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Speaker 1: Hoops to night here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody.
Speaker 1: If all of you guys are having a great week
Speaker 1: so far, got a quick show for you today. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna do three instant reactions to games from last night.
Speaker 1: The Milwaukee Bucks hanging with the Boston Celtics for about
Speaker 1: two and a half quarters before they lose control and
Speaker 1: the Celtics pull away. The Phoenix Suns get their second
Speaker 1: consecutive impressive win versus teams that I think are in
Speaker 1: the playoff tire in the Western Conference, in the Dallas
Speaker 1: Mavericks in the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be
Speaker 1: reacting to Lakers suns from last night. And then paloupon
Speaker 1: Caro goes for fifty against the Indiana Pacers. But I'm
Speaker 1: more interested in the way that he closed that games.
Speaker 1: We're gonna break down all three of those games from
Speaker 1: the perspective of both teams. You guys have the drop
Speaker 1: before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night
Speaker 1: YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't
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Speaker 1: if you also leave a rating and a review on
Speaker 1: that front. And the last, not least, keep dropping mail
Speaker 1: bag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll keep getting them
Speaker 1: getting to them. This week. I think we're planning for
Speaker 1: a mailbag that I'm recording on Thursday that's going to
Speaker 1: air on Friday, So I'll probably do a combination of
Speaker 1: YouTube comments and a tweet for that one as well.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk some basketball, So Bucks Celtics really
Speaker 1: interesting game was back and forth for about two and
Speaker 1: a half quarters. The Bucks do have some advantages in
Speaker 1: this matchup, and they showed them like Jannis. Al Horford
Speaker 1: I thought did a good job on Giannest, but Giannis
Speaker 1: won some battles, particularly when he got ahead of steam
Speaker 1: and was really able to get downhill and at that
Speaker 1: point there's just not enough athletic tool available to al
Speaker 1: Horford's kind of make up for that runway when Giannis
Speaker 1: is on it. He also did a lot of damage
Speaker 1: to Boston's guards in the post. When Boston would do
Speaker 1: some switching, particularly Derek White, Giannis would be able to
Speaker 1: kind of pivot towards that. Basically, Jannis has this unique
Speaker 1: ability to where he can turn over his right shoulder
Speaker 1: and didn't really even look to shoot. He just like
Speaker 1: turns over his right shoulder and sees if you step
Speaker 1: out of your stance, and as soon as you step
Speaker 1: out of your stance, he'll step through and he'll just
Speaker 1: go up and dunk it. He won't even have to
Speaker 1: take a hook or a fade away or anything like that.
Speaker 1: He'll just go up and dunk it. He did some
Speaker 1: damage to the Boston guards that way. Dame had so
Speaker 1: success getting downhill against the Boston biggs and pick and
Speaker 1: rollers because they're not as fast as him. And they
Speaker 1: won some battles, right, They won some battles on defense too.
Speaker 1: They did a nice job on Tatum. I thought Gary
Speaker 1: Trent Junior did a really nice job against Jayson Tatum
Speaker 1: in this game. Like specifically, Gary Trent his the thing
Speaker 1: that he's good at on defense is attacking the basketball,
Speaker 1: and Jason Tatum is very much a rhythm player, likes
Speaker 1: to kind of get his dribble going side to side
Speaker 1: and kind of get to that flow with his jump shot,
Speaker 1: and Gary Trent was doing a nice job just kind
Speaker 1: of disrupting that rhythm by not trying to contest Tatum
Speaker 1: up top, but trying to bother him during his gather,
Speaker 1: trying to disrupt his rhythm. Torrean Prince did a nice
Speaker 1: job on a couple of Jason Tatum switches too, So
Speaker 1: they forced Jason Tatum into his first rough offensive game
Speaker 1: of the season. He had just fifteen points on sixteen shots.
Speaker 1: I think he made four of his first six, and
Speaker 1: then he went two for ten down the tail end
Speaker 1: down the stretch of the game, so good defensive effort
Speaker 1: from the Bucks there, but still even with all of that,
Speaker 1: they were just kind of in the game going into
Speaker 1: the late portion of the third quarter, and then the
Speaker 1: Bucks let go of the rope and they started getting
Speaker 1: out worked. A few Celtics players in particular, started to
Speaker 1: really outwork them, and that's a concerning part which I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get to in a little bit, but specifically on
Speaker 1: the Boston front, Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, and Jordan Walsh
Speaker 1: made a lot of big hustle plays and they turned
Speaker 1: the game around really quick, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the Celtics are up by thirteen in the early part
Speaker 1: of the fourth quarter and the game is over. The
Speaker 1: Bucks were up by one with less than two minutes
Speaker 1: left in the third quarter. That's when the hustle plays
Speaker 1: started to tilt towards Boston. There was a long rebound
Speaker 1: to the foul line where Gary Trent Junior was right
Speaker 1: there and he let Pritchard out jump him for the rebound.
Speaker 1: Gary Trent's a bigger, better athlete, He's got to go
Speaker 1: get that basketball. Pritchard beats him to a fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty ball ball gets worked around, Derek White hits a
Speaker 1: three in Giannis's face on the left wing. By the way,
Speaker 1: Derek White was just incredible down the stretch of this game.
Speaker 1: He had another pull up three on the next possession
Speaker 1: against this like switch with Bobby Portis. There's like an
Speaker 1: exchange in a switch right where like you're dribbling against
Speaker 1: a defender that's up on you, and you go through
Speaker 1: the screen to the next defender, and there's an interchange
Speaker 1: there where the first defender is kind of coming off
Speaker 1: of you as the second defender is getting ready to
Speaker 1: come up, and there's a gap in between that switch
Speaker 1: where you can find some space to shoot a pull
Speaker 1: up three. Bobby Portis was just sitting back on his heels.
Speaker 1: He switched out on to Derek White. But Derek White
Speaker 1: is a good pull up shooter, and he just walked
Speaker 1: and he had just hit a pull up three over Yannis.
Speaker 1: Bobby Portis was too slow. Derek White rose up and
Speaker 1: hit another huge pull up three. He had a couple
Speaker 1: of big defensive plays down the stretch of this game.
Speaker 1: Derek White was just insane. So Derek White makes this
Speaker 1: just unbelievable defensive play on the next possession, so he
Speaker 1: hits the pull up three over Bobby Portis that go
Speaker 1: down to the other end and there's a ball screen
Speaker 1: with Damon Giannis and Dame's getting downhill and Derek White
Speaker 1: corowls and contains Dame, but Giannis is rolling behind the
Speaker 1: play and Dame drops it off to Giannis. After containing Dame,
Speaker 1: Derek White turns in walls up in stonewalls Giannis and
Speaker 1: teda kompo with the head of steam at the rim.
Speaker 1: It was one of the best defensive plays I've seen
Speaker 1: a guard make, considering the talent that he was like
Speaker 1: single handedly stopping a Dame Jannis ball screen. It was insane.
Speaker 1: Very next possession, Jordan Walsh does a nice job taking
Speaker 1: advantage of the way the Bucks were defending. The ball
Speaker 1: got worked around over to the right wing Giannis and
Speaker 1: Bobby Portis or the two guys kind of on the
Speaker 1: back line of the defense, and they decided to ignore
Speaker 1: Jordan Walsh in the weak side corner. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: being ignored in the weakside corner, you basically have three jobs. Right,
Speaker 1: if it gets skipped to you, you need to either
Speaker 1: hit a three ar attack to close out. Right, if
Speaker 1: the ball makes its way towards the rim, and there's
Speaker 1: enough space for you to cut along the baseline. You
Speaker 1: need to cut along the baseline right to try to
Speaker 1: make yourself available in the dunker spot. And then the
Speaker 1: last piece of it is if the shot goes up
Speaker 1: and you're in the weakside corner being unguarded, you better
Speaker 1: not just jog your ass back on defense. You got
Speaker 1: to crash the offensive glass. And Jordan Walsh just came
Speaker 1: right inside. I punished Bobby Portis and Giannis for ignoring him,
Speaker 1: and he gets an offensive rebound, put back another hustle play.
Speaker 1: On the very next offensive possession for the Celtics, there's
Speaker 1: another loose ball that's right there for the taking for
Speaker 1: the Bucks, and Peyton Pritchard just shoots the gap once
Speaker 1: again in front of Garry Trent Junior and gets another
Speaker 1: loose ball. Pritchard also added one of his like kind
Speaker 1: of iconic it's becoming iconic at this point, end of
Speaker 1: the first quarter, end of the third quarter buzzer beaters
Speaker 1: as he hit like a little step back jumps out
Speaker 1: on the right wing. He was insane in this game.
Speaker 1: But then the game, the play that really put the
Speaker 1: game out of reach was another kind of sloppy play
Speaker 1: from the Bucks. It was in the early fourth quarter
Speaker 1: ball screen with Jalen Brown on the left wing, and again,
Speaker 1: like the Celtics shot pull up jump shots pretty well
Speaker 1: in this game, but at the same time, like every
Speaker 1: time he put two on the ball against Boston, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much a disaster. But Bobby Porti has made the
Speaker 1: cardinal mistake of putting two on the ball by blitzing
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown on a ball screen on the left wing.
Speaker 1: But when he blitzed Jalen Brown, he didn't actually contain
Speaker 1: Jaylen Brown, and Jayalen Brown split the blitz, got Downhill,
Speaker 1: drew Pat Content in help, and then it was just
Speaker 1: a wide open three for Peyton Pritchard, who his money
Speaker 1: and knocked it down. All of a sudden, they're up
Speaker 1: thirteen in the game is basically over. So it's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me because like Milwaukee made some plays in this game,
Speaker 1: they had some advantages, they stayed in for a while,
Speaker 1: but at the end, Boston was the smarter basketball team.
Speaker 1: They were the more well coached basketball team, they were
Speaker 1: the more organized basketball team, the more disciplined basketball team,
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating because you're already at a talent advantage
Speaker 1: a disadvantage. If you're Milwaukee, right, you can't afford to
Speaker 1: be at a talent disadvantage and at an execution disadvantage.
Speaker 1: This has actually been a long standing basketball theory of mine.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't believe that teams can flip the switch.
Speaker 1: The only teams in NBA history that I have ever
Speaker 1: successfully flipped the switch have been defending champions that have
Speaker 1: monumental talent advantages that are uniquely able to be lazy
Speaker 1: during the regular season. There has never been a team
Speaker 1: that like the Milwaukee Bucks, that is just another contender
Speaker 1: that has not won a championship recently, that is trying
Speaker 1: to make this happen. There's never been a team like
Speaker 1: that that has been sloppy and undisciplined and then suddenly
Speaker 1: been able to turn it on at the end of
Speaker 1: the season. The reason why is there's a huge difference
Speaker 1: between what is habitual behavior and something that you're just
Speaker 1: doing on any one single possession or any one single
Speaker 1: stretch of possessions. Habitual means it's instinctual, you have a
Speaker 1: habit of doing it, regardless of what the surrounding circumstances
Speaker 1: are even when you're just kind of engrossed in the
Speaker 1: flow of the game, you just have a natural ability
Speaker 1: through your habit to do the right things right. That
Speaker 1: is something that you practice. That is something that starts
Speaker 1: from the very beginning of the season, at the start
Speaker 1: of training camp. This is why I'm such a big
Speaker 1: believer that the team who wins the trophy is almost
Speaker 1: always a very high seed, and why I think it's
Speaker 1: important to attack the regular season from start to finish.
Speaker 1: Even though we think of the regular season is long
Speaker 1: and every game's not super important, and we need to
Speaker 1: manage our bodies and load management and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: That's all great. The team who wins the trophy attacks
Speaker 1: the regular season from the start to finish, and that's
Speaker 1: because that is how you establish the habits that will
Speaker 1: carry you down the line. For serious basketball teams like
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics, excellence is a habit. Every effort detail,
Speaker 1: every closeout, every box out, every transition sprint, every loose
Speaker 1: ball that becomes available. There is an expectation bread in
Speaker 1: camp that those things are a requirement, and so they
Speaker 1: become habitual and consistent right every execution detail. These are
Speaker 1: the mental things right. You're spacing attentiveness to the defensive
Speaker 1: game plan, meaning as you get your scouting report and
Speaker 1: how you guard each individual player. What you do in
Speaker 1: specific coverage is that sort of attention to detail decision
Speaker 1: making when you're driving the ball to the basket, making
Speaker 1: the right play, going for great shots instead of good shots.
Speaker 1: There is an expectation bread in camp from day one
Speaker 1: that those sort of things are a requirement to be
Speaker 1: on the floor if you play for the Boston Celtics.
Speaker 1: For less serious teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, they're constantly
Speaker 1: looking for reasons and excuses to cut corners right because
Speaker 1: they want to conserve energy and make sure everyone's ready
Speaker 1: when they get to April. But as a result, they
Speaker 1: do not have those habits. So what happens is they
Speaker 1: end up in high leverage games. The end up in
Speaker 1: important games. Right, last name was an important game for
Speaker 1: the Bucks. For the Celtics three to zero. You can
Speaker 1: lose that game, nobody cares, or the defending champs your
Speaker 1: favorite to win the title by mile, that's not an issue. Right,
Speaker 1: Milwaukee needed that game. They started one and two. They're
Speaker 1: coming off of two really embarrassing losses. To the Chicago
Speaker 1: Bulls and the Brooklyn Nets. The Brooklyn Nets game in
Speaker 1: particular was legitimately embarrassing for them, not a good look. Right,
Speaker 1: They needed this one. So they end up in this
Speaker 1: high leverage game, need this game. And so then suddenly
Speaker 1: they can kind of like impersonate a serious team, right,
Speaker 1: and they do all the right things, and maybe they
Speaker 1: can do it for a quarterer, maybe they can do
Speaker 1: it for two quarters, maybe they can do for three quarters.
Speaker 1: But almost always in games like that, the team that
Speaker 1: is habitually disciplined and habitually works their ass off on
Speaker 1: every single possession, that team has a habit of maintaining
Speaker 1: that through the long run. And the team that is
Speaker 1: less serious, where those things are not a habit, eventually
Speaker 1: they let go of the rope like they hang on
Speaker 1: for dear life, and they're like, yeah, we're hanging with
Speaker 1: the Boston Celtics. We can do this. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: they let go and then boom, within a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: you're down thirteen. Because the serious basketball team is relentless
Speaker 1: with their execution and their effort. The Celtics did not
Speaker 1: need that game last night nearly as much as the
Speaker 1: Bucks did. Neither team needed the game, but the Celtics
Speaker 1: certainly didn't need it as much as Milwaukee did, and
Speaker 1: yet they worked harder down the stretch. Peyton Pritchard beating
Speaker 1: them to loose balls, Jordan Watsh beating them to loose balls,
Speaker 1: Derek White making second and third efforts on defensive possessions. That,
Speaker 1: to me, is what is always super fascinating about the
Speaker 1: reality of building habits from the early part of the season.
Speaker 1: The Bucks got outworked in that game, and that's something
Speaker 1: that cannot happen in a matchup against the Boston Celtics.
Speaker 1: Good win for the Celtics four to zero. Again, it's
Speaker 1: just like in the Celtics game, or excuse me, just
Speaker 1: like in the Pistons game, just regardless of what happens
Speaker 1: through the first few quarters, having those brief spurts of
Speaker 1: excellent two way execution down the stretch of games to
Speaker 1: put them away and get one in the win. Colum
Speaker 1: Lakers Suns almost as bizarre as the game last week.
Speaker 1: The Sons come off to a great start in the
Speaker 1: game last week. They're cooking, They're hitting every shot they take.
Speaker 1: Lakers got off to a similar start in the first
Speaker 1: quarter this one, they take an eighteen point lead. Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis is just cooking everybody, and then the Suns go
Speaker 1: on their big run and they kind of slowly walk
Speaker 1: the Lakers down. The second half turned into much more
Speaker 1: of a back and forth type of game. The Sun's
Speaker 1: really put on a pull up jump shooting clinic. In
Speaker 1: this game. They made thirteen pull up jump shots. That's
Speaker 1: the most they've made in any game yet this season.
Speaker 1: They went eleven for twenty one from the mid range,
Speaker 1: so well over a point per possession on mid range
Speaker 1: jump shots. That's obviously like a great sign of just
Speaker 1: elite shot making. Kevin Durant was surgical down the stretch
Speaker 1: of this game. He hit three mid range jump shots
Speaker 1: in the final four minutes of the game. That's always
Speaker 1: the scariest thing with Phoenix, right, you end up in
Speaker 1: a close game with them late. They just have such
Speaker 1: a shot making advantage, right, and even if you do
Speaker 1: everything right on defense, they might just hit shots and
Speaker 1: you might just lose. Right Like we had a game
Speaker 1: the first game of the season where the Suns stole
Speaker 1: a game from the Clippers just because KD hit a
Speaker 1: completely smothered right shoulder fade away over a double team.
Speaker 1: So like that's some of the reality of the threat
Speaker 1: that Phoenix presents the teams, Right, I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about Ryan Dun for a little bit. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Suns in the big picture
Speaker 1: in a second, but I want to talk about Ryan
Speaker 1: Dunn for a second because didn't I think he only
Speaker 1: played like fifteen minutes, but he was everywhere in the
Speaker 1: minutes that he played. He helps to swing the physical
Speaker 1: dynamic of this matchup into something that's more manageable for
Speaker 1: the Suns. So, like, the Lakers have won four of
Speaker 1: the coming into last night, they had won four of
Speaker 1: their previous six matchups against the Phoenix Suns because of
Speaker 1: a specific matchup problem. They're just so much bigger and
Speaker 1: stronger in the front court. So then the Suns have
Speaker 1: this issue where it's like if they play centers, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, last year Nurkicen U Banks or this
Speaker 1: year it's nurkicen plumb Lee, the Lakers can just spam
Speaker 1: pick and roll because nurkis Plumbley and U Banks last
Speaker 1: year couldn't really switch onto good perimeter players. Right, So
Speaker 1: when they spam pick and roll. It's just like whether
Speaker 1: it's Ad and Austin Reeves, or it's Ad and Lebron,
Speaker 1: or it's a d Indiangela and Russell, the Lakers can
Speaker 1: just consistently get to their comfortable kind of like shot
Speaker 1: attempts that they get in ball screens. And then if
Speaker 1: the Suns go small and they go with a bunch
Speaker 1: of perimeter play and Kevin Durant at center, then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's like Anthony Davis and Lebron James
Speaker 1: just start bullying in the post because maybe they can
Speaker 1: find somebody to guard Lebron, but then Ad goes off,
Speaker 1: or maybe they find someone to guard a d but
Speaker 1: then Lebron goes off right, and it just turns into
Speaker 1: a physical match, a mismatch in the front court. Ryan
Speaker 1: Dune dramatically increases the physical profile of their lineups, both
Speaker 1: with centers on the floor and without centers on the floor,
Speaker 1: and it just makes it so much tougher for the
Speaker 1: Lakers to bouldoze them the way that they do. How
Speaker 1: many times in this game did you see Ryan done
Speaker 1: stonewall a big man rolling to the rim or end
Speaker 1: up on an island against Lebron, James Lebron tries to
Speaker 1: power through him, and he just holds his ground and
Speaker 1: plays physical defense. I love that quote that I heard
Speaker 1: from The Sun's broadcast from Kevin Durant talking about how
Speaker 1: his favorite thing about Ryan Done is that he commits fouls.
Speaker 1: And he talks about how like young players that come
Speaker 1: into the NBA are like timid and don't want to
Speaker 1: be physical with the existing pros, and like Ryan Done,
Speaker 1: just like it's fouls, and that to me is like
Speaker 1: a competitiveness on the defensive end of the floor. I
Speaker 1: actually run into a similar issue with the high school
Speaker 1: kids that I coach, right, Like, I'm a grown ass man.
Speaker 1: I'm six six, I would two hundred and thirty pounds,
Speaker 1: and I play basketball all the time. So like when
Speaker 1: I'm going against high school kids, they're at a huge
Speaker 1: physical disadvantage against me. But like most of the time
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to play against them, whether it's just
Speaker 1: like a little bit of fun king of the court
Speaker 1: at the end of practice or whatever it is that
Speaker 1: we're doing, the guys like don't want to touch me.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be physical, they don't want to
Speaker 1: like play defense. But there are a handful of guys
Speaker 1: that have come through that program in the four years
Speaker 1: that I've been coaching there who like, they don't care
Speaker 1: that I'm older, they don't care that I have a
Speaker 1: lot more experience playing the game. They're like, screw this.
Speaker 1: I want to try to win whatever it is that
Speaker 1: we're doing, So I'm going to be physical, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to defend. And there are a couple guys
Speaker 1: that come to come to my mind in the time
Speaker 1: that I played, and those guys tended to be higher
Speaker 1: level players in our program because it's a way they're wired.
Speaker 1: It's a physical competitiveness, it's a willingness to get dirty,
Speaker 1: it's a willingness to get into a rock fight. And
Speaker 1: Ryan Dunn, you know, he has a highould already commits
Speaker 1: almost seven fouls per thirty six minutes to start the season.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be something that keeps his minutes somewhat limited
Speaker 1: until he can be a little bit more picky with it.
Speaker 1: But like he is a legitimate athletic weapon that the
Speaker 1: Sons can lead unleash on their opponents, not too much.
Speaker 1: He can look at the box score last night, he
Speaker 1: only had seven points one rebound in his steal in
Speaker 1: a block, but I thought he was dominant in the
Speaker 1: minutes that he played. Another part of it, too, is
Speaker 1: he just takes a lot of hits. Like if you
Speaker 1: allow him to take a lot of the hits on
Speaker 1: those roles, in those drives, in those post ups, that
Speaker 1: alleviates where and tear that goes on Kevin Durant over
Speaker 1: the court of course of the season, on Royce O'Neill
Speaker 1: over the course of the season. It gives you the
Speaker 1: ability to go smaller without being as physically limited. There's
Speaker 1: so much upside to Ryan Dunn's growth this year and again,
Speaker 1: Like he's scoring at a rate of nineteen points per
Speaker 1: thirty six minutes when he's on the floor. That's really good.
Speaker 1: He's shooting fifty two percent from the field and forty
Speaker 1: four percent from three. He's converting spot up possessions at
Speaker 1: one point three to three points per possession. This seas
Speaker 1: in some of these shots he's hitting or contested. He
Speaker 1: had a couple contested corner jump shots last night. Like
Speaker 1: he has transition athleticism that awesome, like kind of swallowing
Speaker 1: reverse layup that he had, Like he's turned himself into
Speaker 1: a useful offensive player. And that's just I mean, you
Speaker 1: could make the you could make the case he should
Speaker 1: play more. The Sun's closed with Plumbley and Royce O'Neil yesterday,
Speaker 1: and I get it, like Ad had been torching Royce
Speaker 1: O'Neil in the post, so Buddhenholzer went back to plumb
Speaker 1: Lee to make sure they had enough size to match
Speaker 1: up with Ad and Royce O'Neil. Also, like just is
Speaker 1: a little bit more like sharp in the drive and
Speaker 1: kick game than Ryan done. So, Like, for instance, Royce
Speaker 1: O'Neill had a really nice like close out attack where
Speaker 1: he hit a floater in crunch time his big shot
Speaker 1: in the game last night, right like that game was closed.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different ways that could have swung
Speaker 1: one way or the other. That was a huge shot
Speaker 1: that Royce O'Neil made, like driving the close out. But
Speaker 1: there's a case to be made that maybe Ryan Dunn
Speaker 1: should have started or closed that game at the five
Speaker 1: instead of Plumbley. Right with how bad their centers have been,
Speaker 1: there's a case to be made that that's the type
Speaker 1: of direction that the Suns can go or should go
Speaker 1: at times. But most importantly, Suns fans should just be
Speaker 1: very excited when you get that kind of quality rotation
Speaker 1: piece in the late first round like that, that's a
Speaker 1: huge win for your franchise overall. With the Suns still
Speaker 1: a bit inconsistent with their offensive approach, everything still swings
Speaker 1: on their willingness to make simple reads and try to
Speaker 1: play advantage creation, advantage extending play, finishing basketball versus two
Speaker 1: man game, like just kind of like focusing on shot making, right,
Speaker 1: Like they're at their best when they don't settle and
Speaker 1: they get advantages, expand advantages and get wide open catch
Speaker 1: and shoot threes in layups. Right last night, they were
Speaker 1: at their best when they were skipping the ball and
Speaker 1: pick and roll to those week side two on ones
Speaker 1: or when they would draw iso double teams from Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: So they were the Lakers were getting picked apart by
Speaker 1: just basic guard guard screens for KD. That was getting
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell onto KD, and then KD would either score
Speaker 1: on d' Angela Russell and single coverage or draw a
Speaker 1: double team and they'd work it around and end up
Speaker 1: getting a wide open shot. But, like I thought, Katie
Speaker 1: just did a wonderful job managing that dynamic in crunch
Speaker 1: time yesterday, as he just completely picked the Lakers apart.
Speaker 1: But so far, for the most part in the aggregate,
Speaker 1: the Suns have done a good job. They have sixty
Speaker 1: nine percent of their made baskets so far have been assisted.
Speaker 1: That's a huge increase from last year, and I think
Speaker 1: that's going to be the biggest indicator of their success.
Speaker 1: They can keep their assist percentage in the high sixties,
Speaker 1: that to me is a sign of them playing with
Speaker 1: the right offensive approach. And they still haven't really got
Speaker 1: Devin Booker going. He's off to a slow start this year,
Speaker 1: so like there's still a level that they can get
Speaker 1: to on the offensive end. A couple of impressive wins
Speaker 1: in a row for the Phoenix Suns. The MAVs and
Speaker 1: the Lakers are, in my opinion, two very good playoff teams,
Speaker 1: and the Suns got them both. On the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting reversal of lineup success last night.
Speaker 1: Like throughout the first three games of the season, the
Speaker 1: Lebron led groups with eighty off the floor have been
Speaker 1: kicking butt and have built huge leads for the Lakers
Speaker 1: that they've been able to ride to wins. But and
Speaker 1: then the AD groups with Lebron off have been less good.
Speaker 1: They've been actually a very slight negative. I think they
Speaker 1: were going into last night like minus two per one
Speaker 1: hundred possessions. Right last night, it was the AD led
Speaker 1: groups that were completely dominant and the Lebron led groups
Speaker 1: were just hemorrhaging leads. And for the Lebron led groups,
Speaker 1: there were like two driving forces behind that, in my opinion.
Speaker 1: One the young players for the Lakers last night had
Speaker 1: their first really bad decision making game, Like Dalton Connect,
Speaker 1: I thought took some really bad shots. He took like
Speaker 1: a bad transition kind of running shot that wasn't open
Speaker 1: against Bradley Beal. He took a heavily contested early shot
Speaker 1: clock three on the left wing. Like one of the
Speaker 1: things with Dalton Connect is it's like, dude, you're getting
Speaker 1: guarded like euro lights out shooter. So even if you're
Speaker 1: not necessarily getting lots of shots up, you were doing
Speaker 1: a lot to help the team. So don't feel the
Speaker 1: need to just shoot for the sake of shooting. Be
Speaker 1: aggressive when it fits within the flow of the offense,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, like trust that what you're
Speaker 1: doing is helping the team generate space right. And then
Speaker 1: Max Christy. I've been talking about this forever with Max.
Speaker 1: Like Max is a really interesting defensive player. He's talented,
Speaker 1: but a couple of things he even though he gets
Speaker 1: good contests on jump shots, he doesn't bother the base
Speaker 1: or the pocket enough. So there's just going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of I talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1: Like real NBA scores, they don't care if a hand's
Speaker 1: in their face. They professionally make shots with hands in
Speaker 1: their face. You have to find a way to disrupt
Speaker 1: their rhythm before the shot. And so Max has a
Speaker 1: lot of possessions where he's like this, getting a good
Speaker 1: contest on somebody, but the shot goes in because he's
Speaker 1: getting bumped off and his bass is not strong enough
Speaker 1: to really like disrupt the offensive player's base. But that,
Speaker 1: to me is just a person like an athletic limitation.
Speaker 1: That's not something I really get on him for. To me,
Speaker 1: it's the fact that every time he puts the ball
Speaker 1: on the floor, he gets like a little worked up
Speaker 1: on the type of shot that he's looking for. He
Speaker 1: drives with the intent of doing something for himself, whether
Speaker 1: that's like the big one yesterday. He kept trying to
Speaker 1: dunk on everybody. It's like, dude, you're not going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of like athletic dunks over Mason Plumbley
Speaker 1: and Kevin Durant. They're seven feet tall and Plumbies. There's
Speaker 1: a play where Jackson Hayes was wide open for a
Speaker 1: drop off and he tried to like dunk on Mason
Speaker 1: Plumley with like no runway, no advantage, no nothing. He
Speaker 1: got absolutely smothered. The Kevin Durant one, It's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you were there, you had a little bit of a step.
Speaker 1: You could have gone up and finished on KD. But
Speaker 1: it's like that was a contested rim attempt versus one
Speaker 1: of the better rim protecting forwards in the league. Just
Speaker 1: move the damn ball and make the right play and
Speaker 1: try to make something happen. So the young players for
Speaker 1: the Lakers definitely had their first example of like not
Speaker 1: showing poise when they went on the road last night.
Speaker 1: But for the record, Lakers fans got to get used
Speaker 1: to that when you've got really young, inexperienced players in
Speaker 1: your rotation, it will be consistent that they are inconsistent
Speaker 1: right like that that's the thing like it will, there's
Speaker 1: not going to be. Veterans are really good at finding
Speaker 1: what works and replicating it, finding what doesn't work and
Speaker 1: cutting that out, trimming the fat. Young players will like
Speaker 1: do something that works twice and then instead of doing
Speaker 1: it again, they'll do something different, or like they'll do
Speaker 1: something that doesn't work and they'll keep doing it. Like,
Speaker 1: the young players always struggled to kind of differentiate between
Speaker 1: that process on a possession by possession basis, and so
Speaker 1: some of that you just got to get used to.
Speaker 1: But by far the biggest factor in those Laker units
Speaker 1: struggling was that Lebron just played one of his worst
Speaker 1: games as a pro. He was just three for fourteen
Speaker 1: from the field, just eleven points, absolutely no lyft or
Speaker 1: burst at the rim. So I'm kind of looking at
Speaker 1: that as a silver lining for the Lakers, Like, Lebron
Speaker 1: played the worst game he'll play all season, and the
Speaker 1: Lakers had a very good chance to win the game
Speaker 1: on the road against a good playoff team in the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Sun. So like, and the exciting part too, is
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis just continues to look like an absolute monster.
Speaker 1: He's making a legit push in the early part of
Speaker 1: the season to try to enter into that top tier,
Speaker 1: superstar tier with Jannis Luca and Nikole Jokich and Shake
Speaker 1: Gildas Alexander. Now you need to maintain that level over
Speaker 1: a much larger sample. No one's gonna give you that
Speaker 1: credit over four games. These are guys that do it
Speaker 1: for sixty seventy games a year, right, But through four games,
Speaker 1: thirty three points, twelve rebounds, three blocks per game on
Speaker 1: sixty four percent trough shooting. Just an absolute monster everywhere.
Speaker 1: On defense, made a couple of insane defensive plays last night.
Speaker 1: He blocked Kevin rant twice, including smothering him at the
Speaker 1: rim once that Anthony Davis is insane. One last note
Speaker 1: on the Lakers. In the last two games, their personnel
Speaker 1: limitations have been on display, with the Kings consistently attacking
Speaker 1: D'Angelo Russell, with the mar De rozen down the stretch
Speaker 1: of the game. Just in general, their lack of guard
Speaker 1: athleticism and how they really struggle against really fast guards
Speaker 1: that can get the ball moving both in transition and
Speaker 1: in dribble drive situations. That was abundantly clear. And then
Speaker 1: in the Suns matchup, same sort of thing, like if
Speaker 1: KD was going against Gabe, they had at least a
Speaker 1: fighting shot. If KD was going against Austin, they had
Speaker 1: at least a fighting shot. If KD was going against Ruey,
Speaker 1: it was at least a fighting shot. When DLO was
Speaker 1: out there and they got d LO on a switch,
Speaker 1: it just felt like a bucket or a foul every
Speaker 1: single time down the floor. And that's two games in
Speaker 1: a row where DLO is getting relentlessly picked on. And like,
Speaker 1: some of this is like JJ's doing a lot more
Speaker 1: switching with d LO. But here's the thing. If you
Speaker 1: don't switch, you've got to do things like hedge and
Speaker 1: recover and double team, and those are areas where Dlo's
Speaker 1: lack of effort in his inability to cover ground in
Speaker 1: rotation can be an issue. So, like, the thing is
Speaker 1: is like as much as I like d Loo and
Speaker 1: as much as I think he does so much good
Speaker 1: for this team, and he really is an offensive weapon
Speaker 1: and the Lakers have won a lot of games because
Speaker 1: of him. A big part of that early run in
Speaker 1: this game when the Lakers took an eighteen point lead
Speaker 1: was d LO. I'm aware of all of that, but
Speaker 1: when push comes to shove, and things really slow down
Speaker 1: in the half court and they're playing against good teams.
Speaker 1: Dlo brings a unique deadly come i should say, damaging combo,
Speaker 1: which is one he's relentlessly attacked on defense, and two
Speaker 1: his offensive game doesn't really seem to consistently translate when
Speaker 1: it gets really physical, really intense against good teams. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of like in the free flowing parts of
Speaker 1: the game where he has success, or against teams that
Speaker 1: aren't particularly big and athletic on the perimeter. Just time
Speaker 1: and time again, it's Bruce Brown kicking his ass in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference finals, or it's him going for zero
Speaker 1: points in a first round game against the Nuggets last year.
Speaker 1: Just routinely, in these really big, important, physical games, he
Speaker 1: just struggles to do enough offensively to make up for
Speaker 1: the fact that he is by far one of the
Speaker 1: most limited defensive players in the league. And so like,
Speaker 1: just to me, like, even though I think the Lakers
Speaker 1: are a serious team, and even if they don't make
Speaker 1: a change, I think they win fifty games this year.
Speaker 1: As long as they stay relatively healthy, the Lakers are good.
Speaker 1: This is something I've been consistent about ever since the
Speaker 1: late January. This year. They are not going anywhere. They're
Speaker 1: not winning four playoff rounds until they get an upgrade
Speaker 1: at that two spot with D'Angelo Russell, and we'll see
Speaker 1: how that shapes out over the course of the season.
Speaker 1: But those limitations have been on display over the course
Speaker 1: of the last couple games. Really quickly, because I only
Speaker 1: a five minutes, I want to talk Pacers magic. Paolo
Speaker 1: goes for fifty in this game, really had his jump
Speaker 1: shot going. He had seven pull up jump shots in
Speaker 1: this game. But what really impressed me was the way
Speaker 1: he played down the stretch of the game. I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about the idea of basketball players understanding what
Speaker 1: their superpower is, Okay, and what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is like for bigger players, like it's cool to work
Speaker 1: on advanced skills training, it's cool to work on tough
Speaker 1: shot making, and there's important importance to those sorts of things, right,
Speaker 1: Like tough shot making is a coverage beater with if
Speaker 1: you're going against a drop coverage and sagging way back
Speaker 1: in a deep drop and your big set's a good screen,
Speaker 1: you're coming off to the elbow, like, you gotta take
Speaker 1: that shot. That's what the defense has given you, right,
Speaker 1: like there are times where it's a coverage beater. It
Speaker 1: helps you rescue possessions when there's a few seconds on
Speaker 1: the shot clock or a few seconds on the game clock,
Speaker 1: and then big time in the playoffs when you run
Speaker 1: into bigger, more physical defenses. In the rim is kind
Speaker 1: of shut off. The ability to hit over the top
Speaker 1: shots is an advantage, but for guys like Polo, the
Speaker 1: biggest advantage he has by far is the simple fact
Speaker 1: that he's one of the biggest, strongest, most athletic players
Speaker 1: in the NBA. That is his superpower. That is what
Speaker 1: needs to be his primary focus. That is what needs
Speaker 1: to be his bread and butter. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was a huge sign of maturity last night from Paolo
Speaker 1: that in a game where his jumps was on fire,
Speaker 1: he leaned almost entirely on his physical gifts to dominate
Speaker 1: the game. Late on offense, he had three consecutive bullyball
Speaker 1: possessions where he went right through aaron Ne Smith. Then
Speaker 1: he goes on a short role possession, goes right through
Speaker 1: Ben Sheppard at the basket, gets an in one, then
Speaker 1: he goes right through aaron Nee Smith again. He was
Speaker 1: just powering through those guys not settling again, if you
Speaker 1: got a different defender on you, maybe you need to.
Speaker 1: But he's so much bigger than Annie Smith, and obviously
Speaker 1: on the short role with Ben Shephard, he just did
Speaker 1: what the defense didn't want him to do, which is
Speaker 1: to use his size and strength to power through the
Speaker 1: mismatch that he had. From there, that's when the Pacers
Speaker 1: started double teaming him, and instead of trying to force
Speaker 1: the issue or taking bad jump shots over double teams,
Speaker 1: he got rid of the basketball and played rotation advantage
Speaker 1: creation basketball. That's when they started getting wide open threes
Speaker 1: and then Anthony Black the game winner. Same sort of
Speaker 1: thing they were spamming, this kind of like horn set
Speaker 1: ghost screen thing for with KCP, where KCP would basically
Speaker 1: just set a quick ghost screen for Paolo at the
Speaker 1: top of the key at the end of the game,
Speaker 1: and as he kept drawing two on the ball and
Speaker 1: they just played advantage basketball out of it. And then
Speaker 1: Anthony Black ends up hitting the game winner out of
Speaker 1: the left corner that puts him up three with I
Speaker 1: think it was less than a minute left. But then
Speaker 1: even on defense, like Pascal Siakam had been doing major
Speaker 1: damage to Orlando guards in the post in this game,
Speaker 1: even hit a pretty tough fade away over Pallow down
Speaker 1: the stretch. But Paolo got two key stops against Pascal
Speaker 1: Siakam down the stretch. There's a fade away that he
Speaker 1: like smothered and forced a bad miss, and then a
Speaker 1: dribble drive where he flattened the drive out, pushed him
Speaker 1: behind the backboard and actually forced him into a turnover.
Speaker 1: So like again, hit a bunch of pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: scored a bunch of points. All that's cool, fine and fancy,
Speaker 1: But down the stretch of the game, he played like
Speaker 1: a savvy vet and dominated the game with his physical gifts,
Speaker 1: punishing size mismatches to get easy shots around the basket,
Speaker 1: taking advantage of the defense loading up on him to
Speaker 1: give his teammates opportunities to capitalize, and weaponizing his athletic
Speaker 1: gifts on the defensive end of the floor to make
Speaker 1: the opposing stars uncomfortable. Just a dominant performance from Palla Boncaire.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to shout out Anthony Black. Jamal Moseley
Speaker 1: ended up having to rely a bunch on him in
Speaker 1: this game, especially late because Franz Wagner ended up leaving
Speaker 1: the game with an illness. He was brilliant defensively, got
Speaker 1: a big deflection in his steal on Andrew nemhard On
Speaker 1: like kind of a little high post entry at the
Speaker 1: top of the key towards the end of the game.
Speaker 1: Then he made two huge offensive plays. He ran a
Speaker 1: cleared side ball screen in crunch time where he engaged
Speaker 1: the screen defender and made a simple pocket pass to
Speaker 1: Wendell Carter Junior, who drew a foul. Like that's him
Speaker 1: generating offense in the half court, generating points for his team.
Speaker 1: And then on that final play when Palo draws two
Speaker 1: on the ball, swinging swing, big corner three gotta knock
Speaker 1: that down, and he had just missed one in the
Speaker 1: right corner a few possessions earlier, knocks it down. Orlando
Speaker 1: gets to win. Really really impressive stuff from the second
Speaker 1: year player Anthony Black. One note on the Pacers. I
Speaker 1: talked a lot about yesterday how a bad Tyres Saliburton
Speaker 1: here looks early if you're looking for silver lining. I
Speaker 1: thought down the stretch of this game that Tyres was
Speaker 1: pretty good again. Orlando is one of the very best
Speaker 1: defenses in the league, and down the stretch of this game,
Speaker 1: he generated wide open three after wide open three, I
Speaker 1: ended up making one of his own that tied the game,
Speaker 1: but there were a couple of others that he generated
Speaker 1: that were just missed. And I just look at that
Speaker 1: as like a tiny little sign of optimism against the
Speaker 1: defense of that quality, given how poorly he's played to
Speaker 1: start this year, that he was able to generate some
Speaker 1: quality shots down the stretch. All right, guys, that is
Speaker 1: all I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys for supporting the show. For the record, Cavs fans,
Speaker 1: I'm very aware that you're four and ohn you got
Speaker 1: a big win against the Knicks. I am planning a
Speaker 1: deep dive on the Cleveland Cavaliers for tomorrow. I'm just
Speaker 1: still working on it and I'm not finished with it yet.
Speaker 1: Then I was on some time constraints today, but we
Speaker 1: will do a deep dive on the Cavaliers tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: will see you guys then. What's up guys. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight.
Speaker 1: It would actually be really helpful for us if you
Speaker 1: guys would take a second and leave a rating and
Speaker 1: a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us,
Speaker 1: but if you could take a minute to do that,
Speaker 1: I'd really appreciate it.