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Speaker 1: responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are
Speaker 1: having an incredible week. Well, the Red Sea parted for
Speaker 1: the Lakers to make their move up in the standings.
Speaker 1: I was watching the ESPN applicant at all of the
Speaker 1: results from the earlier games tonight. I'm seeing the Clippers
Speaker 1: kicking the shit out of the Suns, and I see
Speaker 1: the Kings drop a game in Oklahoma City against the
Speaker 1: Thunder and I'm like, oh, man, here it is. It's
Speaker 1: there to be had. And then Lebron James shows up
Speaker 1: to the game late with the flu and Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: is a no go because of a headache and nausea
Speaker 1: from an injury he suffered originally against the Warriors a
Speaker 1: little while back that he aggravated against the Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 1: and an ass kicking ensues, and the Warriors shot really well.
Speaker 1: But I also thought there was a reality of the
Speaker 1: talent difference in this game. Without Anthony Davis, I thought
Speaker 1: the Warriors would have found a way to win it anyways,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't shoot as well as they did.
Speaker 1: So now the entire fortune has been reversed in the
Speaker 1: Warriors are in the driver's seat to get that nine seat,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers are staring down back to back on
Speaker 1: the road in a single elimination games to even have
Speaker 1: a chance to get the eighth seed to maybe get
Speaker 1: a chance in the postseason. So what a reversal of
Speaker 1: fortune within a few hours there, we're gonna break down
Speaker 1: this game from the perspective of both teams, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get out of here for the night. You guys
Speaker 1: know the joefore we could started. Subscribe to a brand
Speaker 1: new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
Speaker 1: our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonnlts. You
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Speaker 1: it's also super helpful you leave a rating and a
Speaker 1: review on that front. And last, but not least, keep
Speaker 1: believing mailback questions in those YouTube comments so we can
Speaker 1: keep hitting them throughout the remainder of the host season run.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So obviously I was frustrated,
Speaker 1: but I want to credit the Golden State Warriors. I
Speaker 1: thought they've played a hell of a game. You know,
Speaker 1: there was an interview of Steve Kerr at the end
Speaker 1: of the first quarter where Chris Haines basically pointed out
Speaker 1: the obvious fact that Anthony Davis wasn't present, and Steve
Speaker 1: Kurz had something that is true, and it's something that
Speaker 1: has become more true as the NBA has made it
Speaker 1: further along in the skilled development of the league and
Speaker 1: just the absurd amount of talent in the league. Steve
Speaker 1: Kurtz right, everybody can play. And yeah, the Lakers without
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis are not as good as the Golden State Warriors,
Speaker 1: but they're still good. They sell have a lot of firepower,
Speaker 1: they still are a threat and Golden State left no
Speaker 1: doubt in this one. Again, there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about the shooting result, and it truly was confounding.
Speaker 1: Like the Warriors shot just preposterously well in this game.
Speaker 1: The shot over sixty three percent from three. Here's the
Speaker 1: dead giveaway. Draymond Green five for seven from three, Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins three for five from three, Gary Payton two for
Speaker 1: three from three. That's ten for fifteen from three from
Speaker 1: the guys. You kind of have to leave open right like,
Speaker 1: and by the way, this is part of the risk
Speaker 1: of what and why you try to avoid the play
Speaker 1: in if you can, I mean like, you can control
Speaker 1: shot result to a certain extent with your defensive effort
Speaker 1: as it pertains to the shooters, right like, you can
Speaker 1: stay more attached to Steph, stay more attached to Clay.
Speaker 1: You can do a better job at communicating switches and
Speaker 1: hedges and all the different things that you need to do.
Speaker 1: That's true. But generally speaking, to ever have a chance
Speaker 1: to guard the likes of Steph and Clay flying off
Speaker 1: of screen means you have to ignore Draymond, you have
Speaker 1: to ignore Gary Payton, you have to duck under picks
Speaker 1: on Andrew Wiggins and just offer a late contest with
Speaker 1: him and kind of hope he misses. Right. That's a
Speaker 1: that's not even a Lakers issue, that's in every defense
Speaker 1: around the league issue. If you want to stop the Warriors,
Speaker 1: you kind of have to leave those guys open, right,
Speaker 1: And in any sort of single game sample size, Yeah,
Speaker 1: over the course of careers, Wiggins and Draymond and Gary
Speaker 1: Payton are not good shooters, and more often than not
Speaker 1: that's going to work out in your favor. But in
Speaker 1: any single game sample, it is possible that they can
Speaker 1: knock down those shots, which is why the play in
Speaker 1: is such a dangerous predicament to be in. But I
Speaker 1: want to hold off on the Lakers because in their
Speaker 1: specific situation, because I want to save that for the
Speaker 1: end of the show. I have some thoughts about the
Speaker 1: real reason why they are in the situation that they're in.
Speaker 1: Within the context of this game, though, even if Wiggins
Speaker 1: had shot closer to his percentage, Let's say Wiggins goes,
Speaker 1: you know, two for five from three instead of three
Speaker 1: for five. Raymond shooting the ball, well, let's say he
Speaker 1: goes three for seven, and let's say that Gary Payton
Speaker 1: goes one for three, Okay, I still felt like anytime
Speaker 1: the Lakers made any sort of substantial run in this
Speaker 1: game to get it close to five six points, Golden
Speaker 1: State was able to immediately re engage and gain control
Speaker 1: of the situation in the half court. I honestly thought
Speaker 1: it was a lot of Warriors just kind of relaxing
Speaker 1: and making mistakes that allowed the Lakers to stay close
Speaker 1: in this game to be to begin with that, and
Speaker 1: a little bit of Lebron just being Lebron. But outside
Speaker 1: of that, like, I honestly thought the Warriors brought an
Speaker 1: incredible effort on both ends of the floor. I thought
Speaker 1: on defense they were flying around, putting length on D'Angelo
Speaker 1: Russell and making him feel uncomfortable. Extra efforts at the
Speaker 1: rim are insane. I think they have eleven blocks in
Speaker 1: this game. I'm double checking the numbers right now, but yeah,
Speaker 1: eleven twelve blocks excuse me, in three steels, So fifteen
Speaker 1: stocks in a single game. That's a huge indicator of
Speaker 1: those waves and waves of athleticism that Golden State brings
Speaker 1: to the table that I talked about so well. You know, honestly,
Speaker 1: bringing Trace Jackson Davis into the starting lineup has brought
Speaker 1: a kind of a level of physical imposition with that
Speaker 1: group that you're not familiar with seeing from Golden State,
Speaker 1: at least not in a long time. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of length on the floor. Now, Tray Jackson Davis
Speaker 1: had three blocks of his own. I thought just the
Speaker 1: story of the game though, was just dominating individual matchups
Speaker 1: up and down the roster. So, for instance, let's look
Speaker 1: at the the kind of like secondary scoring forwards, So
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins versus Ruby Hatchimura individual matchups. Wiggins is just
Speaker 1: taking Ruy off the dribble and straight iso and spinning
Speaker 1: around him and getting shots at the basket, hitting hooks
Speaker 1: over the top of him. Andrew Wiggins seventeen points on
Speaker 1: twelve shots and was flying around doing everything defensively at
Speaker 1: three blocks of his own. Ruey Hatchimura twenty points on
Speaker 1: twenty one shots, and more often than not being in
Speaker 1: the wrong place or a step late defensively. There was
Speaker 1: this just unbelievable a block from Andrew Wiggins in the
Speaker 1: first half of this game where Lebron is barreling down
Speaker 1: on the right side of the floor in transition and
Speaker 1: Wiggins was containing him and had dropped all the way
Speaker 1: back to within like six or seven feet from the rim.
Speaker 1: Lebron throws a kickout pass to Ruy Hatchramura, and Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins just dropped steps into a jump. It kind of
Speaker 1: reminded me of one of the blocks that Zion had
Speaker 1: back in the day at Duke, where he just gets
Speaker 1: so preposterously high that even though he's out of position,
Speaker 1: he's able to block a three point shot. Wiggins, who's
Speaker 1: been playing great by the way as of late, completely
Speaker 1: dominated the Ruey Hat Tramurro lineup. Also on the Rui front,
Speaker 1: this is a great example of why, like you know,
Speaker 1: I talked about this when I did the Lakers offense
Speaker 1: video yesterday, but Ruy has benefited a lot from favorable matchups.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if Lebron, James and Anthony Davis are out there,
Speaker 1: he generally speaking is getting a smaller player in better
Speaker 1: matchups throughout the course of the game. Maybe not in
Speaker 1: the starting group with the Warriors because of how much
Speaker 1: size they play in their starting group, but like for
Speaker 1: the most part, he's gonna get favorable matchups. Take Ad
Speaker 1: out of the lineup all of a sudden, your second
Speaker 1: best defensive forward instead of going to Lebron James is
Speaker 1: going to ruiyachra Mura. It's a different type of challenge, right.
Speaker 1: I thought Tray Jackson Davis, Draymond Green not exactly a
Speaker 1: leap that this would happen. But I thought they dominated
Speaker 1: Jackson Hayes. I thought Jackson Hayes looked lost most of
Speaker 1: the night committing silly fouls. He has this issue when
Speaker 1: people are barreling towards him, he has his arms out
Speaker 1: instead of up, and it just he puts himself in
Speaker 1: a situation where like there's a play where Tray Jackson
Speaker 1: Davis caught the ball on a slip to the rim,
Speaker 1: kind of dropped his shoulder to try to go through
Speaker 1: Hayes to the basket. And if he's just stands there
Speaker 1: like this, no foul. Trace has to take a tough
Speaker 1: shot over the top, probably a better chance of him missing.
Speaker 1: Instead he's got his hands out to absorb that contact.
Speaker 1: That's just a foul. I mean, like rests are generally
Speaker 1: gonna let you get away with one hand, two hands
Speaker 1: are almost always going to be called a foul. I
Speaker 1: thought Jackson Hayes was just kind of overmatched, which is
Speaker 1: to be expected. He's a bench big that had to
Speaker 1: play big minutes at the starting center position in a
Speaker 1: must win type of game. Right then at the guard position,
Speaker 1: I thought Steph like Steph obviously didn't have to do
Speaker 1: much tonight, but he was super accurate six for six
Speaker 1: from the three point line, eight assists, didn't make too
Speaker 1: many mistakes, had a very under control type of game.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of Dlo's worst games of
Speaker 1: the season, three for eleven from the field, but forget
Speaker 1: about the offensive end for a second. Delo was getting
Speaker 1: it was one of Delo's worst defensive efforts of the season.
Speaker 1: Consistently lost, not paying attention, getting back cut late, chasing
Speaker 1: guys around screens, just not making the appropriate level of
Speaker 1: defensive focus and effort that you need to be able
Speaker 1: to hold up defensively against a team that puts you
Speaker 1: in the blunder the way that Golden State can. Steph
Speaker 1: dominated that matchup. And then when we go to the bench,
Speaker 1: the Warriors bench, led by Chris Paul, Brandon pit Zemski
Speaker 1: and Gary Payton second completely and utterly dominated the Lakers bench.
Speaker 1: Spencer didn't when he hit a few shots, but they
Speaker 1: didn't get anything out of Gay Vincentareon Prince was an
Speaker 1: absolute nightmare in this one. Cam Reddish. There were some
Speaker 1: ugly cam Reddish minutes there in that first half. I
Speaker 1: don't even understand why he's in the rotation. I think
Speaker 1: Max Chrissy is just a better basketball player than him,
Speaker 1: but it it just was an ass kicking on that
Speaker 1: bench s grew. Chris Paul just continues to be super,
Speaker 1: super steady and just under control and leading execution runs
Speaker 1: for Golden State in their bench groups. He was eleven
Speaker 1: points and nine assists and was plus twenty one in
Speaker 1: just twenty five minutes. Iw that Brandon pitt Ziemski came
Speaker 1: out the gates in this game, firing hit a big
Speaker 1: three in transition along the left wing, was getting into
Speaker 1: was getting physical going towards the basket to get buckets,
Speaker 1: had a huge offensive rebound that led to a three
Speaker 1: in that second half run. He was incredible. And then
Speaker 1: Gary Payton hitting two big three point shots above the break,
Speaker 1: playing excellent defense, big block on Ruyachimura in the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter run. Really, the only actual matchups that kind of
Speaker 1: stayed relatively even for the Lakers was Lebron was really
Speaker 1: good to counter a lot of what Steph was doing.
Speaker 1: And obviously Austin Reeves and Klay Thompson kind of played
Speaker 1: each other. Clay outscored him, but Austin was really good
Speaker 1: in this one as well. They ended up more or
Speaker 1: less having similar life of impact in this game. But
Speaker 1: outside of those two matchups, it was just an absolute
Speaker 1: and total outclassic. And you know, again, I want to
Speaker 1: cut some of those Laker guys slacked because they're being
Speaker 1: slotted up into roles that they otherwise would not be
Speaker 1: in as virtue as kind of a side effect of
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis being out of the lineup, like ruy Hetch
Speaker 1: Murder is not taking twenty one shots when they go
Speaker 1: play their single elimination game up in Golden State next week,
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen, right, Like, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that got slotted up into roles that were
Speaker 1: above their pay grade. But at the same time, like
Speaker 1: got to hand it to the Warriors. They took care
Speaker 1: of business. They went in there and didn't give the
Speaker 1: Lakers any chance for the upset win without Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: playing really really good basketball here at the right time.
Speaker 1: And honestly, like I went from thinking, you know them
Speaker 1: being in that ten spot. Let's just put it this way.
Speaker 1: I right now, as someone who roots for the Lakers,
Speaker 1: feel like there's roughly a coin flip chance, if not worse,
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are just they're just not gonna get it.
Speaker 1: That's the reality of their predicament right here. And the
Speaker 1: Warriors would have been in that predicament had they lost
Speaker 1: that game. It's just a lot to ask to win
Speaker 1: back to back single elimination games on the road, and
Speaker 1: so a huge win for Golden State to get out
Speaker 1: of that situation. Now on the Lakers front, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I wasn't irritated.
Speaker 1: Of course I was irritated, Like it just was a
Speaker 1: golden opportunity for the Lakers and it fizzled up like
Speaker 1: that because of this particular injury. But here's the reality.
Speaker 1: There are certain things that are outside of your control.
Speaker 1: You know what happens sometimes in the NBA regular season,
Speaker 1: Sometimes a guy comes down on your head with an
Speaker 1: elbow and you get a little bit of a concussion
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that Anthony Davis has been dealing with.
Speaker 1: That is a thing that happens when you play basketball. Games.
Speaker 1: I have one concussion in my life came playing basketball.
Speaker 1: Was a screen that I didn't see coming, and it
Speaker 1: was weird. I didn't even get hit that hard, but
Speaker 1: it like threw me for a loop. Like that's basketball.
Speaker 1: That can happen. You know what else can happen? Sometimes
Speaker 1: by virtue of the scheme, you have to leave a
Speaker 1: bunch of non shooters open. Although a Draymond Green's been
Speaker 1: shooting the ball really well as late, Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: certainly capable, Like you leave a bunch of if he
Speaker 1: shooters open and sometimes they make all those shots. That's
Speaker 1: a real thing that happens in the NBA regular season,
Speaker 1: which is why you play eighty two games. You play
Speaker 1: eighty two games so that when your superstar gets elbowed
Speaker 1: in the head, he could afford to take a couple
Speaker 1: of nights off and it's not a big deal. It's
Speaker 1: so that if you run into a fake shooting performance
Speaker 1: or an uncharacteristic shooting performance, you can survive that and
Speaker 1: you can live to fight another day. The problem is
Speaker 1: is in the middle of this season. I was going
Speaker 1: over this in our Lakers contender rankings situation earlier. Today,
Speaker 1: the Lakers started the season fourteen and nine. They were
Speaker 1: the eighth best record in the league fifteen to nine
Speaker 1: if you count the N Season Tournament win. They were
Speaker 1: playing really good basketball since January seventh. Before tonight they
Speaker 1: were what twenty eight and fifteen, top five record in basketball,
Speaker 1: a bunch of quality wins. The Lakers have been one
Speaker 1: of the best teams in the league this year against
Speaker 1: the best teams in the league. They have been a
Speaker 1: team that has shown real ceiling there. But for a
Speaker 1: month long period right after the N Season Tournament, they
Speaker 1: went three to ten, a period in time where everybody's
Speaker 1: got blood on their hands. The players were really unfocused
Speaker 1: and brought really inconsistent effort. Darvin Ham just completely galaxy
Speaker 1: brained the entire coaching job for the Lakers this year
Speaker 1: middle of January, halfway through the season, and benched three
Speaker 1: of the three of their top five highest plaid players,
Speaker 1: the three highest paid players that aren't Lebron James and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis. Bench the ball and leaned heavily into lineups
Speaker 1: with players that would not crack the rotation for any
Speaker 1: serious player and any serious team in the league. Cam
Speaker 1: Reddish really exciting young prospect coming out of Duke. Was
Speaker 1: really impressed by his ability to slide his feet and
Speaker 1: absorbed contact. Showed some defensive potential has not manifest did
Speaker 1: at any point during his time in the NBA. Continue
Speaker 1: once again tonight, must win game ten minutes in the
Speaker 1: first half like that. That's the reality of the camera
Speaker 1: reddish experience. That was what Darvin Ham went to when
Speaker 1: push came to shove. Torian Prince once again started more
Speaker 1: games this season than he did in the previous three
Speaker 1: game the three seasons combined. That's lean. That is playing
Speaker 1: lesser players on your roster instead of the best players
Speaker 1: that are available. And again I'm not talking about is
Speaker 1: the team capable of beating Boston. They were losing to
Speaker 1: the Spurs, they were losing to Chicago, they were losing
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn. They were losing to bad teams during that
Speaker 1: stretch because they weren't playing their best players. And again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to put it all on the coach.
Speaker 1: The actual players themselves relaxed in a big way after
Speaker 1: getting the Ncason Tournament win, something I talked about literally
Speaker 1: right after they won the n Season tournament. Hope they
Speaker 1: don't relax because the problem is is the Lake are
Speaker 1: not Denver. They're not a veteran team that is so
Speaker 1: unbelievably talented that even if they give kind of inconsistent
Speaker 1: effort throughout the season, they're gonna win their fifty five
Speaker 1: to sixty games. That's not what they are. They were
Speaker 1: very firmly from the start of the season in that mix,
Speaker 1: the mix with the Clippers, the mix with the Suns,
Speaker 1: the mix with the MAVs, the mix with the Pelicans,
Speaker 1: and all of the other great teams in the Western Conference.
Speaker 1: They're all separated by just a few games. It there
Speaker 1: was very little margin for error this year. Already, even
Speaker 1: in the eighty two. Golden State's a victim of this
Speaker 1: as well, because Draymond took himself out of the lineup
Speaker 1: for a little bit with his behavior. Now they're in
Speaker 1: a play in situation, right, Like, that's the thing the
Speaker 1: Western Conference. If you're not one of the very best teams,
Speaker 1: which again it's like young athletic Minnesota, Oklahoma City, which
Speaker 1: is typical. Young athletic teams tend to dominate the regular
Speaker 1: season when they have a lot of time, and then
Speaker 1: your one veteran powerhouse at the top, everyone else is
Speaker 1: scrunched up there, and they all were neck and neck
Speaker 1: all season, and you punted a month and you went
Speaker 1: three to ten. And so as a result, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how good you were to start the season, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how good you were to end the season. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you went from beating the Calves on
Speaker 1: Saturday and being in the driver's seat to get up
Speaker 1: to the seven seed to one singular event, Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: getting hit in the face, costing you a couple of games,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, you're looking at the
Speaker 1: ten seed. That would not be your predicament if you
Speaker 1: didn't make the mistakes you made earlier in the season.
Speaker 1: And I mean, it's just frustrating because, like I legitimate,
Speaker 1: like guys, I know, I'm a fan. I will never
Speaker 1: lie to you guys about that. I'm just gonna be
Speaker 1: honest with you. I'm a fan. I root for the Lakers.
Speaker 1: Lebron's my favorite player. That that's what I root for
Speaker 1: as a fan. It's the one like remaining little like
Speaker 1: kind of like remnant of the fan experience for me.
Speaker 1: When Lebron James retires, I'm gonna be a very I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be the probably the most unbiased NBA analyst there
Speaker 1: is out there. Because I'm from Tucson, Arizona, I don't
Speaker 1: have a team. I have my players that I like
Speaker 1: and I dislike. But as an adult, growing to like
Speaker 1: players has been a different experience for me than it
Speaker 1: was when I was a kid. Lebron's the guy who
Speaker 1: got me to fall in love with basketball. I owe
Speaker 1: everything I have to the game of basketball, which I
Speaker 1: fell in love with because of Lebron James. So obviously
Speaker 1: there's a reason why I root for that specific team,
Speaker 1: but it's just like to see them in this specific
Speaker 1: situation where like, I know that I have that bias,
Speaker 1: but I truly believe this team is good when they're healthy.
Speaker 1: They've shown it's like they're like the Warriors with their posts,
Speaker 1: their second half run, except for they've been one of
Speaker 1: the best teams in the league this year against the
Speaker 1: best teams. They've held up really well on that level,
Speaker 1: which is why I had some optimism. I had them
Speaker 1: six in my contender lists. I had them six in
Speaker 1: my contender's list, and there's a better than fifty percent
Speaker 1: chance they just missed the playoffs. It's staggering incompetence staggering
Speaker 1: to me and like we all knew it in the moment,
Speaker 1: like they were seventeen and nineteen at one point this season,
Speaker 1: guys starting games with Jared Vanderbilt, Torrian Prince and Cam
Speaker 1: Reddish like it. I I can't believe it. I can't
Speaker 1: believe that this is what it's all come to for them.
Speaker 1: It's it's unfortunate too, because like Lebron's playing really good basketball,
Speaker 1: better basketball than he did last year, and like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reason to feel like this might be
Speaker 1: his last great chance and it might literally end next
Speaker 1: week on Tuesday. It's crazy. I can't believe it. But again,
Speaker 1: don't blame tonight. It's not about Wiggins and Dre and
Speaker 1: Gary Payton hitting a bunch of threes. That's not what
Speaker 1: it's about. It's not about Anthony Davis getting elbowed in
Speaker 1: the head. It's about a whole month where from the
Speaker 1: top down, no one did their jobs, and you go
Speaker 1: three and ten. The Spurs had not won a game
Speaker 1: in months. In the Lakers loss to the Spurs had
Speaker 1: not won a game in months. The Brooklyn Nets were terrible,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers were smacking them in the first half
Speaker 1: and they blew that game. Those are the ones you
Speaker 1: look at, not Oh my gosh, I can't believe Gary
Speaker 1: Payton made another wide open three. See what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm I'll get off my soapbox now. But
Speaker 1: like when it comes time, if there's no obituary here
Speaker 1: and who knows, you can't write off the Lakers. They
Speaker 1: go on the road with Lebron, James and ad and
Speaker 1: they win in Golden State, and then they go on
Speaker 1: the road and they beat Sacramento or New Orleans, whoever
Speaker 1: it is. In that seven eight game. They still have
Speaker 1: their shot. It's not over over, you know, who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe like the Lakers. If the Lakers went out and
Speaker 1: the Warriors lose that game to the Pelicans, the Lakers
Speaker 1: could get the nine seeds. So it's not like over over.
Speaker 1: But if we end up writing the obituary, let's remember
Speaker 1: where it went wrong. It didn't go wrong here. It
Speaker 1: didn't go wrong really at any point this season other
Speaker 1: than that three and ten stretch, that thirteen game stretch
Speaker 1: right after the n Season tournament when they immediately just
Speaker 1: completely fell to pieces. And I put that on the
Speaker 1: coach because like, like guys, weren't playing well. But this
Speaker 1: is the last thing I'll say about it. I said
Speaker 1: I was getting off my soapbox. I'm hopping right back
Speaker 1: on it. Basketball's hard. Sometimes you work really hard on
Speaker 1: your shot and you go to the gym and you miss,
Speaker 1: and you miss in the game. NBA talent is insane.
Speaker 1: There's all these different reasons why, like it's difficult to
Speaker 1: play basketball as a role player. I can speak to
Speaker 1: this personally because when I played in Juco, I was
Speaker 1: an All conference player, score balls in my hands a lot.
Speaker 1: Transferred to Naia all of a sudden, I was a
Speaker 1: stand in the corner shooter, guarded the other team's best
Speaker 1: player because my best the only gift I had at
Speaker 1: that level was I could defend that was a big athlete.
Speaker 1: That was what I did. And it was really hard
Speaker 1: figuring out how to play with inconsistent minutes. Not that
Speaker 1: wasn't even the coach's fault. I had inconsistent minutes because
Speaker 1: I wasn't a very good basketball player at that point
Speaker 1: in time. I started like half the season, came off
Speaker 1: the bench like half the season. Sometimes I played twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes, some games I played fifteen minutes, like it
Speaker 1: was difficult, right, Darvin Ham has been doing that to
Speaker 1: the best players on the Lakers this year. Okay, Deelo
Speaker 1: and Austin, you're both starting. Okay, Actually, Austin, you're gonna
Speaker 1: come off the bench. Never mind, Dlo, You're gonna come
Speaker 1: off the bench. Fuck it. Both of you guys are
Speaker 1: on the bench. Actually, no, you're both back in the
Speaker 1: laneup now. It's like, actually, we think Torrian's better than Ruey.
Speaker 1: Torriyan's gonna play all the minutes. Oh, never mind, Actually, Ruby,
Speaker 1: it's your turn. No, no, we're going back to Torrin. Like
Speaker 1: the ridiculous just galaxy braining and over tinkering with the
Speaker 1: rotation threw all those guys out of rhythm. We get
Speaker 1: mad as fans sometimes like oh, d Loo's inconsistent, Austin's inconsistent,
Speaker 1: Ruey's inconsistent. Their opportunities are inconsistent, and they're not getting
Speaker 1: the guy that I was fighting for minutes with when
Speaker 1: I was playing in AIA won All Conference the year
Speaker 1: before I came in and took his starting spot. He
Speaker 1: took my starting spot. We were in it, like I
Speaker 1: there was real competition there. Torrian Prince has no business
Speaker 1: taking a starting spot away from a guy like Ruya Chimura,
Speaker 1: who had half what he have four to twenty point
Speaker 1: games in the playoffs last year. He was one of
Speaker 1: their four best players. There was no reason in the
Speaker 1: world to do the things that Darvin hamming, Darvin ham
Speaker 1: was doing, Darvin was hamming Darvin was doing at that
Speaker 1: point in the season. All right, now I'm officially getting
Speaker 1: off of my soapbox. That's all I have for tonight, guys.
Speaker 1: We'll be back tomorrow. We're gonna do a little bit
Speaker 1: of film study and cover some of the other games
Speaker 1: from tonight's slate, and then we'll be out of there.
Speaker 1: So we'll see you guys tomorrow. Don't forget to drop
Speaker 1: some mailback questions. Probably do a mail back at the
Speaker 1: end of the show. The volume