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Speaker 1: welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the Volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had
Speaker 1: an incredible weekend. We're just gonna be hitting three games
Speaker 1: from last night today, the national television doubleheader between the
Speaker 1: Warriors and the Wolves and the Clippers and the Nuggets,
Speaker 1: and then Damian Lillard dropped seventy one points on Houston Rockets.
Speaker 1: I have some thoughts about Dame's loyalty to the Portland Trailblazers,
Speaker 1: as well as some thoughts on the overarching NBA theme
Speaker 1: of massive individual scoring outbursts, which I think is super interesting.
Speaker 1: You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
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Speaker 1: to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: some basketball. So the Warriors were down ninety six eighty
Speaker 1: seven about halfway through the fourth quarter. Nazreid in particular
Speaker 1: was killing them in the absence of Draymond. He had
Speaker 1: thirty points and nine rebounds in this game. His skill
Speaker 1: set kind of reminds me of Boogey Cousins in the
Speaker 1: sense that he's almost like a perimeter big, can handle
Speaker 1: the hell out of the basketball, can dribble it, and
Speaker 1: then he has that like natural scoring feel we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about, which is like that creativity mixed with
Speaker 1: the skill set and then an irrational confidence. Those are
Speaker 1: like all those ingredients that you need to be that
Speaker 1: natural type of score. I'm actually really interested to see
Speaker 1: how he factors into Minnesota's plans or if they end
Speaker 1: up attempting to move off of him at some point,
Speaker 1: and if so, where he ends up and where he
Speaker 1: can fit elsewhere in the league, because he's actually a
Speaker 1: super interesting player. Who's had a super interesting season. But
Speaker 1: as a result, the Warriors were down ninety six eighty seven,
Speaker 1: and down the stretch of this game, they showed some
Speaker 1: vintage Golden State Warriors execution and then Klay Thompson flashed
Speaker 1: some really high level individual shot creation, which is something
Speaker 1: that hasn't exactly been a focal point of Klay Thompson's career,
Speaker 1: but he's had to lean on it a lot in
Speaker 1: this perticular season as the Warriors have needed him to
Speaker 1: because of injuries. And so I want to go, we
Speaker 1: haven't done this in a while, but I want to
Speaker 1: kind of go play by play down the stretch of
Speaker 1: this game, and so I can highlight those two specific
Speaker 1: factors because I think they're super interesting and I think
Speaker 1: they factor big time into Golden State's eventual ceiling in
Speaker 1: a potential playoff run if they were to get healthy.
Speaker 1: So from ninety six eighty seven, it started on the
Speaker 1: defensive end with the Warriors doing what a lot of
Speaker 1: teams do, ignoring a player that they don't view as
Speaker 1: a shooting threat. They started helping off of Austin Rivers
Speaker 1: in the right corner, so Jonathan Kamingo was guarding Austin
Speaker 1: Rivers and he was able to help down into the
Speaker 1: lane to shut down the other Timberwolves actions playing five
Speaker 1: on four defensively, and Austin Rivers missed back to back
Speaker 1: wide open threes in the corners. I think that just
Speaker 1: kind of got them started, and on the first one,
Speaker 1: Dante DiVincenzo grabbed the miss and pushed the ball up
Speaker 1: the floor and found a semi transition opportunity. He was
Speaker 1: being guarded by Jordan McLaughlin and I talked about this
Speaker 1: all the time. When there's no when there's a transition situation,
Speaker 1: your help defense isn't set, and so there's opportunities to
Speaker 1: attack the rim before the defense gets set. And that's
Speaker 1: a big part of why it's important to push in transition.
Speaker 1: There's no point in facing a set defense if you
Speaker 1: don't have to. He ends up hitting Jordan McLaughlin with
Speaker 1: a really nice behind the back dribble, gets down the
Speaker 1: lane and makes a little scoop shot in the lane.
Speaker 1: After the second Austin Rivers miss, Klay Thompson comes through
Speaker 1: an elevator screen. Elevator screen basically involves two screeners kind
Speaker 1: of at the elbow, maybe a little bit higher than
Speaker 1: the elbow in the NBA, but the shooter will run
Speaker 1: through the screen and then the two guys will touch
Speaker 1: shoulders and shut the door. And they shut the door
Speaker 1: on Anthony Edwards and Klay Thompson knocked down to three.
Speaker 1: So that kind of got them back in the groove.
Speaker 1: They went from being down nine to down four. From
Speaker 1: there after, they just got two stops. Steve Kerr switched
Speaker 1: to a zone defense, a two to three zone kind
Speaker 1: of extended out to the perimeter, and they had just
Speaker 1: gotten two stops. And that's what I like it is
Speaker 1: because it's about to me. I I look at these
Speaker 1: are execution elements of the game that you attribute to
Speaker 1: the coach. But I love it when you mix up coverages.
Speaker 1: A lot of times coaches will mix up coverages just
Speaker 1: as a means of countering something that's killing them, right, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're killing us in drop coverage, so we have to
Speaker 1: start switching. Okay, well they're killing our big and switches,
Speaker 1: so now we need to start double teaming or trapping
Speaker 1: the ball handler or offering help out of the weak
Speaker 1: side to play three on two in the pick and roll. Defensively,
Speaker 1: what you don't see often enough in the NBA is
Speaker 1: mixing up coverages even when they are working. And the
Speaker 1: reason why I like that is it prevents ball handlers
Speaker 1: from seeing the same coverage enough time enough times to
Speaker 1: then solve that coverage. So, for instance, like Austin Rivers
Speaker 1: is a professional basketball player, if you keep running that
Speaker 1: same coverage helping off of him in the corner with
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga, he might eventually derive the necessary amount of
Speaker 1: confidence to knock that shot down. But by quickly switching
Speaker 1: to Owe, you fundamentally change the way the Wolves have
Speaker 1: to play off offense on the fly, and you prevent
Speaker 1: them from ever getting into that rhythm. Then you can
Speaker 1: go back to it a few possessions later and it's
Speaker 1: a completely different situation again at that point, so they
Speaker 1: go to zone and they end up getting a nase
Speaker 1: red contested three at the top of the key that
Speaker 1: he ends up missing. This is where Klay Thompson, the
Speaker 1: on ball shot creator, kicks in a gear. And there's
Speaker 1: four players or four plays in particular that I want
Speaker 1: to highlight. And again, Klay Thompson, I've talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot. We just talked about it the other day.
Speaker 1: He's the second best shooter of all time in my opinion,
Speaker 1: but he's mostly been an off ball player in his career.
Speaker 1: He almost prides himself on limiting dribbles, which is part
Speaker 1: of what makes him such a complimentary fit in the
Speaker 1: Warrior system when they are healthy, and it's a big
Speaker 1: part of why it works no matter who they brought
Speaker 1: in over the years, including Kevin Durant, but you never
Speaker 1: really think of him as that on ball creator, and
Speaker 1: that's an entirely different set of offensive responsibilities. You're not navigating,
Speaker 1: you're not using off ball actions. You're not taking advantage
Speaker 1: of attention directed to Steph Curry. You're not running second
Speaker 1: side action when the defense is already rotating. No, everyone
Speaker 1: is loaded up on you. You are the focal point.
Speaker 1: You're drawing the other team's best defender. Down the stretch
Speaker 1: of this game, he drew a lot of Jaden McDaniels,
Speaker 1: and in that set defense situation, you have to create
Speaker 1: shots and Clay has been kind of great at this
Speaker 1: over the course of this season when guys have been
Speaker 1: out of the lineup, and I think it's been an
Speaker 1: underplayed storyline within the season. So it's ninety six to
Speaker 1: ninety two after that elevator screen and nase Red misses
Speaker 1: the three. There's five and a half minutes left. Clay
Speaker 1: gets the ball in the corner in a broken possession
Speaker 1: and the clock is running out. Austin Rivers is on
Speaker 1: him and he ends up taking a rip through to
Speaker 1: his left and then quick spinning towards the baseline in
Speaker 1: the deep corner, and he knocks down a shot off
Speaker 1: the glass. Got a little bit of the corner of
Speaker 1: the backboard, but when you're shooting out of the deep corner,
Speaker 1: there's just not a lot of space between the rim
Speaker 1: and the backboard. It kind of just barely grazed it
Speaker 1: and went in. But that's a great example of rescuing possessions,
Speaker 1: which is one of the core responsibilities of a primary
Speaker 1: ball handler. Not everything goes right, especially at the end
Speaker 1: of games, and you neque guys that can just take
Speaker 1: and make extremely tough shots. And Klay Thompson started this
Speaker 1: self creation sequence with that spinning fade away in the
Speaker 1: right corner, and that's not the last time he's gonna
Speaker 1: do that in this game. So they go down to
Speaker 1: the other end. Nazrid ends up getting fouled under the
Speaker 1: basket and he misses both free throws, and Dante DiVincenzo
Speaker 1: goes down and makes a nice reverse layup to tide
Speaker 1: the game. Dante DiVincenzo was great down the stretch of
Speaker 1: this game, So Minnesota calls a timeout. It's ninety six
Speaker 1: ninety six. Kyle Anderson goes down and he makes a
Speaker 1: really weird twisting fade away in the lane, gets fouled.
Speaker 1: Now it's ninety nine to ninety six. This is where
Speaker 1: we get to Clay's second bit of high level shot creation.
Speaker 1: So he's standing on the left wing and he's got
Speaker 1: Mike Conley on him and Anthony Lamb is standing over
Speaker 1: there with nos Red on him. Actually, I think Lay
Speaker 1: Thompson was at the top of the key and Anthony
Speaker 1: Lamb was at the left wing. So he calls calls
Speaker 1: Anthony Lamb to come over and set the ball screen,
Speaker 1: knowing that he's probably going to draw nas Red and
Speaker 1: at least a show if not like a normal kind
Speaker 1: of drop coverage up at the level of the screen.
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson just dribbles off that pick, draws both Mike
Speaker 1: Conley and nas Reed towards him, floats the pass down
Speaker 1: to over the top to Anthony Lamb at the top
Speaker 1: of the key. Jonathan Kamena does an ice job cutting
Speaker 1: through the lane, which pulls Jaden McDaniels down with him
Speaker 1: and gets Anthony Lamb a wide open three at the
Speaker 1: top of the key that he makes. That's a simple
Speaker 1: bit of on ball shot creation, just a quick ball screen.
Speaker 1: See if they're dumb enough to send both guys to you,
Speaker 1: you might be able to get your teammate a wide
Speaker 1: open shot. And he did. Now it's ninety nine to
Speaker 1: ninety nine. This is where we're going to get into
Speaker 1: a little bit of Golden State's execution, this time on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the flour. So at ninety nine
Speaker 1: ninety nine, Anthony Edwards has Jonathan Kamina in the left
Speaker 1: corner and he starts driving along the baseline and he
Speaker 1: gets an angle. And every single Golden State warrior involved
Speaker 1: in this play does their job defensively and forces a turnover. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, Jonathan Kamena, you get beat baseline, what's
Speaker 1: your first responsibility. You're not trying to cut him off
Speaker 1: at that point because you're probably not gonna be able to.
Speaker 1: He's too good of an athlete. But if you can
Speaker 1: just push him behind the backboard, that takes away his
Speaker 1: ability to finish at least directly at the rim, because
Speaker 1: the backboard is in the way right, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: to go underneath the rim and try to finish a reverse.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga does his job. He slides his feet and
Speaker 1: pushes Anthony Edwards towards the baseline. Then from there, Kyle
Speaker 1: Anderson's in the corner and Dante DiVincenzo helps down to
Speaker 1: stop Anthony Edwards from being able to regain leverage back
Speaker 1: towards the rim. He gets in there and basically traps
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards along the baseline. Anthony Edwards tries to throw
Speaker 1: a left handed hook pass to the corner, and Jordan Poole,
Speaker 1: who's guarding Jaden McDaniels on the right wing, rotates down
Speaker 1: to the corner and picks off the Anthony Edwards pass.
Speaker 1: Everyone did their job, even Dante, when he trapped down
Speaker 1: there on the baseline got a deflection. I talk about
Speaker 1: this all the time. When you double team or give
Speaker 1: up any sort of defensive advantage by sending multiple defenders
Speaker 1: to one player. One of the best ways to help
Speaker 1: your team rotate out of it is to pressure the
Speaker 1: ball so hard that you can tip the pass or
Speaker 1: force a looping pass as opposed to an on time,
Speaker 1: on target pass. That deflection from Dante DiVincenzo allowed Jordan
Speaker 1: pule sprinted to the baseline and then actually had to
Speaker 1: recover back to the corner and he was able to
Speaker 1: get there in time because Dante deflected the pass. It
Speaker 1: was that kind of like sharp defensive execution. I'm sure
Speaker 1: Draymond Green was watching the game and he was super impressed.
Speaker 1: But those are those little details that have been almost
Speaker 1: kind of missing from the Warriors this year, which is
Speaker 1: uncharacteristic of them, and that's going to be one of
Speaker 1: the things you have to watch from them down the
Speaker 1: stretch to see if they're a serious playoff contender this year.
Speaker 1: Sonet nine to ninety nine, we get to Klay Thompson's
Speaker 1: third bit of high level shot creation. So he has
Speaker 1: the ball in a triple threat on the left wing
Speaker 1: against Jade McDaniels, and Jade McDaniels has been an outstanding
Speaker 1: wing defender all year this here, and he's pressed up
Speaker 1: on Klay Thompson taking away his shooting pocket. Clay kind
Speaker 1: of protects the basketball over on the right side, and
Speaker 1: what he does is he just pump fakes, kind of
Speaker 1: like an awkward out of his shooting pocket pump fake.
Speaker 1: And the only reason that works is Clay might take that.
Speaker 1: Clay practices and takes a lot of funky jump shots
Speaker 1: from different gathers in different places in his shooting pocket,
Speaker 1: so it adds a credibility to that pump fake. Jade
Speaker 1: McDaniels leaves his feet and then Klay Thompson just rips
Speaker 1: through to the baseline, draws naseried and Anthony Edwards at
Speaker 1: the rim. Mike Conley drops down off of Dante DiVincenzo
Speaker 1: to try to dig and box Kevin Looney out of
Speaker 1: the lane, and Dante Divincenzo's wide open on the wing.
Speaker 1: Klay Thompson hits him right in the shooting pocket and
Speaker 1: he knocks down the three. Now it's one O, two
Speaker 1: to ninety nine. Now from there we have a little
Speaker 1: back and forth. Mike Conley drives on Dante DiVincenzo and
Speaker 1: doesn't see Anthony Lamb helping out of the strong side corner.
Speaker 1: Lamb blocks the shot, but then Dante DiVincenzo goes down
Speaker 1: the other way, and he misses an easy layup in transition.
Speaker 1: Then the Timberwolves go down in nas Reed misses another
Speaker 1: transition three, and then we get to Klay Thompson's fourth
Speaker 1: and final bit of high level shot creation, which effectively
Speaker 1: ended up being the dagger in this game. So all
Speaker 1: he does is run a dribble handoff with Kavon Loney
Speaker 1: on the right wing. It's defended well, but he rises
Speaker 1: up over the contest and knocks down the shot, kind
Speaker 1: of like a go to move for Clay, which is
Speaker 1: just I know that when push comes to shove, if
Speaker 1: I can get my footwork right because of my height
Speaker 1: in the quickness of my release, I will be able
Speaker 1: to get this shot off. And he can't just count
Speaker 1: on beating guys off the dribble all game long. He
Speaker 1: got that pump fake on Jada McDaniels and made that play.
Speaker 1: He got Nasri to bite on a screen and roll
Speaker 1: earlier in an earlier possession. But sometimes he's going to
Speaker 1: have to demonstrate that he's going to rise up and
Speaker 1: knock down the shot to maintain that threat to create
Speaker 1: shots for his teammates. He rises up and knocks down
Speaker 1: the three over the contests and puts up the Warriors
Speaker 1: one five to ninety nine, and that effectively ended up
Speaker 1: ending the game. And then you know, again there's two
Speaker 1: things specifically from the stretch that I want to hit.
Speaker 1: Clay has done incredible work this season to float his
Speaker 1: team when guys have been out of the lineup, and
Speaker 1: by doing it doing something that he's genuinely uncomfortable doing,
Speaker 1: which is on ball creation, to me, that demonstrates a
Speaker 1: like a sheer force of will. I was talking about
Speaker 1: this yesterday with Lebron, Like, Okay, everything's not working because
Speaker 1: your foot's all messed up, So now you're gonna go
Speaker 1: just power your way to the rim every time because
Speaker 1: you just don't want to lose the game. That's the
Speaker 1: way I look at it from Clay. Of course, he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to play like that. He wants to play
Speaker 1: the way he's been playing his entire career with the Warriors,
Speaker 1: navigating off ball actions. But you need to adapt as
Speaker 1: your team needs you to, and Clay has been able
Speaker 1: to slot himself into an on ball roll and be
Speaker 1: credible for the Warriors this year. And that's a part
Speaker 1: of why once again Clay uh Steph Curry has missed
Speaker 1: eight consecutive games and the Warriors are four and four.
Speaker 1: Every time this year that STEP's gone down, the Warriors
Speaker 1: have been able to float the ship. And it's not
Speaker 1: just Clay. A lot of other guys have stepped up today.
Speaker 1: I'm just highlighting Clay in particular, but I think that
Speaker 1: that again, Clay has always been one of my favorite
Speaker 1: competitors in the league. And you saw that again last
Speaker 1: night when he went up to the war Uh, when
Speaker 1: he went up to the Wolves bench and talked all
Speaker 1: the talked all that shit after he hit the dagger
Speaker 1: to put him up one oh five ninety nine. But
Speaker 1: that he just has a competitive fire inside of him
Speaker 1: that is way underplayed. When we talk about these championship teams.
Speaker 1: There's just there's we We're way too quick to just
Speaker 1: be like, oh they're too they have all the talent,
Speaker 1: or oh it's this matchup, or oh it's this, or
Speaker 1: oh it's that, and we don't properly factor in the
Speaker 1: fact that, like the real psychopath, competitors tend to find
Speaker 1: a way to be at the top of the hill
Speaker 1: when the dust settles. So tip of the cap to
Speaker 1: Clay and then the second thing again, was just that execution.
Speaker 1: It's just specifically for Golden State. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: kind of like three things that you look at as
Speaker 1: the primary driving forces behind their struggles this year. And
Speaker 1: it's like primary players missing games, which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: And it's like bench depth, too many young guys in
Speaker 1: the rotation coming off the bench. But that third piece
Speaker 1: has been even the Warrior starters in particular have struggled
Speaker 1: a little bit with execution at the end of games,
Speaker 1: not just on the offensive end, but also on the
Speaker 1: defensive end, and so it was encouraging to see the
Speaker 1: Warriors execute out execute in Minnesota Timberwolves team to get
Speaker 1: a win down their three best players. The NBA season
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Speaker 1: of the NBA. Minnesota has now lost seven out of
Speaker 1: eleven games, and they're having two primary issues. First of all,
Speaker 1: they can't score their twenty second in offense over that span,
Speaker 1: but they are not executing in the details of the game,
Speaker 1: which is what points me in the direction of coaching.
Speaker 1: Usually they're giving up over fifty six points in the
Speaker 1: paint per game, which is twenty eighth in the league.
Speaker 1: Over that span, they're giving up fifteen fast break points
Speaker 1: a game over that span, that's nineteenth in the league.
Speaker 1: They are twenty fourth and REEB eighteenth and second chance
Speaker 1: points A second chance points allowed, twenty fourth in points
Speaker 1: allowed off of turnovers. They're just shooting themselves in the
Speaker 1: foot in the details of the game, which is making
Speaker 1: it so that they're losing a bunch of games that
Speaker 1: they should win. This is a game they should have won.
Speaker 1: They should have beat Charlotte the other night. Those details
Speaker 1: will cost you basketball games. And again, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of other issues with the Wolves. The fit is funky
Speaker 1: with Rudy Gobert. We've talked about that. I don't know
Speaker 1: where the hell Carl Anthony Towns fits and all of this.
Speaker 1: Mike Conley, you're getting kind of more or less what
Speaker 1: you'd expect. Like he's really struggling to put the ball
Speaker 1: in the basket, but he still is like that really
Speaker 1: sound and secure ball handler that's not gonna turn it over,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna get guys in their spots, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna hit cutters when they move, and it's just overall
Speaker 1: what it is is He's just a league average point
Speaker 1: guard or worse at this point as he's declined, So
Speaker 1: it's not enough to really solve any of their problems.
Speaker 1: I just I look at this primarily as just reps
Speaker 1: for Anthony Edwards. He's gonna get more opportunity this season
Speaker 1: to have the ball in his hands and learn how
Speaker 1: to close games, learn how to not settle for his
Speaker 1: jump shot as much as he has been, to learn
Speaker 1: how to not turn the basketball over when he over
Speaker 1: penetrates into the lane. This is just valuable experience for
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards. But this, this Timberwolves team in particular, this
Speaker 1: isn't sharp enough in the details to string together some wins.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move up to Clippers Nuggets. So we
Speaker 1: capped off an incredible weekend of hoops with a one
Speaker 1: thirty four to one twenty four overtime win for the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets over the Clippers. It was a wild game.
Speaker 1: The Nuggets jumped out to a massive lead, and then
Speaker 1: the Clippers kind of worked their way back. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of things in particular that was really helping the
Speaker 1: Clippers as they worked their way back. They went small
Speaker 1: and started switching everything and then they did that Miami
Speaker 1: heat post defense thing that I always talked about. They
Speaker 1: were bracketing the post, so whoever got switched onto Jokic
Speaker 1: would just fight to front Yokics, which is again you
Speaker 1: get in, you get out in front of him, and
Speaker 1: you squat as low as you can and you push
Speaker 1: back on his body so we can't jump, and you
Speaker 1: force them to throw a lob pass over the top.
Speaker 1: And if they don't get the lob pass high enough,
Speaker 1: you can rise up and contest, like Russell Westbrook did
Speaker 1: when he got that steal. But if the pass does
Speaker 1: get over the top, if they throw it higher, you've
Speaker 1: got backside help coming that makes that pass extremely difficult.
Speaker 1: They did a really nice job swarming Jokic in those
Speaker 1: front and back bracketing situations. And then Russell Westbrook had
Speaker 1: an outstanding third quarter shift. I thought it was one
Speaker 1: of his best shifts of this entire NBA season for him.
Speaker 1: He had a battle against Nikola Jokic in the post
Speaker 1: where he fronted him and got his steel. There was
Speaker 1: another one where he got switched on to Jokic and
Speaker 1: a different shot went up and he won a box
Speaker 1: out rebound battle against Jokic. Those are those little things
Speaker 1: with Russ that always got glossed over by some of
Speaker 1: the more negative Laker fans. He steal is one of
Speaker 1: the most switchable guards in the league because of his
Speaker 1: size and his strength and his athleticism and his competitiveness.
Speaker 1: The guy just doesn't like to lose one on one battles.
Speaker 1: It kind of snaps him into focus and makes him
Speaker 1: He's won a lot of battles against NBA Stars this
Speaker 1: season in the post. And then he just had an
Speaker 1: incredible offensive shift under control, pressuring the rim, pushing the pace,
Speaker 1: taking smart jump shots, like he took a little ten
Speaker 1: foot pull up jump shot that was really easy and
Speaker 1: open that he knocked down. He had one other pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot that he missed, but it was a
Speaker 1: late clock situation where there was no other opportunity to
Speaker 1: get a shot on the rim, so we had to
Speaker 1: shoot it. The three that he took on the right
Speaker 1: wing was like he passed up a three to swing
Speaker 1: to someone else and then it got back to him
Speaker 1: and it was the right shot in that particular possession.
Speaker 1: He just had an unbelievable shift and made a lot
Speaker 1: of plays and again it just for me as a
Speaker 1: basketball fan, it's been really fun to watch Russ play
Speaker 1: in a complimentary situation because he has strengths and he
Speaker 1: has weaknesses, and way too often we focus on the
Speaker 1: weaknesses and don't acknowledge that he has strengths. He still
Speaker 1: is one of the most switchable guards in the league.
Speaker 1: He still is incredible at pressuring the rim, pushing pace.
Speaker 1: He's still one of the best passers in the league.
Speaker 1: So if you can put him in a situation where
Speaker 1: teams cannot target his weaknesses as much, then his strengths
Speaker 1: will come to the forefront and he'll be a major
Speaker 1: positive impact. And I thought Russ was a major positive
Speaker 1: impact in this game. And then Tylu did what I've
Speaker 1: been saying that every team needs to do, just don't
Speaker 1: play him in crunch time so that you don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with the issues there, and they did it.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Clippers had their other issues in crunch time,
Speaker 1: having to do with Paul George, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: here in just a second. But I did think that
Speaker 1: that Russell Westbrook third quarter shift, and then just in general,
Speaker 1: the Clippers swarming and bracketing Jokic helped them get back
Speaker 1: into the game. Then down the stretch, you know, Mason
Speaker 1: Plumley comes into the game for the Clippers, and he
Speaker 1: actually makes a pretty big impact, showing some switchability out
Speaker 1: onto guards. He got a really nice stop on Jamal Murray.
Speaker 1: He was flying around on the glass, making plays on
Speaker 1: both then securing defensive rebounds and offensive rebounds. But then
Speaker 1: down the stretch, Jokic just started attacking Plumbley, and Plumbley
Speaker 1: couldn't hold him. One on one big shock he had
Speaker 1: like a drop step, and one he had like a
Speaker 1: nasty one like fade away over his left shoulder. On
Speaker 1: the other end of the floor. Kawhi Leonards it just
Speaker 1: keeps talking, targeting Jamal Murray on switches and hitting post
Speaker 1: up fadeaways. It was a really fun finish to this game.
Speaker 1: And then bad luck striked struck for the Clippers. Kawhi
Speaker 1: knocks the ball away from Jamal Murray. He ends up
Speaker 1: heaving up a half court shot at the end of
Speaker 1: the shot clock. But Mason Plumley, who was great rebounding
Speaker 1: the entire fourth quarter, missed one box out and lost
Speaker 1: a contested rebound battle to Condavius Caldwell Pope, which led
Speaker 1: to Michael Porter junior hitting the three that put them
Speaker 1: up to and then Paul George tied it at the
Speaker 1: foul line. Interesting play. At the end of regulation, they
Speaker 1: were gapping Jokic off of off of Bruce Brown and
Speaker 1: leaving him kind of open on the right wing. But
Speaker 1: I thought there was still plenty of opportunity to Jokic
Speaker 1: for Jokic to try to make a play, and he
Speaker 1: did something that Lebron's been criticized a lot for over
Speaker 1: the years. He just made the right play, swung it
Speaker 1: to Bruce Brown. He missed the three, But same thing
Speaker 1: I used to always say about Lebron. There are times
Speaker 1: where you're better off as the best player forcing up
Speaker 1: a tough shot than passing to a teammate that might
Speaker 1: have a much lesser chance, or might not being a
Speaker 1: rhythm and might not feel confident in that particular situation.
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have seen Yokic be a
Speaker 1: little more aggressive there, but that's neither here more there,
Speaker 1: neither here nor there, And the Jokics Lebron archetypes. They're
Speaker 1: wired that way for a reason, and that sort of
Speaker 1: thing tends to play out positive in the long run
Speaker 1: as they continue to feed their teammates for great shots
Speaker 1: over the course of the game. OT is where it
Speaker 1: got really interesting, because Kawhi was unbelievable down the stretch
Speaker 1: of this game, and then Paul George just took control randomly.
Speaker 1: At the end of regulation he took a really tough
Speaker 1: pull up jump shot that he missed, and then in
Speaker 1: OT he took over the offense and made back to
Speaker 1: back pretty critical mistakes in my opinion. First of all,
Speaker 1: he had he had Bruce Brown on the right wing
Speaker 1: and took like a behind the back dribble step back
Speaker 1: three to his right with like ten seconds on the
Speaker 1: shot clock. And again there's a there's a time and
Speaker 1: place for tough shots, because I do think they're in
Speaker 1: an important part of NBA games. When you're in rhythm,
Speaker 1: meaning like I've made a couple in a row, my
Speaker 1: release is dialed in, I'm confident I'm gonna take this
Speaker 1: tough shot even with ten seconds on the shot clock.
Speaker 1: And then which which Paul George was absolutely not in
Speaker 1: that situation. He was not in a groove. Kawhi was
Speaker 1: the one who was in the groove. Kawhi was the
Speaker 1: guy it made sense to take and make tough shots.
Speaker 1: Paul George co opted the game from Kawhi and took
Speaker 1: an impossible shot when he was out of rhythm. They
Speaker 1: go down, they don't get matched up. We had back
Speaker 1: to back situations here in this overtime period where Marcus
Speaker 1: Morris and Kawhi Leentard botched their matchups in transition because
Speaker 1: they weren't talking. Nobody picks up Jamal Murray. He walks
Speaker 1: in and knocks down a three, and the Nuggets are
Speaker 1: up four. Very next possession, Paul George goes down and
Speaker 1: throws some garbage lob to Mason Plumley that's like two
Speaker 1: feet too high and Karen's off the backboard. And in
Speaker 1: the ensuing transition possession, Marcus Morris and Kawhi again don't communicate.
Speaker 1: They don't get matched up with Michael Porter Junior. He
Speaker 1: hits a three on the left wing, and then the
Speaker 1: game is over. So kind of anti climactic, very similarly
Speaker 1: to that Clippers Kings game where there's all of this
Speaker 1: good Clippers stuff happening, but down the stretch, just execution
Speaker 1: on both ends of the floor falling apart. And you know,
Speaker 1: Paul George is in general, if you talk to Clippers fans,
Speaker 1: they'll tell you one of their biggest complaints with him
Speaker 1: this year has been his shot selection, just too frequently
Speaker 1: taking impossible shots rather than easing into the game with
Speaker 1: easy shots and then taking those tougher shots as the
Speaker 1: game progresses. But then that and like you know, the
Speaker 1: Clippers have great defensive personnel. They've been vaunted as a
Speaker 1: defensive team over the course of this Kawhi Paul George era.
Speaker 1: But you know what, it doesn't matter if you have
Speaker 1: all the switchable wings in the world if you guys
Speaker 1: can't communicate and transition and get matched up. And for
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard and Marcus Morris, they they've been playing together
Speaker 1: for too long. They've been in the league too long
Speaker 1: to not know that you have to communicate and transition
Speaker 1: about who you're matched up with, and those little mistakes
Speaker 1: end up costing you games, especially against teams like the
Speaker 1: Nuggets that are extremely sharp in their execution. The Clippers
Speaker 1: have now lost eight out of nine games against Denver
Speaker 1: since the bubble collapse. It's kind of starting to look
Speaker 1: like a mental disadvantage as well as a mismatch. One
Speaker 1: of the disadvantages of having a very wing heavy team
Speaker 1: is you can't physically match up with Nikola Jokic, and
Speaker 1: that puts you in a position where you have to
Speaker 1: constantly you do janky stuff with your defense to load
Speaker 1: up on him, and then he can punish you with
Speaker 1: his IQ and hitting open men, just like he did
Speaker 1: in that Bubble series when they came back and win one.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm looking at this now as like,
Speaker 1: if the Clippers face Denver, whether it's in the first
Speaker 1: round or second round, does anybody think the Clippers have
Speaker 1: a chance to win that series. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: bad matchup and Denver just has kind of a mental
Speaker 1: advantage over them. They better hope that someone else beats
Speaker 1: Denver for them or they have no chance of getting
Speaker 1: out of this conference. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: Dami Loler for just a few minutes before we get
Speaker 1: out of here. So he lit up the Blazers for
Speaker 1: seventy one points last night. I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: too much about the actual specifics of the basketball. The
Speaker 1: Rockets are terrible, so is Portland. And Dame is one
Speaker 1: of the best pull up jump shooters in the league,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna get hot. There's two things in particular,
Speaker 1: I wanted to hit though, starting with that pull up
Speaker 1: jump shooting thing. So one of my buddies, Eddie Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: he is the guy who's the co host with Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant in that the ETC's podcast, and he tweeted this
Speaker 1: out last night and I thought it was an interesting question.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, what is your theory regarding the uptick
Speaker 1: and individual scoring this season? He just kind of presented
Speaker 1: that to everybody on Twitter. And when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about it last night in
Speaker 1: this morning, and to me, it really I have one
Speaker 1: prevailing theory that keeps coming to mind, and it reminds
Speaker 1: me of when the Blazers beat the Lakers a couple
Speaker 1: like a week ago and they lit the Lakers on
Speaker 1: fire in their drop coverage, and Darvin Ham said after
Speaker 1: the game basically that the team felt like they conceded
Speaker 1: the right types of shots and that they were just
Speaker 1: a victim of variance. And there is some truth to that,
Speaker 1: Like I think they played the Oklahoma City Thunder two
Speaker 1: nights later and lost because they missed all the same shots.
Speaker 1: But I believe that there is a disconnect at this
Speaker 1: point between what coaches think is a bad shot and
Speaker 1: what actually is a bad shot for these players, And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of NBA coverages are designed to
Speaker 1: concede pull up jump shots for obvious reasons. You'd rather
Speaker 1: have a pull up jump shot taken by a player
Speaker 1: than an easy driving layup or a kickout to a
Speaker 1: wide open shooter on the wing. So in theory, it
Speaker 1: sounds great, but the problem is is that these players.
Speaker 1: I think the skill set of these players has reached
Speaker 1: a point now where what coaches think is a bad
Speaker 1: shot actually isn't that bad of a shot for these guys.
Speaker 1: Like I've seen Andrew Nemhart, a rookie for the Indiana Pacers,
Speaker 1: get hot and just barbecue drop coverage. They had a
Speaker 1: game against the Warriors earlier this year where he ran
Speaker 1: like thirty five pick and rolls for like fifty two
Speaker 1: points or something like that. It doesn't matter whether or
Speaker 1: not you're a star. We have so many good skill
Speaker 1: guards in this league that on any given night, if
Speaker 1: a guy gets hot, it just renders everything useless. And
Speaker 1: it's starting to happen more and more frequently, and I
Speaker 1: do think we're gonna reach a breaking point here where
Speaker 1: the coaches of the NBA are gonna have to sit
Speaker 1: down with their stabs and look at each other and
Speaker 1: go like, I don't know that we can force Steph
Speaker 1: Curry to take pull up jump shots for an entire
Speaker 1: NBA Finals series anymore. That's gonna beat us. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we can be like, oh, we won because
Speaker 1: we made Dame Lillard take tough shots. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can be like, oh, we won because we
Speaker 1: made Jamal Murray tough shots. I don't think that that's
Speaker 1: gonna work anymore. And I think it's gonna continue to
Speaker 1: get worse over the course of the next couple of
Speaker 1: years for these defenses until somebody adjusts. And now that's
Speaker 1: what the NBA does. If you look throughout NBA history,
Speaker 1: offensive ratings go up and down. The at league average
Speaker 1: offensive rating right now is like one hundred and fourteen
Speaker 1: for any given team, right and that's the highest it's
Speaker 1: ever been in NBA history. Now there's a big wrinkle
Speaker 1: there in the just the math of the three point shot.
Speaker 1: Like I was, I was talking about this the other
Speaker 1: day on my Twitter feed, But the NBA teams are
Speaker 1: attempting twenty nine more threes per game now than they
Speaker 1: were in nineteen eighty eight. So when you consider those
Speaker 1: shots are worth one point five points for every one
Speaker 1: point of a different basket, you're going to obviously see
Speaker 1: an uptick in offensive ratings from the math. But even
Speaker 1: from this point, I do think we'll see things tick
Speaker 1: back down eventually, and it will happen when NBA defenses
Speaker 1: finally understand that they can't continue to run coverages that
Speaker 1: concede pull up jump shots. NBA skill guards are just
Speaker 1: simply too good anymore. So that's obviously there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of factors at play, but I do think
Speaker 1: that that's my leading candidate for the main reason why
Speaker 1: we've seen a scoring uptick. You'll see a lot of
Speaker 1: old heads say that, oh, teams don't play defense anymore,
Speaker 1: there's no hand checking. I disagree with that. I think
Speaker 1: the game is a lot more physical than people realize.
Speaker 1: I'm on the Jj Redick side of things where I
Speaker 1: think the overall increase in athleticism and just schematic intelligence
Speaker 1: from these teams and switchability that I actually think defenses
Speaker 1: are better now than they've ever been. You know, think
Speaker 1: of it this way, like teams are averaging six points
Speaker 1: more per one hundred possessions than they did in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, despite taking twenty nine more threes per game.
Speaker 1: That's like a pretty uneven balanced there. That kind of
Speaker 1: increase in shot value should lead to a commensurate increase
Speaker 1: at least half of that, right, like, at least like
Speaker 1: a fifteen to sixteen point increase in offensive ratings, just
Speaker 1: based on the fact that at thirty more of those
Speaker 1: field goal attempts are worth an extra half point every
Speaker 1: time they go in, right, and just teams are hitting
Speaker 1: him at a league average, you know, thirty six, thirty
Speaker 1: seven percent. There's just no reason in the world why
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be seeing a higher increase in offensive ratings
Speaker 1: except for the fact that defenses have gotten better. I
Speaker 1: think all of that wing athleticism and guys frighteningly covering
Speaker 1: ground in rotations has made it harder to score it
Speaker 1: in a lot of different ways. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the point that JJ Redick's been trying to make, and
Speaker 1: so many times people look at it as a slight
Speaker 1: against the older generation. I don't see it like that
Speaker 1: at all. The way I look at it is just
Speaker 1: like with any industry, there is a perpetual increase in
Speaker 1: competence as people learn from who came before. Okay, this
Speaker 1: doesn't work, We're gonna do something different. Okay, this worked,
Speaker 1: We're gonna replicate it. You know, like, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: like hell to not be the guy who's twenty years
Speaker 1: from now going like, oh, you know, back twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: they were playing the game the right way. You know,
Speaker 1: this this garbage basketball now it is just not gonna
Speaker 1: cut it compared to who was playing back. I'm just
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that guy. And I and
Speaker 1: I do think that there's a lot of insecurity from
Speaker 1: older basketball players who take it as a slight against
Speaker 1: them when it's like, no, you guys paved the way.
Speaker 1: Learning lessons from the way you guys played is the
Speaker 1: reason we play the game the way that we play today.
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to hit was Dame's loyalty
Speaker 1: because it's been kind of it's been kind of a
Speaker 1: part of Dame's brand. He's really leaning into it. He
Speaker 1: had another interview the other day where he leaned into
Speaker 1: it pretty heavy. And I just don't get it because
Speaker 1: I don't look at I don't understand the idea of
Speaker 1: having loyalty to a franchise just because to me, you
Speaker 1: have I look at it as a partnership, you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't look at Dame as an employee of
Speaker 1: the Blazers. I look at him as a partner of
Speaker 1: the Blazers. I think that players in general view it
Speaker 1: that way, Like that's the whole point of the collective
Speaker 1: bargaining agreement. The players Association and all the owners meet
Speaker 1: in the middle and it's like, hey, let's do this together.
Speaker 1: And while Dame has some contractual obligations of the Blazers,
Speaker 1: those I don't think that that you have some sort
Speaker 1: of like employee type of loyalty to that specific organization. Yes,
Speaker 1: they drafted you, but to be clear, it's an arrangement
Speaker 1: that's worked really well for them. You worked hard and
Speaker 1: became a superstar. Had you not, they would have traded you,
Speaker 1: just like they did ce J McCollum. Like there's no
Speaker 1: loyalty on their front. If you, Dame Lillard was the
Speaker 1: thirty seventh best player in the league instead of the
Speaker 1: eleventh or twelfth best player in the league, they would
Speaker 1: have been done with your ass a long time ago.
Speaker 1: That's just the harsh reality of this business. So the
Speaker 1: way I look at it is if I was Dame,
Speaker 1: I'd be looking at the situation as I am, this
Speaker 1: freak competitor that has worked so hard in my career
Speaker 1: that I have become one of the twelve best basketball
Speaker 1: players in the world. On the other end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: I've been playing at this level for almost a decade now,
Speaker 1: and Portland has been incapable of providing me with the
Speaker 1: necessary pieces to truly contend for a title. They've never
Speaker 1: gotten brought in a competent defensive front court, which is
Speaker 1: like a prerequisite to compete in the NBA. In fact,
Speaker 1: they've been weak defensively in the front court the entirety
Speaker 1: of this tenure. They've never brought him a legitimate co
Speaker 1: star that could consistently meet him at his level, especially
Speaker 1: in a playoff environment, in that large sample size of time,
Speaker 1: through good asset management and good scouting, they should have
Speaker 1: been able to do that for you. So in the
Speaker 1: same way that they would have dumped your ass had
Speaker 1: you not played well over the course of your career,
Speaker 1: I think Dame should be looking for a different partnership,
Speaker 1: a partnership with a franchise that is competent enough to
Speaker 1: provide him with the resources he needs to contend at
Speaker 1: the highest level. That's the reason why I'd be looking
Speaker 1: to go elsewhere. I think that we're missing the plot
Speaker 1: a little bit when we focus on loyalty to the franchise,
Speaker 1: Like I understand if you have a little bit of
Speaker 1: loyalty to the fan base, but that sort of thing
Speaker 1: can be cultivated off the court too. You know, those
Speaker 1: fans in Portland are forever going to love you, and
Speaker 1: I would venture to guess that many of them kind
Speaker 1: of would understand if you wanted to go elsewhere. But
Speaker 1: once again, at this deadline, the front office made you
Speaker 1: worse and we don't really know what the plan is.
Speaker 1: You turned a really good rotation player Josh Hart, into
Speaker 1: a long term project in cam Reddish and a player
Speaker 1: that's pretty offensively limited in matis thible, Like, what direction
Speaker 1: are they going? Where's the light at the end of
Speaker 1: the tunnel. That's why I think Dame should be looking
Speaker 1: to go elsewhere. All right, guys, that is all I
Speaker 1: have for today. Here's the plan. We're gonna be going
Speaker 1: live tomorrow night after I believe it's Memphis Grizzlies versus
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Lakers will be live on AMP for
Speaker 1: that Wednesday night. We're going late, going live after the
Speaker 1: late games. That should be Kevin Durant's debut with the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Suns as well as reported. We'll see, but we'll
Speaker 1: be live on AMP in the evenings the next two nights.
Speaker 1: As always, I appreciate you guys' support and I'll see
Speaker 1: you guys tomorrow. The volume