Speaker 1: The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight Here at
Speaker 1: the Volume, Happy Thursday, everybody. Round two coverage of the
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Speaker 1: We have a jam packed show today. The Warriors even
Speaker 1: up the most entertaining second round series here in the
Speaker 1: NBA Playoffs. I've beaten the crap out of the Lakers tonight.
Speaker 1: Bunch of adjustments that we all kind of saw coming
Speaker 1: took place and the Lakers did not handle it well.
Speaker 1: And some adjustments I expect them to make and what
Speaker 1: I project for the rest of the series moving forward.
Speaker 1: And then last night the Boston Celtics got back on
Speaker 1: track against the Philadelphia seventy six ers, notching a similar
Speaker 1: type of dominant victory. Have some thoughts on that one
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Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, over
Speaker 1: the years, you guys have probably heard me repeat many
Speaker 1: things many times on the show, And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I consistently say on the show is I
Speaker 1: just don't care about box score numbers, particularly counting stats.
Speaker 1: I think they're part of the story. But generally speaking
Speaker 1: that you know, you might find some indicators for specific
Speaker 1: play that are indicators of their engagement level, right Like,
Speaker 1: specifically with Lebron and ad I'm always looking at things
Speaker 1: like rebounds, like when they're rebounding well, that typically means
Speaker 1: they're athletically engaged in the game. But like a lot
Speaker 1: of times it was scores. We focus on the points
Speaker 1: per game and field goal percentage and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and we don't pay close enough attention to the dynamic
Speaker 1: that's taking place on the court. Steph Curry had twenty
Speaker 1: points and twelve assists tonight. See relatively pedestrian stat line, right,
Speaker 1: nothing exceptional happening there. But I thought he was far
Speaker 1: and away the best player on the for tonight by
Speaker 1: a mile, right, you know, like Game one, Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: was the best player on the floor. But the box
Speaker 1: score is much more revealing of that. Thirty points, twenty
Speaker 1: three rebounds. That's you know, I saw some metric. It's
Speaker 1: like only four players all time I've ever done that,
Speaker 1: and they're all the all time great centers. Right, But
Speaker 1: for Steph Curry, it's pretty pedestrian stat line associated with
Speaker 1: what I thought was an extremely dominant performance. And that's
Speaker 1: why we can't always look at the box score. Curry,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, got robbed of a Finals MVP in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen for this very same thought process. People saw
Speaker 1: relatively pedestrian box score numbers by his standards, and they
Speaker 1: saw Andrea Gudala have a good scoring season series, right,
Speaker 1: and then they looked at Lebron James field goal percentage
Speaker 1: and essentially we're like, oh, Andre Gudala most valuable player
Speaker 1: of the NBA Finals, And that just wasn't the story
Speaker 1: of the series at all. Anybody who watched the games
Speaker 1: and I said this at the time and have said
Speaker 1: this repeatedly since you watch the game, and it's like
Speaker 1: Andre Gudala was pressured up on Lebron James in large
Speaker 1: part because it's Matthew Della Vedova and timoth Fay Mozgov
Speaker 1: and just a bunch of lower level NBA players that
Speaker 1: Golden State didn't have to guard, and so they had
Speaker 1: a wall behind him, and so Lebron's efficiency tanked as
Speaker 1: part of a team defensive strategy and a gap in
Speaker 1: talent between the two rosters, and Andrea Gudala was getting
Speaker 1: all these points because the Warriors could not guard Steph
Speaker 1: Curry with Matthew del a dove was straight up and
Speaker 1: so they had to start trapping pick and rolls, and
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of the beautiful Draymond Green four
Speaker 1: on three short roll down the middle, drawing in the
Speaker 1: defender out of the weekside cornered kicking to Andre Gudala.
Speaker 1: Like again, Andre was amazing in that series. He defended
Speaker 1: Lebron James extremely well about his Andre Goudala has defended
Speaker 1: Lebron James better than any defender I've ever seen defend
Speaker 1: Lebron James. So I'm not trying to take away credit
Speaker 1: for him. But what happened in that series was he
Speaker 1: was getting wide open shots in the corner because of
Speaker 1: Steph drawing multiple defenders from the top of the key.
Speaker 1: The Warriors, by far their most valuable player in that
Speaker 1: series was Steph Curry, and tonight was a very, very
Speaker 1: similar type of dynamic we talked. I talked a lot
Speaker 1: about this over the course the last couple of days.
Speaker 1: But Steph Curry in Pick and Roll, it's just a
Speaker 1: little bit easier for him to get separated from Jared Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: simple dynamic of physics. In a top lock or lock
Speaker 1: and trail system, he really only has to worry about
Speaker 1: one direction that Steph could run either into him or
Speaker 1: or backcut. Or if he gets lost and he's in
Speaker 1: a lock and trail, then all he has to do
Speaker 1: is trail him right, just follow him around. But in
Speaker 1: an on ball situation. He's squared up with Steph. Now
Speaker 1: he has to worry about left and right. Steph can
Speaker 1: use multiple dribbles to get him set up for the
Speaker 1: ball screen, and that screen can flip its angle in
Speaker 1: a way that they can't and off ball actions. It
Speaker 1: was just the obvious adjustment that was coming where I
Speaker 1: was super disappointed with Darvin Ham from a game plan standpoint.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this was Darvin Ham's game a
Speaker 1: game plan or if it was Anthony Davis from just
Speaker 1: a mental focus standpoint, and Anthony Davis had a nightmare game,
Speaker 1: or We're gonna talk a lot about him here later on.
Speaker 1: But Anthony Davis was coming way high on every single
Speaker 1: one of those screens. Now, I knew that was a
Speaker 1: possibility as part of steph pick and roll. You guys,
Speaker 1: remember what I said was if he could get Jared
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt caught on the screens, he can get more separation,
Speaker 1: which will force Anthony Davis to occasionally have to come
Speaker 1: higher up out of his drop coverage, which you'll open
Speaker 1: things up for Draymond Green in the short role. Right.
Speaker 1: But they did it every single time, like even when
Speaker 1: Jared Vanderbilt was there, there were possessions where it just
Speaker 1: looked like a blitz because Jared Vanderbilt is trailing Steph
Speaker 1: completely attached, and Anthony Davis is still coming way out,
Speaker 1: which doesn't make any sense, and we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a second. But all game long, it was Draymond
Speaker 1: Green in that short role, and obviously the Andre Guadala
Speaker 1: in this situation was Jamichael Green and in many cases,
Speaker 1: but it was a bunch of different guys. Andrew Wiggins
Speaker 1: hit a bunch of shots as well. Klay Thompson was fantastic,
Speaker 1: but like that specific dynamic of trapping Steph Curry thirty
Speaker 1: feet from the basket and allowing the Warriors to play
Speaker 1: four on three sprung their offense. And so even though
Speaker 1: Steph had twenty to twelve, which is a relatively pedestrian statline,
Speaker 1: like I said, he was by far the best player
Speaker 1: on the floor. And it's been one of the most
Speaker 1: underrated parts of this entire era is that you know,
Speaker 1: Steph's impact just like many stars, just like Lebron throughout
Speaker 1: his prime, just like when we're talking about some of
Speaker 1: the top guys in the league now. But Steph, obviously,
Speaker 1: to I think he's the second best player of this era,
Speaker 1: so to a greater extent than most of those guys.
Speaker 1: He just has an impact that extends well beyond the
Speaker 1: box score. You know, from a This is where the
Speaker 1: Lakers I think are gonna need to counter because we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about this concept. How do you guard
Speaker 1: Steph Curry during the NBA Finals last year? And it
Speaker 1: all to me comes down to your personnel, like, for instance,
Speaker 1: like I didn't. I think there's three ways that you
Speaker 1: can guard Steph Curry high pick and roll, and I
Speaker 1: think two of them are potential acceptable options, and then
Speaker 1: there's one that's like you should never do under any circumstances.
Speaker 1: Number one is drop coverage. That means you let Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis or whoever the protector is hang back in the
Speaker 1: paint or not come out too far. Maybe you only
Speaker 1: come up to the free throw line so we can
Speaker 1: get to get to the role man, and then you
Speaker 1: ask your guard to chase over the top and to
Speaker 1: apply back pressure. The vulnerability there is Steph getting separated
Speaker 1: from the ball defender and knocking down pull up threes. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the weak point in in that coverage. The strong
Speaker 1: point in that coverage is you never allow a short
Speaker 1: role and you show down the paint and you're basically
Speaker 1: forcing Steph to make tough contest to jumpers. Right, that's
Speaker 1: good option number one. Good option number two is to
Speaker 1: switch because then at the very least, you're forcing Steph
Speaker 1: to beat guys off the dribble. And he's amazing. He's,
Speaker 1: like I said, the second best player of this era.
Speaker 1: He's gonna beat dudes off the dribble. In a lot
Speaker 1: of those cases. Option three is the one thing you
Speaker 1: could never do in my opinion, and it's to trap
Speaker 1: or blitz or to bring both defenders to Steph above
Speaker 1: the level of the screen, because that's what opens up
Speaker 1: those four on threes. And it makes more sense against
Speaker 1: other teams in the NBA when you're like playing Damian Lillard, Yeah,
Speaker 1: go for it. When you're playing you know, Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: or some of these other guys, like if you want
Speaker 1: to Nuggets are actually a bad example because he Jokic,
Speaker 1: But some of these other on ball defenders or on
Speaker 1: ball guards, it makes more sense to do because they
Speaker 1: don't have the continuity in the personnel to they don't
Speaker 1: they usually don't have a role. Man. That's very good
Speaker 1: at making decisions, or they don't have like the the
Speaker 1: bang bang pass sequences kind of lined up. This is
Speaker 1: a Warrior team that has been destroying this coverage for
Speaker 1: nine years now. Like you can like that. That's the
Speaker 1: one coverage you can never use against the Warriors is
Speaker 1: to bring both defenders up onto Steph because they're just
Speaker 1: too good at it. Draymond's too good at it. Even
Speaker 1: Kavan Looney's too good at it. They've they got their
Speaker 1: spacing down pat on how to attack that. It just
Speaker 1: it just it was a really bad strategy in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Like when we look at the margin here and like,
Speaker 1: the Warriors beat the shit out of the Lakers tonight,
Speaker 1: but like I don't. I saw some Lakers fans and
Speaker 1: I mentioned when I because I predicted the Warriors would
Speaker 1: win by double digits tonight. Have had a pretty good
Speaker 1: feel for this series so far. I predicted the Warriors
Speaker 1: would win by double digits. I had Laker fans and
Speaker 1: my mentions like, nah, we're gonna go up to well,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a no. The Lakers might be
Speaker 1: a little better than the Warriors, They're not gonna blow
Speaker 1: them out every game. That's just not gonna happen. The
Speaker 1: Warriors might be a little better than the Lakers, they're
Speaker 1: not gonna blow them out of every game. A good
Speaker 1: portion of that margin was effort, But there were two
Speaker 1: things in particular from that game that translate forward that
Speaker 1: could be a problem for the Lakers. And it's that
Speaker 1: Steph high pick and roll thing, and then something we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a little bit, which is Klay Thompson
Speaker 1: and Austin Reeves and some of the damage that he
Speaker 1: did to him there. But like obviously, the margin doesn't
Speaker 1: tell the full story, but this specific battle. As we
Speaker 1: shift to the Lakers at home in Game three, it's
Speaker 1: gonna come down to coverages in that high pick and roll. Now,
Speaker 1: what I would do if I was coaching the Lakers,
Speaker 1: I would start in the drop coverage. Jared Vanderbilt was
Speaker 1: the hero of Game one because of what I broke
Speaker 1: down for you guys, which was back pressure, his ability
Speaker 1: to pursue over the top of screens and bother Steph
Speaker 1: from behind. It's beyond me that they didn't give him
Speaker 1: an opportunity to demonstrate that again in this game and
Speaker 1: just came way up high on those ball screens every
Speaker 1: single time basically removing Jared Vanderbilt's athleticism from the equation
Speaker 1: and putting your two best defensive players furthest away from
Speaker 1: the basket while everyone else is rolling towards the rip.
Speaker 1: Now again, like with the Celtics, I didn't like the
Speaker 1: drop coverage because I thought they had great switching personnel.
Speaker 1: When you have Al Horford and and and Uh, Marcus
Speaker 1: Smart and Derek White, Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown, you
Speaker 1: can switch everything because everybody's a great defender. And yes,
Speaker 1: Steph's gonna beat some guys, but it's gonna be more difficult,
Speaker 1: and you have more athleticism in rotation. This Laker team
Speaker 1: is fundamentally constructed different. d'An Angelo Russell and Austin Reeves
Speaker 1: are below average athletes. You know, Lebron James is a
Speaker 1: defender that like he's when he's engaged, he's great, but
Speaker 1: he can kind of flow in and out of it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes switching is not the ideal coverage for this Laker team.
Speaker 1: For them, drop makes more sense because they have a
Speaker 1: longer defender that can actually bother Steph from behind in
Speaker 1: a way that Derek White and Marcus Smart can't. And
Speaker 1: they have a much better drop coverage big and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis on the back line than Robert Williams and Al Horford.
Speaker 1: So again it depends on the roster that you have,
Speaker 1: But for this particular Lakers team, I would go with
Speaker 1: the with the drop covers that they use in game one.
Speaker 1: Then what I would do is if if if Steph
Speaker 1: starts to just torch Jared Vanderbilt and pull up three
Speaker 1: point shooting, which, by the way, like again I have
Speaker 1: to rewatch the game, and there's a lot going on
Speaker 1: at the same time, but I don't think Steph hit
Speaker 1: a pull up three and pick and roll and correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong on that. But if he did,
Speaker 1: he only hit one or so, Like Steph wasn't torching
Speaker 1: them and pick and roll as a score. They didn't
Speaker 1: even give him an opportunity to get that going before
Speaker 1: making that adjustment. What I would do in game three
Speaker 1: is I'd run that drop coverage, give vayner Built a
Speaker 1: fighting chance. If Steph hits two or three pull up threes,
Speaker 1: then you can go to the next best option, which
Speaker 1: is switching, which is less than ideal for this particular roster.
Speaker 1: But then you put the onus on Anthony Davis to
Speaker 1: sit there and defend Steph Curry, you know, and obviously
Speaker 1: then there'll be another accounter for the Warriors there, because
Speaker 1: then at that point they can probably try to use
Speaker 1: Steph as more of a point guard and to try
Speaker 1: to get the ball to other people with Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: away from the back line. Like this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a chess match that goes a bunch of different directions
Speaker 1: over the course of the next however many games this goes.
Speaker 1: But I do think Darvin Ham made the wrong decision tonight,
Speaker 1: and I do think that there's a good option for
Speaker 1: them to counter going into Game three. The other biggest
Speaker 1: adjustment that we expected the Warriors to make in this
Speaker 1: game was to go small and get out in transition.
Speaker 1: At the time that we started the show, they had
Speaker 1: a seventeen to three fast break points advantage. They went
Speaker 1: small with Jamichael Green, which is a decision that I
Speaker 1: was a little confused by because I'm a big believer
Speaker 1: in like, if you're gonna go small, go small. Like
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go small, go in on offensive skill.
Speaker 1: You know, I would have probably started pool. But that said,
Speaker 1: it worked out great because Jamichael Green kept getting those
Speaker 1: wide open corner threes. So again it's like it's less
Speaker 1: about like what your playing is and it comes down
Speaker 1: to execution at the end of the day. But they
Speaker 1: got out in transition more. They dominated the like as
Speaker 1: good as the Lakers have been in the half court
Speaker 1: defensively since the trade deadline. All season long, they've been
Speaker 1: an atrocious perimeter excuse me, an atrocious transition defense team.
Speaker 1: They have too many guys that like to complain at
Speaker 1: the refs. Anthony Davis is super susceptible to games where
Speaker 1: he jogs up and down the floor in transition. They
Speaker 1: don't get matched up, they don't communicate. They're a bad
Speaker 1: transition defense team. We saw that at the end of game.
Speaker 1: We saw that throughout this game. So the two counters
Speaker 1: that the Warriors made monumentally shifted this series, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be up to the Lakers to adjust back. And again,
Speaker 1: I do think effort was the biggest factor in this game, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact stat, but I've read something
Speaker 1: the other day that like something crazy like fifteen consecutive
Speaker 1: times the when the home team that is the series,
Speaker 1: the home court advantage team loses Game one, they win
Speaker 1: Game two every time, Like, I don't even remember the
Speaker 1: last time the road team went up two to zero
Speaker 1: on the road. It just is extremely rare in NBA history.
Speaker 1: There's always gonna be an effort gap. It's a natural
Speaker 1: ebb and flow that you see over the course of
Speaker 1: the series. The more desperate team usually comes out and
Speaker 1: plays a lot better in the margins than they end
Speaker 1: up getting a win, and the Warriors did tonight. Again,
Speaker 1: that's not to say they wouldn't have won the game anyway,
Speaker 1: but I think that's more indicative of the margin. I
Speaker 1: don't think the Warriors are thirty points better than the
Speaker 1: Lakers in a one game sample size, obviously, right, But
Speaker 1: moving forward in the series, Steph, I pick Roll going
Speaker 1: small and getting out in transition, and then the third
Speaker 1: one Klay Thompson and Austin Reeves. So Clay had a
Speaker 1: bad shooting night in Game one, and a lot of
Speaker 1: it had to do with the Lakers keeping them in
Speaker 1: the half court a lot, But early in the game
Speaker 1: there was something that stood out to me quickly as
Speaker 1: Clay got off to a hot start. I think he
Speaker 1: made four of his first five shots or something like that.
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves is just a little too small, and he's
Speaker 1: not as in a little too like I should say
Speaker 1: small from a muscle standpoint as well, And Clay was
Speaker 1: just really good at setting him up for his off
Speaker 1: ball actions. And like, even even with Clay with this
Speaker 1: little step back jumper that he takes from the mid range,
Speaker 1: you can always tell when Clay gets like great separation
Speaker 1: and great lift, that shot goes in almost every single time,
Speaker 1: versus when he's really being bothered by a bigger, stronger defender,
Speaker 1: he fades more and it's a much tougher shot, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I was worried about the Clay Reeves matchup in Game one,
Speaker 1: even though the box score looked pretty solid. I kind
Speaker 1: of I believe I mentioned that in our Game one show.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly, but that specific matchup is going
Speaker 1: to be another one that's going to be a problem
Speaker 1: for the Lakers moving forward in the series. So as
Speaker 1: we sift through the effort related stuff, those are the
Speaker 1: positives for the Warriors Steph pickenroll getting out in transition
Speaker 1: by going small Clay on Austin Reeves. So let's move
Speaker 1: to the Lakers side a little bit. Lebron James got
Speaker 1: his jumper going in this particular game, didn't shoot particularly
Speaker 1: well in the second half of the game, was kind
Speaker 1: of out of out of the grip at that point.
Speaker 1: I said this a bunch in the show with the
Speaker 1: Nerd Sash guys yesterday. But Lebron James is a great
Speaker 1: postseason jump shooter. Has been forever, like basically since the
Speaker 1: ever since the twenty thirteen playoff run when he won
Speaker 1: a second title in Miami, all the way to this year,
Speaker 1: with exception of the twenty fifteen postseason, he's been an
Speaker 1: above average, good volume jump shooter. I want to say
Speaker 1: he's like thirty seven percent from three on like six
Speaker 1: attempts in his previous five playoff runs. Like, Lebron's a
Speaker 1: good jump shooter who happens to be in one of
Speaker 1: the worst slumps of his career. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I was never really overly critical of Lebron James continuing
Speaker 1: to shoot, because he's just trying to shoot his way
Speaker 1: out of the slump. And most importantly, they're gonna literally
Speaker 1: need him to be to knock down those shots in
Speaker 1: order to have any chance to win this series in
Speaker 1: the long run, and really any of the series moving forward,
Speaker 1: so that I think is a relatively good sign for
Speaker 1: the Lakers that he got that going a little bit.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis look like. I'm as big of a believer
Speaker 1: in the Anthony Davis ceiling as anybody, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times, like some of my AD takes
Speaker 1: get pulled out of context as is if I'm an
Speaker 1: AD hater, that's not the case. Like I'm so high
Speaker 1: on AD and what he's capable of that I've said
Speaker 1: this on the show and I believe it. I think
Speaker 1: he is capable. I should say his ceiling is every
Speaker 1: bit as high as Nikola jokicch and Joel Embiid arguably higher.
Speaker 1: Coming into this game. Anthony Davis might have been the
Speaker 1: best player in the postseason so far overall when you
Speaker 1: factor in his de defensive impact. But he just has
Speaker 1: this tendency, especially after he plays well, to relax and
Speaker 1: look like I'm not sitting here expecting every game to
Speaker 1: be this unbelievable MVP type performance. That's not true for
Speaker 1: anybody Like Lebron James is the only guy I can
Speaker 1: remember ever in NBA history my time watching the league
Speaker 1: to like be dependably great in every postseason game, and
Speaker 1: that that those days are gone too as he's gotten older.
Speaker 1: But from basically twenty twenty to twenty thirteen, like I
Speaker 1: said during that that span, Lebron is the safest bet
Speaker 1: in sports. Like it's just oh big playoff game. Lebron
Speaker 1: at a minimum is going to be twenty eight, eight
Speaker 1: and eight with excellent defense and and and apply a
Speaker 1: ton of rim pressure and make a ton of plays
Speaker 1: for his teammates like he was dependably great and then
Speaker 1: and then he would be, you know, with the upside
Speaker 1: if potentially going for forty twelve and thirteen on any
Speaker 1: given night, right like like that. But that's why he's
Speaker 1: the second best player of all time. And I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to hold Anthony di to that same standard. But
Speaker 1: for Anthony Davis, his fluctuations are even more extreme than
Speaker 1: what you would expect like a normal superstar level player
Speaker 1: in the league. It's like sometimes he's great, sometimes he's
Speaker 1: not so great. Sometimes he's great, sometimes he's not so great.
Speaker 1: Ady will have stinkers like straight up play awful well
Speaker 1: below a superstar standard, Like one day he's the best
Speaker 1: player in the world, next day he's Clincapella. Like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you get from Anthony Davis this.
Speaker 1: I saw this stat earlier, and this is crazy. Game
Speaker 1: three against Memphis thirty one and seventeen, Game four against
Speaker 1: Memphis twelve and eleven, Game five against Memphis thirty one
Speaker 1: and nineteen, Game six against Memphis sixteen and fourteen. Although
Speaker 1: I thought he played great in that game, overall, he
Speaker 1: just didn't need to score very much. Game one against
Speaker 1: Golden State thirty and twenty three, Game two against Golden
Speaker 1: State eleven points and seven rebounds, Like, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about the difference between you going like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: Jokic was a little offt He only had twenty four
Speaker 1: eleven and seven and he was kind of inefficient. No, Like,
Speaker 1: that's not what you get from these Anthony Davis bad games.
Speaker 1: He's a complete no show. The same dominant defensive performance
Speaker 1: that he had in Game one was a He was
Speaker 1: a step slow on all of his rim reactions. He
Speaker 1: was jogging back in transition. Like I said, I don't
Speaker 1: think Darvin ham wanted ad to blitz every ball screen.
Speaker 1: I thought he was making bad reads. So like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what was going on with Anthony Davis tonight,
Speaker 1: But this is a thing that I've consistently seen, and
Speaker 1: that like, I would love to say that Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: is the best player in the world, but like, he's
Speaker 1: not gonna be in that conversation ever until he finds
Speaker 1: a way to cut out this like one out of
Speaker 1: every three games as just a total stinker. It's like
Speaker 1: a legitimate part of his basketball identity. And I don't
Speaker 1: have a good explanation for he's not soft. This is
Speaker 1: not like a, oh, we switched Draymon Green on him
Speaker 1: and he shut him down. I've watched Anthony Davis earlier
Speaker 1: this year towards Straymond Green, including hitting the dagger in
Speaker 1: his face on the left baseline. Like Anthony Davis plays
Speaker 1: great in physicality, sometimes it's just he'll bully the hell
Speaker 1: out of a team one game, and then the next
Speaker 1: game he just won't be there. He just won't be
Speaker 1: engaged physically the way he is. It's not a soft thing.
Speaker 1: It's not a skill thing. It's strictly a mentality thing.
Speaker 1: He struggles to bring it with the same level of
Speaker 1: intensity every night, and his down intensity isn't just down,
Speaker 1: it's way down. And that part is confusing. But again,
Speaker 1: I expect the Warriors to stick with the same game
Speaker 1: play moving forward, maybe tweak the Jamichael Green thing. We'll see.
Speaker 1: I think the Lakers will start with more of a
Speaker 1: dramatic eight drop coverage, maybe go to some switching, and
Speaker 1: then the role players need to play way better. Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves played really poorly in this particular game. D'Angel Russell.
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty sloppy overall, like they're gonna
Speaker 1: need better performances from some guys on the margins as well.
Speaker 1: This to me feels like a series where Game four
Speaker 1: is gonna be the determining game. I expect the Lakers
Speaker 1: to come out with a similar type of chaotic and
Speaker 1: for an effort in Game three. I think they'll have
Speaker 1: a better game plan. I think the Lakers will win
Speaker 1: Game three, probably not quite as comfortably as Game too,
Speaker 1: because the Warriors are a little more resilient in those
Speaker 1: down bigs. They're less likely to let go of the
Speaker 1: rope than the Lakers are. But in this game, in
Speaker 1: Game three, I expect the Lakers to win by ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen points a little comfortably over the Warriors. Game
Speaker 1: four is gonna be the knockdown, drag out rock fight
Speaker 1: of a game that is close late, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be Steph Curry in high pick and roll versus Lebron
Speaker 1: James and Anthony Davis and what they can do on
Speaker 1: the game, in the game physically on both ends of
Speaker 1: the floor. That's gonna be the game that determines the series.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, the Lakers will either go up three
Speaker 1: to one and win the series or they'll drop that game.
Speaker 1: It'll be two to two, and then the Warriors will
Speaker 1: have a huge advantage heading home for Game five. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of where I'm sitting right now. All right,
Speaker 1: let's move on just really quickly. I'm not gonna spend
Speaker 1: too much time on it because it was a kind
Speaker 1: of a disgusting blowout. But the Celtics Sixers game last night,
Speaker 1: and you know, when I saw the score, I thought
Speaker 1: it was be much more lopsided than it actually was
Speaker 1: when I ended up. Uh, when I was watching, like
Speaker 1: Embiid was amazing defensively in the first half, the Sixers
Speaker 1: kind of hung in under like a crazy Boston Celtics effort,
Speaker 1: and it was actually fifty to forty five at one point.
Speaker 1: I thought Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart in particular, really
Speaker 1: set the tone with their defensive ball pressure to start
Speaker 1: to start that game. And again kudos to the Sixers
Speaker 1: for hanging in tight, but boy did they let go
Speaker 1: of the rope in that in that third quarter. And
Speaker 1: Boston just has a ton of offensive skill. And when
Speaker 1: they start driving and kicking you to death, they start
Speaker 1: getting these wide open threes for good shooters and they
Speaker 1: can do a ton of damage very quickly. I here's
Speaker 1: what I'm worried about Embiid because again, like I thought,
Speaker 1: Embiid was great to start that game, making all these
Speaker 1: out of area defensive plays. He was doing his job
Speaker 1: on offense, drawing attention. But there in the end of
Speaker 1: the second quarter in particular, you could see he started
Speaker 1: to get tired and there was like a layup that
Speaker 1: he blew right at the rim. This might have actually
Speaker 1: been in the third quarter, if I'm if I'm I
Speaker 1: might be messing that up. I think it actually was
Speaker 1: in the third quarter, but he, like early third quarter,
Speaker 1: Embiid like blows a layup right at the rim and
Speaker 1: transition and where he just didn't didn't go up with force,
Speaker 1: just kind of like try to tap it in and
Speaker 1: missed it. Then he missed like three or four jumpers
Speaker 1: in a row short and I'm like, okay, that's fatigue,
Speaker 1: Like he's tired. And again, like I would have been
Speaker 1: so much more. I would have viewed this series as
Speaker 1: so much more of a toss up if Embiid was
Speaker 1: really in a groove the way that he was when
Speaker 1: they beat the Celtics like a month ago, right, But
Speaker 1: that's just not the case. Embiid is coming off this injury,
Speaker 1: He's clearly not moving as well as he usually does.
Speaker 1: That disrupts his rhythm and his conditioning, and like Embiid
Speaker 1: always struggles a little bit with conditioning, but it's exacerbated
Speaker 1: when he has to take a week off and all
Speaker 1: he can do is stand still shooting. And then again
Speaker 1: when you need to dominate games from the free throw
Speaker 1: line with the live dribble and triple threat situations the
Speaker 1: way that Embiid does, it just is really really difficult
Speaker 1: to be as effective there when you're not in a
Speaker 1: really good playing groove, Like basketball just moves at a
Speaker 1: certain speed in a real game compared to a practice
Speaker 1: environment or a stay in still environment, and it's just
Speaker 1: really hard to replicate. And so like as much as
Speaker 1: I again Game three, we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if the Sixers had a crazy effort in one that game.
Speaker 1: They're that talented. And the Celtics are every bit as
Speaker 1: capable as the Lakers as just letting go of the
Speaker 1: rope as soon as they have a moment of prosperity. Right,
Speaker 1: But I just don't know that they can beat this
Speaker 1: talented Celtics team unless I'm beat is at his very best,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think he's at his very best.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, That is all I have for tonight.
Speaker 1: I believe I think we're taking Tomorrow off and then
Speaker 1: we'll be covering those games on Saturday morning and then
Speaker 1: going again on Saturday night. As always, I sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys, and I'll see you on Saturday. The volume