantage basketball,
Speaker 1: playing better and more efficiently on the offensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. I have the Suns as another one of
Speaker 1: the middle of the pack teams out West. I think
Speaker 1: they'll probably stay above the plan, but they will generally
Speaker 1: be a part of that race, kind of like they
Speaker 1: were last year. So think of them. I have them
Speaker 1: in like that five to eight range, and they'll have
Speaker 1: to have a lot of things go right for them
Speaker 1: to win the title, right, Like, they'll need to get
Speaker 1: some favorable matchups. They might have to have a couple
Speaker 1: of other contenders get knocked out, either by injuries or
Speaker 1: by upsets, and they're going to need to shoot the
Speaker 1: ball really well. They've got some gaping holes that can
Speaker 1: get them beat but so does everyone else around the
Speaker 1: league except the top four teams. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: the definition of this tier, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: the same for every team until we get to number four.
Speaker 1: They're all teams that are capable of winning the title,
Speaker 1: but they need some things to go right, they need
Speaker 1: some luck, and they are very beatable, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into some film. Only nine clips today,
Speaker 1: not gonna go too crazy. So this first clip, it's
Speaker 1: an example of some five out action to just give
Speaker 1: you an example of how you can make yourself harder
Speaker 1: to guard by shifting from side to side and by
Speaker 1: running multiple interchanges in the same possession. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: start by Bradley Bill handing it off to Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant's gonna run into like a dribble pitch with
Speaker 1: Devin Booker. Okay, here's the the dribble pitch. Devin Booker
Speaker 1: generates just a tiny bit of separation between Jada McDaniels
Speaker 1: and Devin Booker. Right now, Devin Booker sees use of
Speaker 1: Nurkics flashing this is all part of the set. He's
Speaker 1: gonna throw the ball to use of jerkicsh okay. Now,
Speaker 1: at this point, Nurkic is gonna look at Beal to
Speaker 1: basically fake like he's gonna run a dribble hand off there,
Speaker 1: But then Beal is actually gonna fake and cut back
Speaker 1: in to screen Jaden McDaniels. He screens Jada McDaniels, which
Speaker 1: puts Jayden into a chase position, which allows him to
Speaker 1: get a little bit more separation into the dribble hand
Speaker 1: off with use of Nurkic. This forces go Bear to
Speaker 1: come out to the level. If Jaden is attached, Gobart
Speaker 1: can sit back. Because Jaden is not attached, Gobar has
Speaker 1: to come up. Gobart has to contain Devin Booker. Now,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards has a decision to make. He can either
Speaker 1: stay out on Bradley Bal or he can watch use
Speaker 1: if Nurkic. He stays out on Bradley Beal. There's the
Speaker 1: pass from Booker to use off Nurkic wide open dunk. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously Carl Anthony Towns could in theory come over and tag.
Speaker 1: But if he comes over and tags, that's where use
Speaker 1: of Nurkic could either make the extra passed Booker or
Speaker 1: to Durant excuse me, or Booker can throw a over
Speaker 1: the top like a two handed over the top pass
Speaker 1: that hits Kevin Durant. Now he's got a wide open three.
Speaker 1: So again you get a wide open dunk out of
Speaker 1: a complicated interchange. This is an elite defense that makes
Speaker 1: freelance basketball pretty damn hard. And by running a set,
Speaker 1: you made more things that Minnesota could mess up, more
Speaker 1: opportunities for mistakes. They made a mistake, you end up
Speaker 1: getting a dunk out of it. Here is two possessions
Speaker 1: later and Bradley Beal, off of a made free throw,
Speaker 1: is just going to dribble up the floor and take
Speaker 1: a impossible, contested step back jump shot over Rudy Gobert.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing that has to be kind
Speaker 1: of like taken out of this Phoenix offense. You need
Speaker 1: to take a certain amount of pullup jump shots. They
Speaker 1: keep the defense honest, but they need to be part
Speaker 1: of the larger goal that you're trying to accomplish. So
Speaker 1: if you take a pull up jump shot coming off
Speaker 1: of a ball screen because Rudy Gobert is not up
Speaker 1: high enough. Now, if you take and make that jump shot,
Speaker 1: you're making Rudy Gobert think about what he needs to
Speaker 1: do in that coverage. You're not making anybody think about anything.
Speaker 1: When you take a transition step back jump shot along
Speaker 1: the baseline with a bunch of time on the shot
Speaker 1: clock for no reason. That's the type of opportunity that
Speaker 1: needs to be turned into a quality offensive possession for Phoenix.
Speaker 1: Here's another example of I put this clip in here
Speaker 1: just because I wanted to show the kind of setting
Speaker 1: of the stage of how you can create openings on
Speaker 1: the back line or openings for pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: by targeting the whatever coverage they're using. So, as we
Speaker 1: saw in the first clip, Rudy Gobert came up to
Speaker 1: show on Devin Booker and Nurkic slipped behind. Right. Here's
Speaker 1: another example off ball screen. Right, we have Nurkic screening
Speaker 1: down on Carl Towns. Kd comes up, go Beart shows,
Speaker 1: so does Kat slips. Nurkic gets another layup, another dunk, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So that is the setup for this next play. Gobar
Speaker 1: has now gotten burned twice for coming up to the level.
Speaker 1: So on this possession, watch Gobert. Nurkic sets the ball screen.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna slow it down a little bit. Nurkic sets
Speaker 1: the ball screen and dies on it. Go Beart's up,
Speaker 1: but now he's seen Nurkic beat them on this slip twice.
Speaker 1: Watch go Beart take a hop back. He's like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: I gotta get back. The reason why he's got to
Speaker 1: get back is those two dunks that Nurkic just had.
Speaker 1: That is what develops this opening for Devin Booker to
Speaker 1: take a wide open pull up three off the dribble. Again,
Speaker 1: that's the type of pull up jump shot that you
Speaker 1: want to take. You want to take it as a
Speaker 1: coverage beater so that you can consistently pull Gobert up
Speaker 1: to the level, so that you can get the defense
Speaker 1: in rotation and generate openings. That is the order of
Speaker 1: operations you need in order to maximize this offense. All right,
Speaker 1: the here's I'm gonna show you guys some examples of
Speaker 1: the bad defense that I talked about. So here we go.
Speaker 1: Made basket son zev I think Katie just hit a
Speaker 1: corner three transition possession. No one's matched up. Jaden's up
Speaker 1: the floor. No one's guarding my Conley. Jaden grabs it now.
Speaker 1: Nurkic is sinking back, throws to Conley. Conley pump fakes,
Speaker 1: gets into the lane, drops it off to go bear
Speaker 1: easy lap. You just gave up an easy rotation situation
Speaker 1: off of a made basket that cannot happen. That is
Speaker 1: an inefficiency that needs to be closed up very next possession.
Speaker 1: This is a made basket. No one's back in the paint.
Speaker 1: Remember when you're in transition defense, you stop the ball,
Speaker 1: you stop the basket. No one's back in the paint.
Speaker 1: Ant just takes a hard right hand driving move by
Speaker 1: Bradley Beal. The defense isn't loaded up. He gets a layup.
Speaker 1: That's bad defense. Two possessions later, on a make, No
Speaker 1: one is guarding Anthony Everards Phoenix just scored. No one
Speaker 1: is guarding the best player on the other team who
Speaker 1: just steps into an easy three. This is all in
Speaker 1: an elimination game consecutively like that's just setting yourself up
Speaker 1: for failure. That's how you give up a one to
Speaker 1: twenty three offensive rating to a bad offense. And so
Speaker 1: that's the again, that's the level of seriousness and discipline
Speaker 1: that Phoenix needs to address at the start of this season.
Speaker 1: And had just hit a three to two before that, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think this is a This is a different bad
Speaker 1: transition defense possession. Ant had just hit a three on
Speaker 1: the previous possession, a corner three. Look at this jogging.
Speaker 1: No one's getting matched up, and they just let Ant
Speaker 1: walk into an easy three just to hit one. It
Speaker 1: just like it doesn't make any sense to me. This
Speaker 1: is a man to man. Look look at this possession. Mando. Man,
Speaker 1: we're dribbling over his ball screen. Bradley Beal's doing this
Speaker 1: weird thing where he's like not double teaming Ant, but
Speaker 1: he's kind of like just standing in the passing lane.
Speaker 1: And uh and sorry, guys, still a little rusty on
Speaker 1: the film front. We're gonna get a little better at it.
Speaker 1: What's Roy soon Hill doing up here? They're just like
Speaker 1: basically like soft triple teaming Ant. No one communicates a
Speaker 1: Katie starts pointing through to nas Red. Now Katie decides
Speaker 1: to run through this weird triple team of aunt is
Speaker 1: there now, Jada McDaniels is going to get a wide
Speaker 1: open dunk. I watched this possession a bunch of times
Speaker 1: because I'm like, is that a zone? Look? I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out. Is that a zone? Look? I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a zone. Why would Nurkics be up
Speaker 1: top and they're following cutters through. This is just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what principles you're following here. This is
Speaker 1: just bad defense. So yeah, as you guys can see,
Speaker 1: it wasn't pretty. And so we can talk about the
Speaker 1: offensive end and getting a point guard and all those things.
Speaker 1: But until Phoenix becomes a serious basketball team in those details,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be able to win four playoff rounds.
Speaker 1: But they have the talent in house. It's just got
Speaker 1: to be something that they embrace from day one of
Speaker 1: the regular season. This team has to get a nasty streak.
Speaker 1: This team has to get a willingness to do the
Speaker 1: dirty work necessary to win basketball games. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for today. As always, I
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will
Speaker 1: be back on Friday with another Power Rankings video as
Speaker 1: well as a mailbag. I'll see you guys. Then the volume.
Speaker 1: What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really
Speaker 1: helpful for us if you guys would take a second
Speaker 1: and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
Speaker 1: a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.