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Speaker 1: All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel
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Speaker 1: written four games from last night. The Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: in a very important game in the Western Conference standings,
Speaker 1: went into New Orleans and dominated the Pelicans. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that game. The Milwaukee Bucks finished an impressive
Speaker 1: back to back by going into Phoenix and winning really
Speaker 1: interesting stuff defensively. At the end of that game that
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Speaker 1: on that NOO stocks and basketball. So this was a
Speaker 1: very important game for the Lakers on a couple of
Speaker 1: different levels. They had just dropped a game against the
Speaker 1: Knicks that was kind of important, especially under the circumstances
Speaker 1: in the standings, and they have a back to back
Speaker 1: and a game in Houston tonight that Anthony Davis was
Speaker 1: going to sit. We knew he was going to sit.
Speaker 1: It's basically been made clear from the Lakers that they
Speaker 1: do not want to play him in any back to
Speaker 1: backs the rest of the season. There's one more in
Speaker 1: April that they'll probably sit him out. So obviously you
Speaker 1: have a chance to lose in Houston without Anthony Davis.
Speaker 1: There's a chance that Alpern Shangoon is going to play tonight,
Speaker 1: that obviously is a bad matchup for that Laker front
Speaker 1: court without Anthony Davis. So you needed to win in
Speaker 1: New Orleans last night to really have any chance to
Speaker 1: get into that position that the Lakers want, which is
Speaker 1: in that seven to eight seed, which we'll talk about
Speaker 1: here more in just a minute. But they just absolutely
Speaker 1: dominated the matchup. This is a good Pelicans team who
Speaker 1: is very good at home. For as many issues as
Speaker 1: they've had, they've been a very good home team, and
Speaker 1: they just went in there and absolutely demolished him. They
Speaker 1: were up forty points in the third quarter. You don't
Speaker 1: see that too often in the NBA. There's twenty point leads.
Speaker 1: Occasionally you'll see a thirty point lead. A forty point
Speaker 1: lead is utter domination. And what was interesting is I
Speaker 1: remember I told you guys after the Knicks game, like
Speaker 1: I was crediting the Knicks. They won that game, but
Speaker 1: it was a weird game for a bunch of different Lakers,
Speaker 1: like Anthony Davis had his worst game probably in two
Speaker 1: or three weeks at that point. Malik Beasley could not
Speaker 1: buy a shot to save his life. Troy Brown Junior
Speaker 1: was over seven from three. Austin Reeves was less effective
Speaker 1: than he usually had ben Jared Vanderbilt, for the first
Speaker 1: time in his entire time in the Lakers' Jersey, struggled
Speaker 1: with the defensive match up with Julius Randall, albeit with
Speaker 1: a little bit of an iffy whistle. A lot of
Speaker 1: guys just didn't play well for the Lakers, and if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for Gangela Russell shooting the lights out, that
Speaker 1: game probably would have been a lot more ugly than
Speaker 1: it was. And here's the thing. Bad nights just happen.
Speaker 1: It's part of being a basketball player. You're not always
Speaker 1: going to be playing at your absolute best all the time.
Speaker 1: There are little things in your game that oscillate based
Speaker 1: on shot result, and when you start to miss some
Speaker 1: shots that contends to impact other areas of your game.
Speaker 1: It's all very natural stuff, but ideally it's a little
Speaker 1: more balanced because in this game against the Pelicans, everybody
Speaker 1: played amazing. Anthony Davis completely dominated the game from the
Speaker 1: opening tip at twenty in the first half, finished with
Speaker 1: thirty five and seventeen. He pretty typically will destroy traditional
Speaker 1: centers like Jonas valichots. He'll have more problems when he's
Speaker 1: going against the og Ogna Nobe types or even Isaiah Hartenstein,
Speaker 1: who's not necessarily a traditional center, is a little bit
Speaker 1: better of an athlete who can move his feet better.
Speaker 1: When guys actually force him to shoot over the top,
Speaker 1: some of his offensive skill limitations will show up. But
Speaker 1: traditional center when he's got a footspeed advantage. That's barbecue
Speaker 1: chicken every single time, and he absolutely destroyed, you know,
Speaker 1: his valanciunist in this game. Jared Vanderbilt got back on
Speaker 1: track by doing it just an amazing job guarding Brandon Ingram.
Speaker 1: He didn't really got a good job guarding Brandon Ingram
Speaker 1: last time, but Brandon just hit a bunch of really
Speaker 1: tough shots. Did a much better job, really the same
Speaker 1: job this time, with Brandon missing more shots and dissuading
Speaker 1: him from even attempting in a lot of cases. Troy
Speaker 1: Brown Junior got back on track from three two for three.
Speaker 1: Daniel Russell finished five for fifteen, but he actually had
Speaker 1: a really good first half, I thought. And then Malik Beasley,
Speaker 1: you know, I just talked in the last game about
Speaker 1: how he was due for some positive regression. He had
Speaker 1: been shooting about thirty two percent since he came to
Speaker 1: the Lakers. While in his career, he's kind of like
Speaker 1: a high volume thirty six percent kind of guys. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: say first career, but for recent history's kind of like
Speaker 1: a thirty six percent, high volume guy. And he went,
Speaker 1: he hit seven threes in the first half, and guess
Speaker 1: what He's shooting for with the Lakers now thirty six percent,
Speaker 1: So that's textbook positive regression there. Ruby Hatch hit a
Speaker 1: couple of big threes. When you in Gabriel five offensive
Speaker 1: rebounds in fifteen minutes, Austin reeves fourteen points on five shots.
Speaker 1: So the exact opposite of what happened in the NIXT game.
Speaker 1: Everybody played well. And you know, ideally, like I said,
Speaker 1: you want more balance there, you'd rather have a few
Speaker 1: guys struggle and you win the NIXT game. And then
Speaker 1: you'd rather have a few guys struggle and you win
Speaker 1: the Pelicans game. But that's just now, not how it
Speaker 1: works all the time, but utter dominance in that game.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk a little bit about the Pelicans here
Speaker 1: in just a minute. But now the Lakers are in
Speaker 1: a three way tie for eighth place, and I think
Speaker 1: you know we've heard the intel is is that Lebron
Speaker 1: is probably going to miss most of the rest of
Speaker 1: the regular season. I would be surprised if he didn't play,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd be surprised if he played more than
Speaker 1: just like even just two or three games at the
Speaker 1: end of the season. I expect him to come back
Speaker 1: in early April play a couple of games. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're worried about his basketball, I Q fit. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're necessarily worried about a long ramp up there,
Speaker 1: especially when you get into the postseason and you have
Speaker 1: more days off between games. So I think I think
Speaker 1: they're being cautious there deliberately, and with this current group,
Speaker 1: I've been saying this. I think I think they're up
Speaker 1: to nine and four now since the trade pieces started
Speaker 1: playing after that Bucks game, after the trade deadline, So
Speaker 1: nine and four, like the Lakers out of all those
Speaker 1: teams that are in that mix. Now, there's kind of
Speaker 1: like the upper tier, which is like the top six teams. Right,
Speaker 1: that's where you've got the Denver Nuggets, the Memphis Grizzlies,
Speaker 1: the Sacramento Kings, the Sons, the Clippers, and the Warriors. Right,
Speaker 1: they're all kind of in that top six. And I
Speaker 1: think that top six is pretty set. I give the
Speaker 1: Lakers an outside chance to crack into that group, but
Speaker 1: I find it to be relatively unlikely, especially since there's
Speaker 1: a good chance you end up dropping one or two
Speaker 1: of these games in the back to backs because of
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis sitting down right, So like, I think that
Speaker 1: realistically they're looking at the seventh or the eighth seed.
Speaker 1: Right This is where I think that's important because and
Speaker 1: they're one game behind Minnesota. I think Minnesota and the
Speaker 1: Lakers are going to be the two teams that end
Speaker 1: up getting that seven eighth seed in some order. Minnesota's
Speaker 1: up a game. I'd give them. Minnesota is really good.
Speaker 1: They're playing really good basketball right now. They've unlocked some
Speaker 1: stuff defensively with Jade McDaniels and with Anthony Edwards and
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert, So I wouldn't be surprised if they got
Speaker 1: that seven seed. Ideally, you want you want to have
Speaker 1: a home game for that play in game, but that
Speaker 1: play in game becomes a great opportunity for the Lakers
Speaker 1: to go into the postseason with a realistic path to
Speaker 1: get out. So even on the low end, let's say
Speaker 1: that they get the eight seed and they have to
Speaker 1: win in Minnesota. Theoretically, Lebron James, Anthony Davis, this group
Speaker 1: of players incredibly locked in defensively, they should be able
Speaker 1: to go into Minnesota and win. Okay, we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about how perimeter defense was a dynamic that won
Speaker 1: that game for Minnesota when they beat the Lakers last week.
Speaker 1: Lebron James kind of flips that dynamic because he's gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get the defense into rotation without having
Speaker 1: to use your guards to beat people off the dribble.
Speaker 1: Lebron is way too big and strong for Jadie McDaniels,
Speaker 1: and Anthony Edwards is going to have to guard D'Angel Russell.
Speaker 1: So like that matchup is a really good matchup for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. I think they can win that game if
Speaker 1: they win the play in game, regardless of what. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they have a better chance to win it at home,
Speaker 1: but if they win it as the eight seed, even
Speaker 1: on the road, that gives them the seven seed. I
Speaker 1: believe Sacramento currently is the three seed. I believe they'll
Speaker 1: surpass Memphis and finish the season as the two seed.
Speaker 1: We'll see, but either way, I like their chances in
Speaker 1: that first round matchup against Memphis or against Sacramento. It's
Speaker 1: a great matchup for both of them. Memphis is a
Speaker 1: bad half court offense, and the Lakers are unbelievably good
Speaker 1: half court defense after the trade deadline, so I think
Speaker 1: they'd be able to get a lot of stops, and
Speaker 1: they'd be much better executing at the end of games.
Speaker 1: Memphis is a bad, bad execution team. They're a horrible
Speaker 1: fourth quarter team. Lots of things that favor the Lakers.
Speaker 1: Right Sacramento, it would just be Lebron James and Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis utterly bludgeoning Harrison Barnes and Demonis Sabonis for the
Speaker 1: entire series. I'd pick the Lakers to win both of
Speaker 1: those series. Then from there, obviously it depends on how
Speaker 1: things shake off in the middle of the standings. You
Speaker 1: can end up with an easier matchup in the second
Speaker 1: round against a team that you like your chances against, right,
Speaker 1: but it could just as easily be the Warriors, and
Speaker 1: you could have a tough matchup. But most importantly, you
Speaker 1: save the Nuggets for the Western Conference finals. So things
Speaker 1: are actually kind of shaping up pretty well here for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. If they can get into that seven eight
Speaker 1: matchup win a play in game, they have a realistic
Speaker 1: pathway to get out of the Western Conference, to keep
Speaker 1: Lebron's minutes down in the first round of the playoffs
Speaker 1: so that he can ramp up, and I really think
Speaker 1: that they have a decent chance there Obviously health has
Speaker 1: to be factored in there. Anthony Davis is healthy now
Speaker 1: and playing great, but who knows if that will last.
Speaker 1: And then obviously Lebron needs to get back to the
Speaker 1: floor without having a setback. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different steps they've got to go through. The Pelicans this
Speaker 1: season is super weird. On December twelfth, they were eighteen
Speaker 1: and eight, that was the best record in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: the third best record in the league. During that span,
Speaker 1: they were fifth in offense and third in defense, so
Speaker 1: looked like a bona fide Western Conference contender. Since then,
Speaker 1: fifteen and twenty eight, fifth worst record in all of basketball,
Speaker 1: twenty sixth in offense, and eighteenth in defense. And now,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched a ton of Pelicans this year. I've
Speaker 1: seen probably twenty twenty five Pelicans games, and so I
Speaker 1: really encourage Pelicans fans who are listening to give their
Speaker 1: two cents in the comments. I'd be curious to hear
Speaker 1: what you guys think. The couple of things that stand
Speaker 1: out to me when I watched them, though, One, their
Speaker 1: wings aren't as good defensively as they should be, right
Speaker 1: like Brandon ingram on a night on the games that
Speaker 1: I've watched him is still getting lost without the basketball
Speaker 1: or off ball quite a bit. He's not taking the
Speaker 1: higher level on ball assignments because they're giving those to
Speaker 1: Herb Jones obviously, and then Trey Murphy. He's got the
Speaker 1: athleticism and I do believe one day he'll be a
Speaker 1: good wing defensive player, but he hasn't been great, and
Speaker 1: so as good as they have all these wings, but
Speaker 1: Herb Jones is really the only guy that's impacting the
Speaker 1: game defensively at a high level. And then their point
Speaker 1: of attack defense is just disastrous. CJ. McCollum is not
Speaker 1: providing any impedance on those original on those initial driderble penetrations,
Speaker 1: and when you get the Pelicans into rotation, it's a
Speaker 1: lot to ask to run around and chase shooters when
Speaker 1: Yonas found Tunis Is on the floor and you don't
Speaker 1: have great foot speed. Although they've been cutting back on
Speaker 1: Yonas's minutes a lot lately, so it hasn't been as
Speaker 1: much of an issue there, but I don't think defensively
Speaker 1: they're nearly as good as they should be given their personnel,
Speaker 1: and I think you've seen a lack of fight. There's
Speaker 1: a weird energy around the team. They're having a lot
Speaker 1: of games where they lay down and lose, but then
Speaker 1: you'll watch them on another night, Like I think they
Speaker 1: beat the hell out of Portland the other night, So
Speaker 1: like there's kind of like a weird competitive energy. They
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of guys that like to play
Speaker 1: hard as like a natural part of their basketball identity,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a little bit of an issue
Speaker 1: for them. And then on the offensive end, I think
Speaker 1: it's a lack of rim pressure on that same using
Speaker 1: that same December twelfth date, which before December twelfth, Zion
Speaker 1: played most of the games. After December twelfth, Zion only
Speaker 1: played a couple of the games before we got out.
Speaker 1: But they're not generating any rim pressure because all of
Speaker 1: their offensive initiators are guys that like to hunt pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot. Right. So CJ. McCollum is coming off
Speaker 1: these screens, he's not relentlessly attacking the rim. He's trying
Speaker 1: to get to his pull up jump shot. Brandon ingram
Speaker 1: same thing. He's not relentlessly attacking the rim. He's trying
Speaker 1: to get to his pull up jump shot. And the
Speaker 1: reason why you need those guys that like to get
Speaker 1: downhill and go to the rim. Is that's what collapses
Speaker 1: the defense to get you higher quality three point shots
Speaker 1: than the tougher shots that you get when you're not
Speaker 1: getting that type of dribble penetration. That's what Zion Williamson
Speaker 1: did for this team. Forget about the defensive limitations, forget
Speaker 1: about like some of the half court stuff when he
Speaker 1: can plow into too many bodies and have some turnovers
Speaker 1: and things like that. Just having him on the floor
Speaker 1: provides that rim pressure element that just opens everything up
Speaker 1: for them offensively. And even then Brandon Ingram and CJ.
Speaker 1: McCollum are attacking with more of an advantage in getting
Speaker 1: better looks out of that. So I think you're seeing
Speaker 1: that specifically in their lack of driving kick basketball, and
Speaker 1: that shows up an assist per game. So before December twelfth,
Speaker 1: they were sixth and assist per game, and they were
Speaker 1: the thirteenth best team in the league at taking care
Speaker 1: of the ball and turnovers per game. After December twelfth,
Speaker 1: again most of that without Zion, they're down to twentieth
Speaker 1: and assist per game and they have the sixth most
Speaker 1: turnovers per game in that span. So as you could tell,
Speaker 1: like flipping the dynamic from it being a zion oriented
Speaker 1: team attacking the rim, playing drive and kick off of
Speaker 1: that to suddenly a lot of high ball screens and
Speaker 1: dribble handoffs with Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum hunting dribble
Speaker 1: pull up jump shots. I think that's hurting them a lot.
Speaker 1: I think you saw that a lot against the Lakers
Speaker 1: last night, Like how many possessions did you see Trey
Speaker 1: Murphy just dribble the ball off the floor and take
Speaker 1: a transition three? CJ McCollum dribble up the floor and
Speaker 1: take it. They were just running up the floor and
Speaker 1: shooting threes. There's no dribble penetration and no driving and kicking,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's slowing down their offense. Again,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched too much of the Pelicans this year,
Speaker 1: So Pelicans fans who are listening, if you think I'm
Speaker 1: wrong about that, or if you have another perspective to add,
Speaker 1: drop it in the comments. All right, buck Sons, this
Speaker 1: was an absolute defensive masterclass from the Milwaukee Bucks down
Speaker 1: the stretch in the fourth quarter. I thought it was
Speaker 1: really interesting to watch the dynamic of shot creation on
Speaker 1: both ends. Okay, I talk a lot about perimeter defense
Speaker 1: on this show and how that ends up being the
Speaker 1: thing that stops the team, the offense from getting into
Speaker 1: that wheel. We just talked about it with the Pelicans, right,
Speaker 1: So look at how this dynamic switched at the end
Speaker 1: of this game. You know, things were a little bit
Speaker 1: open floor, a little bit more loose, and Campaign hits
Speaker 1: a couple of pull up threes and the Suns have
Speaker 1: I think a three point lead. But down the stretch,
Speaker 1: both teams go to their closing groups and Phoenix couldn't score.
Speaker 1: When Devin Booker was the lead ball handler, they had
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday on the ball, and Drew Holliday did an
Speaker 1: amazing job guarding Devin Booker as he usually does, and
Speaker 1: Devin will have his nights every once in a while
Speaker 1: where he hits tough shots over the top of Drew,
Speaker 1: but Drew's guarded him a lot over the years, and
Speaker 1: he's starting to figure out his moves a little bit
Speaker 1: and he's starting to have more success. They had a
Speaker 1: matchup earlier this year where Drew had a key steal
Speaker 1: on Devin book at the end of the game. If
Speaker 1: you guys remember in this game, when Devin Booker had
Speaker 1: the ball, Milwaukee was running an aggressive drop coverage, so
Speaker 1: Lopez is coming high out of his drop almost to
Speaker 1: catch Hedge up at the level of the screen, and
Speaker 1: Drew Holliday's playing super physical chasing Devin Booker over the top.
Speaker 1: Then they're conceding the Roman, They're letting DeAndre and catch
Speaker 1: the ball going downhill, and Jannis Antenna Kompo is blowing
Speaker 1: that up every single time. And this is I want
Speaker 1: to wait to get into it a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: here in just a second, but Jannis's help defense is
Speaker 1: such a ridiculous problem to deal with as an opposing
Speaker 1: offense because of what he can do taking away the
Speaker 1: week side corner and the rollman. We'll get back into
Speaker 1: that in just a second. But I thought it was
Speaker 1: super interesting that they were hyper aggressive with Devin Booker
Speaker 1: ignoring the rollman to contain him. But then when Chris
Speaker 1: Paul had the ball, Brook Lopez was sagging all the
Speaker 1: way back. And basically, Joe Ingles and Joe Ingles is
Speaker 1: not everything defensively has to do with how you can
Speaker 1: contribute to your scheme, not necessarily what your skill set is.
Speaker 1: Like if Joe Ingles played for the Clippers and they
Speaker 1: don't have rim protection and they're switching everything, and it's
Speaker 1: a lot of isolation defense, and you need your man
Speaker 1: to contain the ball. He's going to get beat off
Speaker 1: the dribble a lot. That's not his strength. He's not
Speaker 1: going to be able to recover and block shots at
Speaker 1: the rim as a wing. But if you simplify his
Speaker 1: responsibility by having brook Lopez basically parking his ass right
Speaker 1: under the basket, now, all of a sudden, he doesn't
Speaker 1: need to contain Chris Paul as a ball handling as
Speaker 1: a guy driving to the basket. All he needs to
Speaker 1: do is chase him over the top of the screen
Speaker 1: and apply a little bit of back pressure so that
Speaker 1: Chris Paul doesn't get off those easy little fifteen footers.
Speaker 1: The only time Chris Paul was able to get decent
Speaker 1: looks down the stretch were floaters over the top of
Speaker 1: brook Lopez going downhill. And Chris Paul's going through a
Speaker 1: phase of his career where he doesn't like to be
Speaker 1: aggressive as a score. So Joe Ingles was actually doing
Speaker 1: a really nice job applying that back pressure and stopping
Speaker 1: Chris from getting to the high quality twos and he
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about the rim because that's where
Speaker 1: Brooke was. And so it's super interesting to see that
Speaker 1: dynamic hyper aggressive against Devin Booker trying to turn him
Speaker 1: into a passer, which is what he can do but
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do, and then against Chris Paul playing
Speaker 1: super passive and trying to turn him into a score
Speaker 1: which he can do but doesn't want to do. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a super interesting defensive strategy from the Bucks,
Speaker 1: and they strangled the Sun's down the stretch of this game.
Speaker 1: And this is where I want to get into the
Speaker 1: honest dynamic. So in pick and roll defense, or it's
Speaker 1: in every type of defense, but let's just use pick
Speaker 1: and roll as example. So in pick and roll defense,
Speaker 1: there are basically two backline responsibilities, right, So theoretically, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have your on ball defender that's gonna have some
Speaker 1: job depending on the coverage. He's either gonna go under
Speaker 1: the screen, or he's gonna go over the screen, or
Speaker 1: he's gonna deny the screen if they're icing, which is
Speaker 1: usually on the side of the floor. The pick and
Speaker 1: roll defender, the screen defender he's doing basically one of
Speaker 1: three things. He's either in a high drop up at
Speaker 1: the level of the screen, he's in a low drop
Speaker 1: back at the basket, or he's trapping or blitzing the
Speaker 1: screen right and some combination of that is going to
Speaker 1: make your pick and roll coverage. But let's use the
Speaker 1: Devin Booker one as an example. Devin Booker's coming off
Speaker 1: the ball screen, Lopez and Drew are both out right.
Speaker 1: Lopez is high out of the drop to contain that
Speaker 1: pull up shot. Drew's chasing over the top DeAndre and
Speaker 1: is rolling to the basket. This is where the lowman
Speaker 1: comes into the play. It The lowman is just what
Speaker 1: most NBA teams refer to it as, but basically it's
Speaker 1: just the help defender that's in the week side corner,
Speaker 1: and usually it's a guard or a wing, and most
Speaker 1: of guards or wings will opt to try to take
Speaker 1: a charge. So like a lot of teams will run
Speaker 1: drills while they're practice this where you're guarding a shooter
Speaker 1: in the week side corner and there'll be a rollman
Speaker 1: kind of catching the ball going towards the basket and
Speaker 1: you sprint to the top of the charge circle. And
Speaker 1: you set your feet and you take a charge and
Speaker 1: you fall backwards. Right. What makes jana Is so interesting
Speaker 1: is that backline lowman defender is he's defending that as
Speaker 1: an above the rim defender. So like when they're rowing
Speaker 1: the ball to that rollman, Janice is is elevating and
Speaker 1: disrupting the lob pass at the rim. If you try
Speaker 1: to catch, he's coming fly. There was a play at
Speaker 1: the end of this game where Dean Dreyton was there
Speaker 1: for the catch and Janice just came in and swiped
Speaker 1: it clean from his hands as he caught it in
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: most teams, when that guard steps in to take that
Speaker 1: charge or whatever, that opens up the skip pass and
Speaker 1: now that shooter in the week side corner is wide open. Well,
Speaker 1: makes Jannis such a frightening help defender is he can
Speaker 1: split the difference and on those plays he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to commit to the rollman or commit to the week
Speaker 1: side corner. He can just stand in the middle. And
Speaker 1: he's such a free gathlete that regardless of which pass
Speaker 1: you make as the ball handling guard, he's blowing it up.
Speaker 1: If you throw the skip pass, he's stealing that thing.
Speaker 1: If you throw it to the rollman, he's blowing that
Speaker 1: up too. It completely disrupts that pick and roll as
Speaker 1: the weak side defender because most teams don't want to
Speaker 1: bring in that week side defender if they can avoid it,
Speaker 1: because that's how they get wide open threes on the
Speaker 1: back line. Every team in a dream scenario would like
Speaker 1: to defend pick and roll two on two if they
Speaker 1: can help it, but especially against teams like the Suns
Speaker 1: that have such gifted ball handlers and guys like DeAndre
Speaker 1: and you almost have to bring in that third defender.
Speaker 1: That's where the Suns were getting all that stuff in
Speaker 1: the past with Michaal Bridges, right, mcaal Bridges on the
Speaker 1: skip pass, knocking down corner threes. They're attacking closeouts and
Speaker 1: hitting those little drifting jumpers in the lane. Now Michael
Speaker 1: Bridges has gone from that equation, which makes it a
Speaker 1: little bit tougher because you don't have as much skill
Speaker 1: over there. But it doesn't matter because Jannis would have
Speaker 1: swallowed that up to Janie is just this world beating
Speaker 1: help defender that can contain that be the third man
Speaker 1: in that pick and roll defense. While simultaneously not leaving
Speaker 1: a shooter open because of his recovery athleticism. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys remember, there was a game last
Speaker 1: year I talked a lot about some of you guys
Speaker 1: who listening to the show back then, we'll remember this,
Speaker 1: But there was a game against the Mavericks in the
Speaker 1: Bucks where Luca was running a lot of high pick
Speaker 1: and roll and Jannis was in that low man position
Speaker 1: and as a result, like Luca was drawing us in
Speaker 1: to help on that role man and then throwing the
Speaker 1: skit pass and making textbook Luca fantastic skit passes. And
Speaker 1: on those skit passes, Jannis just immediately was recovering out
Speaker 1: to the corner and taking away the shot, and that defender,
Speaker 1: that offensive player in the week side corner was just
Speaker 1: passing out of it because he just had nothing, and
Speaker 1: so it was disrupting Dallas's whole offense. And so what
Speaker 1: Luca did, if you guys remember, which I thought was
Speaker 1: super interesting, is he started calling for Jannis in the
Speaker 1: ball screen and he would get Jannis on the switch
Speaker 1: or get him trailing him on the ball screen and
Speaker 1: then make that same ski pass. He's not trying to
Speaker 1: score on Jannis. He's just trying to get that same
Speaker 1: help rotation from Milwaukee while throwing to a shooter in
Speaker 1: the Week's side corner with a much worse help defender
Speaker 1: making that rotation, and he started to get some good
Speaker 1: looks in the weeks side corner from that. It's a
Speaker 1: random game from last year to demonstrate this concept, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be the thing that teams are going
Speaker 1: to have to do if they want to have any
Speaker 1: hope of beating that Buck's defensive vir Gin pick and roll.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to, as crazy as it sounds, start
Speaker 1: pulling Jannis up into the ball screen because you have
Speaker 1: a much better chance getting an open shot on the
Speaker 1: backside from a different help defender than you do from
Speaker 1: Jannis hawking everything on the back side of the floor.
Speaker 1: It's a it's such a weapon to have in a
Speaker 1: playoff series, and it was a huge factor down the
Speaker 1: stretch of this Sun's game, blowing up their pick and
Speaker 1: roll when they were getting those stops at the end
Speaker 1: and then on the other end of the floor. Joe
Speaker 1: Ingles He's been one of my favorite signings of this season.
Speaker 1: I obviously he brings that important spot up shooting element
Speaker 1: that the Bucks need so badly with Jannis on the floor.
Speaker 1: But he's also just like a pretty damn solid initiator offensively,
Speaker 1: and the Bucks ran a lot of offense threw him
Speaker 1: down the stretch of this game once again. Matchups right,
Speaker 1: Drew Holiday is drawing josh Akogi, and Joshua cogis actually
Speaker 1: a pretty damn good point of attack defender. He had
Speaker 1: a rough night against the Warriors last night. The rest
Speaker 1: of the Sun's point of attack defense is hot garbage,
Speaker 1: but Josha Cogi is pretty solid, So from a matchup perspective,
Speaker 1: Drew attacking josh Akogi wasn't as good of an option
Speaker 1: as it was for Joe Ingles to run the action
Speaker 1: with Chris Paul as his defender. Chris Paul is not
Speaker 1: in the same stratosphere of a defender as he was
Speaker 1: when he was younger, and Joe was giving them all
Speaker 1: kinds of problems. Chris in particular is really struggling navigating
Speaker 1: over the top of ball screens. But there were three
Speaker 1: big plays that Joe Ingles made at the end of
Speaker 1: this game that ended up sealing the game offensively for
Speaker 1: the Bucks. First, there was a play where he ran
Speaker 1: just a regular ball screen kind of going to his right.
Speaker 1: Chris died on the screen. Joe Ingles just rose up
Speaker 1: and knocked down a pull up three that you know,
Speaker 1: that's that offensive skill that you need to beat that
Speaker 1: particular coverage, and he was getting better separation from Chris
Speaker 1: Paul than Drew Holiday was getting from a Kogi. Then
Speaker 1: he made two plays rolling down the rim as a
Speaker 1: ball hitler. One was out of a dribble handoff, one
Speaker 1: was out of a pick and roll, but it's the
Speaker 1: same concept ball screen slash dribble handoff from Brook Lopez.
Speaker 1: The first one was with Chris Paul. The second one
Speaker 1: was with Tory Craig, who's also not a good point
Speaker 1: of attack defend when it comes to navigating screens and
Speaker 1: stuff like that or handling quicker guards, which Ingles is not,
Speaker 1: but he was going over his screen on this play. Ingles.
Speaker 1: On both of these plays, Ingles just takes a wide
Speaker 1: banana route basically around the screen and just starts to
Speaker 1: get downhill towards the rim, and DeAndre Ayton, as Chris
Speaker 1: Paul or Tory Craig is getting caught on the screen
Speaker 1: has to step up to contain Joe Ingles. Joe Ingles
Speaker 1: is a big six seven lefty that can finish that
Speaker 1: left handed lay up off the glass. So he's got
Speaker 1: to step over. Now Chris Paul or Tory Craig, they
Speaker 1: have to recover and dig down on brook Lopez to
Speaker 1: stop him from catching as the role man. But what
Speaker 1: Ingles did, which was really smart, is on both of
Speaker 1: these plays, he threw the ball high to brook Lopez.
Speaker 1: So he just kind of threw like a little popping
Speaker 1: lob pass into Lopez as he's rolling to the rim,
Speaker 1: so that Lopez could catch high and finish high. Why
Speaker 1: is that important Because what do smaller defenders do when
Speaker 1: a bigger player catches around them, They attack the ball
Speaker 1: down low. So if he throws a bounce pass to
Speaker 1: low Pez there, Chris Paul can swipe at it. If
Speaker 1: he throws a bounce pass with Tory Craig there, Tory
Speaker 1: Craig can swipe at it. By keeping it high, he
Speaker 1: allowed brook Lopez to catch high in finish high, and
Speaker 1: they got two big layups from brook Lopez down the
Speaker 1: stretch of that game that helps seal the game on
Speaker 1: the offensive end of the flour It was just a
Speaker 1: and obviously Honest was amazing again, but we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about him yesterday, so I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: into it. It was just a really impressive championship level
Speaker 1: type of back to back from the Bucks. That's not
Speaker 1: an easy back to back to win, to go into
Speaker 1: Sacramento when they desperately want to win that game in
Speaker 1: a raucous crowd and to win and then yeah, I
Speaker 1: know the Sons are down Kevin Durant, but they're still
Speaker 1: at home, a tough team with a lot of offensive skill,
Speaker 1: and that's just not an easy game to win. And
Speaker 1: it was an impressive back to back from them. For Phoenix,
Speaker 1: that's the second game in a row where point of
Speaker 1: attack defense was an issue for them. Obviously, Tory Craig
Speaker 1: and Chris Paul we just talked about last night. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of Josh Coogi and Devin Booker struggling,
Speaker 1: and then obviously and Lee and Devin Booker as well
Speaker 1: struggling to communicate switches that they were leaving the Warriors open.
Speaker 1: That all it says to me is that they're going
Speaker 1: to need an otherworldly defensive effort from Kevin Durant to
Speaker 1: win the title. Which for the record, I think he's
Speaker 1: capable of. We just talked about that week side help
Speaker 1: defender role from Jannis. That's the role that Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: has to have. They're going to need to have Eton
Speaker 1: and whoever their point of attack defender guard the pick
Speaker 1: and roll aggressively in the playoffs, which is going to
Speaker 1: leave the role man open, and they're going to need
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant to be able to blow up those Brook
Speaker 1: Lopez catches while at the same time recover into shooters
Speaker 1: on the week side. It's going to be a lot
Speaker 1: to ask, but Kevin Durant does have the athleticism to
Speaker 1: do that, and that, to me is going to be
Speaker 1: the swing factor for Phoenix this year. Can Kevin Durant
Speaker 1: be a good enough help defender to compensate for Phoenix's
Speaker 1: bad point of attack defense. One other note on Phoenix too,
Speaker 1: It was a big issue that they had to go
Speaker 1: to Chris Paul down the stretch offensively and he wasn't
Speaker 1: aggressive enough of his as a scorer. This just goes
Speaker 1: back to what I said at the beginning when they
Speaker 1: made the Kevin Durant trade. The ultimate ceiling for this
Speaker 1: team again, because everything is different when you're talking about
Speaker 1: the twenty six or twenty seven opponents you'll face that
Speaker 1: are not championship level rosters, and then the three or
Speaker 1: four teams that you'll face that are championship level rosters. Defensively,
Speaker 1: the way that changes the way the game goes when
Speaker 1: all that easy stuff is taken away and you really
Speaker 1: need to grind out quality shots. The Bucks are such
Speaker 1: a great example of that, and that's why I look
Speaker 1: at Kevin Durant as the guy they're gonna need to
Speaker 1: use as their primary on ball guy and a little
Speaker 1: bit less of him off ball, because at the end
Speaker 1: of that game, your best chance of getting a good
Speaker 1: look against the Milwaukee Bucks is Kevin Durant is going
Speaker 1: to have to be the guy that draws in that
Speaker 1: initial defensive attention. All Right, We're gonna hit on a
Speaker 1: couple of Eastern Conference big wins from last night as well.
Speaker 1: The New York Knicks won a big game in Toronto,
Speaker 1: and I keep confusing Toronto and Portland. In Portland against
Speaker 1: the Trailblazers, Dame was going off for two and a
Speaker 1: half quarters and Portland had four different double digit leads.
Speaker 1: They were controlling the game but there was an interesting
Speaker 1: adjustment there down the stretch of the third quarter and
Speaker 1: specifically offensively from the Knicks to get going in transition
Speaker 1: that I thought changed the game. So they started kind
Speaker 1: of trapping Dame as much as they can, of getting
Speaker 1: the ball out of his hands, being more aggressive off
Speaker 1: of guys like Trendon Watford and Matisse Thyble and conceding
Speaker 1: them open shots to try to contain the skill players,
Speaker 1: and so they were getting stops and then from there,
Speaker 1: and you know, we saw this a lot against the
Speaker 1: Lakers the other night too, where you know, the New
Speaker 1: York Knicks are a bad half court offense, even with
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson, like, they're a middle of the pack half
Speaker 1: court offense. So what do you do when you're a
Speaker 1: bad half court offense? You need to try to avoid
Speaker 1: the half court environment as much as possible. And without
Speaker 1: Jalen Brunson, you're an even worse half court offense, right
Speaker 1: because he's your best half court surgeon. So the best
Speaker 1: way to avoid that is to push in transition. And
Speaker 1: they keep going with these three guard lineups as of late,
Speaker 1: which I think is super fascinating, and again it's matchup
Speaker 1: dependent they're not going to be able to do that
Speaker 1: against everybody. They did it against a Laker team, excuse me,
Speaker 1: that didn't have a forward star and was relying a
Speaker 1: lot on their guards to create stuff. You know. They
Speaker 1: did it against this Portland team that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of forward shot creation and is relying on their
Speaker 1: guards to create stuff. So a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with matchups, but they were they've been going
Speaker 1: with these smaller lineups and they're they're just running the
Speaker 1: ball down everyone's throat, Like the sheer amount of transition
Speaker 1: threes that they got. Miles McBride, who I found out
Speaker 1: today is called Duce McBride. Duce McBride hit four threes,
Speaker 1: I believe, like four transition threes down the stretch of
Speaker 1: this game. And he hasn't shot the ball particularly well
Speaker 1: this season, but again, if you're gonna get those high
Speaker 1: quality shots, and apparently he has a good history of
Speaker 1: shooting back when he was in college. So it's just
Speaker 1: a lot of it. A lot of it has to
Speaker 1: do with role guys, Like if you're not getting as
Speaker 1: many touches as you might think, it disrupts your rhythm
Speaker 1: and then you don't really get a chance to dial
Speaker 1: in and fine tune your shot on the floor, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna miss a lot of shots. And Jalen Brunson
Speaker 1: being out has bought Duce McBride more minutes and he's
Speaker 1: capitalizing on that. But like it all starts with rim pressure,
Speaker 1: guys like Emmanuel Quickly and Josh Hart flying down the
Speaker 1: floor in transition, attacking the rim but not forcing shots
Speaker 1: over length at the rim, throwing those kickout passes to
Speaker 1: trailing shooters. And one of the big reasons why transition
Speaker 1: threes are such a high percentage shot, especially when the
Speaker 1: ball has popped around a little bit. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about like walking into a three. Those are tough shots,
Speaker 1: and there's a few guys in the league that are
Speaker 1: really good at them. But they're tough shots. But when
Speaker 1: you get transition threes that are off kickouts, when guys
Speaker 1: attack the rim, your feet are set and your momentum
Speaker 1: is carrying you forward to the rim. So if I'm
Speaker 1: trailing down the left wing and Josh Hart drives and
Speaker 1: he makes a kick out to Julius Randall in the
Speaker 1: left corner, and Julius Randall makes a shovel pass to
Speaker 1: me and I'm Duce McBride trailing on the left wing.
Speaker 1: I've got my feet set, my momentum is carrying forward
Speaker 1: because I was running up the floor. So I always
Speaker 1: talked about how jump shooting has a lot more to
Speaker 1: do with legs than people realize that Transition three kind
Speaker 1: of has the legs part baked into it because you're
Speaker 1: already moving forward, so then you can really focus on
Speaker 1: getting a good balanced shot attempt with good lift, and
Speaker 1: that's a high percentage shot. And they were killing them
Speaker 1: with transition thrace. Like I Saiduce McBride made four of them.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, you know, quickly came in and
Speaker 1: made a couple. Josh Hart was attacking the rim and transition.
Speaker 1: They were drawn fouls like it just was a It
Speaker 1: was a bludgeoning in transition of Portland's defense. They went
Speaker 1: on a twenty one to five run. Then the game
Speaker 1: was basically over. It was a nice way to end
Speaker 1: the road trip. They lost a couple of tough games,
Speaker 1: but then they went and won two tough road games.
Speaker 1: That Lakers team, like I said, they're nine and four
Speaker 1: including the knickslaws since they made the trades. That's not
Speaker 1: an easy team to beat and they won that game.
Speaker 1: The Blazers is freaking terrible as they've been there seventeen
Speaker 1: and sixteen at home, they were seventeen and fifteen going
Speaker 1: into that game. It's not an easy win, and they
Speaker 1: went in there and they got it done. So nice
Speaker 1: work for the Knicks. They've been like the Knicks. I
Speaker 1: was a huge Knick skeptic for the first half of
Speaker 1: the season, and they've been really impressive here down the stretch,
Speaker 1: and I do actually believe that they have a puncher's
Speaker 1: chance to win a series or two, which is not
Speaker 1: something I would have said in the last route last
Speaker 1: couple of months all right before we get out of here,
Speaker 1: Nuggets Raptors. So Denver was on a three game losing
Speaker 1: street coming in. They had all these defensive issues, so
Speaker 1: you wanted them to come in and bringing a better
Speaker 1: defensive effort to try to write the ship, and it
Speaker 1: just could not have been further from the truth. They
Speaker 1: were incredibly sloppy, especially off ball. Toronto took a lot
Speaker 1: of advantage of Denver's entry points, like I talked about
Speaker 1: a lot. They ended up giving up forty nine points
Speaker 1: in the first quarter, So an un serious defensive effort
Speaker 1: once again from Denver. Toronto led by twenty four points
Speaker 1: in the third quarter. Yes, Denver made a little bit
Speaker 1: of a run, they got it back to three, but
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before. This is a very common
Speaker 1: thing that happens in the NBA. Team who's playing better
Speaker 1: gets out to a huge lead, then they let their
Speaker 1: foot off the gas. Team that's down big finally starts
Speaker 1: to show a little bit of fight. They grind their
Speaker 1: way back. As soon as they start to get a
Speaker 1: little bit close, the team that's been playing better locks
Speaker 1: back in and the team that had to expend all
Speaker 1: that energy to get back in the game gets fatigued,
Speaker 1: and the league grows right back up. They got it
Speaker 1: to within three in the fourth quarter, and then Toronto
Speaker 1: is back seventeen. They were up by seventeen before the
Speaker 1: end of the game, so I don't really look at
Speaker 1: the comeback as much. The Toronto completely dominated this game.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: Denver and their entry points here in just a second,
Speaker 1: but I want to focus on Toronto for a minute,
Speaker 1: because there there's something super interesting going on in Toronto
Speaker 1: now since the Pearl trade. They're seven and six, doesn't
Speaker 1: sound that interesting, right. They're in the play in tournament
Speaker 1: as of right now, I think they're I think they're
Speaker 1: in the nine seed or something like either eight or nine.
Speaker 1: But here's what's interesting to me. Their starting lineup is
Speaker 1: destroying people. Even in the Lakers game that they lost,
Speaker 1: their starters destroyed everyone in that game. And the reason why,
Speaker 1: I'll go into the numbers first. They are plus fifty
Speaker 1: seven in their first one hundred and fifty minutes together.
Speaker 1: They are outscoring teams by nineteen points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 1: They have a one twenty five offensive rating, which is
Speaker 1: off the charts good, and a one oh seven defensive rating,
Speaker 1: which is extremely good. And it comes down to a
Speaker 1: couple of things. They're a huge matchup problem for teams.
Speaker 1: They've always played a lot of big players. But one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it didn't quite work because they
Speaker 1: didn't have a natural rim protector and most wing defenders
Speaker 1: they didn't grow up playing rim protector, so they're not
Speaker 1: good at that specific skill, and a lot of traditional
Speaker 1: defensive coverages require a decent rim protector, especially pick and
Speaker 1: roll coverages. Right, So it's slotted Toronto into a more
Speaker 1: natural configuration as a defensive team right on the offensive
Speaker 1: end of the floor. It has provided them with matchup
Speaker 1: flexibility that just about I will just go out and
Speaker 1: say it, no other team in the league has so.
Speaker 1: Fred van Vliet is an excellent onball creator and he's
Speaker 1: going to draw the other team's best point of it
Speaker 1: act defender right. One of the three of O g
Speaker 1: n and Obi, Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam is going
Speaker 1: to get a small guard, the second smallest guy in
Speaker 1: the opposing lineup is gonna be end up guarding one
Speaker 1: of Toronto's big forwards, and chances are that your small
Speaker 1: forward is also going to be giving up an advantage
Speaker 1: because Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam in particular are both
Speaker 1: gigantic human beings and bigger than your traditional small fourds
Speaker 1: that you see around the league. For instance, like Minnesota
Speaker 1: and you're playing you know Gobert and Kyle Anderson Jaden McDaniels,
Speaker 1: that the three is going to be giving up a
Speaker 1: solid twenty pounds a muscle and two inches two three
Speaker 1: inches to Siakam or Barnes, like he's gonna be giving
Speaker 1: up a physical advantage there, So what ends up happening
Speaker 1: is like they're a brute force offense. There's there's not
Speaker 1: a lot really pretty about what they're doing. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of just who's got the better matchup. Give that
Speaker 1: guy the ball, he's gonna back him down and somebody helps.
Speaker 1: When somebody helps, will play driving kick from there. And
Speaker 1: part of it is they're shooting really well, like that
Speaker 1: group of shooting forty percent from three in their one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty minutes together. But in the games that
Speaker 1: I've watched them, a lot of it is shot quality,
Speaker 1: Like is that going to come down a little bit?
Speaker 1: Maybe like that, there's some guys in that lineup that
Speaker 1: are inconsistent shooters that have been knocking down some shots,
Speaker 1: but like ogn and Obie is locked in with his
Speaker 1: spot up shooting right now, like Pascal Siakam has had
Speaker 1: stretches this year where he's locked in and he's knocking
Speaker 1: down shots, and a lot of it is shot quality.
Speaker 1: And if you can get the defense into rotation by
Speaker 1: constantly having a seize mismatch, you're gonna get high quality
Speaker 1: catch and shoot threes. And if you get high quality
Speaker 1: catch and shoot threes, it is possible that you're gonna
Speaker 1: shoot forty percent. Now there will be teams that are
Speaker 1: gonna be able to match up a little bit better
Speaker 1: with them. There there. I don't view them as a
Speaker 1: title favorite but or even a contender, but they are
Speaker 1: an interesting playing team who at least is going to
Speaker 1: be a pain in the ass to deal with. And
Speaker 1: if they can figure out a way to get that
Speaker 1: success from the starting lineup to train late through to
Speaker 1: other areas of the game, either by staggering a little
Speaker 1: bit better or by bolstering their bench in the coming season.
Speaker 1: This offseason, they could become a very interesting team because
Speaker 1: there was intel that there was intel that Toronto believes
Speaker 1: that Siu Jerry still believes in this core and that
Speaker 1: basically what they did around the trade deadline was purposefully
Speaker 1: pretend like they were going to trade some guys just
Speaker 1: to gauge their value, and then they went the complete
Speaker 1: opposite direction and gave up a first round pick for
Speaker 1: Yaka Purtle, right, So like, clearly they're still thinking all in,
Speaker 1: even if they were bluffing to blow up, And that
Speaker 1: tells you that they still believe and I can see
Speaker 1: I can see why when that group that starting lineup
Speaker 1: has already been one of the better plus minus lineups
Speaker 1: in the league in terms of their total plus minus
Speaker 1: for the season. In just one hundred and fifty minutes together.
Speaker 1: That's a lot to be encouraged about. Outscoring teams by
Speaker 1: nineteen points per one hundred possession. That's like Golden State
Speaker 1: Warriors starters type of dominance, albeit in a smaller sample size.
Speaker 1: So like, it is interesting, and I can see why.
Speaker 1: I can see why me Siu Jerry's excited about them.
Speaker 1: But this is where I want to get into Denver,
Speaker 1: because I talked a lot about Denver's entry points, and
Speaker 1: what I've always said about Denver is like you can
Speaker 1: put together the fact simile of a good regular season defense,
Speaker 1: but when you get into the postseason, it becomes more
Speaker 1: about matchups, right, And the two guys in particular, like
Speaker 1: Yokis was bad defensively in this game, as he's been
Speaker 1: for most of the season, but in this particular game,
Speaker 1: I thought the guards were the problem. The like Jamal
Speaker 1: Murray and Contavious calledwal Pope in particular, and Contavious Colbo
Speaker 1: Pope is competing. It's not that it's just he's giving
Speaker 1: up too much weight. This goes back to what we
Speaker 1: were talking about, like Jamal Murray and Contavious calledwal Pope,
Speaker 1: or you're starting backcourt, you've got Contavious Calledboal Pope matched
Speaker 1: up with one of those big forwards and they were
Speaker 1: just going right at him and drawing those help defenders
Speaker 1: and specifically guys like like Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr.
Speaker 1: Jamal Murray got lost couple of times, Yokis was getting
Speaker 1: beat on the back line. I shared a clip of
Speaker 1: that today. When that second defender was coming in. The
Speaker 1: Toronto players are doing a good job of relocating along
Speaker 1: the three point line and cutting to the basket, and
Speaker 1: they were just losing guys and that was a big
Speaker 1: part of how they had forty nine points in the
Speaker 1: first quarter. That's what concerns me about entry points. Your
Speaker 1: scheme doesn't matter at all. When they just take one
Speaker 1: of your defenders and back him down from there, you
Speaker 1: have no choice but to double. And then once you double,
Speaker 1: your in rotation. So it doesn't matter what your pick
Speaker 1: and roll coverage is, doesn't matter how good Aaron Gordon
Speaker 1: might be as your back line help defender, blowing up
Speaker 1: stuff at the basket and on the week side corner.
Speaker 1: If they don't even have to run a pick and
Speaker 1: roll and they can just walk down one of your
Speaker 1: smaller defenders, bring in that help and play driving kickball
Speaker 1: from there. That's the kind of thing that you're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot of teams do. Why would you
Speaker 1: play into their bait? Why would you play into Denver's
Speaker 1: base scheme defensively when you can just attack one of
Speaker 1: their smaller defenders, and I think you're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot of teams do that. And then once you
Speaker 1: start playing drive and kick, it's yokis trying to chase
Speaker 1: guys around in rotation getting pulled away from the rim.
Speaker 1: That's where things can get ugly for them. Denver is
Speaker 1: allowing one hundred and twenty five points per one hundred
Speaker 1: possessions in their last four games, as dead last in
Speaker 1: the NBA over that span. They have now slipped down
Speaker 1: to eighteenth and defensive rating for the season. If you
Speaker 1: guys remember before the season, I said that I expected
Speaker 1: Denver to be the best offense in the league, and
Speaker 1: they have been for most of the season. They've been
Speaker 1: one of the top offenses in the league, but I
Speaker 1: said they still need it I said they didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: need to be a top ten defense because of how
Speaker 1: good their offense was, and I genuinely believe Denver is
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot of good shots when they get
Speaker 1: into the postseason. I do not think scoring is going
Speaker 1: to be an issue for them. Yokis's offensive skill set
Speaker 1: has been proven to translate to the postseason resoundingly, But
Speaker 1: on the defensive end, they need to be sharper. I
Speaker 1: said before the season, I wanted to see them finished
Speaker 1: between ten and fifteen for me to give them a
Speaker 1: legitimate chance to win the title, and they just haven't
Speaker 1: been sharp enough. And what concerns me the most is
Speaker 1: not just that they're eighteenth, but that they're slipping towards
Speaker 1: the end of the season, because if the only way
Speaker 1: you can succeed without good defensive personnel is with extremely
Speaker 1: sharp defensive principles, and they're getting sloppy in those areas.
Speaker 1: I've talked all the time that one of the big
Speaker 1: reasons why I do value offense over defense when I'm
Speaker 1: evaluating players is because of the fact that you can
Speaker 1: coach up a team to be a functional defense in
Speaker 1: a way that you can't coach up an offense to
Speaker 1: be functional against good defenses, and so they've got to
Speaker 1: be sharper. They've got to lock in down the stretch.
Speaker 1: Mike Malone was talking after the game about how they
Speaker 1: got to get their swagger back. Yes, you do, because
Speaker 1: you're running out of time and it's getting ugly. I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about Jamal Murray really
Speaker 1: quick before we get out of here. So Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: since returning from his injury, took like six games off.
Speaker 1: He's averaging nineteen points and seven assists, which is okay,
Speaker 1: but he's shooting thirty nine percent from the field and
Speaker 1: thirty four percent from three. Now. In his defense, he's
Speaker 1: been dealing with the nagging knee thing left early from
Speaker 1: that Nets game the other night. So obviously I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about pull up jump shooting and how important
Speaker 1: your lift is, and you gotta jump in order to
Speaker 1: make that work. So obviously that's playing a role. But
Speaker 1: this team has no championship ceiling if Jamal Murray can't
Speaker 1: play like an All Star. So if his knee is
Speaker 1: an issue, that kind of removes Denver from the equation.
Speaker 1: The main reason why is because with the way that
Speaker 1: Yokis plays It's kind of similar to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about with Anthony Davis and how he needs that
Speaker 1: high level guard like in order, Yokis can win games
Speaker 1: as a floor raiser with anybody, even just four league
Speaker 1: average role players. So I want to be clear, like
Speaker 1: as a floor raiser, he might be the best in
Speaker 1: the league. But when we are talking about the championship
Speaker 1: ceiling again what we were talking about with Phoenix, talking
Speaker 1: about those top tier defenses, the three or four teams
Speaker 1: that you might have to go through that have defensive
Speaker 1: personnel that are going to take you out of all
Speaker 1: of your core stuff and force you to have incredible,
Speaker 1: high level shot creation when you get to that level,
Speaker 1: Yokich needs Jamal Murray at an all star level, especially
Speaker 1: with the way they operate so much inverted pick and roll,
Speaker 1: so many dribble handoffs from the top of the key.
Speaker 1: None of that is working at the highest levels unless
Speaker 1: you have Jamal Murray as that high level three three
Speaker 1: level shot creator that he can be. And so it
Speaker 1: is concerning he represents j Jamal Murray represents Denver ceiling. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Yokich is the best player, he's the floor raiser, but
Speaker 1: you've we've seen so many times over the course of
Speaker 1: his career. He's kind of like Lebron in the earlier
Speaker 1: phases of his career, before Lebron became an excellent shot maker.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to break you down by taking tough
Speaker 1: fade aways and going into his bag to score at
Speaker 1: the end of these games. He likes to score within
Speaker 1: the flow of the offense, and so they need a
Speaker 1: guy who can be their aggressive shot maker, just like
Speaker 1: Lebron needed Kyrie right in the earlier phases. Now, Lebron
Speaker 1: when he got to the Lakers, by the time twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: two eighteen, and two twenty came around, he had advanced
Speaker 1: so far as a shot maker that he became that guy.
Speaker 1: And then when he got to with the Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: he was the high level shotmaker for that team. But
Speaker 1: Yokich is not that guy yet. We literally saw him
Speaker 1: in a situation against Joel Embid where Joel Embie was
Speaker 1: shooting his face off on one end of the floor
Speaker 1: and on the other end of the floor. Just didn't
Speaker 1: just that's not his game. That's not his game. He's
Speaker 1: playing in the flow of the offense, and so he
Speaker 1: needs that guy, and that guy is Jamal Murray, and
Speaker 1: if he's not going to be that guy, that's a
Speaker 1: big concern. So it goes deeper than the defensive end.
Speaker 1: They also are only averaging about one hundred and thirteen
Speaker 1: points per one hundred possessions on offense during the four
Speaker 1: game losing streak. That's not good enough. So if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, I don't have the schedule in front of me,
Speaker 1: but I think things get even tougher for them on
Speaker 1: the schedule now as they go on the road. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't look pretty for Denver right now. They better
Speaker 1: get it together before they get to the end of
Speaker 1: the season. All right, guys, it's all I have for today.
Speaker 1: We have one more daytime show tomorrow and covering Warriors,
Speaker 1: Clippers and some other games from tonight's late. Then we're
Speaker 1: taking Friday off. We'll have a Saturday afternoon show, taking
Speaker 1: Sunday off, and then we're getting into next week. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate your support. I'll see you guys tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The volume