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Speaker 1: co slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here
Speaker 1: at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, opeall, if you guys
Speaker 1: are having a great week, got a jam packed show
Speaker 1: for you today. We're gonna hit some NBA storylines off
Speaker 1: the top. We're going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Damian Lillard news and how it's got me thinking
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the what feels kind of
Speaker 1: like an inevitable blow up of the Bucks that's happening
Speaker 1: in a few years, and a team that I think
Speaker 1: would be really fascinating to go after Giannis. After that,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about some comments Lebron made about
Speaker 1: Giannis dropping two hundred and fifty points per game in
Speaker 1: the seventies. I want to talk about that and how
Speaker 1: I don't think it's necessarily good for the situation in
Speaker 1: the way we talked about the game. And then for
Speaker 1: our course correction segment, I'm gonna shout out Bronni, who
Speaker 1: had another big game last night, who's really been playing
Speaker 1: some good basketball over the course of the last week.
Speaker 1: After that, we're gonna hit two games from last night slate,
Speaker 1: as the two top seeds in the Western Conference got
Speaker 1: impressive wins where they basically blew out their opponents, then
Speaker 1: kind of sort of lost control and then pulled away
Speaker 1: at the end. As the Thunder got a big win
Speaker 1: in Sacramento against the Kings and the Houston Rockets got
Speaker 1: a big win against the Atlanta Hawks. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: breaking down both of those games from the perspective of
Speaker 1: both teams all right before we get started, You guys
Speaker 1: know the drill. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. So
Speaker 1: you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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Speaker 1: the season. Make sure you guys keep dropping mail bag
Speaker 1: questions in the YouTube comments as well. We are recording
Speaker 1: a mail bag a little bit later today, so it's
Speaker 1: too late for that mail bag, but we're gonna be
Speaker 1: doing another one next week, so make sure you guys
Speaker 1: keep dropping questions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk some basketball. So our first NBA storyline, Damian Lillard
Speaker 1: is out indefinitely due to a blood clot in his
Speaker 1: calf muscle. First of all, this is just a huge
Speaker 1: bummer and let's all just hope that he can be
Speaker 1: back in time for the playoffs because, regardless of how
Speaker 1: we all feel about the Bucks, I would certainly like
Speaker 1: to see them get their chance to show what they
Speaker 1: can do in the postseason at full strength. But this
Speaker 1: situation has me thinking, because things look more than bleak
Speaker 1: for Milwaukee right now, even healthy, I have the Bucks
Speaker 1: firmly outside of my top tier of championship contenders. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're close to good enough on either end
Speaker 1: of the floor to actually win for playoff series. And
Speaker 1: now you add this wrinkle with Dame's condition, which is
Speaker 1: going to have, at the best case scenario, him just
Speaker 1: barely stepping on the floor before they start playing real
Speaker 1: playoff games. So to me, it's just becoming increasingly likely
Speaker 1: that the Bucks have a disappointing playoff performance, and that
Speaker 1: Giannis in the trade buzz surrounding him starts to get
Speaker 1: really loud this summer, because again, I don't think the
Speaker 1: Bucks are close. I like, there's to me if I
Speaker 1: look at the top tier of contenders, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be you know, five, six, seven teams when it's
Speaker 1: all said and done, we'll see. But you know, I
Speaker 1: look at Boston and Oka se as kind of like
Speaker 1: clearly above the rest of the teams in that tier,
Speaker 1: and the team's below there, the teams like Cleveland, Denver,
Speaker 1: the Lakers, whether it ends up being the Knicks, or
Speaker 1: the Warriors teams like that, I view those teams as
Speaker 1: substantially less likely than Boston and ok Se to win
Speaker 1: the title. And so when you get to the following
Speaker 1: tier after that, I mean we're talking it's pipe dream
Speaker 1: territory for most of these guys. And like that's with
Speaker 1: Gianni's playing as well as he've been he's been playing
Speaker 1: this year, it just doesn't feel like they're close. Jannis
Speaker 1: will have two guaranteed years left as well as a
Speaker 1: player option. Obviously I would view that player option as
Speaker 1: something that he would end up opting out of or
Speaker 1: extending out of. And so realistically, you've got these two
Speaker 1: guaranteed years left this summer, and so if you wait
Speaker 1: an additional summer, now you have the whole like, well,
Speaker 1: what if he doesn't resign problem that's affecting his trade value,
Speaker 1: And so I think it's possible that we end up
Speaker 1: seeing a Jannis and Tenetkumpo trade this summer. And so
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot of different teams in a
Speaker 1: different places that he could potentially go. But I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the thunder going after a guy like
Speaker 1: a Kevin Durant or a Lori, Marknen or something. What
Speaker 1: if Yannis is the guy that the Thunder ended up
Speaker 1: going after, they obviously can afford him. He's thirty years old.
Speaker 1: He is a perfect compliment to Chet Holmern. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, you could argue that the Hartenstein salary
Speaker 1: is the best vehicle with which to facilitate that sort
Speaker 1: of trade. Hartenstein and then throwing in some of the
Speaker 1: younger talent, maybe someone like a case On Wallace and
Speaker 1: maybe one other player with a bunch of draft compensation.
Speaker 1: You can visualize the scenario where the team is built
Speaker 1: around a core of Shay and j Dubb and Chet
Speaker 1: with Giannis, and like Giannis would immediately make them a
Speaker 1: good rebounding team when they've been a terrible rebounding team
Speaker 1: in the shaegifs Alexander Era, I think he's just a
Speaker 1: shoe in basketball fit. In general, with all of those guys,
Speaker 1: he immediately changes the physical profiles of the team and
Speaker 1: makes them that much more bruising on the frontline, especially
Speaker 1: if the Thunder end up struggling this year in the
Speaker 1: postseason and they end up like losing in the second
Speaker 1: round despite someone like Shay having a great series. I
Speaker 1: think it could end up putting more pressure on OKC
Speaker 1: to make a more aggressive type of deal, and you
Speaker 1: could see a trade partnership kind of forming there. And
Speaker 1: like it's like the Wemby problem we talked about with
Speaker 1: San Antonio. If your star is ready to go and
Speaker 1: like ready to win the title, but your guys, like
Speaker 1: your young players around them that are progressing at the
Speaker 1: same time but maybe not at the same rate, and
Speaker 1: it looks like they're not ready, then you end up
Speaker 1: in a situation where it's like, we can't just wade
Speaker 1: around while you know, Victor wemin Yama becomes one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the league and we can't support
Speaker 1: him properly. And that's the thing, Like you don't want
Speaker 1: to run into a situation with Shay where he feels
Speaker 1: like the Thunder are just processing a bunch of young
Speaker 1: talent and they're not really going for it. And so
Speaker 1: if that ends up being the case, you could see
Speaker 1: that pressure start to build and you could see a
Speaker 1: trade partnership start to form, and if they end up
Speaker 1: making a deal for someone like Giannis, they would immediately
Speaker 1: solve all of their weaknesses and I think that would
Speaker 1: make them the most talented team since the twenty eighteen Warriors.
Speaker 1: So that's a dynamic that I see kind of sort
Speaker 1: of taking some shape, and man, that would be a crazy,
Speaker 1: league altering type of deal. Lebron goes on Pat McAfee
Speaker 1: show and he starts pontificating about out Giannis and what
Speaker 1: he would average in the seventies, and he says Yiannis
Speaker 1: would average two hundred and fifty points if he played
Speaker 1: back in that era. And like Frankly, I just don't
Speaker 1: see the point in this. For the same reason why
Speaker 1: it's lame when the older players start disrespecting this era,
Speaker 1: I think it's lame for today's players to do the
Speaker 1: same thing with the past. Now, for the record, there's
Speaker 1: a reason why they're doing this. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: JJ Reddick said those guys played against plumbers. There's a
Speaker 1: reason why Lebron James is talking this shit, and it's
Speaker 1: because they're sick and tired of the old guys talking shit.
Speaker 1: I just think it's pointless to stoop down to that level.
Speaker 1: If Frankly, it's just not productive. It doesn't actually solve anything.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Would Yannis score two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty points a game? If he played in the seventies, No,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he kill those guys, he'd average forty probably
Speaker 1: maybe even closer to fifty. But who cares. Comparing eras
Speaker 1: is completely pointless. Jalen Green basically has the same career
Speaker 1: true shooting percentag justs Kobe Bryant. Does that mean Jalen
Speaker 1: Green was just as efficient putting the ball in the
Speaker 1: basket as Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a literal.
Speaker 1: Sense, but not in a realistic sense, because the game
Speaker 1: of basketball is very, very different now. Dudes in the
Speaker 1: seventies had bad shoes, they had shitty flights that they
Speaker 1: took to their road games, they played brutal schedules. They
Speaker 1: had nowhere near the knowledge and understanding we have today
Speaker 1: to make our professional athletes the best they can be.
Speaker 1: Schematics have involved over the years is just more smart
Speaker 1: minds have gotten involved in the game and made their
Speaker 1: imprint strategically. I think it makes absolutely no sense to
Speaker 1: compare basketball from fifty years ago to today, and again,
Speaker 1: even if you justify it with the way that those
Speaker 1: guys have been treated by the older generations, I just
Speaker 1: think stooping to that level, all it does is further
Speaker 1: detegrate the game, and now we're in this weird war
Speaker 1: where like the younger players are shit talking the old days,
Speaker 1: and the older dudes are shit talking the young guys,
Speaker 1: and everyone's just being disrespectful to the game of basketball.
Speaker 1: And so I hope that that stops you. And I
Speaker 1: disagreed with Lebron's approach there. But for our third top story,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do our Microsoft Course Correction segment. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Course Correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star
Speaker 1: players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today
Speaker 1: are under immense pressure to get things right. They must
Speaker 1: rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers
Speaker 1: these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management
Speaker 1: and trustworthy responsible AI. And when you're in the NBA
Speaker 1: and you have your own hurdles to face, in this segment,
Speaker 1: we're exploring the challenges faced by teams or star players
Speaker 1: and how they can turn things around. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Speaker 1: Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on.
Speaker 1: This week, we're discussing Bronni James in his recent surge
Speaker 1: as both an MBA and G League player. So last night,
Speaker 1: Broni hits five more threes, finished with seventeen points, nine rebounds,
Speaker 1: and six assists in a win.
Speaker 2: This is on the heels of him.
Speaker 1: Dropping a career high thirty nine points in a previous
Speaker 1: G League game a couple days prior, and that was
Speaker 1: on the heels of him dropping seventeen points in a
Speaker 1: real deal NBA game against the Bucks where he made
Speaker 1: a lot of moves that looked very much like a
Speaker 1: well rounded professional basketball player. I thought this was a
Speaker 1: great time for us to just remind everybody that Ronnie
Speaker 1: James was the twentieth ranked prospect in the nation in
Speaker 1: his high school class. He was a McDonald's All American.
Speaker 1: He was absolutely, unquestionably on an NBA trajectory before he
Speaker 1: experienced cardiac arrest at usc But then he got his
Speaker 1: NBA opportunity despite struggling for a while after the cardiac
Speaker 1: arrest incident, and as a result, he became one of
Speaker 1: the biggest stories in all of media, not just in
Speaker 1: sports media, but the whole thing got picked up by
Speaker 1: political media because lebron has ventured into that arena a
Speaker 1: few times and obviously made enemies in there. That is
Speaker 1: one hell of a cesspool in political media, and it
Speaker 1: is as contentious as it can be, and there's an
Speaker 1: entire side there that will jump on every little thing
Speaker 1: that Lebron does, and so it became absolutely nasty. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine being Bronny? And again I want you to
Speaker 1: disconnect from Lebron for a second. Bronni James is an
Speaker 1: entirely different human being than Lebron, an entirely different person.
Speaker 1: Anything that he gets as an association from Lebron imagine
Speaker 1: being in his shoes and dealing with that. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine getting on his phone and scrolling Instagram and seeing
Speaker 1: content creators making highlight reels of his mistakes in Summer
Speaker 1: League or in garbage time in an NBA game, or
Speaker 1: in the early G league days, And can you imagine
Speaker 1: the comments underneath those videos and the direct messages that
Speaker 1: he receives. Again, as we've talked about, like when you
Speaker 1: venture into this world, there are perks that greatly outweigh
Speaker 1: the negativity you face online. That doesn't make the negativity
Speaker 1: like just go away, or that it's just super easy
Speaker 1: to handle or anything like that. It sucks I on
Speaker 1: a much much smaller level, just as a content creator
Speaker 1: in the NBA media face a certain amount of negativity,
Speaker 1: Like you don't wake up one day and like read
Speaker 1: the comment that's talking shit about the way you look
Speaker 1: or the way you sound, and then suddenly just be like,
Speaker 1: oh that's fine.
Speaker 2: No wheries will go about to day. It still sucks, and.
Speaker 1: This kid was getting it at a preposterous volume every
Speaker 1: single day because he suffered an injury and a condition
Speaker 1: that dramatically affected his basketball development. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: I was actually talking about this with my buddy Richmond
Speaker 1: Weaver on the radio a little bit earlier this morning.
Speaker 1: I remember when I broke my foot in between my
Speaker 1: first two seasons playing in college. I had a really
Speaker 1: rough first semester in non conference play because I was
Speaker 1: struggling with like confidence in my foot, like my ability
Speaker 1: to plant that foot, I you know, play at about
Speaker 1: back in college. I was playing at two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five pounds, Like it's just a lot of weight
Speaker 1: to be planting really heavy on a foot that I
Speaker 1: was nervous was gonna give way, and it affected my
Speaker 1: play for months. Can you imagine cardiac arrest? Can you
Speaker 1: imagine like playing hard after cardiac arrest? Can you imagine
Speaker 1: pushing yourself and like feeling your body like start to
Speaker 1: like really get into high heart rates, and how that
Speaker 1: could potentially scare you, how that could affect your willingness
Speaker 1: or ability to compete to a certain extent. Like, I
Speaker 1: just have so much sympathy for what Bronni has been
Speaker 1: through over the course of this last year, in the
Speaker 1: sense that he's been put through hell because of his
Speaker 1: dad and his persona. And look, has Lebron done something
Speaker 1: that has accentuated the amount of attention on his son. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's made some comments, He's done some things. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sit here and pretend that that hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: But he's Lebron James, So we're not also going to
Speaker 1: pretend that if Lebron shut up that Bronni wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Be a public figure. He still would.
Speaker 1: Lebron could have said nothing, and Bronni would have faced
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the exact same circumstances that he's
Speaker 1: faced over the last year, and the fact that his
Speaker 1: entire basketball pedigree and everything he accomplished up until the
Speaker 1: cardiac arrest was just crumpled up and thrown in the trash.
Speaker 1: As part of the way that whole thing was discussed.
Speaker 1: It just was nasty, and I just feel really bad
Speaker 1: for him, and I'm just excited for him that he's
Speaker 1: starting to break through on the other side of this
Speaker 1: and show some of that pedigree that he demonstrated when
Speaker 1: he was in high school.
Speaker 2: Now, for the record, this won't be linear.
Speaker 1: The development of young players is not something that just
Speaker 1: goes up and up and up. He'll have stretches where
Speaker 1: he has bad games in the NBA, He'll have bad
Speaker 1: stretches of games in the G League. He'll make mistakes,
Speaker 1: there will be more content creators that have more opportunities
Speaker 1: to slander him for whatever reason. But what you're starting
Speaker 1: to see is the upside. You're starting to see that
Speaker 1: he can shoot. JJ Reddick talked the other day about
Speaker 1: how he expects Brownie in the big picture to be
Speaker 1: a great shooter. You've seen some of the upside with
Speaker 1: him as a defensive playmaker. You've seen some of the
Speaker 1: upside with him as a downhill threat towards the rim.
Speaker 1: As a playmaking talent. He's got ability in there now.
Speaker 1: I still maintain that I think it'll be at least
Speaker 1: a year or two before he can be a guy
Speaker 1: that plays real rotational minutes at the NBA level as
Speaker 1: a guard off the bench for somebody in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I still think he needs quite a bit of time
Speaker 1: to get there, but the potential has always been there.
Speaker 1: It was missing in terms of the production for a
Speaker 1: little while as a result of what happened to him
Speaker 1: at USC and I'm happy that we're all starting to
Speaker 1: see some of that potential start to come to fruition
Speaker 1: right now, because it's just a reminder and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: a resounding statement that most of the stuff that was
Speaker 1: set about Bronnie and set about lebron over the course
Speaker 1: of the year with Bronni in his journey to where
Speaker 1: he has in the NBA was just complete and utter bullshit.
Speaker 1: And Bronnie's just rubbing that in everybody's face right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy for him. That's it for this week's
Speaker 1: course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take
Speaker 1: bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to
Speaker 1: help drive your business forward. With Microsoft as your trusted partner,
Speaker 1: you can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions
Speaker 1: and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers
Speaker 1: to learn more. All right, let's get into a couple
Speaker 1: games from last night. The Thunder just completely outclassed the
Speaker 1: King right out of the gate. They put Keegan Murray
Speaker 1: on chet Holmgrin to start in. The Thunder just immediately
Speaker 1: started running him through off ball screens. They ran a
Speaker 1: backscreen on the week side with shy backscreening for Chet.
Speaker 1: Kean Ellis did not want to switch off of Shey.
Speaker 1: Keegan got caught on the screen. Chet got a wide
Speaker 1: open layup that was on the first play of the game.
Speaker 1: Second play of the game, they run a Chicago action
Speaker 1: which is just the DHO guys up top and there's
Speaker 1: a screener in front. The screener will pin down, the
Speaker 1: DHO guy will follow, and Check comes off of both
Speaker 1: of those screens. I think it was Dorton Hartenstein if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly. So basically two screens, Chet comes flying
Speaker 1: off of him up to the right wing and knocks
Speaker 1: down with three off the catches. Keegan gets run through
Speaker 1: a bunch of screens again. It's Chet is kind of
Speaker 1: a cheat code in these off ball actions for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One, he's a big so teams are
Speaker 1: most likely not going to switch guards on him. So
Speaker 1: if you run screening action for him with guards involved,
Speaker 1: he's probably gonna get some separation because you're probably going
Speaker 1: to guard him with a bigger player. Bigger players notoriously
Speaker 1: struggle with screens. Even a guy like Kei can murray
Speaker 1: as good as he is in ISO, he can struggle
Speaker 1: sometimes getting over the top of screens right. And when
Speaker 1: you have a situation where you're not switching because of
Speaker 1: a big and a small it just puts big guys
Speaker 1: in position where they have to navigate a bunch of screens,
Speaker 1: and that's difficult. That's why inverted ball screens work so
Speaker 1: well with the Jokic's and some of the other centers
Speaker 1: that run that sort of action throughout the league. Even
Speaker 1: Giannis runs that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Quite a bit.
Speaker 1: The second piece of it, though, is he's a really
Speaker 1: big target. He had another bucket later in the first
Speaker 1: half against Jake Laavia where they ran a kind of
Speaker 1: like an off ball action that Check curled into the
Speaker 1: lane and Jake saw it, Jake evaded the screen. Jake
Speaker 1: ran into the lane to guard Chet, but Chet's seven
Speaker 1: feet tall and so Isa Hartenstein, who is the passer
Speaker 1: at the top of the key, just kind of rifled
Speaker 1: up a pass that was up high and to the
Speaker 1: right where Jake had no chance to get it, and Chet,
Speaker 1: in his you know, go go gadget arms, just went
Speaker 1: out and grabbed it and brought it in and by
Speaker 1: the time Jake Larravio was on the ground, Chet was
Speaker 1: dunking it. And that's the thing, Like he's just such
Speaker 1: a big target passing wise, and he's so tall that
Speaker 1: like if he catches anything around the rim, it's just
Speaker 1: an automatic dunk. And I just thought seeing Chet run
Speaker 1: all that off ball action was just casual reminder of
Speaker 1: some of the big picture potential this team has offensively.
Speaker 1: As Chet continues to develop on that end of the floor,
Speaker 1: their defense was immediately stifling against Sacramento's guards. Started with
Speaker 1: the bigs, like Hartenstein did a wonderful job against the
Speaker 1: bonus as he keeps racking up great defensive nights against
Speaker 1: some really tough defensive matchups. We've been talking about that
Speaker 1: a lot. They were roaming off of Keegan Murray with
Speaker 1: Chet Holmgren, and that burned them a little bit. Keegan
Speaker 1: got twenty eight points and most of them were on
Speaker 1: threes when chet was roaming or digging down into the lane.
Speaker 1: But the end result was a disaster for DeRozan and
Speaker 1: Levine and the Kings couldn't score. They combined for just
Speaker 1: twenty nine points on thirty one shots between those two guys.
Speaker 1: I thought Caruso in particular, did a great job of
Speaker 1: pressuring Levine, forced him to rush on his drives. Levine
Speaker 1: would be running right into heart and sign at the rim,
Speaker 1: and he just was hesitant to test heart and sign
Speaker 1: at the rim, so he'd like drop it off to
Speaker 1: Valenceiunis underneath the basket. But because Hartenstein didn't have to
Speaker 1: jump at the rim, he's just right there and then
Speaker 1: he would just tie up Valenceiunis on the catch. I've
Speaker 1: really been enjoying watching Alex Crusoe on defense lately. He
Speaker 1: just does all the little things that you see the
Speaker 1: great defenders in NBA history do. Starts with pressure off ball.
Speaker 1: When he's guarding a score, he's staying attached to the
Speaker 1: body on ball. He's applying pressure as they come up
Speaker 1: the floor. But when you start trying to attack him,
Speaker 1: he attacks you. As a defender in every phase of
Speaker 1: the shot you're trying to take. I was watching him
Speaker 1: guard DeMar Derozen on a post up and Damar really
Speaker 1: drops that left shoulder and bumps him and Crusoe absorbs
Speaker 1: the contact, so he kind of disrupts the base a
Speaker 1: little bit. Right Then as Derozen spun into the right
Speaker 1: shoulder fade, he swipes at the gather. So again, as
Speaker 1: the shooter's gathering the ball in the shooting pocket, there's
Speaker 1: a moment where the ball is exposed in front. That's
Speaker 1: a great opportunity for a defender to disrupt the gatherer
Speaker 1: by swiping at the basketball. Then after the gather, DeMar
Speaker 1: DeRozan rises up into the right shoulder fade and Cruzo
Speaker 1: gets a contest on the shot. And I was sitting
Speaker 1: there thinking, I was like, every time I watch one
Speaker 1: of the elite defenders in the league, this is the
Speaker 1: way they guard. They you think of a contest. And this,
Speaker 1: by the way, is why you know it's impossible to
Speaker 1: quantify all the little minute details in basketball, and why
Speaker 1: even something silly like like, oh, contested shot percentage versus
Speaker 1: regular shot percentage doesn't factor in what kind of contest
Speaker 1: was it. I'll give you an example I remember when
Speaker 1: KD hit the game winner against not the game winner,
Speaker 1: but the Yeah it was the game winner ended up
Speaker 1: being the game winner in game three. I think of
Speaker 1: the twenty seventeen Finals, the one where he hit the
Speaker 1: kind of transition hesitation pull up three on Lebron. Bron
Speaker 1: got his hand up. Lebron's there had his hand up.
Speaker 1: That'll go down in the books as a contested three.
Speaker 1: Do you think KD was uncomfortable at all on that shot. No,
Speaker 1: he just rose right up into it in rhythm and
Speaker 1: knocked it down because Lebron did not disrupt Katie's base
Speaker 1: and he did not disrupt Katie's gather. There's all of
Speaker 1: these different phases to a shot that you have to
Speaker 1: disrupt in order to make an offensive player uncomfortable. Bump
Speaker 1: them on the base so that when they get their
Speaker 1: lift it feels different than when they're shooting or alone
Speaker 1: in the gym. If you get any sort of contact
Speaker 1: on the shooting pocket, like if you hit the basketball
Speaker 1: a little bit there, you'll disrupt their energy transfer. That's
Speaker 1: the power that they drive from their feet up through
Speaker 1: their gather up to the top of the shot. Then
Speaker 1: getting a contest on the top of the shot is
Speaker 1: a great way to tie all of that together. Alex
Speaker 1: Cruso is amazing at this concept, this idea of disrupting
Speaker 1: all three phases of a shot, and it's a very
Speaker 1: important detail to what puts a defensive player into another
Speaker 1: stretch at his sphere, making stars and other shot creators uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: The Kings went on a little bit of a run
Speaker 1: in the late third quarter that cut the lead down
Speaker 1: to six, and then shake Gildess Alexander just decided that
Speaker 1: their fund was over. He just drove right past Jake
Speaker 1: Laabia for dunk, drove right by him again and drew
Speaker 1: a foul. They switched Keon Ellis onto him, and he
Speaker 1: shot a step back three on the left wing that
Speaker 1: he hit. The lead was right back to eleven. All
Speaker 1: of Sacramento's momentum was gone and they never got that
Speaker 1: close again. This, to me, is one of the defining
Speaker 1: characteristics of a superstar in the NBA, one of the
Speaker 1: biggest responsibilities on the shoulders of players who have that role.
Speaker 1: You are the guy with the superpower. You have the
Speaker 1: thing that you do that nobody can stop when things
Speaker 1: are getting messy and your teammates who don't have superpowers
Speaker 1: are struggling to find their footing. Sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: force the issue, find a way to make a few
Speaker 1: plays to regain control of the situation. Cha's team needed
Speaker 1: him in that spot to just get a few buckets
Speaker 1: to settle things down, his superpower being his downhill driving ability.
Speaker 1: And oh, you switched a smaller guard onto him to
Speaker 1: try to get away from the dribble penetration and he
Speaker 1: hits a jump shot over the top. He just straight
Speaker 1: up forced the issue, generated seven quick points, and any
Speaker 1: momentum that Sacramento had was gone. The Thunder have won
Speaker 1: seven in a row. Now they're the first team in
Speaker 1: the league this year to get to sixty wins if
Speaker 1: they go ten, and oh, they'll get to seventy over
Speaker 1: the course of the final couple weeks. They are now
Speaker 1: two games up on Cleveland for the best record in basketball,
Speaker 1: starting to really separate. And they're doing all of this
Speaker 1: without j Dubb. Just a remarkable season for the Thunder.
Speaker 1: All right, Hawks, Rockets. So the Rockets handled the Hawks
Speaker 1: at home to win their tenth game and eleven. Trucks
Speaker 1: a little bit of a light stretching the schedule, but
Speaker 1: there's a handful of impressive wins, and they're Jalen Green
Speaker 1: goes off for thirty two points in this one. He's
Speaker 1: getting to the rim at will. He found some matchups
Speaker 1: that he liked throughout the game. He attacked Trey a
Speaker 1: few times. He went at Vit Kretschie quite a bit,
Speaker 1: Garrison Matthews quite a bit. Gave some wild buckets to
Speaker 1: Terrence Man. He had a baseline spin on him that
Speaker 1: like literally left Terrence stuck in the mud.
Speaker 2: Threw down a dunk. Had had two nasty dunks.
Speaker 1: In this game, because he had one where he split
Speaker 1: I think it was an an Yeka congu and a
Speaker 1: ball screen where Dyson Daniels was trailing him and ended
Speaker 1: up just going up the elevator at the semi circle
Speaker 1: and throwing down a jackhammer. He also hit one of
Speaker 1: the biggest shots of the game against Terrence Man, like
Speaker 1: a little fifteen foot fade away along the right baseline.
Speaker 1: He had two huge stabilizing buckets after Atlanta made their run.
Speaker 1: Similar to the Sacramento game with OKC, Houston controls the
Speaker 1: game right away from the start, build a big lead.
Speaker 1: They go on a late third quarter run gets the
Speaker 1: lead down. Atlanta actually cut this down to four at
Speaker 1: one point. Terrence Man had a nice little scoring run,
Speaker 1: hit a big three, hit a little mid range fade
Speaker 1: away in the lane. They cut it down to four
Speaker 1: and Jalen Green makes four plays down the stretch that
Speaker 1: kind of ice the game. He has a driving layup
Speaker 1: against Vit Kretschie that gets goaltended off the glass. He
Speaker 1: has another driving and one shot against Zachary Rosa Chet,
Speaker 1: a little like kind of fading jump shot after he
Speaker 1: gets some contact on a drive. He attacks Trey Young
Speaker 1: in action and draws him into a two on the
Speaker 1: ball situation where Trey hedges and then tries to recover,
Speaker 1: but they swing the ball out of it quickly. And
Speaker 1: against Jabari Smith Junior, a wide open three on the
Speaker 1: right wing that he knocks down that again was generated
Speaker 1: by Atlanta putting two on the ball because of the
Speaker 1: damage that Jalen Green was doing attacking matchups in those situations.
Speaker 1: And then he hit the dagger over Terrence Man. Really
Speaker 1: really impressive game from Jalen Green. He's had at least
Speaker 1: twenty eight points in five of his last eight games.
Speaker 1: I thought Shang gun was a big problem Frontlanta and
Speaker 1: this one. It's crazy how often I've watched the Rockets,
Speaker 1: and the biggest thing that stands out to me is
Speaker 1: that the other team just can't guard Shangun and it
Speaker 1: just changes the dynamic of the game. There is no
Speaker 1: Clint Capella for the Hawks in this game, so it's
Speaker 1: a combination of Nyika Congu, Georges Niang, and Dominic Barlow
Speaker 1: who are getting the Shang assignments, and Shangyun just killed
Speaker 1: those guys. Niang and Barlow especially. He had a couple
Speaker 1: of plays against Niang and Barlow where he scored on
Speaker 1: them like one on two, and it just didn't matter
Speaker 1: because he was just going through them. He also made
Speaker 1: a huge play in that late run that we talked about.
Speaker 1: He posted a congou in the middle of the floor,
Speaker 1: drew a double team swing swing got a wide open
Speaker 1: three for Jabari Smith. Shout out to Jabari Smith, by
Speaker 1: the way, just three for nine from three in the game,
Speaker 1: but hit some huge ones late in the game that
Speaker 1: were really important. I want to zoom in on the
Speaker 1: defensive end for a minute, though, because the Rockets ran
Speaker 1: a ton of zone in this game, and they've been
Speaker 1: running a ton of zone as of late. This is
Speaker 1: actually a crazy stat According to Synergy, the Houston Rockets
Speaker 1: ran zero possessions of zone defense in their first twenty
Speaker 1: nine or excuse me, in their first fifty nine games
Speaker 1: this season, zero possessions of zone in fifty nine games.
Speaker 1: They've run two hundred and forty two possessions of zone
Speaker 1: in the last fourteen games. That's over seventeen possessions of
Speaker 1: zone a game.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: It's been matchup specific like they've run it over forty
Speaker 1: times in three games specifically against Atlanta or and OKC.
Speaker 1: A lot of like speedy, kind of transition attack types
Speaker 1: of teams. Right, But they're running it at least a
Speaker 1: little bit every game and it's working. They're allowing just
Speaker 1: zero point eighty six points per possession with their zone defense.
Speaker 1: That's the third best in the entire NBA. They're running
Speaker 1: two different variations of it, and they're both built out
Speaker 1: of a two to three base. But they have a
Speaker 1: version with Steven Adams at center where he lags more
Speaker 1: back around the rim. It's more of a traditional two
Speaker 1: three zone. And then they have a version where they
Speaker 1: put Jabari Smith Junior at the center position. The de
Speaker 1: facto center position under the basket, and they'll have him
Speaker 1: be much more active coming up the floor, so like he'll,
Speaker 1: like when they're looking to drive on the top guy,
Speaker 1: he'll like be up around the elbow just waiting in help.
Speaker 1: Or if someone flashes to the middle of the floor
Speaker 1: to try to catch, Jabari will come up and the
Speaker 1: two guys on the wing will kind of shrink down
Speaker 1: around him. It's more of like a a Meeba matchup
Speaker 1: zone kind of thing with Jabari Smith out there at
Speaker 1: the at the center position. But like it works because
Speaker 1: the active in their zone. They pressure the ball, meaning
Speaker 1: like they don't just sit back, they get up and
Speaker 1: guard the ball. They move and shift as a unit.
Speaker 1: They ran forty eight possessions of a zone in this
Speaker 1: game against Atlanta, and Atlanta managed to zero point eight
Speaker 1: eight points per possession. As a comparison, Houston attacking Atlanta's
Speaker 1: man demand coverage got one point one to one points
Speaker 1: per possessions, or a dominating performance on the heels of
Speaker 1: their I should say on the strength of their zone defense.
Speaker 1: It's worth mentioning that the Rockets have played a relatively
Speaker 1: light schedule in this ten and one stretch, but It's
Speaker 1: also worth mentioning that they've really been scoring the ball.
Speaker 1: They have a one to nineteen offensive rating in this
Speaker 1: eleven game span that ranks eighth in the NBA. And remember,
Speaker 1: even at their best, they've struggled to score this year.
Speaker 1: Still number four in defense over the last eleven games,
Speaker 1: they've been the number one rebounding team in the league
Speaker 1: over that span. The offense is the interesting trend though,
Speaker 1: because if they can continue to maintain that level of
Speaker 1: offensive production against the league competition, they've become way more
Speaker 1: dangerous as a playoff threat. It's been kind of like
Speaker 1: a bi committee sort of thing. They have seven players
Speaker 1: averaging double figures. Fred van Vliet is back and he's
Speaker 1: shooting the three ball really well. Dylan Brooks in the
Speaker 1: seven game span, excuse me, in this eleven game span
Speaker 1: is taking over seven threes a game and he's hitting
Speaker 1: forty one percent of them. Shane Goon eighteen points per game,
Speaker 1: fifty four from the field, forty three percent from three
Speaker 1: in that span. Tarry Easen is pouring in fifteen points
Speaker 1: a game in the span. They're just getting a lot
Speaker 1: of contributions around the board, and they're really scoring the ball. Well,
Speaker 1: the Rockets are playing some very good basketball. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: it's all I have for today. As always, this sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show,
Speaker 1: the game plan as of right now. We're going live
Speaker 1: tonight on YouTube after the final buzzer of Celtic Suns
Speaker 1: to break that game down as well as the Lakers
Speaker 1: Pacers game. That's going to be a really fun one.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great test to the Lakers because
Speaker 1: they're a fast team that plays in transition a lot,
Speaker 1: and they've got a quick guard, and that's a couple
Speaker 1: of things that have caused the Lakers issues over the
Speaker 1: course of the season. So I'll be really interested to
Speaker 1: watch that one as well. I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you guys. Then I will see you guys on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Today the volume What's Up? Guys.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
Speaker 1: OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
Speaker 1: if you guys would take a second and leave a
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