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Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. Hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great weekend so far. Well, we
Speaker 1: had what was already a pretty bizarre NBA day around
Speaker 1: the league for Rive Week or whatever the NBA is
Speaker 1: branding it. As we had the we had Joelobiide Duck
Speaker 1: Nikole Jokic on the road at Denver again. We had
Speaker 1: the Nuggets end up in a weird dog fight with
Speaker 1: the Sixers down their three best players. We had the
Speaker 1: Clippers on a tail end of a back to back
Speaker 1: go into Boston and beat the hell out of the Celtics.
Speaker 1: And then the end of the night ended up being
Speaker 1: weirder than all of it, as we had this truly
Speaker 1: bizarre Lakers Warriors game where the Warriors come out in
Speaker 1: the third quarter and just blitz the Lakers, and then
Speaker 1: Ad goes down what looks like a bad injuries. He's
Speaker 1: limping incredibly slowly back to the locker room. Then the
Speaker 1: Lakers somehow come all the way back without Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: Then Anthony Davis returns to the game. Then we have
Speaker 1: the Lakers blow the lead right before the end of regulation,
Speaker 1: and then they do it again in double overtime. We
Speaker 1: have this weird D'Angelo Russell stretch where he turns the
Speaker 1: ball over like three times in a row and then
Speaker 1: takes a pull up transition three that gives Lakers the lead.
Speaker 1: Then on the final possession, we have Steve Kerr substitute
Speaker 1: Corey Joseph into the game in double overtime for defensive
Speaker 1: sub and then to tie it all together, we have
Speaker 1: Lebron James has been consistently criticized by some specific people
Speaker 1: that we won't mention here for not wanting to drive
Speaker 1: the basketball down the stretch of games, and he does so,
Speaker 1: gets a call, goes a line, knocks down both free throws,
Speaker 1: and wins. It so just truly bizarre. It was. I
Speaker 1: had all these different notes that I had written down,
Speaker 1: and I could go on about this game for like
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, but it's pretty late, and so I
Speaker 1: want to kind of focus on some of the big things.
Speaker 1: So what I'm gonna do instead as I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you guys my three biggest takeaways from this particular game,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: Celtics and the Clippers, and then after that, I have
Speaker 1: some thoughts regarding the scoring outbursts we've seen around the
Speaker 1: league and some of the negative energy directed towards that,
Speaker 1: which I don't understand and quite frankly, I think is
Speaker 1: just wrong and a lot of misremembering how NBA history
Speaker 1: used to look. You guys know the drill before we
Speaker 1: get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot to me. If you guys would take
Speaker 1: a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about our podcast feed. If you're more on
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Speaker 1: Don't forget about my Twitter feed at underscore JSNLT. That's
Speaker 1: where I leave the film threads most mornings, and the
Speaker 1: last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions and
Speaker 1: the YouTube comments so that we can keep hitting them
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. So my three biggest takeaways from that completely
Speaker 1: absurd Lakers Warriors game. Number one, this is why I
Speaker 1: keep saying invest in Lebron and Steph. There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, takes flying around the NBA surrounding
Speaker 1: the Lakers and the Warriors, for the record, and I
Speaker 1: think you kind of saw that in this game tonight.
Speaker 1: Both of these teams have been dealing with some stuff
Speaker 1: in playing some really inconsistent basketball, right. Like the Warriors
Speaker 1: have had a lot of knights where they've looked particularly
Speaker 1: good this year. They beat the Celtics this year, right,
Speaker 1: And like, they've also had a lot of weird circumstances
Speaker 1: between the Draymond suspension and a lot of lineup stuff
Speaker 1: going on with Steve Kerr. And then on the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: they're like the hot cold team of the NBA and
Speaker 1: they win the nd season tournament. They have all these
Speaker 1: massive wins. They beat the Clippers twice, they beat the
Speaker 1: Suns three times, and then they just look awful on
Speaker 1: other nights. They lose to a Spurs team that had
Speaker 1: like three wins all season and had lost like a
Speaker 1: dozen games in a row, and they go in and
Speaker 1: lose to the Spurs. The Brooklyn Nets lose, you know,
Speaker 1: they win like two games in a month, and then
Speaker 1: they go into LA and beat the Lakers. So it's
Speaker 1: like both of these teams kind of are dealing with
Speaker 1: seasons that look a lot like that game, where for
Speaker 1: stretches they look great and then other stretches they don't.
Speaker 1: But what I've said throughout is that at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, Lebron James and Steph Curry, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: are still, at least when you're ranking playoff players, like
Speaker 1: strictly within the aspect of the NBA playoffs, they're still
Speaker 1: in that short list of guys that can lead a
Speaker 1: team to an NBA championship. And so even though even
Speaker 1: though like I'm not in the interest of trading good
Speaker 1: players just for the sake of it, I know Jonathan
Speaker 1: Kaminge's got star potential at a lot of big moments. Again,
Speaker 1: tonight and another twenty plus. I think that's his sixth
Speaker 1: consecutive time going for twenty plus. But like, what I
Speaker 1: keep thinking is like, but that's Steph Curry and once
Speaker 1: again down the stretch of the game, while Lebron was
Speaker 1: getting these contributions from Austin Reeves with transition pushes and
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell, although he made some mistakes hitting big pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots, Anthony Davis attacking around the rib, like
Speaker 1: Steph Curry's out there trying to do everything, and he
Speaker 1: got a couple of big shots, particularly from Klay Thompson,
Speaker 1: but other than that, it was a lot of just
Speaker 1: Steph Curry having to do everything. And I keep thinking, like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to look like this. You can potentially
Speaker 1: try to reinforce. And so that's what drives that opinion.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I'm not saying I've changed my
Speaker 1: mind or anything like that as it pertains to Jonathan Kaminga,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, this is what makes it complicated. He
Speaker 1: just had forty six three and seven Steph did he
Speaker 1: was cooking Anthony Davis in switches, just absolutely barbecuing him
Speaker 1: down the stretch of that game. Now, to AD's defense,
Speaker 1: he's the little hobbled with that hip injury that he had.
Speaker 1: But even with that hip injury, he's one of the
Speaker 1: best defensive players in the world. And Steph was cooking him.
Speaker 1: So that's why I keep saying, like, oh, you have
Speaker 1: one of those guys. You can't win the title without
Speaker 1: one of those guys. So who gives a shit about
Speaker 1: some first round draft pick in a few years, You know,
Speaker 1: who gives a shit about what a guy can be
Speaker 1: when you have this right now? Like there are look
Speaker 1: at it. Look around the league and look at how
Speaker 1: many teams have absolutely no chance to win the title
Speaker 1: because they don't have one of those guys, but they
Speaker 1: have a bunch of interesting young talent. Right There are
Speaker 1: a lot of teams like that out there in the NBA.
Speaker 1: That's what makes this complicated. Same thing with Lebron, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, this team has a weird basketball character.
Speaker 1: They've gone up and down all year. But you have
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis on your team. That that
Speaker 1: is such an incredible foundation within the NBA playoffs to
Speaker 1: make a playoff runt. That that is why I keep saying, like,
Speaker 1: you gotta go all in with these guys. You gotta
Speaker 1: try to make something happen. These are the unique talents
Speaker 1: that are capable of getting you to the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Speaker 1: They've won eight of them since twenty fifteen. Guys, it
Speaker 1: is two, they've won eight of them. Like like that,
Speaker 1: that is why I feel this way about these two guys.
Speaker 1: Lebron James thirty six points, twenty rebounds and twelve assists,
Speaker 1: completely absurd, the over the top shot making once again
Speaker 1: in overtime and in double overtime, just like confidently stepping
Speaker 1: into these tough pull up jump shots. There's another one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why, Like, as the Lakers have been
Speaker 1: kind of up and down all year, I've been like, hmm,
Speaker 1: Like Anthony Davis looks bat better than he has since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I know he's not making all the same
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots, but his passing is just at
Speaker 1: a complete other level from what it used to be.
Speaker 1: And so just as like an offensive folkrum, he's just
Speaker 1: so much more versatile. And then I look at Lebron
Speaker 1: James and I'm like, he's clearly better than he was
Speaker 1: last year, and he's just stepping into these jump shots
Speaker 1: was so that was a huge problem last year. Over
Speaker 1: the top shot making and the lack thereof for the
Speaker 1: Lakers was literally why they lost last year. They battled
Speaker 1: the Nuggets close every single game, and then at the end,
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic made shots when Lebron James
Speaker 1: could it and when Anthony Davis could it, and so like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something got to work out, and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about it in a minute as we talk about the Lakers.
Speaker 1: But like, the bottom line is is like I think
Speaker 1: this version of Lebron is worth investing it. And like
Speaker 1: down the stretch of that game, driving to the basket,
Speaker 1: drawing a foul, confidently going to the line and making
Speaker 1: both like he's in He's just in that type of
Speaker 1: position where he looks he looks key, eat up and
Speaker 1: ready for this type of run, and I just think
Speaker 1: that's worth investing. In My second biggest takeaway, you can
Speaker 1: see what the Lakers are supposed to look like. We've
Speaker 1: been dealing with this issue with the Lakers starting lineup
Speaker 1: forever and one of the main reasons why is I've
Speaker 1: kept saying is like, even as the offense has looked great,
Speaker 1: and the Laker offense has taken leaps and bounds over
Speaker 1: the course of the last month, which is super encouraging
Speaker 1: for their big picture potential. But what I kept saying is,
Speaker 1: you can't play Lebron or excuse me, Torrian Prince, Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves and D'angela Russell is your one, two three against
Speaker 1: serious basketball teams. And the main reason why is they're
Speaker 1: just way too slow and unathletic at those three spots.
Speaker 1: And in the very perimeter oriented league, that's vitally important
Speaker 1: that speed, in that athleticism, that power and force from
Speaker 1: the perimeter. And so one of the things I've been
Speaker 1: talking about is we've been talking about different versions of
Speaker 1: how to build a starting lineup. If you're going to
Speaker 1: play Austin Reeves and d'angela Russell, you you have to
Speaker 1: play Jared Vanderbilt. If you're going to play Torrian Prince
Speaker 1: at the three, you have to play one of your
Speaker 1: athletic guys like a Max Christy or Cam Reddish at
Speaker 1: the two, strictly because you need to have somebody to
Speaker 1: throw out of Steph Curry or out of Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: at a Shay Gilders Alexander Austin Reeves got the Steph
Speaker 1: Curry matchup before this at the beginning of this game,
Speaker 1: before Jared Vanderbilt entered, and like he was getting cooked.
Speaker 1: That's not an Austin problem, that's the lineup problem. Like
Speaker 1: Torrian would have got cooked too. Like that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Like when you're structuring these lineups. I always talk about this,
Speaker 1: like you gotta have the responsibilities of a basketball team fulfilled.
Speaker 1: On the basketball court. You have to have somebody that
Speaker 1: can guard at the point of attack. You have to
Speaker 1: have somebody that can protect the rim. You have to
Speaker 1: have somebody that can take that low man role that
Speaker 1: can help under the basket and in defensive rebounding situations.
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince was minus twenty two in this game and
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt was plus thirty. It's not that hard to
Speaker 1: figure out. Like when Jared Vanderbilt is out there next
Speaker 1: to Austin Reeves and D'Angelo Russell, there is a better
Speaker 1: fulfilling of the basketball responsibilities. Torrian Prince is a bad
Speaker 1: defensive rebounder. Jared Vanderbilt is an excellent defensive rebounder. Torrian
Speaker 1: Prince is an average point of attack defender. Jared Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: is an excellent point of attack defender Torrian Prince. His
Speaker 1: motor runs hot and cold. Jared Vanderbilt's motor is going
Speaker 1: one hundred percent one hundred percent of the time. And
Speaker 1: so just from a simple concept of lineup construction, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna play the two skill guards, you gotta play
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt, end of story. It's just what you have
Speaker 1: to do. And like it was so bizarre because like
Speaker 1: Darvin Ham has been galaxy braining the starting lineup all
Speaker 1: season long, and when this lineup was a lineup that
Speaker 1: worked at least during the regular season all year. I
Speaker 1: have concerns about that lineup in the playoffs. I've talked
Speaker 1: about them all year. But like with with this from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of the regular season, that's just the way
Speaker 1: you have to construct lineups. You know, last game, there
Speaker 1: was a run in the final couple of minutes of
Speaker 1: the first half where they went with Vanderbilt, D'Angelo Russell
Speaker 1: and Austin Reeves, and they promptly went on a run.
Speaker 1: And then they went into the second half and Darbenham
Speaker 1: didn't play them at all in the second half, like
Speaker 1: he he was out there, he watched it happen, he
Speaker 1: watched it work, and then he didn't do it. And and
Speaker 1: then in this particular game, like they go out to
Speaker 1: start the game, it's an issue. They go out to
Speaker 1: start the second half, it's a massive issue. They call
Speaker 1: a time out early second half and they stay with
Speaker 1: Torrean prints and the lead grows, Like, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I tweeted this earlier. Talked a lot about potential Laker trades.
Speaker 1: They're one of the most common refrains that is that
Speaker 1: I've come across in my conversations with people behind the
Speaker 1: scenes about the Lakers trade deadline across the board is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what if Darvin ham just plays Torrian Prince thirty
Speaker 1: minutes that anyway, Like, Torrian Prince is a good bench wing,
Speaker 1: he could shoot the ball, he's really offensively skilled. He's
Speaker 1: just not a great athlete, and so you need him
Speaker 1: playing against lower level NBA players on the perimeter. But
Speaker 1: like the like, it just doesn't matter if they trade
Speaker 1: for Jjonte Murray, if they trade for a Dorian Finney Smith,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if those guys aren't actually on the floor, Like,
Speaker 1: and that's where the issue is, Like There are better
Speaker 1: guys Ruey Hatchramura, Jared Vanderbilt. There are better players than
Speaker 1: Torrian Prince right now that are buried behind him on
Speaker 1: the bench. And so I thought tonight was just a
Speaker 1: resounding example, a fifty two point swing between those two guys.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a resounding I shouldn't say fifty
Speaker 1: two points on what was it plus thirty three to
Speaker 1: minus twenty whatever it was, but just a completely a
Speaker 1: completely flipped dynamic in the basketball game based on the
Speaker 1: diff between having a high motor athlete that can slot
Speaker 1: everybody properly. So now Austin Reeves isn't chasing Steph around,
Speaker 1: He's chasing Clay around. It just slots everything properly and
Speaker 1: makes everything make more sense. So that's my second biggest takeaway.
Speaker 1: You can see what the Lakers are supposed to look like.
Speaker 1: And that, by the way, is why I keep talking
Speaker 1: about how getting a version of Vando that is a
Speaker 1: high motor athlete that can defend on the perimeter and
Speaker 1: also be a plus offensive player is the dream outcome.
Speaker 1: That's why I keep saying, even though I like the
Speaker 1: Dejonte Murray trade idea, but that's why I prefer the
Speaker 1: Bruce Brown one. That what you're seeing Bruce Brown is
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt at the two guard position, and that having
Speaker 1: him there actually makes a Jared a Torreon Prince more
Speaker 1: feasible at the three because he'll be playing in more
Speaker 1: achievable defensive assignments. Because as a lineup, you'll still hold
Speaker 1: up better at the point of attack because of Bruce Brown,
Speaker 1: because then Torrean's offensive strengths can kind of rise to
Speaker 1: this surface. I'm not even sure I'd probably still try
Speaker 1: to play if it were. If it were up to me,
Speaker 1: I'd probably still play Ruey at the three. But my
Speaker 1: point is is like, if Darvin is just obsessed with
Speaker 1: playing Torrian Prince at the three, you gotta have some
Speaker 1: other type of athlete out there. I thought tonight was
Speaker 1: a great example of that. My third biggest takeaway you
Speaker 1: can see what the Warriors are supposed to look like.
Speaker 1: I put three things down three a list of three
Speaker 1: keys for the Warriors to look like the Warriors. Number one,
Speaker 1: Steph has to play like a superstar a lot of
Speaker 1: the time. Over the course of these struggles. Steph is
Speaker 1: not the season He's been down across the board by
Speaker 1: almost any measure, And I don't blame him necessarily for
Speaker 1: that because it's been a shit show for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term, He's playing at with a lot of
Speaker 1: young players, I'm sure, just in terms of his own
Speaker 1: belief in the team's ability success to succeed, he's had
Speaker 1: some struggles there. But like what you saw tonight, because
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Like, I know the Lakers, don't I
Speaker 1: know the Lakers have a lot of pessimism outside of
Speaker 1: the Laker fan base, but I actually think they're a
Speaker 1: really good team when they try hard. And the Warriors
Speaker 1: held up really well against them tonight and very easily
Speaker 1: could have won that game if a couple of different
Speaker 1: things go differently, And like a big part of that
Speaker 1: is just having Steph Curry playing like Steph Curry number two.
Speaker 1: They have to defend. This is something that Steve Kerr
Speaker 1: talked about in the fourth quarter interview. I tweeted about
Speaker 1: it in the third quarter, Andrew Wiggins on the ball.
Speaker 1: They switched Andrew Wiggins onto D'Angelo Russell at some point
Speaker 1: in the first half. I can't remember exactly when, but
Speaker 1: they switched him on to Dangela Russell in the first half,
Speaker 1: and he just started ball pressuring the hell out of
Speaker 1: d Lo and causing the Laker offense to stall. And
Speaker 1: then on the backside of it, Draymond Green just blowing
Speaker 1: up these roles and drives from Anthony Davis and Lebron James,
Speaker 1: and the Lakers are like something like nineteenth or twenty
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, according to Cleaning the Glass and
Speaker 1: transition defense. But they're a good half court defense. Even
Speaker 1: with their trash effort all year. There's still eleventh and
Speaker 1: half court defense this year according to Cleaning the Glass.
Speaker 1: So like, if you want to attack the Lakers, get
Speaker 1: out and run as much as you can. And when
Speaker 1: they went on that third quarter run, it was a
Speaker 1: steady diet of Wiggins and Draymond kind of defensive playmaking
Speaker 1: leading to these runout opportunities for the Warriors to avoid
Speaker 1: the Laker half court defense, because in the Laker half
Speaker 1: court defense, they had a hard time getting anything unless
Speaker 1: Steph Curry was going off. So like, again, like the Warriors,
Speaker 1: we forget a lot of times when we talk about
Speaker 1: the Warriors historically, we go we emphasize things like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the Splash Brothers, Oh it's Kevin Durant. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: the death lineup this or that They won with defense
Speaker 1: first and foremost. They were an excellent defensive team every
Speaker 1: year they won the title. The Warriors were thirtieth in
Speaker 1: defensive raiding in January before tonight. Now, obviously Draymond was
Speaker 1: out for most of that, but that's my point that
Speaker 1: has to be the driving force of this team's success
Speaker 1: is if you get stuck in the half court, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of Steph Curry facing multiple
Speaker 1: defenders and hedges and traps trying to make something happen.
Speaker 1: And he's a freaking magician and so he's going to
Speaker 1: make some stuff happen. But it's just a really difficult
Speaker 1: way to win if you're not getting out into the
Speaker 1: flow that you can get into off of your defense.
Speaker 1: And then third, you have to get offensive support for Steph.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, it was Jordan Poole, it was
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins, it was Klay Thompson, and Jordan Poole kind
Speaker 1: of fell off and then you traded him. And Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins and Klay Thompson have been really really hot and
Speaker 1: cold since the title. Wiggins mostly cold, But I thought
Speaker 1: you saw it tonight and a big part of how
Speaker 1: they were able to compete like this was getting that
Speaker 1: type of scoring support. You got twenty points each from Kaminga,
Speaker 1: from Wiggins and from Klay Thompson. And I think Johnathan
Speaker 1: Kamena kind of sliding into that Jordan Poole role as
Speaker 1: like the young guy that kind of gives them microwave
Speaker 1: scoring has gone a long way to helping them in
Speaker 1: that regard. But you have to have all three of
Speaker 1: those things to win. You have to have Steph playing
Speaker 1: like a star, you have to defend, and you have
Speaker 1: to get some kind of scoring support. You did get
Speaker 1: all three of those today and you had a good
Speaker 1: chance to beat a really good team, especially a really
Speaker 1: good team that the Warriors match up poorly with as
Speaker 1: we saw at the end of the regular season last
Speaker 1: year and in the playoffs. A couple other quick things
Speaker 1: the starting lineup. When you're in a predicament like what
Speaker 1: the Warriors are in right now, which is your a
Speaker 1: couple of games out of the play in tournament, you
Speaker 1: can't afford to bs around. So, for instance, the one
Speaker 1: of the big reasons the Warriors lost to the Kings
Speaker 1: the other night is they started the game with Dario
Speaker 1: Sarich and Kevan Looney on the floor, and I was
Speaker 1: talking with Samus FONDII from light years after that game.
Speaker 1: We did postgame show that night and that I was
Speaker 1: telling him, I'm like, that's the slowest front court for
Speaker 1: a serious basketball team that I can remember seeing in
Speaker 1: almost a decade. We gotta go way back to like
Speaker 1: old school Eastern Conference teams to try to find bitam
Speaker 1: Gasol type stuff, like you know, the Ilgauskis and goodin right, Like,
Speaker 1: you gotta go way back to find that type of
Speaker 1: slow footed front court because it just doesn't work in
Speaker 1: the modern NBA with the way teams can spread you out.
Speaker 1: And the Kings are like a five out basketball team
Speaker 1: that plays a wing at the four and a kind
Speaker 1: of more of a perimeter oriented kind of skill big
Speaker 1: and Demonici bonus and like they got ran in the
Speaker 1: first shift of both halves of that game. You can't
Speaker 1: afford to kind of spot teams points with foolishness at
Speaker 1: this point. And that's on Steve curR And to his credit,
Speaker 1: finally tonight he goes with the Wiggins cominga Draymond starting lineup, which,
Speaker 1: if to put it simply, that's your five best players.
Speaker 1: That's your five best players. How do you not start
Speaker 1: the game with your five best players. Gotta have him
Speaker 1: out there. And I think this is, in a weird way,
Speaker 1: even in a loss, a sign of a positive progression.
Speaker 1: The defense looked better for stretches tonight, even though they
Speaker 1: got cooked in other stretches. You started the right lineup,
Speaker 1: you got Steph kind of at a higher level than
Speaker 1: he's been at in a long time, and you got
Speaker 1: some offensive support off of him, not even just from
Speaker 1: coming last thing. On the Warriors, they've lost seventeen games
Speaker 1: in clutch situations. That's what the game is within five
Speaker 1: or less than five minutes left. That is the second
Speaker 1: worst mark in the NBA. That is despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Steph has been completely outrageously good in the clutch.
Speaker 1: I looked up the numbers the other day because one
Speaker 1: of the callers on the on the Light Years pod
Speaker 1: came on and was saying that Steph was struggling at
Speaker 1: the end of games. And I looked him up and
Speaker 1: he's like fifty forty ninety. It's like fifty to fifty
Speaker 1: ninety or something like that. In shooting percentages in clutch situation.
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is is you're just not getting
Speaker 1: enough support outside of Steph Curry in clutch situation. That's
Speaker 1: been one of their gest issues to this point. But yeah, again,
Speaker 1: I could go on about that game for like forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, but I think I think for right now,
Speaker 1: that's enough from that completely wild game. We know what
Speaker 1: the Warriors are supposed to look like, we know what
Speaker 1: the Lakers are supposed to look like. And man, Steph
Speaker 1: Curry and Lebron James, Like, there's a reason why I
Speaker 1: think there's an emotional attachment. There's a reason why I
Speaker 1: think so many people are like, hey, man, let's give
Speaker 1: it one more shot. And it's because they can do
Speaker 1: stuff like that. All right, Two more topics before we
Speaker 1: get out of here. Clippers Celtics. So I've kind of
Speaker 1: talked in my contender tiers and stuff about these like
Speaker 1: different archetypes of teams, right, and specifically among the contenders
Speaker 1: to me, there's two archetypes. There's the big traditional playoff teams. Right.
Speaker 1: These teams have huge front courts. They kind of like
Speaker 1: play like a rock fight style of basketball, right, Like
Speaker 1: this is your Milwaukee Bucks. This is kind of Philly
Speaker 1: kind of falls into this this mold as well. This
Speaker 1: is the Denver Nuggets, This is the Minnesota Timberwolves, this
Speaker 1: is the Los Angeles Lakers. Right, these big, bruising front
Speaker 1: lines that are built more around the traditional basketball build. Right,
Speaker 1: and then we have like these perimeter oriented teams. These
Speaker 1: are the teams that, like, they don't really have excellent
Speaker 1: rim protection, but they just have a boatload of guys
Speaker 1: that are that are you know, multi level scores, that
Speaker 1: can mix people up off the dribble, that can attack closeouts,
Speaker 1: that can play driving kick basketball. And they're typically a
Speaker 1: little more thin, and they're typically smaller, but they're typically
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot more skilled. And generally speaking, like,
Speaker 1: either team can beat the other if they exploit their advantage,
Speaker 1: if they control Like again, styles make fights, but it's
Speaker 1: whichever style wins the fight, right, Like, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: like the quickness for size, Well, if the big guy
Speaker 1: weaponizes this size more than the quick guy can weaponize
Speaker 1: his quickness, the big guy's gonna win or vice versa. Right,
Speaker 1: But like, this was an interesting example of the two
Speaker 1: top teams that I have in that perimeter oriented archet type.
Speaker 1: I did my I kind of redid my contender rankings
Speaker 1: last weekend with the Nerd Sage guys, and I had
Speaker 1: the Nuggets at won, the Celtics at two, the Bucks
Speaker 1: at three, and I had the Clippers at four. And
Speaker 1: so this is the two teams in that top four
Speaker 1: that are of that archetype competing against each other. And
Speaker 1: then again like the Clippers too, like they they've won
Speaker 1: a lot of games, but a lot of the there
Speaker 1: have been some games where like Kawi has been out
Speaker 1: for major matchups against against kind of like higher profile teams.
Speaker 1: This was a good example of an opportunity for them
Speaker 1: to add just another layer of legitimacy to their success.
Speaker 1: And it could not have come at a worse time
Speaker 1: because they just played it back to back in Toronto.
Speaker 1: The night before, I texted my buddy law Murray, who
Speaker 1: covers the Clippers for the Athletic, and I'm like, are
Speaker 1: they all playing tonight? And They're like, He told me
Speaker 1: that Paul George was coming off of kind of like
Speaker 1: an ankle issue and that he was questionable for the
Speaker 1: Toronto game and that he ended up still playing. And
Speaker 1: I was like, man, like, that's so lame that this
Speaker 1: game is going to be kind of like a little
Speaker 1: bit clouded by the back to back thing. We also
Speaker 1: have chrisps Porzingis out with the with the ankle injury,
Speaker 1: right and that for the record, that's the one big
Speaker 1: difference between the Celtics and those other kind of perimeter
Speaker 1: oriented teams is they have chrisops Porzingis. He's the one
Speaker 1: thing that kind of like changes everything about what about
Speaker 1: what that team does. It's the it's the true difference maker,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the big reasons why I have
Speaker 1: them in my top tier of contenders alongside Denver. It's
Speaker 1: not the same Boston team from years past. It's that
Speaker 1: Boston team with a legit stretch big. He's their second
Speaker 1: best on off guy on the team. And that became
Speaker 1: a big theme in this particular game the Clippers, particularly
Speaker 1: in that third quarter run. We're relentlessly attacking Al Horford
Speaker 1: in pick and roll. He's just a little too slow,
Speaker 1: just a little too small. And it's not a shot
Speaker 1: at Al Horford, it's just the phase of his career
Speaker 1: that he's in right like, and it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you how different the Celtics look when Porzingis is
Speaker 1: not out there. Just how important he is. And for
Speaker 1: the record, like that's the case with all these teams,
Speaker 1: right Like, if Denver loses one of their starters, I
Speaker 1: think that fundamentally changes their title chances in a big way.
Speaker 1: Regardless of which starter it is. Same thing goes for Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: same thing goes for Boston, same thing goes for the Clippers,
Speaker 1: the Lakers, all these teams. Nobody in this field is
Speaker 1: good enough to be able to afford losing an important player.
Speaker 1: But I thought you saw it tonight just exactly how
Speaker 1: important Chris hops Porzingis is like Al Horford actually this
Speaker 1: season that has a negative on off rating for the Celtics,
Speaker 1: And it just goes to show you the difference between
Speaker 1: those two and what they can do. First of all,
Speaker 1: Porzingis is a type of pick and pop player that
Speaker 1: actually draws attention from the defense. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of like pick and pop bigs that teams will concede
Speaker 1: jumpers too. Al Horford is one of those guys. When
Speaker 1: Al Harvard picks and pops, you just kind of lived
Speaker 1: with the results. Porzingis between his ability to actually attack
Speaker 1: mismatches in the post successfully and his skill just as
Speaker 1: a pick and pop big just kind of fundamentally changes
Speaker 1: their defense, and because of the difference in size between
Speaker 1: him and a typical perimeter player, it's going to lead
Speaker 1: to more traditional coverages, meaning they won't switch, which will
Speaker 1: force an over the top, you know, pursuit from a player.
Speaker 1: That was one of the big themes in this game
Speaker 1: was the Clippers switching stagnated a lot of the screening
Speaker 1: actions that Boston was running, which specifically baits Boston into
Speaker 1: their worst tendencies, which is when they get to that point,
Speaker 1: they have a tendency to take a lot of really
Speaker 1: tough either quick catch and shoot threes that aren't that open,
Speaker 1: or tough pull up jump shots. They lack the kind
Speaker 1: of discipline to be like they're switching. We got to
Speaker 1: find the smallest guy. We got to get rim pressure
Speaker 1: to try to get the defense into rotation so that
Speaker 1: we can play driving kick basketball, right. Porzingis because of
Speaker 1: the difference in size, you're not gonna switch that most
Speaker 1: of the time. It's gonna be more like what the
Speaker 1: Clippers were doing with the with actions that involved Horford.
Speaker 1: They're running a drop, they're they're they're chasing over the top, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's that kind of goes to show you
Speaker 1: with porzingis he just gives you the ability to make
Speaker 1: the Clippers play a different type of defense, right, But
Speaker 1: like that went a long way in this particular game,
Speaker 1: porzingis being out attacking Horford and picking Roll as much
Speaker 1: as they did the switching to stagnate Boston And then honestly, like,
Speaker 1: if you really start to get down to it, I
Speaker 1: think that the Celtics are the most talented team in
Speaker 1: the league. I think that's pretty clear. And I think
Speaker 1: the Celtics down the roster are more talented than the
Speaker 1: Clippers are. But if you look at the top guys,
Speaker 1: it's like, is Kawhi Leonard better than Jason Tatum, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just is. He just is. Is Paul George better
Speaker 1: than Jaylen Brown? Yeah? I think so. And it just
Speaker 1: goes to show you, like, especially in higher leverage environments,
Speaker 1: the top guys matter more. That's been one of the
Speaker 1: biggest problems for the Celtics over the years. It's like
Speaker 1: just Tatum runs into Steph and then kind of stalls out.
Speaker 1: Tatum runs into Jimmy Butler and then kind of stalls out.
Speaker 1: And like, specifically in a playoff environment, whoever has the
Speaker 1: best player on the floor does actually matter quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and it's one of the biggest question marks surrounding the
Speaker 1: Celtics in general. Will they have the best player in
Speaker 1: a series against the Bucks, No, they won't. Will they
Speaker 1: have the best player in a series against the Sixers? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tatum's out played Joe Ellenbiid pretty consistently. I think we
Speaker 1: can state down unequivocally. Would Jason Tatum be the best
Speaker 1: player in a series against the Miami Heat, Like, it's
Speaker 1: a toss up. Some years he out plays Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 1: some years he doesn't. Say he gets out of the
Speaker 1: conference and goes into the West. Is he the best
Speaker 1: player in a series with Denver? No? Is he the
Speaker 1: best player in a series with the Clippers? No? Is
Speaker 1: he the best player in a series with the Lakers?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Like, I think Tatum is a better
Speaker 1: regular season player than both Lebron and ad but in
Speaker 1: a playoff setting, I think you may very well take
Speaker 1: both of them, right, So, like it just goes to
Speaker 1: show you, like how that can how they can play
Speaker 1: a bigger role down the line in a game like this.
Speaker 1: It like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are just better
Speaker 1: two way basketball players than Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown,
Speaker 1: and that goes a long way towards that dynamic. The
Speaker 1: Clippers have arguably been the best team in the league
Speaker 1: after the hard and Trade, not by record, but just
Speaker 1: in terms of the amount of impressive wins that they've
Speaker 1: been putting up. This Daniel Tye signing has been a
Speaker 1: home run. Like obviously he came in as a result
Speaker 1: of an injury, but like his ability to pick and
Speaker 1: pop once again, the same kind of concept that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier involving the coverages. Like his ability to
Speaker 1: pick and pop just opens things up in terms of
Speaker 1: the driving lanes, especially with James Harden in pick and roll.
Speaker 1: But when I was watching that game today, like I thought,
Speaker 1: it was a textbook example of two teams that play
Speaker 1: a similar style. But the Clippers are disciplined and deliberate
Speaker 1: about getting the right shots in the Celtics are not. Now,
Speaker 1: before we go too negative on the Celtics, because I'm
Speaker 1: not changing my contender ranking based on this particular game.
Speaker 1: Pordingis being out is a huge dealt him to win
Speaker 1: the title. They just do. He is the difference maker
Speaker 1: between the Celtics and these other teams at the top
Speaker 1: of the league. Boston was also really sloppy. They were
Speaker 1: really sloppy and transition defense that kept getting beat down
Speaker 1: the floor. They were turning the basketball over. I thought
Speaker 1: also like it was a textbook example of a game
Speaker 1: where the scoreboard doesn't really properly reflect the difference between
Speaker 1: the two teams, because I thought the Celtics kind of
Speaker 1: lost spirit a little bit, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: when that happens, it can be a landslide. When one
Speaker 1: team is playing with confidence and another team is playing
Speaker 1: utterly without it. It can the gap can build pretty
Speaker 1: wide and then like you could play again in the
Speaker 1: confidence dynamic, can you know, flip and then it could
Speaker 1: be completely different, right, But yeah, really really interesting game.
Speaker 1: Shout with the Clippers. That was how many times have
Speaker 1: you seen teams in the NBA this year be like, oh,
Speaker 1: running back to back on the road against a really
Speaker 1: good team, ask or it, let's just go home, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just let's float through this game and get out
Speaker 1: of here. And that's not what happened. They showed up
Speaker 1: and they kicked the Celtics ass. I thought it was
Speaker 1: really impressive all right before we get out of here,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk for a minute about these scoring
Speaker 1: bursts around the NBA. So I actually watched the end
Speaker 1: of that Mavericks Hawks game last night. It was hilarious
Speaker 1: as Luca was just torching the Hawks in single coverage
Speaker 1: and the Hawks were putting forth one of the more
Speaker 1: embarrassing defensive efforts I've ever seen. And then suddenly when
Speaker 1: Luca gets into these like mid sixties, the Hawks are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're gonna play defense. So like they're sitting in
Speaker 1: a stance and they're making extra rotations and they're doing
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and I'm like, I'm like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is kind of embarrassing. Like when it came to winning
Speaker 1: the game, you weren't overly interested in competing, But now
Speaker 1: that it's about stopping Luca from getting a record, now
Speaker 1: you're all, you know, deeply invested. But it wasn't just
Speaker 1: that we had Devin Booker go for sixty plus. I
Speaker 1: saw a stat that was completely bonkers. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact number, but it was like twenty three times
Speaker 1: Devin Booker's made six threes in a game and not
Speaker 1: made a seventh, Like that's legitimately crazy, Like think about that,
Speaker 1: Like that would have been weird after the tenth time
Speaker 1: and it's up in twenty plus times. And then he
Speaker 1: ended up missing a tough pull up three at the
Speaker 1: buzzer in the loss of the Pacers. But like we
Speaker 1: also had a seventy piece from Joel embiid if what
Speaker 1: was that like a week ago or so. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. What was bothering me the most as we
Speaker 1: were watching that was everyone talking about how scoring is
Speaker 1: overinflated in the NBA, and you know, people talking about
Speaker 1: how it's bad television and all this different stuff, a
Speaker 1: lot of like negative stuff, which is weird to me
Speaker 1: because like my first instinct is to say, how about
Speaker 1: we just have some fun. It's January. It's January. We
Speaker 1: are halfway through this thing, not even halfway when you
Speaker 1: factor in the playoffs, Like can we just have some fun?
Speaker 1: Can we just sit there and enjoy it? I enjoyed
Speaker 1: watching that game last night, Like the second piece of
Speaker 1: it is so much of this, so much of this
Speaker 1: revisionist history as it pertains to what NBA basketball used
Speaker 1: to be, like drives me crazy. And I've been dealing
Speaker 1: with this my entire life, because obviously I grew up
Speaker 1: around the game, and over the years, I've played with
Speaker 1: a lot of older basketball players, you know, just you know,
Speaker 1: like just that pick up runs. I'd be chatting with
Speaker 1: them on the sideline and we'd talk NBA hoops, and
Speaker 1: a consistent thing is like, oh, these guys back then
Speaker 1: were way better, you know, the officiating was, it was
Speaker 1: more pure for the game, like the ball movement was better.
Speaker 1: That this was better, like everything used to be better,
Speaker 1: which fundamentally I just disagree with. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: have to look around very hard to find out that
Speaker 1: all professional sports are evolving in a positive way, right, Like,
Speaker 1: like do you remember what NFL offenses used to look
Speaker 1: like like fifteen years ago, and then you look at
Speaker 1: it today and the different packages they use and the
Speaker 1: different like motion concepts and shovel passes and all this,
Speaker 1: like the route concepts and all these like like like
Speaker 1: incredibly complex ways that NFL offenses can work, right, And
Speaker 1: you've got guys like Shanahan and McVeigh out there that
Speaker 1: are like trained sendentally that are transcendent offensive mines that
Speaker 1: are that are changing the game as we know it. Right,
Speaker 1: you watch Major League Baseball, and it used to be
Speaker 1: like when I got through one hundred miles an hour
Speaker 1: is a big deal. And now like every team has
Speaker 1: like four relievers that can throw one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 1: and like two of them have a nasty two seamer
Speaker 1: that dives off to the right like twelve inches and
Speaker 1: nobody can hit it, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: like like big shock, We've worked on biomechanics and we
Speaker 1: know how to pitch better now than we used to. Like,
Speaker 1: and then NBA offenses, like everything about guarding in the
Speaker 1: NBA right now is so much more difficult than it
Speaker 1: used to be. Dors Burke was doing a bit about
Speaker 1: it in the first half of the Lakers Warriors game tonight, Like,
Speaker 1: to start with, the sheer amount of offensive skill on
Speaker 1: the floor is way, way, way above what it used
Speaker 1: to be. And this is something that slowly took place,
Speaker 1: especially as a result of guys like Steph Curry and
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard in that in that mid twenty tens stretch
Speaker 1: when they were kind of like changing the way guards
Speaker 1: played between Luca or Luca. Of well, Luca's later, but
Speaker 1: like Lebron bringing in kind of heliocentric basketball. But when
Speaker 1: Lebron came into the league, he was running along the
Speaker 1: baseline off off of floppy action, which is like just
Speaker 1: running off of baseline screens as like a two guard
Speaker 1: looking for catch and shoot jump shots. That's now Luca
Speaker 1: gets drafted and it's like, here's the keys to the offense, Luca.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put two shooters in the weak side corner
Speaker 1: or in the in the two corners. We're gonna put
Speaker 1: another shooter on the weak side wing, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a rim runner for you, and we're just gonna
Speaker 1: construct an offense around around your strengths. It's just different now.
Speaker 1: It used to be that you had big, bruising power
Speaker 1: forwards that were primarily in the game just to beat
Speaker 1: the hell out of people. And now it's like Harrison
Speaker 1: Barnes plays the four. Right now, it's like Pascal Siaka
Speaker 1: plays the four. It's just different now, Jonathan Kamingez four,
Speaker 1: you're getting high powered offensive players at at least four
Speaker 1: position groups. And then now we're seeing the rise of
Speaker 1: these offensive full crime centers from the perimeter. Sa Bonus
Speaker 1: and Anthony Davis and Nicole Jokic and Joel Embiid and
Speaker 1: like it is, you know, it is just it is
Speaker 1: so much harder now. And then to top it all off,
Speaker 1: you give anybody any space these days and they're hitting
Speaker 1: a pull up jump shot. In your grill, you die
Speaker 1: on a screen for a second. The dude's rising from
Speaker 1: twenty seven feet and hitting a tough pull up jump shot.
Speaker 1: It is just objectively harder than it used to be.
Speaker 1: And then when defenses get into rotation, when one guy
Speaker 1: gets beat off the dribble, it just turns into this
Speaker 1: chaos situation and everyone can shoot. So you're trying to
Speaker 1: chase a guy off the line and you're trying to
Speaker 1: do all this stuff, like it is just hard to
Speaker 1: play defense now. So between how difficult it is to guard,
Speaker 1: between the way offenses are set up to actually accentuate
Speaker 1: your best player strengths because guess what, we're just better
Speaker 1: at it now. Well, you're better at coaching NBA offense
Speaker 1: now than we used to be. And then the last
Speaker 1: piece of it that I wanted to hit, like when
Speaker 1: it comes to these scoring totals, this is kind of
Speaker 1: what January basketball can be. Like. Sometimes I don't see
Speaker 1: dudes putting up seventy in the playoffs. Schematically, they'll take
Speaker 1: it away if a guy like look at the Lakers
Speaker 1: Warriors series last year. Look at all the defensive adjustments
Speaker 1: that took place, just simply because the Lakers were struggling
Speaker 1: to guard Steph Curry and pick and roll. Every single
Speaker 1: adjustment for both teams was like the Lakers trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to deal with Steph the Warriors trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to deal with Anthony Davis. And
Speaker 1: you're all making these adjustments, and you would never let
Speaker 1: a guy just torch you for sixty sixty five points.
Speaker 1: This is January basketball. Joel Embiid did it, wasn't it
Speaker 1: against the San Antonio Spurs. The Luca did it against
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Hawks. Devin Booker did it against one of
Speaker 1: the worst defensive teams in the league in the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1: Like a big part of this is just January hoops,
Speaker 1: like good scores going off against bad defensive teams that
Speaker 1: don't have a lot to play for, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: also happened twenty years ago. This is not a new trend.
Speaker 1: This has been a consistent theme throughout NBA history. So
Speaker 1: like to kind of put a bow on it, Like,
Speaker 1: how about when this happens, we just sit back and
Speaker 1: be basketball fans instead of trying to rewrite NBA history. Like,
Speaker 1: I have my issues with the NBA. I don't like
Speaker 1: the way it's officiated like that. I think officiating is
Speaker 1: a massive problem in the NBA. Just at the end
Speaker 1: of regulation, there were like three atrocious bad calls in
Speaker 1: that Lakers Warriors game. That Anthony Davis rebound foul is
Speaker 1: really bad. The inadvertent whistle Draymond Green clubs Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: in the face, a clear flagrant doesn't it doesn't get
Speaker 1: called for it, Like like officiating in the NBA is
Speaker 1: just a it's just it's in a domination. But like
Speaker 1: as a matter of the game, the players, the coaching,
Speaker 1: the schemes, everything's getting better. It's always getting better. So
Speaker 1: stop being the angry old man on your front porch
Speaker 1: talking about how basketball is not the same anymore. Because
Speaker 1: I promise you, if you go back fifteen years and
Speaker 1: just pick five random January games, they're gonna be ugly
Speaker 1: as all hell. Like I promise you, it wasn't utopia
Speaker 1: basketball back then. All right, I'm off my soapbox, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get out of here for tonight. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We
Speaker 1: will be back on Monday to do our power rankings
Speaker 1: and some game breakdowns. I will see you guys then,
Speaker 1: enjoy your Sunday, enjoy the title games over at the NFL.
Speaker 1: The volume