Speaker 1: The volume. It's Hoops Tonight presented by FanDuel. The NBA
Speaker 1: season is kicking into gear and there's no better place
Speaker 1: to get in on the action than with FanDuel. The
Speaker 1: app is safe and secure, getting your money out is
Speaker 1: super easy. You can jump into the action at any
Speaker 1: time during the game with live betting and I love
Speaker 1: building those same game parlays and Fanduels now live in Ohio,
Speaker 1: so use promo code Jason T and download the fandel
Speaker 1: app today to start making every moment more twenty one
Speaker 1: plus In select states, gambling problem called one hundred gambler
Speaker 1: or visit FanDuel dot com. Slash r g in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio. Called one
Speaker 1: next Step or text next step to five three three
Speaker 1: four two in Arizona called one eight seven eight nine
Speaker 1: seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Slash
Speaker 1: chat in Connecticut called one hundred nine with it in Indiana.
Speaker 1: Visit k S gambling help dot com in Kansas called
Speaker 1: one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in l
Speaker 1: A visit www dot m d gambling help dot org
Speaker 1: in Maryland, dial one eight seven seven eight hope and why,
Speaker 1: or text hope and Why to four six seven three
Speaker 1: six nine in New York, called one D five to
Speaker 1: two four seven zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www
Speaker 1: Dot one hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. M
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented here at the
Speaker 1: Volume Happy Wednesday, everybody. We're going to be taking a
Speaker 1: break from our mid season week to zoom in on
Speaker 1: a couple of particular games from last night. We're gonna
Speaker 1: look at the Phoenix Suns going into Golden State down
Speaker 1: four of their five starters and beating up the Warriors.
Speaker 1: The Miami Heat coming back from down five with less
Speaker 1: than a minute left to pull out a win against
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City Thunder, and we're gonna do a little bit
Speaker 1: of a deep dive into the Thunder. And then last
Speaker 1: but not least, the l A Clippers at home beating
Speaker 1: the Dallas Mavericks KWHI. Leonard was incredible in that game.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna zoom in do instant reactions to those
Speaker 1: three particular games. Then we'll get back to our mid
Speaker 1: season stuff. The rest of this week. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: doing our championship tears, just basically kind of putting the
Speaker 1: teams where I view them in terms of their ultimate
Speaker 1: goals um at this halfway point of the season. And
Speaker 1: then later this week we've got five burning questions for
Speaker 1: the second half of the season. You guys know the
Speaker 1: joke before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channels.
Speaker 1: You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at underscore or Jason Lts. You guys don't
Speaker 1: miss any show announcements. And then, for whatever reason, you
Speaker 1: guys miss one of these videos and you can't get
Speaker 1: back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts Under Hoops tonight. So this one,
Speaker 1: this Sun's blow out of the Warriors was yet another
Speaker 1: really really bizarre NBA result. This was a Phoenix Suns
Speaker 1: team that was without their starting backcourt and Devin Booker
Speaker 1: and Chris Paul, without their starting center in DeAndre Ayton,
Speaker 1: and without Cam Johnson still with the knee injury, so
Speaker 1: they're down four of their five starters. This was also
Speaker 1: a Phoenix team that had lost nine out of ten games.
Speaker 1: This was also a Phoenix team that had failed to
Speaker 1: score a hundred points in four consecutive games, and yet
Speaker 1: they went into Chase Center against the Warriors at full strength.
Speaker 1: I'll be a dealing with some stuff, but still at
Speaker 1: full strength and hung points on their head and won
Speaker 1: by double digits. Not to be clear, the Warriors are
Speaker 1: also dealing with some struggles. They've lost three straight, their
Speaker 1: defense is not very good right now, and they're reincorporating
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, reincorporating Andrew Wiggins, and incorporating for the first
Speaker 1: time really this week, Andrea Gudala. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: all that in a little bit. But no matter what,
Speaker 1: there's no reason in the world why that Warrior's team,
Speaker 1: under any of those circumstances should have lost to the Suns.
Speaker 1: But what did I tell you guys after Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: hung one fifty on the Celtics and kick their ass
Speaker 1: without Shay Gil just Alexander, What did I tell you
Speaker 1: guys after Charlotte went into Milwaukee and smacked the Milwaukee
Speaker 1: Bucks the other night? I said, this just happens a
Speaker 1: lot this time of year. Like I said, the initial
Speaker 1: excitement of the NBA season has passed and the standings
Speaker 1: are all jumbled, so everyone's kind of still in striking distance.
Speaker 1: There's no real like uh insurmountable standings hole. And you
Speaker 1: know we're not to that March April time where teams
Speaker 1: really pick up steam before we had into the playoffs. Right,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, in my opinion, it's right after the All
Speaker 1: Star Eight that things really pick up steam. So from
Speaker 1: about mid December to about mid February, that two month period,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna see a lot of really strange basketball
Speaker 1: results because you're going to see really uneven effort. And
Speaker 1: on any given night in this MBA, with how much
Speaker 1: talent there is, if you bring a poor effort and
Speaker 1: the other team brings a good effort, you've got a
Speaker 1: good chance to lose. Phoenix came in, and you know,
Speaker 1: I will spend some time talking about the basketball of
Speaker 1: it all. On a basketball level. Phoenix came in and
Speaker 1: played with a lot of physical force. Michael Bridges and
Speaker 1: Michael Bridges and Joshua Cog in particular were applying a
Speaker 1: ton of ball pressure and they made Steph feel really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and obviously he wasn't in shape or in rhythm
Speaker 1: to really handle it. Micail Bridges, Tory Craig Bismack, beyond Bo,
Speaker 1: Darios Arch and Jack Landale absolutely destroyed the Warriors on
Speaker 1: the glass. They out rebounded them fifty seven to forty five.
Speaker 1: They had nineteen offensive rebounds that led to twenty five
Speaker 1: second chance points, and they were flying around the rim
Speaker 1: blocking seven shots. And on the offensive end, three guys
Speaker 1: in particular for the Sun's really stepped up into those
Speaker 1: creator roles and played really well and confidently. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, the Warriors weren't defending, but we'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But Kail Bridges put up twenty
Speaker 1: six points and five assists. Wayne Washington came in and
Speaker 1: provided that all important pull up shooting that is, you know,
Speaker 1: like I always say, so important to beat specific NBA coverages.
Speaker 1: He had twenty one points and five assists. And then
Speaker 1: Damian Lee only made three shots, but it was just
Speaker 1: downhill all night long, drawing fouls. They He was fourteen
Speaker 1: for fourteen from the free throw line, finished with twenty
Speaker 1: two points on only three made field goals. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: so that was enough for them on the offensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. And then you know, Steph was clearly
Speaker 1: out of rhythm and out of shape. That's to be expected, guys,
Speaker 1: like I could have told you, and I'm sure most
Speaker 1: of you Warriors fans would admit that you probably didn't
Speaker 1: expect Steph to play well last night. Almost every single
Speaker 1: player in NBA history, whether it's Lebron, whether it's Steph,
Speaker 1: whether it's Kobe, they all are rhythm players. They need
Speaker 1: to get lift on their jump shots, they need to
Speaker 1: have feel on their finishes around the rim, and on
Speaker 1: their pull up jump shots, and and all of that
Speaker 1: is takes rhythm and reps to get your legs underneath
Speaker 1: you and to tune in that handle in that jumper. Really,
Speaker 1: in my time watching basketball, the only player that I've
Speaker 1: ever seen that seems immune to rhythm stuff is Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: And he's just a really weird, uh you know, kind
Speaker 1: of exception that almost proves the rule. Like it was
Speaker 1: bizarre to me that he was able to step into
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game after being out all that time
Speaker 1: with a cash strain and then just walk in and
Speaker 1: I think he had like eleven points in the first
Speaker 1: quarter before he tore his achilles like and was just
Speaker 1: hitting everything, you know, and then you know, you he'll go,
Speaker 1: you know, two months without playing with a knee injury
Speaker 1: or one month without playing with with the knee injury,
Speaker 1: with this recent mcl scare, he'll come back in his
Speaker 1: first game and he'll shoot well. But that's like he's
Speaker 1: the alien and when it comes to rhythm, every other
Speaker 1: one of the greatest players of all time has that issue.
Speaker 1: That's to be expected. Then there's also the reincorporating um element,
Speaker 1: like getting Andrew Wiggins in. Like Andrew was hunting his
Speaker 1: shot in that first half. He was taking a lot
Speaker 1: of bad shots, but it's because he's just trying to
Speaker 1: get his rhythm back. So if you got Steph taken
Speaker 1: twenty two shots trying to get his rhythm back, Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins I think took sixteen, he's trying to get his
Speaker 1: rhythm back. That kind of disrupts the offensive flow. An
Speaker 1: offensive flow that the Warriors had with Jordan Pool and
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson being the primary shot creators, So that obviously
Speaker 1: was going to throw a big wrench into their offensive organization.
Speaker 1: They looked really clunky. There was a stretch there in
Speaker 1: the second quarter where the Warriors like bobbled the ball
Speaker 1: just out of bounds or to the other team. I
Speaker 1: think on three different occasions in the second quarter, just
Speaker 1: giving you know, just clunky giving the ball away. That's
Speaker 1: all you really need to get an upset like this.
Speaker 1: Them playing as hard as they can, killing you on
Speaker 1: the glass. A couple of guys get hot offensively, you're
Speaker 1: sloppy offensively because you're reincorporating guys. That's what you get.
Speaker 1: The Warriors defense, though, is the big driving force behind
Speaker 1: their recent lo sing streak. They've lost three in a row. Now.
Speaker 1: The Detroit Pistons are a bottom five offense, the Orlando
Speaker 1: Magic are a bottom ten offense. Now, the Sons are
Speaker 1: a top ten offense, but not with this group of players.
Speaker 1: They literally couldn't score a hundred points for a week
Speaker 1: and a half before this, and Golden State in this
Speaker 1: three game stretches, allowing a hundred and eighteen point three
Speaker 1: points per one hundred possessions. It's not a scheme issue.
Speaker 1: It's not a personnel issue. We've seen this group defend
Speaker 1: at a higher level, even just during this phase with
Speaker 1: the injuries, even without Andrew Wiggins. They just simply aren't
Speaker 1: playing hard enough. There's one guy in particular, I wanted
Speaker 1: to get on here because um he said after the end,
Speaker 1: this is Jordan Pool. Jordan Pool said after the game
Speaker 1: that the Warriors need to flip the switch, and I mean,
Speaker 1: he's right, but we're halfway through the season. Now we're
Speaker 1: halfway through the season and the Warriors are below five hundred,
Speaker 1: it's bend time for them to flip the switch. And
Speaker 1: Jordan Pool in particular has been one of the biggest
Speaker 1: links on the defensive end of the floor. Last night,
Speaker 1: his point of attack defense, both on ball and in
Speaker 1: close out situations was really bad, like embarrassingly bad, getting
Speaker 1: beat off the dribble by guys. He has no business
Speaker 1: getting beat off the dribble by. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: it's not just him. I'm just going after him because
Speaker 1: he was the one who brought it up after the game.
Speaker 1: The entire team is not bringing that requisite defensive effort.
Speaker 1: But you know, like one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: look at defensive rating, and defensive rating is not necessarily
Speaker 1: the best indicator of what a defense can do. But
Speaker 1: what defensive rating is a good indicator of is it's
Speaker 1: an average of your defensive effort over an eight two
Speaker 1: games slate. What defensive rating is is a great way
Speaker 1: for me to look at what your basketball character is
Speaker 1: as a team and if you have that top ten defense.
Speaker 1: One of the big reasons why that's such an interesting
Speaker 1: hallmark for NBA history having a top ten defense is
Speaker 1: because that shows that over the course of an eight
Speaker 1: two games slate, you proved that on a night and
Speaker 1: night out basis, you played harder, more frequently. That means
Speaker 1: you have better habits. And when you get into the postseason,
Speaker 1: when all the stakes are higher than they've been during
Speaker 1: the regular season, you fall back on your habits. We
Speaker 1: talked about that all the time, like handling adversity. We
Speaker 1: talked about that in our regular life. Like if you
Speaker 1: have a lot of adversity in your personal life. Let's
Speaker 1: just say you're to do list is exceptionally long, and
Speaker 1: you feel very behind on stuff and you're overly stressed out.
Speaker 1: What's going to determine your ability to manage that your habits.
Speaker 1: If you have good habits in terms of waking up
Speaker 1: at the same time every day, good time management, blocking
Speaker 1: off time in a way that makes sure that you
Speaker 1: keep peak productiveness, not wasting time on social media or
Speaker 1: doing nothing. If you are good with your time management,
Speaker 1: if you have good habits, then you will attack that
Speaker 1: list item by item, and eventually you will regain control
Speaker 1: of the situation. That's kind of the deal. If you're
Speaker 1: down ten on the road in Memphis in a one
Speaker 1: one series, you're it's stacked against shoot, what's the one
Speaker 1: thing that's going to get you back into that game
Speaker 1: to make it a two one lead in the series
Speaker 1: versus a one to deficit. It's going to be leaning
Speaker 1: on your defensive habits, leaning on your rebounding habits, leaning
Speaker 1: on your execution habits. That's why I pay such close
Speaker 1: attention to that stuff. The Warriors have flashed the same
Speaker 1: ceiling several times this year that they have last year.
Speaker 1: That's why I still have them as a top tier contender.
Speaker 1: It will take somebody beating them in a playoff series
Speaker 1: for me to take that off their plate, because it
Speaker 1: just hasn't been that long since the same core group
Speaker 1: of guys played that level of basketball. But what's concerning
Speaker 1: now is their habits have shifted. If they are no
Speaker 1: longer a team that consistently brings the requisite effort on
Speaker 1: the defensive end, it's inconsistent and they will need to
Speaker 1: rectify that before the end of the season. I believe
Speaker 1: they will. My guess is that Golden State finishes the
Speaker 1: season with a top ten defense because they I expect
Speaker 1: them to go on a run. I think eventually. The
Speaker 1: things that I'm saying are things that Draymond is already thinking.
Speaker 1: That Steph is already thinking that, Clay is already thinking that,
Speaker 1: Andrea Goodala is already thinking that Steve Kerr is already thinking.
Speaker 1: And I think they'll address these things, and I think
Speaker 1: they'll figure it out. But make no mistake, through half
Speaker 1: of this thing, it hasn't been good enough alright. Moving
Speaker 1: on to Oklahoma City, Miami, this is a wild finished
Speaker 1: the Thunder up one eleven to one oh six with
Speaker 1: less than a minute left. Um after Josh Kitty attacked
Speaker 1: close out through really nice bounce past to Aaron Wiggins
Speaker 1: on the baseline for dunk. Victor Oladipo runs down the
Speaker 1: floor and shoots a step back three and it goes in.
Speaker 1: Then they go down the other way. It's one eleven,
Speaker 1: one o nine. Ken Ridge Williams is posting up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor and it takes a little
Speaker 1: fade away over his right shoulder and they come up
Speaker 1: into his landing area and they draw out. They review it.
Speaker 1: I I have thoughts about the landing area thing. I
Speaker 1: think it kind of makes defense borderline impossible in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about that right now, regardless
Speaker 1: of how you feel the call stood. But then Kendrick
Speaker 1: Williams goes to the free throw line and misses both
Speaker 1: free throws. Aaron Wiggins comes fly in, gets an offensive rebound,
Speaker 1: but trips and kind of fumbles the ball right into
Speaker 1: Victor Oladipo's hands, and he goes streaking down the right sideline.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler drops everything and sprints to the rim for
Speaker 1: deep seal. This is one of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: see from big athletic fowards. You see Lebron James do
Speaker 1: this all the time. You see Anthony Davis Janice, you
Speaker 1: see a lot of these like big fast forwards do
Speaker 1: this a lot. But in transition sometimes is your best
Speaker 1: opportunity for a quick post up because the defense is
Speaker 1: not set, so you don't have help defenders digging down
Speaker 1: into your post space. Guys are still sprinting back. Everything
Speaker 1: is disheveled even when you are sprinting back. The first
Speaker 1: thing you do is sprint back to a player and
Speaker 1: then once you get matched up, then you'll get into
Speaker 1: your help side. There's like a little brief window there,
Speaker 1: like a five second window of chaos. Another thing I
Speaker 1: would refer to that to is semi transition or it's
Speaker 1: kind of like it's not like a runout dunk, but
Speaker 1: it's a runout action. Whether that's a quick runout post
Speaker 1: up or a quick runout pick and roll. It's taking
Speaker 1: advantage of that five second disheveled period between the run
Speaker 1: and out. In the half court set, and Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: ends up catching Jalen Williams deep under the basket, does
Speaker 1: a quick pivot drop step towards the baseline and pump fakes.
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams leaves his feet, goes up into his body.
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams should have just grabbed him and taken the foul,
Speaker 1: at least send him to the line and make him
Speaker 1: make two, but instead he turns his body to the
Speaker 1: side to try to avoid the foul call. So Jimmy
Speaker 1: just jumps up into his shoulder, draws the foul and
Speaker 1: makes the layout. Now it's one twelve, one eleven. After
Speaker 1: he makes the free throw, go down to the other end.
Speaker 1: Shade Gils's Alexander takes another step back jump shot when
Speaker 1: he's made several times this year to win games, and
Speaker 1: he missed it and the game was over. There's a
Speaker 1: really impressive win from Miami considering they had no Tyler Harrow,
Speaker 1: no Kyle Lowry, no bam At a Bio. So a
Speaker 1: team that already is so thin in the front court
Speaker 1: that um lost, you know, one of the most important
Speaker 1: front court physical presences. There was a whole thing with
Speaker 1: Dwayne Deadman getting into an argument with the coach and
Speaker 1: and uh, it looked like he might have been kicked
Speaker 1: out of the game. But you know, they gut it
Speaker 1: out and win with veteran players and Victor Oladipo and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler making debt or in plays at the end
Speaker 1: of the game. But I want I want to actually,
Speaker 1: because we just talked Miami last week, I want to
Speaker 1: a zoom in on Okay see for a minute, because
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked much about them this season. So
Speaker 1: I'm doing a video that I'll be recording later today
Speaker 1: that's gonna be coming out. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: coming out tonight or the next day, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: take all the thirty teams in the NBA, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: split them into tears, and uh like it'll be like
Speaker 1: the top tier contenders all the way down to the
Speaker 1: tanking teams and everything in between kind of associated with
Speaker 1: where they are in their development period, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's kind of like a process. The first phase of
Speaker 1: the development period is like the tanking period. It's like
Speaker 1: you're just terrible and you're accumulating draft assets and taking
Speaker 1: on bad contracts, doing whatever it takes to build your
Speaker 1: asset trove and try to develop young players. But then
Speaker 1: there's this other tier that's right above that that I
Speaker 1: call the young and scrappy, interesting and scrappy tier. These
Speaker 1: are teams like, you know, like the Indiana Pacers or
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz or the Oklahoma City Thunder where it's
Speaker 1: like they're kind of hovering right around five hundred. They're
Speaker 1: not obviously going to make some sort of run in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. Nobody in their front office thinks they're gonna
Speaker 1: win the championship. But what they are is a team
Speaker 1: that has a clear identity, that's forming a trajectory, that's
Speaker 1: trending in the right direction, and at some point in
Speaker 1: the future, they'll make some sort of all in trade,
Speaker 1: whether or move, whether that's signing a veteran player, getting
Speaker 1: a specific need on the roster, and that's when they'll
Speaker 1: start to view themselves as a legitimate contender. That's where
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is right now. But what's crazy is I
Speaker 1: think they're at the top of that tier and I
Speaker 1: think they're poised sooner than later to take a leap
Speaker 1: into that, you know, fringe contention tier. I think they're
Speaker 1: the next, the candidate, the best candidate to be the
Speaker 1: next like Memphis, what Memphis was last year when they
Speaker 1: made their playoff run, that young team that has a
Speaker 1: super talented roster, a bona fide star leading the way,
Speaker 1: And I want, I wanted to look at the roster because,
Speaker 1: like you know, when I when I really think about
Speaker 1: what makes a team a contending basketball team, there are
Speaker 1: specific things that I'm targeting, right, Like do they have
Speaker 1: high high end shot creation? Yes, they do. Shake gild
Speaker 1: just Alexander, he's literally one of the ten best players
Speaker 1: in the league in my opinion, or right around there,
Speaker 1: right around that ten to twelve line, right, He's a
Speaker 1: bona fide star. So check, Okay, do they have backup
Speaker 1: ball handling guys that can create a shot when s
Speaker 1: G is not on the floor. Yes, Josh Kiddy at
Speaker 1: a triple double last night eighteen points, fifteen rebounds. Tennis is.
Speaker 1: I watched him play in Summer League. It's a little
Speaker 1: funky because he can be inefficient at times. It's it's
Speaker 1: it can be a little clunky, but he can run
Speaker 1: high pick and roll, and he can generate high quality shots.
Speaker 1: He can attack close out to make high quality shots.
Speaker 1: He can do stuff on the second side. He is
Speaker 1: a perfectly fine secondary ball handler. Do they have a
Speaker 1: guy that can guard the other team's best player, Yes,
Speaker 1: Lou dort I think he's a top tier three and
Speaker 1: D player. Luca don literally said earlier this year that
Speaker 1: he's the best defensive player in the league. Kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting archetype that lu dort Is is, which is
Speaker 1: like that a little bit shorter wing, like not the
Speaker 1: six eight six nine, But he's so strong that he
Speaker 1: can defend up several positions, and that lower center of
Speaker 1: gravity with all that strength makes him really difficult to
Speaker 1: knock off of his spot, and so he's really good
Speaker 1: at disrupting the base of pull up shooters, which is
Speaker 1: what makes him such a good player. To put on
Speaker 1: the best perimeter stars in the league, you need to
Speaker 1: have modern bigs, biggs that can thrive on the offensive end,
Speaker 1: creating spacing and being able to do things with the basketball,
Speaker 1: and on the defensive end, the ability to run the
Speaker 1: floor and transition and protect the ring. They've got two
Speaker 1: of those guys that I really like, Chet Homegren and
Speaker 1: Alexei Polkaszewski. They're both stretch bigs that open things up
Speaker 1: spacing wise for shake gilas Alexander and their other guards
Speaker 1: to get downhill. They can both dribble and pass the
Speaker 1: ball really well for centers. And Chet should in theory
Speaker 1: be a top tier rim protector when he gets into
Speaker 1: the league and gets into NBA shape and and and
Speaker 1: establishes himself. So check, they've got the star, they've got
Speaker 1: the guy who can guard the star. They've got the
Speaker 1: modern bigs. What's that last box if you guys had
Speaker 1: to guess, I like having lots of athletic players with
Speaker 1: size and strength on the wing who can do dirty
Speaker 1: work for you. That's defending multiple positions and switching, that's
Speaker 1: grabbing contested rebounds on both ends. Of the floor, that's
Speaker 1: running up and down the floor in a high paced
Speaker 1: transition game. That's everything associated with the roles that take
Speaker 1: place around your stars. And the Thunder have tons of
Speaker 1: these guys, not just lu Dort. They got Jalen Williams.
Speaker 1: I watched him play a summer league and I was
Speaker 1: blown away with his athleticism. I was tweeting all these
Speaker 1: videos of him getting all these uh really like high
Speaker 1: level double pump underneath the rim, reverse dunks and things
Speaker 1: along those lines. He can do a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: with the basketball in his hands to putting it on
Speaker 1: the floor, knocking down jump shots. It's super interesting. Young wing.
Speaker 1: Aaron Wiggans completely functional young wing, Ken Rich Williams completely
Speaker 1: functional young wing. So as we zoom out of this,
Speaker 1: they've got all the boxes checked. Really, if I had
Speaker 1: to say one need would be another trible creator, preferably
Speaker 1: a veteran guard that could come in and run second
Speaker 1: side stuff in the occasional bench group and just provide
Speaker 1: some veteran experience when it comes to organizing players and
Speaker 1: helping them feel comfortable and confident in big environments, particularly
Speaker 1: high stakes environments in the playoffs. Guys that I'd be
Speaker 1: looking at if I were, then would be like Chris
Speaker 1: Paul or Kyle Lowry, an older guard. That's their lack
Speaker 1: of athleticism won't be a problem surrounded by the all
Speaker 1: the aggregate athleticism on the roster providing other additional shot
Speaker 1: creation and veteran presence. But if they do that, they
Speaker 1: will have an extremely well rounded roster. And when you
Speaker 1: combine that with another year of development for all these
Speaker 1: young players, bringing in chet home, going to anchor the interior,
Speaker 1: I think we could be looking up this time next
Speaker 1: year and being like, man, the Oklahoma City Thunder have
Speaker 1: the three seed right now, Like, are they gonna beat
Speaker 1: somebody in the playoffs this year? Kind of the same
Speaker 1: way we did with Memphis last year. So really exciting
Speaker 1: time to be an Oklahoma City Thunder fan. Alright, last
Speaker 1: game before we call it today, Dallas and the l
Speaker 1: A Clippers. Clippers really blew this game open in the
Speaker 1: second quarter. It was thirty five to thirty three at
Speaker 1: one point, and then suddenly you look up and the
Speaker 1: Clippers were up by twenty two. Really killed him on
Speaker 1: the offensive glass. Robert Covington played really well in this game,
Speaker 1: crashing the offensive glass and then he had like a
Speaker 1: couple of big strips on Jaden Hardy driving to the basket.
Speaker 1: Always has been a good help defender, really good at
Speaker 1: using his hands to disrupt players, particularly in the shooting pocket.
Speaker 1: He always attacks you down low rather than attacking up high,
Speaker 1: and which is another thing you can do with long arms,
Speaker 1: and arguably with the best players in the league, that's
Speaker 1: the best way to bother them because most of the
Speaker 1: best players are good at finishing over upper contests above
Speaker 1: you know, back where they're shooting and they're pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots are layups at the rim um. Norman Powell
Speaker 1: was also incredible during this run. He rescued possession with
Speaker 1: a side step three on the left wing, he had
Speaker 1: a pull up three and pick and roll at the
Speaker 1: top of the key. Then he scored a bunch of
Speaker 1: times in spot up possessions. He had a three out
Speaker 1: of the right corner um, He had a really nice
Speaker 1: close out attack on the left wing where he hit
Speaker 1: a banking floater, another closed out attack on the left
Speaker 1: wing where he got to the middle and got an
Speaker 1: and one lay up. Out of a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: eight players this year in the NBA that have logged
Speaker 1: at least a hundred spot up possessions. Norman Pals really
Speaker 1: solid forty four at one point one one points per possession,
Speaker 1: so he's roughly an upper third spot up guy that
Speaker 1: we have in the league this year. And really those
Speaker 1: numbers are convoluted by the fact that, like Norman Pale
Speaker 1: is terrible for the first ten games of the season,
Speaker 1: in his last twenty three games, Norman pal is averaging
Speaker 1: eighteen points per game on fifty percent from the field
Speaker 1: from three and eight percent from the line, So that
Speaker 1: nice little influx of talent for them. Quiet Leonard masterful night,
Speaker 1: thirty three points on twelve shots, just nine for twelve
Speaker 1: from the field. Eight of his nine makes were jumpers.
Speaker 1: You know, I tweeted this out earlier today and it
Speaker 1: always blows me away. Kevin Durant qwhile Leonard have the
Speaker 1: weirdest stat lines because they'll have like these games where
Speaker 1: will have between thirty and thirty five points on like
Speaker 1: less than fifteen shots, and then you'll look at the
Speaker 1: shot chart and they'll all be jumpers. It's kind of
Speaker 1: unbelievable the way that Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant can
Speaker 1: be that efficient on that incredibly difficult shot diet. But
Speaker 1: everything with the Clippers comes down to health. When Kawhi
Speaker 1: Leonard and Paul Georgia on the floor together this year,
Speaker 1: they are plus nine points per one hund possessions. That's great,
Speaker 1: but the problem is that those two guys have only
Speaker 1: played seven hundred and two possessions together this year, which
Speaker 1: is less than seven games worth essentially if you wanted
Speaker 1: some sort of equivalency there. So, I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: really hard to evaluate the Clippers because we can't ever
Speaker 1: see their top end because they can't keep their players
Speaker 1: on the floor long enough to build any real rhythm um.
Speaker 1: And then the Mavericks, now I've lost three out of
Speaker 1: four games because they aren't defending. They're giving up a
Speaker 1: hundred two points per one hundred possessions over this four
Speaker 1: game stretch, which is twenty nine in the league over
Speaker 1: that span. Al right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for right now. Like I said, keep an eye on
Speaker 1: the feeds. We've got our contender tears coming out, and
Speaker 1: then we also have our five burning questions for the
Speaker 1: second half of the season. As always, I appreciate your
Speaker 1: support and I'll see you guys next time. The volume