Speaker 1: Welcome to the Jason timp Podcast. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your Monday, your busy
Speaker 1: Monday mornings to come hang out talk some basketball with me.
Speaker 1: I hope you all had a great weekend. UM. I
Speaker 1: really really appreciate those of you who took time out
Speaker 1: of your day the other day to review the podcast
Speaker 1: and to drop some ratings as well. If you guys
Speaker 1: have not done so yet, UM, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't have time to write something up,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take any time at all just to run
Speaker 1: in there and give it a quick rating. Um. But
Speaker 1: as usually, I appreciate you guys support. UM. I was
Speaker 1: planning on waiting to to talk to Tommy, which we
Speaker 1: were gonna do on either Tuesday or Wednesday this week,
Speaker 1: but I just had a lot of stuff on my
Speaker 1: mind this morning, so I figured why not just do
Speaker 1: three pods this week? So um uh, playing on Tommy
Speaker 1: sometime in the next couple of days, and then at
Speaker 1: the end of the week, I'm hoping to have Rage
Speaker 1: on you guys know unwritten rules. I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: have him on to talk some Lakers stuff later in
Speaker 1: the week, but today, I want to talk about last
Speaker 1: night's Laker Nugget game to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: my takeaway is a little bit about the A D
Speaker 1: situation and a little bit about what the next few
Speaker 1: months are gonna look like for that team. Uh, And
Speaker 1: then I want to talk about what the league landscape
Speaker 1: looks like in terms of the contenders. I think it's
Speaker 1: really really interesting how things have shaken out over the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks in terms of the teams that
Speaker 1: have a realistic chance to win the championship and kind
Speaker 1: of how that what we need to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on in the coming months, especially as far as those
Speaker 1: matchups concerned. And then lastly, I had some thoughts on
Speaker 1: you know, one of the big themes from last night
Speaker 1: was discussion about, you know, just the way that basketball
Speaker 1: has changed over the last few decades, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know what it means for the league moving forward, especially
Speaker 1: as it especially as as it pertains to the palatability
Speaker 1: of the sport, like how much fun it is to
Speaker 1: actually watch the game. Um. So we'll get to all
Speaker 1: of those things at some point. As far as the
Speaker 1: Lakers Nuggets go, last night is a classic throwaway game.
Speaker 1: I talked about this all the time. You know, as
Speaker 1: far as the regular season goes, you know, even on
Speaker 1: a good day, when both teams are healthy and both
Speaker 1: teams are trying hard, there are only so many things
Speaker 1: you can take away because there's so much random stuff
Speaker 1: that can happen in a regular season, whether it's a
Speaker 1: road trip affecting a team, or you know, one guy
Speaker 1: is in a particular slump or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: You know, a playoff series has the length that allows
Speaker 1: that stuff to kind of flush out, whereas in a
Speaker 1: random regular season matchup there can be all sorts of noise.
Speaker 1: A great example of that is the Bucks last year
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee beating the Lakers, especially like just jumping on
Speaker 1: them in the first half, Yannice making like five threes.
Speaker 1: That's not something you can really depend on in a
Speaker 1: playoff series. But in the regular season you also have
Speaker 1: these like complete throwaway games. You know, one team just
Speaker 1: brings a trash effort, so it's clear that they're just
Speaker 1: not in it the way the other team is. You know,
Speaker 1: there's injuries that can play a role. There's so many
Speaker 1: different things that can happen in a random regular season
Speaker 1: game that kind of make the result pointless. And last
Speaker 1: night's game was a great example of that. You know,
Speaker 1: the Lakers come out early, the uh, they're playing really
Speaker 1: really well. There, it looks like it's gonna be some
Speaker 1: sort of meaningful game. A D gets hurt, you know,
Speaker 1: when a D gets hurt, there down five, and the
Speaker 1: wind just gets taken out of the sales and for
Speaker 1: the rest of the game, they don't even look like
Speaker 1: the Lakers. They're not flying around in the rotations, they're
Speaker 1: not playing hard anymore. It just kind of looked like
Speaker 1: they let go of the rope. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's super uncommon. I mean, at that point they
Speaker 1: didn't know what was going on with a D. You
Speaker 1: have to understand, like at that point, a D is
Speaker 1: limping off, you know, after he takes the free throws,
Speaker 1: the Nuggets in bound the ball and go the other way,
Speaker 1: and literally they have to take a foul because a
Speaker 1: D is not moving from the free throw line. Like
Speaker 1: it's a little freaky, you know. And you know, now
Speaker 1: we we find out after the fact that a D
Speaker 1: is probably okay. I mean, we're gonna see the results
Speaker 1: later today. Um. The reason why I didn't wait for
Speaker 1: the results to record this is. I kind of don't
Speaker 1: think it makes much of a difference if it's if
Speaker 1: it's really a strain, meaning like the tendon got stretched,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a couple of months off. Right. If
Speaker 1: it's not a strain and it's just the normal tendonosis stuff,
Speaker 1: he's still gonna have to take a couple of months off. Like,
Speaker 1: no matter what comes out of this mr I results
Speaker 1: short of a partial tear, which hopefully that's not the case.
Speaker 1: But whatever comes out of this m r I, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to rest him for a while. So more
Speaker 1: or less, it's gonna be the same issue for the
Speaker 1: Lakers regardless of what happens. But I think it's important
Speaker 1: to look at a d as a whole coming into
Speaker 1: this injury and realize what's kind of going on with him.
Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me a little bit of Lebron
Speaker 1: in the two thousand fifteen season. If you remember, he
Speaker 1: goes on this weird Pesketerian diet over the summer. He's
Speaker 1: dropped a bunch of weight. He's down to like two
Speaker 1: forty or something, and in the interviews he's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm quicker, you know. The league's in trouble. I'm quicker,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be great. And then he comes into
Speaker 1: the season and it's very clear that even though he's
Speaker 1: lost some weight, he's nowhere near his athletic as he
Speaker 1: used to be. He's not able to bully people anymore.
Speaker 1: Then he's got this back spasm stuff and he's barely
Speaker 1: getting off the ground when he jumps. It just looks
Speaker 1: like something's wrong. And he was twenty nine years old,
Speaker 1: like it was. It was ridiculous for him to look
Speaker 1: that way. And uh So then one ends up happening
Speaker 1: is he takes a couple of weeks off and uh
Speaker 1: just kind of focuses on rebuilding his strength, and then
Speaker 1: he comes back and looks more or less like the
Speaker 1: old Lebron and and that at that at some point
Speaker 1: you just got to acknowledge that it's not you're not
Speaker 1: playing very well and it's time to get healthy. And
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of where we're at with a
Speaker 1: D because if you look at it, you know, Tim
Speaker 1: Crantis was talking about this this morning and his little,
Speaker 1: uh film breakdown he was doing on Twitter, But you know,
Speaker 1: I noticed the same thing last night, Like a D
Speaker 1: is just not very good right now. Like it's forget
Speaker 1: about like him going down with injury. Before the injury,
Speaker 1: and and in the several games leading up to this,
Speaker 1: like he'll have some games where he's putting up big
Speaker 1: numbers just by getting some offensive rebound put backs and
Speaker 1: finishing a bunch of stuff around the rim. But this
Speaker 1: is not the same guy that we saw in the bubble.
Speaker 1: He can't shoot anymore, or at least nowhere near as
Speaker 1: well as he used to, nowhere near as confidently as
Speaker 1: he used to. He's not very quick, he's not beating
Speaker 1: people off the dribble. He's just having a bad year.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's his fault. I think it
Speaker 1: is health related. But let's acknowledge what it is. A
Speaker 1: d went from being you know, the second or third
Speaker 1: best player in basketball, you know, coming out of the
Speaker 1: bubble last year too. Now he looks like the fifteen
Speaker 1: best player in basketball. And it's health related. So sit
Speaker 1: his ass down, let him get healthy, don't even don't
Speaker 1: even mess around with this at this point, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna absolutely need him at some point um in order
Speaker 1: to have any chance of winning the title. And I
Speaker 1: talked about this that this morning. But you know, of
Speaker 1: all of the teams, we're gonna talk about this in
Speaker 1: a minute too, with the contenders, of all of the
Speaker 1: teams that are in contention for a championship, none of
Speaker 1: them are capable of withstanding and injury to one of
Speaker 1: their core star players. That's just the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: You just can't. The league is too talented. I mean
Speaker 1: I I used the two thousand nineteen Warriors as an example.
Speaker 1: That's the most talent that has ever been put together
Speaker 1: on a roster, that two thousand seventeen too, thousand nineteen Warriors,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant goes down. They can't win. You know, they
Speaker 1: get they get fortunate to catch an inferior team in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference finals. They get through, and then they
Speaker 1: steal a game late in the finals, but they that
Speaker 1: they very very easily could have lost in five. That
Speaker 1: team wasn't the same when they lost their stars. And
Speaker 1: and that's just a harsh reality of the way the
Speaker 1: league works. Health is ultimately the most important thing, and
Speaker 1: at this point all that matters is getting a d healthy,
Speaker 1: even more so than the seating and and the Lakers
Speaker 1: kind of have a luxury here because of their home
Speaker 1: court advantage situation. I talked about this last night. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think people are fully aware of how quickly
Speaker 1: the whole you know, optics surrounding coronavirus are about to
Speaker 1: change because the way that this vaccination plan goes down.
Speaker 1: You know, you might think, uh, it's gonna take forever
Speaker 1: for the world to get vaccinated. That's true, it's gonna
Speaker 1: take like a year for the entire world to get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: But they're gonna vaccinate all of the elderly people, all
Speaker 1: of the people with chronic health conditions first. So realistically,
Speaker 1: within the next like month or two, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: death rates fall to almost zero. They're gonna plummet way way, way,
Speaker 1: way way down. We're only seeing a handful of deaths
Speaker 1: out of each state every couple of weeks. That's that's
Speaker 1: my prediction based on just common sense having to do
Speaker 1: with vaccinating all of the people that COVID has been
Speaker 1: killing over the last few months. So as a result
Speaker 1: of that, when the case numbers dip way down, case
Speaker 1: numbers already down like six for whatever from what they
Speaker 1: were a month ago, deaths are gonna start falling down.
Speaker 1: You know, who's gonna be the first to jump on that.
Speaker 1: Rich guys. Rich guys are gonna jump on that. So
Speaker 1: all of these dudes who own these NBA teams, they're
Speaker 1: gonna put fans and stadiums, So you're gonna see I
Speaker 1: would bet that all twenty playoff teams are gonna have
Speaker 1: some form of crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if some
Speaker 1: of the more conservative conservative states attempts to really pack
Speaker 1: the stadiums. It's gonna be like a home crowd type
Speaker 1: of environment all the way around the country come playoff time.
Speaker 1: The Lakers have the best ability to capitalize on that
Speaker 1: because they have fans in every road or you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, even when they get into a potential
Speaker 1: matchup with the Clippers, they're gonna have seven home games.
Speaker 1: So as much as seeding matters for other teams, and
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, seeding does matter even just within
Speaker 1: who you play in your matchups, it matters a little
Speaker 1: less to the Lakers than it does to the other
Speaker 1: teams because of their ability to capitalize on their massive
Speaker 1: fan base and the in home court advantage that they'll
Speaker 1: be able to play with throughout h throughout their playoff runs.
Speaker 1: So it just get a d healthy. You can't win
Speaker 1: without him anyway. Uh, Lebron might be able to make
Speaker 1: this happen, and we're gonna talk about that in a second.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, as long as
Speaker 1: you stay in those top four seeds in the West,
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna be going into Phoenix and there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of Laker fans there. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be going into you know, Utah, there's gonna be some
Speaker 1: Laker fans there. So it's not it's not the end
Speaker 1: of the world as it pertains to UM, as it
Speaker 1: pertains to the home court advantage situation. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about Lebron because you know, for starters. You know, if
Speaker 1: you look back historically, this is something Lebron has done
Speaker 1: like a half dozen times in his career if you
Speaker 1: look back. Okay, so you think you know, two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: he has to carry the team for an extensive stretch
Speaker 1: in a playoff run because Chris Bosh goes down with
Speaker 1: an abdominal strain. You know, two thousand thirteen and two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, you have issues with uh uh two two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, you have issues with Dayne Wade and his
Speaker 1: knee in two thousand fourteen, In particular, Dwyane Wade missed
Speaker 1: a significant chunk of the regular season. I think you
Speaker 1: missed like thirty games. So and then you fast forward,
Speaker 1: it's like, Uh, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love go down
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen. Kyrie Irving misses like a whole
Speaker 1: chunk of the season in two thousand sixteen at the
Speaker 1: start of the year because he's still recovering from the
Speaker 1: knee situation. Two thousand eighteen, Kevin Love misses I think
Speaker 1: twenty something games as a result of uh. I think
Speaker 1: he was having I can't even remember what his problem was,
Speaker 1: but I think it was I think it was lower bodies,
Speaker 1: some leg injury. But Kevin Love missed a bunch of
Speaker 1: games in two thousand eighteen, and Lebron had to carry
Speaker 1: the team for extensive stretches. So point being, Lebron has
Speaker 1: a lot of experience dealing with this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And if there's one silver lining, his team is right
Speaker 1: now as currently constructed without a D is better than
Speaker 1: some of those teams. They've got a lot of youth,
Speaker 1: they've got a lot of athleticism, They're still very good defensively.
Speaker 1: As I keep saying, everyone wants to pretend the defense
Speaker 1: is all about Anthony Davis, and he's important to that,
Speaker 1: but that's not the only reason they defend. They defend
Speaker 1: extremely well with their guards, they defend extremely well with
Speaker 1: their rotations and their focus and everything. It's it's a
Speaker 1: very good defensive team with or without a D and
Speaker 1: the numbers show that for the record. But essentially, Lebron
Speaker 1: is going to have to carry this team for a
Speaker 1: little while, for a couple of months. You know, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be roughly thirty games here where he's going to
Speaker 1: have to uh, kind of float them in the standings.
Speaker 1: That's worst case scenario of ads out for a couple
Speaker 1: of months. I mean, maybe it maybe it'll be better
Speaker 1: than that, but assuming the error on the side of
Speaker 1: caution and he misses a couple of months, Lebron is
Speaker 1: gonna have a big workload. And uh, the good news is,
Speaker 1: and I tweeted this last night, the silver lining Lebron
Speaker 1: didn't play particularly well last night. He was another guy
Speaker 1: who is kind of defensive effort slipped quite quite a
Speaker 1: bit after the the d injury. Just like everyone else's
Speaker 1: did Lebron looks amazing physically? Um? You know, in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, he was having one of his most ridiculous
Speaker 1: athletic seasons that we can remember, if you guys, if
Speaker 1: you guys think back to that point, Like he had
Speaker 1: that crazy dunk on Nurkicch that literally looked like he
Speaker 1: was back in his old Cleveland days. You know. In
Speaker 1: the playoff run, he was like throwing lobs off the
Speaker 1: glass to himself, cutting back door and doing like double
Speaker 1: pump reverse dunks and crazy stuff like that. Lebron is
Speaker 1: a ridiculous athlete. In two thousand eighteen, he goes to
Speaker 1: the Lakers and he's still athletic. He's had he had
Speaker 1: some athletic plays, but there was a discernible gap, you know,
Speaker 1: in his athleticism in two thousand nineteen and two thousand
Speaker 1: twenty compared to two thousand eighteen, he still was incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, the man one of finals MVP and was
Speaker 1: second in in m VP voting, but he didn't quite
Speaker 1: physically look the same. He was relying on a little
Speaker 1: bit more of his old main game, passing the ball
Speaker 1: extremely well, analyzing the game with his brain, you know,
Speaker 1: low post stuff. All of this like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: below the rim type of stuff, you're still getting dunks.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he completely fell off a cliff, but
Speaker 1: there was a discernible gap. Well. The last two games
Speaker 1: in particular, he's had several plays where he looks like
Speaker 1: two thou eighteen Lebron again, which is deeply confusing, but
Speaker 1: it is what it is. There's the backdoor cut against Memphis,
Speaker 1: Marcus Alt throws in the ball, he's got a tomahawk
Speaker 1: dunk that looks like the one he had in the
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen playoffs against the Raptors, you know last year.
Speaker 1: Last night, he had that play right before halftime where
Speaker 1: he's basically taken two dribbles from half court, taking off
Speaker 1: just inside the free throw line. Not only did he
Speaker 1: finish the dunk when he finished it kind of aggressively,
Speaker 1: like he probably could have gone another foot or two
Speaker 1: before he had to finish, and stretched for it like that.
Speaker 1: That's he physically looks better than he has in the
Speaker 1: last several years. And so the question becomes, can this
Speaker 1: version of Lebron this you know, eight year eighteen, thirty
Speaker 1: six year old Lebron who is somehow peaking again athletically,
Speaker 1: can he carry the load that he needs to carry
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks. And a big part of
Speaker 1: that is his jump shot, which is kind of faded
Speaker 1: again over the last couple of weeks after he shot
Speaker 1: so well to start the season. Um. But as long
Speaker 1: as he stays healthy, you know, it doesn't get banged
Speaker 1: up a little bit and lose a little bit of
Speaker 1: that that burst that he has, Lebron looks primed to
Speaker 1: be able to handle this elevated workload over the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks or or potentially next couple of months,
Speaker 1: and so that's something to be optimistic about. Um. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's gonna come down
Speaker 1: to Lebron playing like that, uh, really really good shooting
Speaker 1: because they haven't shot the ball particularly well as of late,
Speaker 1: and then getting their defensive mojo back, which for the record,
Speaker 1: they've had back at stretches second half against Memphis, they
Speaker 1: looked really good a couple of weeks ago. They looked
Speaker 1: really really good against Denver in Boston in Atlanta, so
Speaker 1: it's still there. But as long as they can kind
Speaker 1: of replicate that over the next few weeks and as
Speaker 1: long as Lebron plays pretty well and as long as
Speaker 1: they make shots, they should still hang around near the
Speaker 1: top of the standings. The Utah Jazz are still coming
Speaker 1: into a stretch here with a bunch of really tough games.
Speaker 1: The Jazz and Clippers play each other twice here in
Speaker 1: the next week. If they split, that that helps in
Speaker 1: the standings. So chances are, you know, uh, and then
Speaker 1: Paul George is having some health issues too, so chances
Speaker 1: are the Clippers and Jazz are gonna be dealing with
Speaker 1: some similar issues to what the Lakers are dealing with
Speaker 1: over the next few weeks. And nothing particularly to worry about.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna talk about the contenders in the league. Hmm.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing about this season is, like, you know,
Speaker 1: with everything that we learned about the Lakers offseason acquisitions.
Speaker 1: You know, Dennis Shooter who who Who's struggling a little
Speaker 1: bit but has been an obvious upgrade over Rondo, Montrese
Speaker 1: Harald who struggled defensively to start the season but has
Speaker 1: been playing a lot better recently defensively. And it's still
Speaker 1: one of the biggest mismatch, uh, you know, abusers that
Speaker 1: we have in the league. And with how well Lebron
Speaker 1: was playing, it was very it was very uh possible
Speaker 1: that the Lakers could have come into this season and
Speaker 1: been kind of a juggernaut just started running people over.
Speaker 1: That was always an option here, And ironically a d
Speaker 1: s struggles and his injuries have kind of leveled the
Speaker 1: playing field. And it's been interesting because we kind of
Speaker 1: came into this season thinking the Lakers would run away
Speaker 1: with it, and now by my calculations, there are six
Speaker 1: teams that are very much in this and with as
Speaker 1: poorly as a d has been playing, unless he can
Speaker 1: somehow replicate his Bubble performance by getting healthy in the
Speaker 1: next few months, it looks like the Lakers are kind
Speaker 1: of just another team in the pack right now. Um.
Speaker 1: But the other teams that have in that list are
Speaker 1: the Clippers, the Nets, the Jazz, the Suns, and the Sixers.
Speaker 1: Really quickly. Clippers, I think are more or less the
Speaker 1: same team from last year. But I think the team
Speaker 1: from last year was really good. They just had a
Speaker 1: catastrophic collapse as a result of some flaws in the
Speaker 1: way that they're constructed. Um, I personally still think those
Speaker 1: flaws are there. If you ask Clipper fans they'll disagree
Speaker 1: with you. They'll tell you that ty Lou has fixed things.
Speaker 1: They'll tell you that they're moving the ball around more.
Speaker 1: They'll tell you that they're running the triangle. They'll tell
Speaker 1: you that Nick Batoum has solved all of their basketball
Speaker 1: i Q issues as well as sergebaka Uh. To me,
Speaker 1: it's more or less the same issue at the end
Speaker 1: of these playoff games when things really bogged down. You know, um,
Speaker 1: you need to create high quality shots not just for
Speaker 1: yourself but for your teammates over a large sample. If
Speaker 1: it's four minutes to go in a game and the
Speaker 1: game is tied, it's not can I hit one turnaround jumper?
Speaker 1: It's can I create eight quality shots over the next
Speaker 1: four minutes? Can I create ten quality shots over the
Speaker 1: next four minutes? Like, you have to create a lot
Speaker 1: of quality offense, and in those situations it helps to
Speaker 1: have a good mix of guys who can create easy
Speaker 1: shots for their teammates in addition to creating isolation shots
Speaker 1: for themselves. And I just think that there are better
Speaker 1: teams than them in the league in that regard. That said,
Speaker 1: they still have all of the boxes checked outside of that,
Speaker 1: which automatically makes them a tough potential um a team
Speaker 1: that could potentially go on a run and win it all,
Speaker 1: especially considering all of the teams are flawed. The Lakers,
Speaker 1: a team that appeared flawless now having gaping flaw, which
Speaker 1: is Anthony Davis is either a shell of himself or
Speaker 1: potentially could not be available in the playoff runs. So
Speaker 1: those are that's that's the that's the flaw that levels
Speaker 1: the playing field. Moving on to Brooklyn, Uh, I've talked
Speaker 1: at length about these guys, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: wait too and I don't want to dive into it
Speaker 1: too much. But I'm more or less feel the same way.
Speaker 1: They're never gonna have a problem with scoring. That's not
Speaker 1: the issue. However, over the course of a playoff series,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone was talking about this against the Warriors.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you guard this team? How do
Speaker 1: you guard this team? You can't? Like do you can't
Speaker 1: guard any of the really, really good teams. They're gonna
Speaker 1: find a way to score. The teams that are at
Speaker 1: the top of the league. The question becomes what kind
Speaker 1: of shots are you getting? When things really bogged down
Speaker 1: and people start to wear down, that's the key difference. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one thing to try to stop Kyrie Irving,
Speaker 1: James Harden and Kevin durandt on a random Tuesday night
Speaker 1: when they come to town. You know, in a regular
Speaker 1: season where they're playing less minutes, where they're not playing
Speaker 1: as much defense, and their legs are feeling really really good. Okay,
Speaker 1: But it changes completely in a playoff series. This is
Speaker 1: what I was talking about in terms of the potential
Speaker 1: matchup against the Lakers. Right, So, if you're playing against
Speaker 1: the Lakers and you're the Brooklyn Nets, it's Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: and James Harden attacking really good perimeter defensive players for
Speaker 1: an entire series. Okay, So James Harden dealing with Alex
Speaker 1: Caruso and extensive health defense all series long. It's Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving dealing with Dennis shrewder Ball pressuring him all series long.
Speaker 1: Yes they might go off in Game one, Yes they
Speaker 1: might go off in Game two. But at a certain point,
Speaker 1: if you exclusively rely on contested pull up jump shots
Speaker 1: off the dribble, it's going to become potentially an issue
Speaker 1: over the course of a series, especially against a team
Speaker 1: like the Lakers that's not gonna give you, you know,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of trips down Broadway, especially with Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis on the floor. And so from that standpoint, and
Speaker 1: then on the other end, is you're guarding, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with a team that has a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys outside of Steph Curry that are uncomfortable creating
Speaker 1: their own shot. It's like, no, no, You're gonna be
Speaker 1: dealing with you know, Dennis shrit Or attacking uh like
Speaker 1: attacking people off switches. You're gonna be dealing with Lebron
Speaker 1: trying to bully you under the basket. You're gonna be
Speaker 1: dealing with Anthony Davis trying to bully you under the basket.
Speaker 1: They're a team that you can wear down physically, so
Speaker 1: that in Game five when the series is three to
Speaker 1: two and you know they're down by you know, five
Speaker 1: or six in the third quarter and they need to
Speaker 1: go on a run, except for Kyrie's exhausted and James
Speaker 1: Harden is exhausted, and you know, Kevin Durant's been playing
Speaker 1: center against all of these Laker bigs. It just gets
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated at that point, um and it
Speaker 1: gets a lot harder to make shots and We've all
Speaker 1: seen it so many times, guys missing contested pull up
Speaker 1: jump shots at the end of playoff games when they're really,
Speaker 1: really tired. That's just that's that's how works. And the
Speaker 1: Lakers are gonna get shots at the front of the
Speaker 1: rim consistently because they have two of the most powerful
Speaker 1: offensive interior players in the league. Um But again that
Speaker 1: the thing with the Nets is as long as Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant can resemble anything close to Anthony Davis defensively, if
Speaker 1: he can be sev of Anthony Davis defensively, they should
Speaker 1: be able to get enough stops to beat most of
Speaker 1: the teams in the league. It's more a Laker matchup
Speaker 1: that I think could be a problem with them. Philly
Speaker 1: is another team that's wired that way. A ton of
Speaker 1: ball pressure defensive players, a ton of length size under
Speaker 1: the basket to really wear them down defensively, and then
Speaker 1: a lot of physical mismatches on the other end like
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris, Joel em beat offensive attack against
Speaker 1: the lack of size that Brooklyn has could become a
Speaker 1: serious problem. U The Jazz I think are the weakest
Speaker 1: of all of the contenders. The six that I listed. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing with the Jazz is, you know, I always
Speaker 1: talk about three things that you need in order to
Speaker 1: contend for a championship. You need to be an elite
Speaker 1: defensive team, which I believe the Jazz are. You need
Speaker 1: to have offensive versatility, and then you need to have
Speaker 1: alpha's that can step to the biggest stars in the league.
Speaker 1: Those last two for me with the Jazz are a
Speaker 1: little iffy. You know. Donovan Mitchell certainly can, and we
Speaker 1: have seen him step up to Jamal Murray in a
Speaker 1: playoff series. We've seen him step up to Russell Westbrooke
Speaker 1: in a playoff series. The question becomes, can he step
Speaker 1: up to the elite tiers of stars in the entire league?
Speaker 1: Can he be in a close game, in a late
Speaker 1: playoff game against a guy like Lebron, against a guy
Speaker 1: like Kawhile Leonard, you know, against a guy like Chris
Speaker 1: Paul who has been there so many times? Can he
Speaker 1: be in those situations and can he be the better
Speaker 1: player on the floor. Yes, he can, That's why he's
Speaker 1: in the contender list with the rest of his team.
Speaker 1: But I feel less confident about him in that regard
Speaker 1: than some of the other guys. He's gonna be going against.
Speaker 1: As far as offensive versatility, I actually worry about them
Speaker 1: a little bit more in that respect, you know, because
Speaker 1: their entire offense is kind of predicated on this driving
Speaker 1: kick attack with Mitchell and with UH and Mike Conley.
Speaker 1: You know this idea that you put extensive pressure on
Speaker 1: the basket with UH pick and rolls with Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: where he's bringing some above the him gravity and you're
Speaker 1: driving um, you know, with these really aggressive dribble drive
Speaker 1: guards with con Lee and Mitchell, and then you basically
Speaker 1: get the defense and rotation and you have three really
Speaker 1: really good close out guys, you know, Like I always
Speaker 1: talking about, the best close out guys are guys who
Speaker 1: can shoot and guys who can make really quick decisions
Speaker 1: with one or two dribbles. That's why I love k
Speaker 1: Cps so much on the Lakers. You know, he's if
Speaker 1: you leave him open, he's gonna make shots. And if
Speaker 1: you close out too hard on him, he's just gonna
Speaker 1: rip through to his right hand. If the help doesn't come,
Speaker 1: he's gonna take off his left leg and he's gonna
Speaker 1: finish around the basket. And if he doesn't, if he
Speaker 1: gets cut off, he can make the next pass. Well.
Speaker 1: They do that with guys like Royce O'Neil, guys like
Speaker 1: uh Bogdanovich, guys like Joe Ingles, guys who can make
Speaker 1: really simple reads out of closeouts. So that all sounds
Speaker 1: great in theory, but it lacks some versatility. They don't
Speaker 1: have a guy that they can consistently go to in
Speaker 1: the low block to get a basket. They don't have
Speaker 1: a guy who can score from all three levels consistently.
Speaker 1: Most of it is just dribble drive from the perimeter
Speaker 1: and pick and roll or an isolation from two guards
Speaker 1: who like to get all the way to the basket
Speaker 1: or take pull up three. So there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of lacking versatility there, which makes me a little bit
Speaker 1: less confident in them as compared to some of the
Speaker 1: other teams. The Sons are a team that I'm actually
Speaker 1: feel is way more dangerous than U Ties. And to
Speaker 1: be clear, the Jazz look great in terms of the
Speaker 1: way they've been playing and Uh, the way their record
Speaker 1: is shaken out to this point in the season. I
Speaker 1: just think it's a little bit more kind of like
Speaker 1: a Milwaukee Bucks from last year. Thing They've got like
Speaker 1: a chipper shredder. Set up this this machine, this system,
Speaker 1: and they're playing so hard that teams are running into
Speaker 1: it their first time and getting their butts kicked. But
Speaker 1: it's a little bit easier to deal with when you
Speaker 1: can game plan for him several times in a row.
Speaker 1: That's what I think will be interesting to see in
Speaker 1: a playoff series. As far as the Suns go in
Speaker 1: those boxes, I just said that they need to check
Speaker 1: their top five defense in the league, okay, and recently
Speaker 1: they've been better than that. Uh. They have two alphas
Speaker 1: that can step up to most of the players in
Speaker 1: the league, like Devin Booker I think is as someone
Speaker 1: I'm a little more confident, and then Donovan Mitchell in
Speaker 1: the playoff series, and now he doesn't actually have the
Speaker 1: reps yet, but I test would tell you given how
Speaker 1: gifted he is as a three level score in his
Speaker 1: history of making big shots against big teams in the league,
Speaker 1: you know, hitting game winners against Golden State, in game
Speaker 1: winners against the Clippers. He's an extremely uh gifted alpha
Speaker 1: in that regard. And then you've got Chris Paul who
Speaker 1: can absolutely step up to the biggest stars in the league.
Speaker 1: So I've got two guys that will not be scared
Speaker 1: in these big moments. And then uh, last but not least,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of offensive versatility. They can run
Speaker 1: extensive pick and roll with Booker and extensive pick and
Speaker 1: roll with Chris Paul. They can get DeAndre and involved, Devin.
Speaker 1: Booker can play in uh in the low post against
Speaker 1: seis mispatches against cards, and he can score from there.
Speaker 1: You know, Chris Paul can just run basic action to
Speaker 1: get switched onto a big, and he can attack a
Speaker 1: big in isolation. There's a bunch of different wrinkles to
Speaker 1: their offense that don't exist for a team like uh,
Speaker 1: the Jazz in my opinion, So they could they check
Speaker 1: all those boxes. They're the ones that have you know,
Speaker 1: they scare me more than some of these other teams
Speaker 1: in the league. And then last but at least is
Speaker 1: the Sixers. So everything with the Sixers is predicated on
Speaker 1: Joe l emb He's an alpha that can step up
Speaker 1: to anybody in the league, even more so than Booker.
Speaker 1: And at the and Chris Paul like that guy has
Speaker 1: an extensive history of going toe to toe with really
Speaker 1: really good players at the end of games in addition
Speaker 1: to that, I think they even though the numbers don't
Speaker 1: necessarily say Philly is that good of a defensive team,
Speaker 1: I believe they are. I think that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of their defensive metrics have come from playing in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference against some bad teams and giving up
Speaker 1: some shots, Joel Embiad missing some games. But the reality
Speaker 1: is is that they have on paper, which should be
Speaker 1: a really difficult defense to score on, you've got this
Speaker 1: elite rim protector and Joel Embiid he's not fantastic on
Speaker 1: the perimeter, but he's okay. Ben Simmons might be the
Speaker 1: best defensive player in the league. Tobias Harris is more
Speaker 1: than okay. Matisse Thyble is like a legitimate problem. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of defensive talent on the wing that
Speaker 1: can really really be kind of oppressive in a in
Speaker 1: a playoff series. So you've got that Ben Simmons is
Speaker 1: a playmaker who can create easy shots for his teammates.
Speaker 1: But also because he's next to Embiid, you don't need
Speaker 1: him to be the most amazing isolation scoring league kind
Speaker 1: of masks that flaw for you. So on paper, they
Speaker 1: make a ton of sense, and in terms of the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference teams. They are the team that I think
Speaker 1: has a really good chance of beating the Brooklyn Nets
Speaker 1: unless they can get a really good buyout guy in
Speaker 1: the center market, which I'm not sure is going to
Speaker 1: be available. But the bottom line is, if you look
Speaker 1: at all those teams, you know, it's interesting chook out.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Lakers look like they were gonna be
Speaker 1: this runaway team. Anthony Davis's injury just completely opens everything up.
Speaker 1: And the emergence of the Suns and the Jazz as
Speaker 1: bona fide contenders has made this whole thing very interesting.
Speaker 1: I talked a lot about how seeding matters in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference because you want that one seed so you
Speaker 1: can avoid the Jazz and the Clippers in the second round. Well,
Speaker 1: it may not matter if you get the one seed
Speaker 1: and you get Phoenix, And I think Phoenix is every
Speaker 1: bit as good as Utah and UH and potentially has
Speaker 1: the the the ability to upset any of those teams
Speaker 1: that we mentioned. But the bottom line is, you uh,
Speaker 1: they all need to be healthy. Paul George needs to
Speaker 1: be healthy, like Chris, Paul needs to stay healthy. He's
Speaker 1: got a history of that kind of stuff. Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: needs to get healthy. Health is going to be the
Speaker 1: big determining fact. Even Mike Connolly for the Jazz, has
Speaker 1: been hurt a lot as of late. So you know,
Speaker 1: health is gonna end up being the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: these guys got to prioritize. All right. The last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on today was the evolution of basketball.
Speaker 1: So you know, a pole went out last night. I said,
Speaker 1: on a scale of one to ten, how much are
Speaker 1: you enjoying watching basketball this year? And I said ten
Speaker 1: because for me personally, I just love watching basketball so
Speaker 1: much that regardless of any of the surrounding circumstances, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm still having the time of my life watching it.
Speaker 1: I was extremely excited all day to watch that Nuggets
Speaker 1: Lakers game last night, even though there were no fans,
Speaker 1: you know, even though it's in a regular season, even
Speaker 1: though it didn't really you know, matter in terms of
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of things, I was extremely excited to
Speaker 1: watch that game. Now, the some of the interesting points
Speaker 1: that people brought up were, you know, the lack of
Speaker 1: fans and how it's making it so that the games
Speaker 1: are lacking energy. That the fact that the players just
Speaker 1: kind of seem like they're showing up to work rather
Speaker 1: than doing anything, uh that they really truly care about,
Speaker 1: which I also think is related to fans. And then
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that was brought up with
Speaker 1: it was the idea that the quality of basketball has
Speaker 1: has changed as a result of of the the game
Speaker 1: kind of evolving into this you know, three pointers and
Speaker 1: layups kind of thing. And you know, I think I
Speaker 1: understand that from the standpoint of like it lacks some
Speaker 1: of the you know, the dynamic nature of older forms
Speaker 1: of basketball, where each offensive possession looks different, right, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes you're running plays to get guys coming off of
Speaker 1: curls alla like Rip Hamilton's kind of thing. Sometimes you're
Speaker 1: dumping it down in the low low block to Al
Speaker 1: Jefferson and he's working on the post. You know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: there's pick and roll, you know, sometimes there's guards isolated
Speaker 1: isolating people. There's all sorts of uh, there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of like variety in the offense, and some of that
Speaker 1: variety has gone. It's true, especially with particular teams, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's fair criticism of the league. However,
Speaker 1: I do think one of the important things that is
Speaker 1: getting glossed over there is the overall skill level has
Speaker 1: improved as well. So even though there was a variety
Speaker 1: in the type of offense that you would see ten
Speaker 1: years ago, I think the overall skill level the things
Speaker 1: that basketball players are able to do with the basketball
Speaker 1: now has improved and that's kind of canceled out some
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And then, most importantly, as it pertains
Speaker 1: to what will happen with the game of basketball, everything
Speaker 1: to me, in my opinion, is about some sort of
Speaker 1: innovation and then a reaction to that innovation. Right, so
Speaker 1: this three point shooting thing is an innovation. This was
Speaker 1: you know, analytics guys watching the game and telling us like, hey,
Speaker 1: if we shoot percent from three, you know, it's actually
Speaker 1: going to come out to you know, over in effective
Speaker 1: field goal percentage. So why don't we just take a
Speaker 1: bunch of threes and it's going to eventually lead to
Speaker 1: more points per possession than we had been scoring. And
Speaker 1: that has happened. And for the record, it has worked
Speaker 1: because offensive ratings are peaking, you know, especially in the
Speaker 1: last few years. You know, offensive ratings have always hovered
Speaker 1: you know, between the low one hundreds up to like
Speaker 1: one oh eight. You know it was one of weight
Speaker 1: in the eighties, was one oh wait a few years ago,
Speaker 1: but then just suddenly recently it's gone up over one
Speaker 1: oh one ten points per one hundred possessions on average
Speaker 1: for a team, as evidence of the three point shot
Speaker 1: really starting to finally impact offense. But the flip side
Speaker 1: of that is as has happened every single time the
Speaker 1: league adjusts. Okay, So one of the big reasons why
Speaker 1: post up offense doesn't work as well as it used
Speaker 1: to is because teams have figured out how to guard
Speaker 1: post up offense. Why because ten fifteen years ago that
Speaker 1: was half of offense in the league, dumping the ball
Speaker 1: down to the low block, to your best low post
Speaker 1: player and letting him go to work, and teams just
Speaker 1: kind of figured out how to guard it. And there
Speaker 1: are still a handful of post up players in the
Speaker 1: league right now that could have success doing that. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like, the post up player was
Speaker 1: not eliminated by efficiency concerns having to do with the three.
Speaker 1: The post a player was eliminated by defenses evolving and
Speaker 1: learning how to guard post up players. What kind of
Speaker 1: physicality did the rests allow underneath the basket? How to
Speaker 1: best position your health defenders that you can prevent the
Speaker 1: guy from doing a basic little drop step move, but
Speaker 1: at the same time rotate out to shooters. All of
Speaker 1: that has led to the to the regression of post
Speaker 1: up play in the league. Well, the same thing happens
Speaker 1: with this three point shot thing. What you're gonna see
Speaker 1: is defense over the next couple of years is going
Speaker 1: to highly prioritize guarding the three point line. You're already
Speaker 1: seeing a couple of teams doing this. The Lakers are
Speaker 1: one of the best three point defense teams in the league,
Speaker 1: and they have a healthy lead in defensive rating over
Speaker 1: the rest of the league right now. It's because they
Speaker 1: are already starting to evolve. The Lakers are telling you
Speaker 1: we are going to take away the three point line,
Speaker 1: and as a result of that, it's actually leading to
Speaker 1: teams not scoring as much against them as they do
Speaker 1: against other teams in the league, And so that that's
Speaker 1: kind of the evolution. What you're gonna see is all
Speaker 1: of the teams in the league are eventually going to
Speaker 1: prioritize taking away the three point line, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: you're gonna see this massive increase in and guys driving
Speaker 1: to the basket. But the way these defenses are structured
Speaker 1: is they're taking away the paint and the three point line.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, there's gonna be this big,
Speaker 1: gaping hole in the middle of the floor for guys
Speaker 1: to get high quality shots between five and twenty feet,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna see a resurgence of mid range basketball.
Speaker 1: Mark my words, it's going to happen. This is the
Speaker 1: natural order of things. You never have to worry about
Speaker 1: it getting too far off the rails in one direction
Speaker 1: because the market will naturally correct itself back towards the middle,
Speaker 1: and so and so. Like I said, there's no reason
Speaker 1: to be too upset about it, because there's such a
Speaker 1: high skill level in the league that it's still entertaining
Speaker 1: to watch, and inevitably things are gonna progress back towards
Speaker 1: you know, uh, an offense that has more balance, because
Speaker 1: the teams that are too one dimensional in the way
Speaker 1: they attack are going to become the teams that are
Speaker 1: easiest to guard, and they're gonna become the teams that
Speaker 1: start losing, and then they're gonna have to start adjusting
Speaker 1: and and so I don't think it's a coincidence that
Speaker 1: the Lakers won last year, kind of on that type
Speaker 1: of identity, you know, going against the grain. So I'm
Speaker 1: not particularly worried about it. And most importantly, like I said,
Speaker 1: like given the circumstances with the pandemic and stuff, we're
Speaker 1: lucky to have basketball right now. So I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: not going to complain about what I'm watching. But anyway,
Speaker 1: that's all I have for today. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to quickly hop on and cover some of
Speaker 1: those topics that were on my mind. Um. I just
Speaker 1: got a text from Tommy. We're gonna be going on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: So playing on Tommy on Wednesday, and as long as
Speaker 1: I can get approval from Rods, will probably go on Friday. Um,
Speaker 1: but thank you guys so much for your support. Like
Speaker 1: I said, if you haven't done so yet, just dropped
Speaker 1: me a review, drop me a rating on the podcast.
Speaker 1: It means the world to me. It helps get this
Speaker 1: ball rolling, So I really appreciate you guys. Enjoy the
Speaker 1: rest of your week, good luck, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you later.