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Speaker 1: welcome to Lakers Tonight, presented by Fandel here on the volume.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Timp Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope you all
Speaker 1: had a great weekend. We are going to solemnly go
Speaker 1: over the latest example of the Lakers trying to tell
Speaker 1: us exactly who they are. We're gonna get into this,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I talked with my producers after
Speaker 1: the show the other night. I was so thankful for
Speaker 1: an opportunity to really get into the weeds of basketball,
Speaker 1: especially with the Lakers, and there's just not a lot
Speaker 1: to get into the weeds with tonight in terms of
Speaker 1: on the court, XS and Knows, because the Lakers quit,
Speaker 1: and when they quit, it no longer becomes about what's
Speaker 1: happening on the court. It becomes about a much larger issue.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get into that um just for the
Speaker 1: sake of having some sort of palate cleanser. At the
Speaker 1: end of the show tonight, I am gonna go around
Speaker 1: the league really quickly, touch on that Warriors MAVs games,
Speaker 1: the couple of interesting things that I saw in that game,
Speaker 1: will talk a little bit about just how dominant Philly
Speaker 1: has been. They will also talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Sons without CP three. But we have to start
Speaker 1: with the Lakers, and as as unfortunate as it is,
Speaker 1: it seems like the most likely outcome ended up coming true. So,
Speaker 1: as I told you guys after the Anthony Davis injury,
Speaker 1: the Lakers were gonna have several opportunities over the course
Speaker 1: of this next twenty five games, twenty four games, whatever
Speaker 1: the number was, to quit because of the fact that
Speaker 1: even with Anthony Davis, they don't have enough talent to
Speaker 1: beat the best teams in the league. And without Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: they're mostly bad unless they play absolutely perfectly to their
Speaker 1: strengths and all of those little quirks about who they
Speaker 1: are as basketball players that plagued them all season. Only
Speaker 1: if those things weren't the case, could this team even
Speaker 1: compete with any decent basketball team on any given night.
Speaker 1: And so they were going to find themselves in these
Speaker 1: circumstances where it was gonna be a question of whether
Speaker 1: or not it was worth it for them to go
Speaker 1: for it. And it happened right away in that Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz game. Excuse me, in the Clippers game, they're down
Speaker 1: forty to thirty three, you know, like early second quarter,
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, maybe this is the time. And
Speaker 1: instead of quitting, they fought through that and they went
Speaker 1: for it. And unfortunately their leader, Lebron had a really,
Speaker 1: really rough game and they lost. And so apparently that
Speaker 1: was the final blow because this was the first time
Speaker 1: this season where we didn't even have our fate comeback,
Speaker 1: We didn't even have our little signs of life as
Speaker 1: we went to the to the young players. This was
Speaker 1: a full blown team letting go of the rope and
Speaker 1: deciding that what it was going to take from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of work and effort and diligence to try to
Speaker 1: keep this ship afloat long enough for Anthony Davis to
Speaker 1: come back. That's not worth it to the guys in
Speaker 1: that locker room. And that's one of those important details
Speaker 1: as fans that you guys gotta to try to remember.
Speaker 1: Don't don't burden yourself with caring more than the guys
Speaker 1: in the locker room care, because because they clearly don't.
Speaker 1: And so I want to hit on two you guys
Speaker 1: in particular on that front, because these two guys are
Speaker 1: the leaders of the team right now without Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: and they each kind of quit in their own unique way,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the rest of the team followed suit,
Speaker 1: and it led to the collapse that you saw tonight.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are just joining us, this
Speaker 1: is Lakers Tonight, presented by Fan Duel. Here on the volume,
Speaker 1: we're just talking about just how bad this Lakers quit
Speaker 1: was tonight. I wanted to start with Lebron. You know,
Speaker 1: you can be a winner but have shortcomings, Like for instance,
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Kobe Bryant are both winners. There are
Speaker 1: two of the greatest winners in NBA history. I have
Speaker 1: them both as top five players all time, so it's
Speaker 1: not undercutting either of them, but the way that those
Speaker 1: two guys react to circumstances like this are very different.
Speaker 1: So go back to two thousand thirteen for example, very
Speaker 1: similar example of a team that had great aspirations that
Speaker 1: wasn't coming together. There are a lot of differences in
Speaker 1: the sense that the way teams were put together fundamentally flawed,
Speaker 1: were flawed in different ways, but that two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: team was in a similar predicament. They were up against
Speaker 1: it at the end of the season, needed to make
Speaker 1: a late push to make it to the playoffs. But
Speaker 1: there was also this obvious Paul hanging over the team,
Speaker 1: this obvious understanding that they didn't have enough. The two
Speaker 1: thou thirteen Lakers weren't good enough. But Kobe looked at
Speaker 1: that with obstinates and was like, screw this, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: going down with the ship. And every single night, even
Speaker 1: though he was dealing with ankle stuff and banged up NonStop,
Speaker 1: he just pushed through in his own way to try
Speaker 1: to force the team across the finish line. And it
Speaker 1: was a bad idea. It led to his achilles tear
Speaker 1: as he went on a long stretch of basketball there
Speaker 1: at the end of the season where he was pushing
Speaker 1: himself forty plus minutes a night, and it actually wasn't
Speaker 1: good for him, especially when you understood that that team
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough to win the title. But that was
Speaker 1: Kobe's way of reacting. That was Kobe's way of handling
Speaker 1: that situation. Lebron, even though he is still very much
Speaker 1: a winner, the way that he handles these types of
Speaker 1: situations is as soon as he makes a calculation in
Speaker 1: his head that he understands that he no longer has
Speaker 1: what he needs within either his own physical condition in
Speaker 1: this case dealing with his knee injury and with the roster.
Speaker 1: When he makes that calculation and decides, you know, does
Speaker 1: not compute, cannot win the title, he just, instead of
Speaker 1: doing what Kobe does, did instead of pushing through that
Speaker 1: finish line, Lebron's like, Hey, this isn't worth it, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pull way back and just kind of
Speaker 1: closet through the finish line here and we'll get him
Speaker 1: again next year. That's kind of been his idea, and
Speaker 1: there have been so many examples of that throughout his career,
Speaker 1: like in the two thousand fourteen NBA Finals with the heat.
Speaker 1: There was some bad body language. He was putting up
Speaker 1: big number is, but you could tell he wasn't really
Speaker 1: trying to assert himself in the game the way that
Speaker 1: he was capable of, because he knew that that team
Speaker 1: wasn't good enough. My one of my favorite examples of
Speaker 1: this is literally in the two thousand eighteen postseason in
Speaker 1: the first round against Indiana Pacers. They're on the road
Speaker 1: in Game four in Indiana and they're down two games
Speaker 1: to one in Indiana is up by four with a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes left in the fourth quarter or about
Speaker 1: halfway through the fourth quarter, and Lebron's kind of in
Speaker 1: that same groove. You could see him in his head,
Speaker 1: you could see the body language, you could see the
Speaker 1: decision making, and he's thinking, hey, this might not be
Speaker 1: worth it, and he was mailing it in. But then
Speaker 1: Kyle Korver came flying off the screen and hit a three,
Speaker 1: a big, big three to put the game back within
Speaker 1: the balance to where Lebron could take it, and he
Speaker 1: decided to go forward again. But that was an example
Speaker 1: of Lebron tetering on that line. Had they lost that game,
Speaker 1: they probably lose Game five at home, they probably go
Speaker 1: home in the first round, and Lebron's thinking, Hey, we
Speaker 1: couldn't have won it anyway. That's kind of been his philosophy.
Speaker 1: It's a shortcoming. I always call Lebron a fair weather leader.
Speaker 1: If you have a team that has real championship aspirations,
Speaker 1: a real opportunity to win the championship, he's probably the
Speaker 1: best guy you could have in that seat. He has
Speaker 1: such an understanding of the the EBB and flow of
Speaker 1: the regular season. He has such an understanding of the
Speaker 1: ebb and flow of a seven game playoff series. He
Speaker 1: knows how to win at such a high level that
Speaker 1: you cannot have a better guy in that spot. But
Speaker 1: if there's a team that legitimately cannot win the championship,
Speaker 1: he's one of the worst guys you can have in
Speaker 1: that spot because he's going to act like this. The
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is even though the Pelicans have
Speaker 1: been playing good basketball lately, even though the Pelican I
Speaker 1: think they literally just went into Phoenix and one the
Speaker 1: other day they're they're legitimately good. Uh, they're defending really hard.
Speaker 1: Willie Green has the guys playing really hard Brandon Ingram
Speaker 1: was playing better defense than he has since he was
Speaker 1: in a Laker jersey. He that team is good, and
Speaker 1: so are the Clippers. But these were two intable games.
Speaker 1: These were two games that if Lebron and Russ really
Speaker 1: wanted to do this, they could have done it. And
Speaker 1: don't tell me about Lebron's box score. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: about how many points he scored. I don't want to
Speaker 1: hear about his field goal percentage. That wasn't disengaged Lebron.
Speaker 1: That was willingly withholding massive portions of his ability to
Speaker 1: impact the game because he didn't think it was worth it.
Speaker 1: That's that is, in my opinion, indisputable for anybody who's
Speaker 1: actually watching what was happening on the court tonight. That
Speaker 1: was him telling you he didn't think it was worth it.
Speaker 1: Now there's a case to be made that he's right,
Speaker 1: because the truth of the matter is Lebron, since his
Speaker 1: knee started swelling, hasn't looked remotely similar to the guy
Speaker 1: that we saw over the course of the last two
Speaker 1: and a half seasons that was very clearly the best
Speaker 1: player in the league. That's not the same guy that
Speaker 1: we've seen in this last couple of weeks. I told
Speaker 1: you guys in the last show, I can't remember two
Speaker 1: games and three tries like this against the Clippers and
Speaker 1: against the Warriors where Lebron was this bad for an
Speaker 1: extended stretch of the game and this in this case
Speaker 1: in crunch time in both of those games. That's not
Speaker 1: a coincidence in my opinion, I don't think Lebron got worse.
Speaker 1: I think he's struggling with lift on his most important leg,
Speaker 1: which is his left leg, and as a result, it's
Speaker 1: starting to affect a bunch of areas of his game.
Speaker 1: It's affecting his confidence, it's affecting his belief. That's part
Speaker 1: of that calculation he's making when he's saying I don't
Speaker 1: think it's worth going for this season. He's saying, my
Speaker 1: knee can't do this, and he's factoring that in. But
Speaker 1: this is Lebron's, this is this is part of that journey.
Speaker 1: I would be I would be shocked if this doesn't
Speaker 1: end up going the route of the two thousand nineteen Lakers,
Speaker 1: where Lebron plays maybe a half dozen more game. I
Speaker 1: think he has to play fifty eight games to qualify
Speaker 1: for the scoring title. Maybe he guns for something like that.
Speaker 1: But I just I just don't I just don't see
Speaker 1: the point and trying to limp Lebron James and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis injured versions of them into a first round series
Speaker 1: against the Phoenix Suns team that is going to beat
Speaker 1: the living ship out of them. There's just no point
Speaker 1: in trying to to to persevere for something like that.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis needs to take a good long time to
Speaker 1: heal up these injuries that he's been dealing with with
Speaker 1: his midfoot spraining with his knee, and Lebron needs to
Speaker 1: get whatever is going on with that left knee figured out.
Speaker 1: They need to retool in the off season, and they
Speaker 1: need to make a run next year because there's no
Speaker 1: point in continuing to waste physical resources on these guys
Speaker 1: that don't want to do it. They've been trying all
Speaker 1: year long to tell us exactly who they are as
Speaker 1: a basketball team, and we've tried and tricked ourselves into
Speaker 1: thinking they might not be. But this is that, This
Speaker 1: is that final, This is that that that you know,
Speaker 1: resounding statement of what they intend to do down the stretch. Now,
Speaker 1: the the way that Russ has choose to handle this
Speaker 1: is very different because Russ is a little more Kobe
Speaker 1: than he is Lebron in terms of his obstinates, Like
Speaker 1: Russ is going to pound his head into the wall
Speaker 1: to try to stop the season from going down this route.
Speaker 1: But you saw that tonight manifest in Russ's regression, regress,
Speaker 1: regressing back to what he was early in the season
Speaker 1: when he was struggling. You know, Russ just played three
Speaker 1: of the best games he played in the Laker jersey
Speaker 1: against the Warriors, against the Jazz, and against the Clippers.
Speaker 1: He was excellent as a backup perimeter initiator, limiting his mistakes,
Speaker 1: generating rim pressure, creating shots for his teammates. He was
Speaker 1: giving better defensive effort than he had given in a
Speaker 1: long time. And his way of quitting, I was saying,
Speaker 1: screw that, I'm going two thousand seventeen Russ, and today,
Speaker 1: all of his you know, all of that work he
Speaker 1: had done to temper his own nature to try to
Speaker 1: fit into the role, he just threw that all away
Speaker 1: tonight and went all in on. I'm just putting my
Speaker 1: head down and drive into the basket. Zero assists in
Speaker 1: seven turnovers. That's that. That that is That is the
Speaker 1: definition of Russ leaning. I guess he did have one
Speaker 1: assistant crunched in garbage time. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: I give him his credit there. But you're seeing Russ
Speaker 1: in this case say screw it. I'm doing it my way.
Speaker 1: That's his way of quitting. Russ's way of quitting isn't
Speaker 1: gonna manifest the way that it did for Lebron. But
Speaker 1: what's funny is Lebron and the Lebron and Russ started
Speaker 1: this game with that tone. The rest of the team followed,
Speaker 1: and it was over, and this is the result that
Speaker 1: comes with that. I'm really curious to see what happens
Speaker 1: here in the next couple of days. I'm curious to
Speaker 1: see if we get an announcement from Sham saying that
Speaker 1: Lebron's gonna hang it up, or that he's gonna take
Speaker 1: a week off for something along those lines, something referencing
Speaker 1: his knee. I'm curious to see if they dip into
Speaker 1: some G League talent and try to develop some of
Speaker 1: their younger players and maybe bench Russ or send Russ
Speaker 1: him or something along those lines. I'm really curious to
Speaker 1: see what's gonna happen. Which brings us to Frank and
Speaker 1: This is the last thing I wanted to hit on
Speaker 1: on the Lakers front. You know, I have been back
Speaker 1: and forth about firing Frank all season. He was put
Speaker 1: in a really unfortunate position because he's kind of a
Speaker 1: one pitch guy, Frank Vogel's pitches. If I'm a big
Speaker 1: basketball team that has defensive minded role players, I'm going
Speaker 1: to coach the best defense in the league because I'm
Speaker 1: going to chase and funnel guys to my big guys
Speaker 1: under the basket, and we're just gonna smother you with
Speaker 1: our physicality and we're gonna be incredibly difficult to score on.
Speaker 1: But if you lean into any other direction outside of that,
Speaker 1: it plays into his weaknesses. Defensive versatility, the willingness to
Speaker 1: do different things on defense. That's a huge weakness of
Speaker 1: Frank's offensive. The understanding of how to scheme an NBA
Speaker 1: offense in the year two that's not a strength of
Speaker 1: Frank vocals. So when you build a team like this,
Speaker 1: it's obviously gonna play directly into his weaknesses and he's
Speaker 1: gonna look inadequate. So I want to throw some defense
Speaker 1: to Frank Vogel in the sense that he was set
Speaker 1: up to fail but those weaknesses are what they are,
Speaker 1: and if you don't think that by next season you
Speaker 1: can recreate the personnel and the identity of the Lakers
Speaker 1: that Frank coached so well, then what's the point of
Speaker 1: keeping him. At this point, you can need to do
Speaker 1: one of two things. You either need to have someone
Speaker 1: in house, someone like Phil Handy, to take the team
Speaker 1: moving forward, or you need to find somebody outside of
Speaker 1: the franchise. This now becomes a great opportunity in this
Speaker 1: next month and a half to get a look at
Speaker 1: Phil Handy, to get a look at Dave Fizdale, and
Speaker 1: to see if those guys can get the job done,
Speaker 1: just in terms of their scheming and their approach. You
Speaker 1: get a feel for those guys after this season. If
Speaker 1: it's obvious that they're not the guys, then you can
Speaker 1: spend all summer or hopefully early in the summer, getting
Speaker 1: the best available candidate to come in and try to
Speaker 1: get this team back on track. But at this point,
Speaker 1: there's literally no reason to keep Frank around. There's nothing
Speaker 1: to be gained. All you're doing is hurting him, putting
Speaker 1: him in a situation where he's not happy, he's not
Speaker 1: engaged with the team anymore. The team's not engaged with him.
Speaker 1: It's like continuing to date somebody that you know you're
Speaker 1: a bad fit with just because you live with each other,
Speaker 1: and moving out is kind of a pain. There's no
Speaker 1: point in delaying the inevitable here. I would give the
Speaker 1: keys to Phil Handy. The reason why is we already
Speaker 1: have examples of what David Fizdil is as a coach.
Speaker 1: There's leg work that can be done in the form
Speaker 1: of interviews and watching tape and digging back into Fizdal's
Speaker 1: history to see what he's like as a head coach.
Speaker 1: We don't really know with Phil Handy. We don't know
Speaker 1: how he is managing timeout so we don't know how
Speaker 1: he is with time and clock situations. We don't know
Speaker 1: how he is play calling. We we haven't seen enough
Speaker 1: of that yet. So give Phil Handy a chance over
Speaker 1: the course of this next month and a half of
Speaker 1: the season to essentially audition for the head coach of
Speaker 1: the Lakers. That's the direction I would go because at
Speaker 1: this point, again, there's absolutely nothing to be gained by
Speaker 1: keeping Frank around. He's a bad coach for this group,
Speaker 1: even though he's a good coach. For other groups. The
Speaker 1: guys have already quit on him, and you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to fire him this summer anyway, So why would you
Speaker 1: keep him around for a month and a half to
Speaker 1: be miserable so that all the guys can be miserable.
Speaker 1: Just try throwing a curveball in there and see if
Speaker 1: you can get something different over the course of this
Speaker 1: last stretch of the season, to try to get just
Speaker 1: just a cleansing effect. But informmation, guys like there's just
Speaker 1: I'm not a defeatist, I'm an optimist. Rog and I
Speaker 1: all season long talked about how there was a good
Speaker 1: team in this Laker locker room. We were incredibly defensive
Speaker 1: of the fact that we knew that when Lebron and
Speaker 1: a d were healthy and they were surrounded by a
Speaker 1: scheme and a set of role players that worked, that
Speaker 1: they were extremely tough to beat. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it never came together. And the writings on the wall
Speaker 1: it needs to be accepted because if they didn't try
Speaker 1: tonight against the Pelicans in an extremely winnable game, go
Speaker 1: look at the rest of their schedule in March, what
Speaker 1: do you think they're gonna finally turn it up? Against
Speaker 1: the Sun's. Do you think they're gonna finally turn it
Speaker 1: up against the Warriors? They play the Mavericks on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: The Mavericks are awesome. We're gonna talk about them in
Speaker 1: a few minutes. Do you think the Lakers are gonna
Speaker 1: suddenly figure it out against Dallas when this perfectly winnable
Speaker 1: game was on the table tonight and they literally just
Speaker 1: didn't go for it. They're telling you what they want.
Speaker 1: They want to be done, so let them be done.
Speaker 1: This is Lakers Tonight, presented by FanDuel here on the volume.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys coming to hang out. I I
Speaker 1: can't talk anymore Lakers tonight. Guys. I'm over. I'm over
Speaker 1: this team. We're gonna move on to some of the
Speaker 1: other games that happened tonight. I wanted to talk specifically
Speaker 1: about that end of the game from Dallas and Golden State.
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Speaker 1: called one eight hundred next step or text next step
Speaker 1: to five three, three four two in Arizona one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
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Speaker 1: hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. In Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven
Speaker 1: zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero
Speaker 1: seven one one seven for confidential help. In Michigan one
Speaker 1: eight seven seven eight Hope and why or text hope
Speaker 1: and Why to four six seven three six nine in
Speaker 1: New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight
Speaker 1: eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee. Visit www
Speaker 1: one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. So,
Speaker 1: I was so fascinated with the way that Dallas came
Speaker 1: back to win that game because they were getting a
Speaker 1: boatload of stops. Golden State could not score. I saw
Speaker 1: a stat that one of the Lakers beat right or
Speaker 1: Warriors beat writers put out there that the Warriors did
Speaker 1: not make a field goal from the nine something minute
Speaker 1: mark two about the two minute mark in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: And so what I was fascinated by is the way
Speaker 1: that Dallas was getting stops because they had a line
Speaker 1: up out there with Luca don Chech, who's a good
Speaker 1: uh He's a big defender who can gamble and play
Speaker 1: passing lanes a little bit. He's a decent positional defender,
Speaker 1: but he's certainly not a good defender. He's just passable,
Speaker 1: you know. Din Wittie's an okay defensive player. Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: is okay. They went with Luca Spencer, Dinwitdi and Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 1: So the three best shot creators, Reggie Bullock, who was
Speaker 1: lock and trailing stuff all over the court and just
Speaker 1: denying him the basketball. But he's an only okay defensive player.
Speaker 1: He's not a great defensive player. Had a good defensive
Speaker 1: season last year with the Knicks, but over the course
Speaker 1: of his career he's been more or less just an
Speaker 1: okay defensive player. And then Dorian Phineas Smith, who's a
Speaker 1: really good defensive wing. So they had Dorian Phinney Smith,
Speaker 1: a wing playing center, a two guard chasing Steff around,
Speaker 1: and then three more two guards on the floor and
Speaker 1: completely and utterly shut down the Golden State Warriors. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a coincidence, And I think it's
Speaker 1: an example of the direction that the game of basketball
Speaker 1: is going in, something I've been talking about NonStop and
Speaker 1: something that I think is so important. And the teams
Speaker 1: that embrace this first are gonna be the teams that win,
Speaker 1: and the teams that cling to the old style of
Speaker 1: basketball are gonna be the ones that look like the Lakers.
Speaker 1: So when you have that group and you switch everything,
Speaker 1: you shut down all of Golden State's actions, all of
Speaker 1: their pin downs and flares and and split cuts and
Speaker 1: and Steph flying off the screens. None of that works
Speaker 1: when you're switching everything. So then it becomes who can
Speaker 1: create a shot. And you've got Andrew Wiggins who loves
Speaker 1: to take and settle for eighteen to twenty ft pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots that he's only gonna make, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent of the time or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And then you've got Steph who, when they really are
Speaker 1: keying in on him at this phase in his career,
Speaker 1: he's gonna struggle to get shots off. I'll point I'll
Speaker 1: talk about that here in a minute, But for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's a lot of guys on the Warriors
Speaker 1: that aren't great at creating their own shot. Even Jordan
Speaker 1: Pool is really struggling against Dorton Fitty and Dorrian Phinney
Speaker 1: Smith's length. So at the end of the day, the Warriors,
Speaker 1: they're high powered offense. There, their motion offense with all
Speaker 1: this movement and cutting and screening was utterly shut down
Speaker 1: by a team that just switched everything. And again, so
Speaker 1: many coaches get caught up in oh, I'm giving up
Speaker 1: a size mismatch. This guy can shoot a jump pook
Speaker 1: over Jalen Brunson in the post or this guy can
Speaker 1: get an offensive rebound against Spencer Dinwoodie. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: they can't. You're gonna give up some things. Every defensive
Speaker 1: scheme is an example of giving and taking. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm going to take away from you, and
Speaker 1: here's the thing that I'm giving to you as part
Speaker 1: of the process of taking that other thing away. And
Speaker 1: Dallas gave up seize mismatches all over the floor, Dallas
Speaker 1: gave up athleticism matchups all over the floor, and it
Speaker 1: just didn't matter because they switched everything. And then on
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor with those three high
Speaker 1: level dribble drive guys and Spencer Dinwodie, Jalen Brunson and
Speaker 1: Luca don Chich there meanwhile getting fantastic stuff against a
Speaker 1: great Warriors defense that has tons of length and athleticism,
Speaker 1: that is great perimeter defenders who slide their feet and
Speaker 1: keep guys in front. And it's just not enough because
Speaker 1: on the other end, they're just picking their spots who
Speaker 1: has the best matchup. Spencer Dinwoodie was getting good stuff.
Speaker 1: At the end of the game, the Luca was able
Speaker 1: to give the ball up because Spencer didn't Woodie was
Speaker 1: able to create his own shot and was able to
Speaker 1: create shots for his teammates. That's the advantage of that
Speaker 1: style of basketball. That is five out basketball, that is
Speaker 1: switch everything basketball, that is modern basketball, and that is
Speaker 1: what works now. And for whatever reason, there is nobody
Speaker 1: in the Laker front office that has watched enough hoops
Speaker 1: over the course of the last five years to understand that,
Speaker 1: because they've done everything in their power to alienate that
Speaker 1: sort of thing and lean into it. When everything was
Speaker 1: hitting the fan in the third quarter today, guess where
Speaker 1: Frank Vogel went DeAndre Jordan's who at one point decided
Speaker 1: he was point DJ and dribble the ball up the
Speaker 1: floor and threw it thirty ft over someone's head into
Speaker 1: the into the stands. Well when about exactly as you
Speaker 1: would expect for a non NBA player trying to play
Speaker 1: in an NBA basketball game. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I thought it was super fascinating to see
Speaker 1: these teams like Dallas. There's so many other teams like
Speaker 1: this around the league that are succeeding playing a modern
Speaker 1: style of basketball. And it doesn't have to be Everyone
Speaker 1: told me all season long, the Lakers don't have defensive personnel.
Speaker 1: The Lakers don't have guys that can keep people in front,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of truth to that, but they
Speaker 1: certainly weren't going to succeed playing old fashioned basketball. If
Speaker 1: Dallas can get those guys to guard, the Lakers should
Speaker 1: have been able to get any of these guys to guard,
Speaker 1: and they just haven't been able to. Last thing, I
Speaker 1: wanted to hit on the Warriors with Step shooting slump.
Speaker 1: So for this entire season he shooting thirty seven point
Speaker 1: six percent from three, but he's certainly not trending in
Speaker 1: the right direction because in his last eight games he's
Speaker 1: shooting thirty four point two from three. Before the Draymond injury,
Speaker 1: the Warriors were twenty eight and six, and since the
Speaker 1: Draymond injury they're fifteen and twelve. So obviously Draymond plays
Speaker 1: a part in this. Brings a lot on the defensive end,
Speaker 1: but also for Step shot quality. He's really good at
Speaker 1: setting screens and re screening and and watching Step off
Speaker 1: the ball and hunting him in the spots that he
Speaker 1: likes to be. They have a great chemistry with each other,
Speaker 1: so shot quality is part of that, but the other
Speaker 1: part of it That's really fascinating to me because this
Speaker 1: is I don't think this is a slump anymore. We
Speaker 1: are now bordering on this is a half of a
Speaker 1: season where Steph has not been able to shoot the
Speaker 1: three nearly as well as he has used to, like
Speaker 1: massive decline, like ten percent down from what he was
Speaker 1: shooting over the same stretch of games last year. That's
Speaker 1: how bad it's been. And what's really fascinating to me
Speaker 1: is the way that a guy like Steph Curry would age.
Speaker 1: Because you watch a guy like Lebron, or you watch
Speaker 1: a guy like Chris Paul, you watch these, you watch
Speaker 1: these older the vets that are good with body positioning
Speaker 1: and pinning guys and using their strength and angles to
Speaker 1: get their shots off. Lebron is way less athletic than
Speaker 1: he used to be when he was younger, but he's
Speaker 1: still so effective getting to the rim and finishing because
Speaker 1: he just does it with his strength and with savvy
Speaker 1: and positioning and ceiling and he's it's almost like a
Speaker 1: blow the rim version of his of himself, but with Steph,
Speaker 1: because he is a jump shooter, because the Lion's share
Speaker 1: of what he generates as a scorer is as a
Speaker 1: jump shooter, that minuscule decline can be the difference between
Speaker 1: a great look and only an okay look. When Steph
Speaker 1: was at his peak physically, he could have an inch
Speaker 1: of space and that was enough for him. But maybe
Speaker 1: he needs five inches of space now as he slowed
Speaker 1: down a little bit, and that difference can be the
Speaker 1: difference between shoot on thirteen threes a game and shooting
Speaker 1: thirty percent on thirteen threes a game. So it remains
Speaker 1: to be seen because he looks mostly the same right like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look slow out there. But again, a miniscule
Speaker 1: decline for a guy like Steph could be the difference
Speaker 1: between him being a great shooter and an amazing greatest
Speaker 1: shooter of all time and just a great shooter. That's
Speaker 1: the type of decline that you might see there, and
Speaker 1: it remains to be seen. Like I said, this could
Speaker 1: either be a long, drawn on slump and we'll see
Speaker 1: him but bust out of this. I said this on
Speaker 1: the Favorites earlier this week. Steph is a bona fide
Speaker 1: MVP candidate in my opinion because if he shoots really
Speaker 1: well for a month, if he has one month where
Speaker 1: he shoots from three on like fifteen attempts, then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, his percentages around out he finishes around
Speaker 1: for the season. That's an MVP candidate because if they
Speaker 1: end up high enough in the standings, that's a very
Speaker 1: you know, traditional type of m VP candidate. So it's
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to you know, sign his own picture
Speaker 1: where he's so to speak. I'm just saying that this
Speaker 1: is now a very very very long drawn out slump,
Speaker 1: and it very easily could be the sign of a decline.
Speaker 1: Really quick hitters here, I wanted to touch on just
Speaker 1: how dominant the Sixers have been. It's only been two games,
Speaker 1: but I have some crazy stats for you guys. So,
Speaker 1: James Harden and Joel Embiid have played fifty three minutes together.
Speaker 1: In those fifty three minutes, the Sixers are plus forty six.
Speaker 1: Think about how crazy that is. That's a plus forty
Speaker 1: three point one net rating in those minutes, hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty four point five offensive rating that's outrageously good. One
Speaker 1: point four defensive rating that's outrageously good. That is about
Speaker 1: as resounding a dominant beginning to this era that you
Speaker 1: could have possibly scripted. What I thought was really interesting
Speaker 1: is the difference in the way that James Harden is
Speaker 1: playing with EMBAT and without Embeat. So when in beads
Speaker 1: on the floor, James Harden is only attempting nine point
Speaker 1: five shots per thirty six minutes, but in those same minutes,
Speaker 1: he's averaging fifteen point seven assists per thirty six minutes.
Speaker 1: So when Joel embiads on the floor, he's going full playmaker.
Speaker 1: But when joe Ell Embiads off the floor, his field
Speaker 1: goal attempts go up to twenty point one per thirty
Speaker 1: six and his assists drop all the way down to
Speaker 1: eight point four per thirty six. So he's completely changing
Speaker 1: his approach when it beats off the floor to your
Speaker 1: vintage James Harden, I'm trying to score the basketball. The
Speaker 1: reason why I think that's interesting is I think that
Speaker 1: one of the ways that these two teams, the way
Speaker 1: that Minnesota guarded him, in the way that the Knicks
Speaker 1: have guarded him way too much, like trapping and sending
Speaker 1: two bodies at Harden while he's running those screen and
Speaker 1: rolls with him Beat. When James doesn't want to shoot
Speaker 1: when he's with him Beat, James wants to facilitate when
Speaker 1: he's with him beat. And my thing is, like, with
Speaker 1: how dominant e Beat is playing right now, very clearly
Speaker 1: one of the best players in the league, probably gonna
Speaker 1: win m v P. Why would you play into his strengths.
Speaker 1: You should want James Harden to beat you, not embeat.
Speaker 1: So my thing is I would like to see some
Speaker 1: of these teams with them Beat on the floor, play
Speaker 1: James Harden straight up a little bit more and try
Speaker 1: to get the Sixers out of rhythm and start to
Speaker 1: try to get James to gun a little bit and
Speaker 1: maybe get that dynamic to switch away. Because I did
Speaker 1: the amount of free throws that Joel Embiid is getting
Speaker 1: with James Harden is insane, and a big part of
Speaker 1: that is him catching the ball in that short role
Speaker 1: unguarded because his man is trapping James Harden thirty ft
Speaker 1: from the basket when James Harden doesn't want to shoot.
Speaker 1: So that that that's gonna be the interesting dynamic to watch.
Speaker 1: Their one last note on the Sixers. While Joel Embiid
Speaker 1: and James Harden are on the floor, other Sixers players
Speaker 1: are shooting forty two point four percent from three. That's
Speaker 1: how open and high quality the looks are that the
Speaker 1: other role players are getting playing alongside Joel Embid and
Speaker 1: James Harden. That's scary, especially with how good the those
Speaker 1: role players are at doing the defensive job on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor. Last really quick note before
Speaker 1: we get out of here, the Phoenix Suns lost their
Speaker 1: second consecutive game without Chris Paul. Their offensive rating this
Speaker 1: season drops from one fifteen point nine with Chris Paul
Speaker 1: on the floor to one oh six point three without him. Translation.
Speaker 1: With Chris Paul on the floor, they're one of the
Speaker 1: best offenses in the league. With Chris Paul off the floor,
Speaker 1: they're one of the worst offenses in the league. That's
Speaker 1: basically the difference that we're talking about. And this goes
Speaker 1: back to what I said when I was talking about
Speaker 1: the Sun's last week. This Chris Paul injury is fine.
Speaker 1: They bought so much leeway that they can drop a
Speaker 1: couple of home games like this and it's not a
Speaker 1: big deal. They're gonna end up the number one overall
Speaker 1: seed pretty much no matter what. So everything's fine. But
Speaker 1: if Chris Paul for whatever reason can't play in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: whether it's from this injury or him being a shell
Speaker 1: of himself because he's not in shape when he gets back,
Speaker 1: or he's not in rhythm, or if you for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: suffers some other kind of injury and he can't play
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, this suddenly becomes a very beautiful basketball team.
Speaker 1: That's the fragility of the NBA. That's just how this works.
Speaker 1: When you don't when guys get hurt, you lose. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have to look any further than the Lakers
Speaker 1: to understand that. But I'm just saying, even for a
Speaker 1: team as talented as the Sun's, they are not immune
Speaker 1: to that either, and they're gonna need all their guys
Speaker 1: to be healthy to have a real chance to win. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: that's all I have for tonight. I appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: dealing with an extremely frustrating Laker team tonight. We will
Speaker 1: be back on Tuesday after the Dallas Mavericks game or
Speaker 1: who knows what's gonna happen. Who knows if they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a different coach, who knows if they're even gonna
Speaker 1: go for it that night, But we will be here
Speaker 1: right after the final buzzer that night. As always, I
Speaker 1: appreciate your guys, support and I will see you in
Speaker 1: a couple of days. The volume