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Speaker 1: All right, well, good hoops today you're at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday, everybody, oh ball, if you guys are having
Speaker 1: a great week. We're gonna break our Christmas Day reaction
Speaker 1: into two parts because obviously a lot of family celebration yesterday,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get to watch as much of the
Speaker 1: five games as I wanted to, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: get I did watch Lakers Warriors, though, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to get my initial thoughts on Lakers Warriors out in
Speaker 1: this video. We're just gonna focus on that game. Then
Speaker 1: today I'm gonna come back with another episode because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to go take several hours to watch a
Speaker 1: bunch of film. I'll come back later today with the
Speaker 1: reaction to the other four Christmas Day games. So just
Speaker 1: Lakers Warriors in this one the rest of Christmas Day
Speaker 1: later today. You guys know the Joe before we get started.
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Speaker 1: In the last not least, keep dropping mail bag questions
Speaker 1: in the YouTube comments four hour Friday mail Bags. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into the Lakers Warriors. So it's interesting game.
Speaker 1: The Lakers mostly controlled it, especially over the last two
Speaker 1: and a half quarters. The Golden State. Golden State had
Speaker 1: their last lead with a little over ten minutes left
Speaker 1: in the second quarter. So it was one of those
Speaker 1: games where the Lakers kind of felt like they were
Speaker 1: in control, but I was terrified. Like even when the
Speaker 1: Lakers were up by ten with three minutes and twenty
Speaker 1: seven seconds left, I was literally watching the TV just like,
Speaker 1: I know this is about to go off the rails
Speaker 1: any second. Then up by seven with less than a
Speaker 1: minute left, I still don't feel comfortable. I've just seen
Speaker 1: Steph come back from that sort of deficit with crazy
Speaker 1: shot making so many times in my lifetime. It's always crazy.
Speaker 1: I always think you learn the most about what a
Speaker 1: player does well when you're rooting against him, and you
Speaker 1: learn the most about what a player does poorly when
Speaker 1: you're rooting for him, Because when you're rooting for a
Speaker 1: player and you're constantly watching every single possession, you see
Speaker 1: the mistakes that they make right, But when you're rooting
Speaker 1: against a player, what they're great at always scares the
Speaker 1: shit out of you. And Steph was scaring me. Next
Speaker 1: thing you know, he hits a three off of a
Speaker 1: tap out offensive rebound, hits a driving layup against Max Christie.
Speaker 1: In transition, hits a smothered corner three over Lebron in
Speaker 1: the right corner and then ties the game with a
Speaker 1: thirty five foot running to his left one. In particular,
Speaker 1: that annoyed me because Max Christie, who had a pretty
Speaker 1: good game overall, had made a few mistakes on Steph
Speaker 1: throughout the game where he was conceding a switch, and like,
Speaker 1: obviously when you're dealing with switching, and there are certain
Speaker 1: things that you do for other players that you don't
Speaker 1: do for Steph Curry, Like, for instance, he gave a
Speaker 1: three to Steph on a play where he peel. He
Speaker 1: did what's called a peel off switch, where like he
Speaker 1: as he was going like he was going to chase
Speaker 1: over the screen, but then at the last second decided
Speaker 1: to switch and went back and ducked underneath Tray Jackson
Speaker 1: Davis and tried to box him out, which again is
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do with other players, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy is going to be helping me on the
Speaker 1: other end of the screen, my responsibility now shifts to
Speaker 1: inside positions so that I can keep him off the
Speaker 1: offensive glass or prepare for a post up to attack
Speaker 1: the other end of the switch. Right, that's what you
Speaker 1: do against normal basketball players, not against Steph Curry. Against
Speaker 1: Steph Curry, you do not switch, ever, unless you are
Speaker 1: a hundred percent sure that he's already accounted for on
Speaker 1: the other side to the screen. Austin Reeves wasn't ready
Speaker 1: for it. Max Christy just points and dies on the
Speaker 1: pick and gets his inside position on the screener. Next
Speaker 1: thing you know is Steph is wide open. And like, again,
Speaker 1: those are little things. We're gonna talk about Max later.
Speaker 1: There's a little things that he'll have to learn. Young
Speaker 1: players make that kind of mistake every once in a while.
Speaker 1: You won't see veterans make that kind of mistake because
Speaker 1: they've been burned by Steph Curry too many times over
Speaker 1: the course of his career. But Steph is just ridiculous, man, Like,
Speaker 1: you know how absurd it is that I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: with a double digit lead as a fan with three
Speaker 1: and a half minutes left, and I'm in my head
Speaker 1: going like Steph's gonna find a way to make this
Speaker 1: a game, and he makes it a game, Like it's
Speaker 1: just it's just completely absurd, and like we were just
Speaker 1: dealt such a treat last night. I thought Lebron was fantastic.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about him later. Just wonderful job attacking
Speaker 1: the Warriors out of the post, not just Andrew, not
Speaker 1: just on mismatches, but also directly on Andrew Wiggins. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get more into it in a minute. But like
Speaker 1: Lebron and Steph just put on an absolute show last night.
Speaker 1: It's insane to me that December of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we are still getting incredible, high level basketball from both
Speaker 1: of these guys. It's crazy to me that the passion
Speaker 1: of the American basketball fan base is still linked to
Speaker 1: these two because they are straight up out performing the
Speaker 1: majority of the young American talent.
Speaker 2: In this league.
Speaker 1: It's a whole thing I don't even want to get into.
Speaker 1: I just felt really lucky last night. As I'm sitting
Speaker 1: down with an ice cold Pacifico watching the game, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, man like, I cannot believe I'm getting another
Speaker 1: just straight up show between Lebron James and Steph Curry
Speaker 1: here in December of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: We're just extremely lucky.
Speaker 1: But Austin goes down to the other end of the
Speaker 1: game after Steph shot, and he wins it with the
Speaker 1: driving layup on Andrew Wiggins, and it was a very
Speaker 1: interesting sequence because the player was drawn up for Lebron.
Speaker 1: James Austin was going to set a screen for Lebron
Speaker 1: to come up. H. Draymond's trailing and he's doing a
Speaker 1: good job denying, but also Steph Curry lunges over Steph
Speaker 1: Scart guarding the inbounder. He lunges over to deny the
Speaker 1: pass into Lebron on and so Austin catches with six
Speaker 1: seconds left Andrew Wiggins on him, and he's looking back
Speaker 1: towards half court and he sees Lebron effectively double teamed
Speaker 1: forty feet from the basket, and he instantly makes a decision.
Speaker 1: If I try to get it to Lebron here, it's
Speaker 1: very high risk and there might not be enough time
Speaker 1: for him to make a move once he gets it.
Speaker 1: I have to do something quickly, turns and faces Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins hard jab step. Such a simple and effective move. Again,
Speaker 1: like I've talked about this a lot in skill development
Speaker 1: with my young players. I talk about it on the
Speaker 1: show too. It's not about chaining together seventeen dribble combinations.
Speaker 1: There are guys who can do that extremely well. In
Speaker 1: the league, but more often than not, if you make
Speaker 1: a simple move like a jab step, a crossover in
Speaker 1: in and out, an in and out dribble, or a
Speaker 1: hard reverse pivot if you're in the post, like if
Speaker 1: you sell the change in direction, so on the jab step,
Speaker 1: if you sell the right handed drive, it will work.
Speaker 2: On the in and out, if.
Speaker 1: You sell the crossover, it will work. If you're on
Speaker 1: the crossover in your eyes and your shoulders and your
Speaker 1: hips are facing towards the right and you cross over,
Speaker 1: it will work. But if you're facing the guy and
Speaker 1: you're just moving the ball around and you're not selling
Speaker 1: anything with your body, it's not going to work. And like,
Speaker 1: same thing in the post, like Kevin Garnett. For years
Speaker 1: it was just shoulder fakes. It's like, I'm gonna fake
Speaker 1: with this shoulder or that shoulder, and you're gonna end
Speaker 1: up biting on the wrong one and I'm gonna turn
Speaker 1: over the opposite one and I'm gonna get a shot
Speaker 1: that I like. Simplicity works in basketball when you sell
Speaker 1: the moves, and Austin just hard jab steps on Andrew
Speaker 1: Wiggins breaks Wiggins off with it and gets dribble penetration. Okay,
Speaker 1: Wiggins is there, he's kind of like on his side,
Speaker 1: he's a great athlete, he's recovering, but Austin's got dribble penetration.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga is straight up face guarding Ruy Hatchamura along
Speaker 1: the baseline, beneath the baseline, out of bounds, underneath the basket.
Speaker 1: And like again, like we're gonna talk about Kaminga a
Speaker 1: lot in a little bit, but he's always been a
Speaker 1: bad off ball defender. And again, like in those sorts
Speaker 1: of situations, driell penetration is something you have to deal with.
Speaker 1: If we talked about this in the Infny Simon's game
Speaker 1: winner between the Blazers and the Nuggets, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook has to do a better job containing the ball.
Speaker 1: He did an even worse job than Andrew Wiggins did here.
Speaker 1: But like when you get beat, there's a team defense
Speaker 1: element that you have to be prepared for dribble penetration.
Speaker 1: The Nuggets were loaded up on help on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of that drive, and for the Warriors, Jonathan Kaminga again,
Speaker 1: Ruy cuts along the baseline. Dennis Schroeder is there as
Speaker 1: the low man. He can step in if Ruy tries
Speaker 1: to make himself available for a cut. If Kaminga steps
Speaker 1: over and helps, at the very least, you're gonna make
Speaker 1: them make a jump shot. And if you give up
Speaker 1: clean dribble penetration on a game winner type of situation,
Speaker 1: there again, you don't want to give up a wide
Speaker 1: open shot, but you'd rather give up a wide open
Speaker 1: shot than a wide open layup or a moderately contested
Speaker 1: layup that a guy like Austin is gonna make more
Speaker 1: often than not. It was just really really bad team defense.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: We talked about that in that Portland game. The on
Speaker 1: ball guy's got to be better. But defense, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, is a five man Everything in
Speaker 1: basketball is a five man job. It's the stupidest thing
Speaker 1: about the way we discussed the game. It's the stupidest
Speaker 1: thing about the player narratives and the stand behavior and
Speaker 1: how we talk about this guy and that guy and
Speaker 1: this guy and that guy, is we forget that basketball
Speaker 1: is this infinitely complex combination of organisms that comes together
Speaker 1: to make this like beautiful game that's very complicated and
Speaker 1: it's not as simple as there's one guy here, one
Speaker 1: guy there doing this or that. It's It's way, way,
Speaker 1: way more complicated than that bad team defense from the Warriors.
Speaker 1: They ended up having to throw up a full court
Speaker 1: heave at the buzzer that they miss and the Lakers
Speaker 1: get a win. Just a huge play from Austin Reeves.
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought Austin was amazing all game. Twenty
Speaker 1: six points, ten rebounds in tennis sis a triple double,
Speaker 1: led the bench units with a lot of Ruey like
Speaker 1: two man game with Ruey where he's getting great looks there.
Speaker 1: The Lakers were only minus two with Lebron off the floor.
Speaker 1: Again in a game where Anthony this is a This
Speaker 1: was a huge win for the Lakers because Anthony Davis
Speaker 1: was basically out in Dangelo Russell, who was vitally important
Speaker 1: for their offense in a lot of cases, was out,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of like a Lebron Austin Ruey show.
Speaker 1: And Austin just did a really nice job running those
Speaker 1: Lebron off units with Ruey two man game. I thought
Speaker 1: he defended Dennis Schroeder pretty well all game long. He
Speaker 1: ran the clutch offense with Lebron and helped him get
Speaker 1: I thought they got pretty good looks down the stretch,
Speaker 1: like they had some misses right, Like Austin had to
Speaker 1: pull up three that he missed at the top of
Speaker 1: the key. That was a pretty good look. Lebron had
Speaker 1: a right shoulder fade over Steph Curry that was a
Speaker 1: pretty good look that missed. Like there were some good
Speaker 1: looks that they missed it. Steph just made every damn
Speaker 1: shot down the stretch, which is why I turned into
Speaker 1: a game. But like I thought, he ran good clutch
Speaker 1: offense with Lebron. He had ten rebounds, which is a
Speaker 1: huge deal in a scrappy athletic mismatch like that, Like
Speaker 1: the Warriors are a more athletic team on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: I said, I tweeted this last night, and it's just
Speaker 1: the truth. Like there's obviously a basketball way to describe
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves, and we're going to get into that in
Speaker 1: just a second, but one of the basic ways that
Speaker 1: I can describe him is that, like when you're in
Speaker 1: a really big game, he's a guy that you love
Speaker 1: having on your team. I can't tell you how many
Speaker 1: times over the last few years I've seen the Lakers
Speaker 1: in a big game and I'm Austin's just not the guy.
Speaker 1: I'm worried about, you know how that is when you're
Speaker 1: when you're when you're rooting for your team, Like, there
Speaker 1: are guys when the Lakers are in a big game
Speaker 1: that I'm worried about. I'm like, man like, is Anthony
Speaker 1: Davis gonna be as locked in as he's capable of being?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Is Rui Hachamura going to be like the good Rui
Speaker 1: or the bad Ruie on any given night? Right? Like
Speaker 1: you think about those sorts of things, like is Max
Speaker 1: Christi gonna be this or that? Like you have these
Speaker 1: guys that you're concerned about, and then there are these
Speaker 1: guys that you're just not worried about. And both Lebron
Speaker 1: and Austin to me are guys that, like, if there's
Speaker 1: a big game, like a really important game, I feel
Speaker 1: pretty damn sure they're gonna be great. And Anthony Davis,
Speaker 1: with his talent, is usually great, but his mental engagement
Speaker 1: in physical engagement can have a little bit of oscillation
Speaker 1: even in big games. But like, Austin's just one of
Speaker 1: those guys that you want to have on your team
Speaker 1: in a big moment. So let's try to break it
Speaker 1: down on a basketball level. He has a specific combination
Speaker 1: of traits that makes him useful in big games. One,
Speaker 1: he's pretty good at everything, so you can kind of
Speaker 1: plug him into a variety of roles depending on what
Speaker 1: the game calls for. So like, for instance, he's a
Speaker 1: very good scorer both on ball and off the ball.
Speaker 1: He's a guy that you can run a bunch of
Speaker 1: ball screens for and he can get a pretty decent
Speaker 1: shot every time down the floor. He can be an
Speaker 1: off ball a scorer though, in the sense that he
Speaker 1: can set inverted ball screens for guys like Lebron and
Speaker 1: slip out of it and make a lot of good
Speaker 1: plays out of it. And he's a very good connective
Speaker 1: spot up Guy's great at driving closeouts, hitting spot up threes,
Speaker 1: scoring and closeout situations, and then playmaking in both situations
Speaker 1: as well. If he's on ball play making a pick
Speaker 1: and roll. He's gotten a lot better with that. Again
Speaker 1: Tennis's game last night right in off ball play making
Speaker 1: when he's slipping out of screens with Lebron and he
Speaker 1: creates four on threes and he can play make out
Speaker 1: of that. He's a great connective passer in spot up
Speaker 1: situations when he's driving closeouts and making that next three.
Speaker 1: So he can do so many different things well on
Speaker 1: offense that regardless of what the game calls for, Austin
Speaker 1: can plug into that type of role. Right, he is
Speaker 1: a solid defensive player. Again, we've talked about this with Austin.
Speaker 1: You don't want him guarding the other team's best player
Speaker 1: all night. That's gonna go poorly for him. But guess
Speaker 1: what with the way the Lakers have been playing lately,
Speaker 1: keeping Max Christy cam Reddish and Gabe Vincent on the
Speaker 1: floor at all times. One of those three on the
Speaker 1: floor at all times, they're guarding Steph, So Austin gets
Speaker 1: to guard Dennis, which is a much more achievable role
Speaker 1: for him, and he does a pretty good job. He's
Speaker 1: a good defender, He's just not a professional defender. So
Speaker 1: like what that means is professional defenders are the guys
Speaker 1: guarding the other team's best player every night.
Speaker 2: If you put Austin in that role.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna look like he's capable of it, because
Speaker 1: that's not what his role is in the NBA. But
Speaker 1: within the context of a team unit where he's guarding
Speaker 1: the second best perimeter player and he's in help side situations,
Speaker 1: he's an extremely useful defensive player. And then lastly, he's
Speaker 1: a good rebound. Even though he's not a great athlete,
Speaker 1: he competes athletically. He competes to he plays bigger and
Speaker 1: more athletic than he actually is. And so since he's great,
Speaker 1: since he's good, I should say, at all of these things,
Speaker 1: he can fill any type of r And he's just
Speaker 1: so competitive. That's the big piece. He's freakishly competitive. You're
Speaker 1: never watching a big game in wondering where Austin is
Speaker 1: on the floor. He's out there scrapping. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: he's super smart in a big game. A lot of
Speaker 1: young players in particular, are prone to mistakes. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and pretend like Austin's perfect. He does
Speaker 1: make mistakes. He had a big turnover with Dennis in
Speaker 1: the left corner down the stretch. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: you're not worried about Austin making too many mistakes in
Speaker 1: a big game like that. And so that's why he
Speaker 1: just is so reliable when the stakes go up, and
Speaker 1: that's why he's been one of the That's why every
Speaker 1: Lakers fan that I talk to says Austin's clearly their
Speaker 1: third best player. There are these little pockets where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: actually it's Ruey or oh actually it's de Lo, and
Speaker 1: it's like but when you get into the big games,
Speaker 1: Austin is so much more dependable than Ruey and Di Loo.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think he's the third best player
Speaker 1: on the team. And it comes down to a combination
Speaker 1: of all those.
Speaker 2: Factors we talked about.
Speaker 1: Lebron punishing mismatches in the post all night ran nine
Speaker 1: post ups, generated eleven points out of them, including passes.
Speaker 1: More than half of his points in this game were
Speaker 1: in straight post ups and ISOs, which again is so
Speaker 1: important when Anthony Davis is out and this team just
Speaker 1: needs Lebron to generate offense against a very good defensive
Speaker 1: team in Golden State and just to keep the game
Speaker 1: close and give his team a chance to win it
Speaker 1: under unfavorable circumstances with Anthony Davis Indiangelo Russell out. He
Speaker 1: was also like, it wasn't just mismatches either. He did
Speaker 1: a lot of work against mismatches against Dennis and Uh
Speaker 1: Brandon Pajamskian just doing work in the post, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it was directly to Wiggins, and that's an
Speaker 1: important piece. Like a lot of times like the defense
Speaker 1: is good and locked in and you don't get the
Speaker 1: mismatch you want, and you don't get the advantage you want,
Speaker 1: and you just got to go against the other team's
Speaker 1: best perimeter defender and get a bucket. And Lebron did
Speaker 1: that several times last night against Andrew Wiggins. He can also,
Speaker 1: like we talked about with Austin, slot into different roles.
Speaker 1: He did a bunch of work as an off ball
Speaker 1: scorer in this game as a screener with Lebron that
Speaker 1: picking pop three that he hit at the top of
Speaker 1: the key late, which was huge. That's work as a screener.
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis is out, so you're getting some Christian Colloco minutes,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of small ball units that puts
Speaker 1: a lot of physical pressure on Lebron to contend as
Speaker 1: a big He did a great job at that all night.
Speaker 1: And then again, one of the biggest things about Lebron
Speaker 1: as of late has been his mental engagement in avoiding mistakes.
Speaker 1: Only had one turnover last night. I thought he generated
Speaker 1: a ton of advantage situations with his passing without making
Speaker 1: the turnovers that compromise them in transition. Even when he
Speaker 1: didn't get assists, he was getting the defense in rotation,
Speaker 1: like a skip pass to Gabe in transition that generates
Speaker 1: a rotation situation where Austin Reeves gets a wide open
Speaker 1: three or drawing two in the post and making the
Speaker 1: kickout pass and not getting the assist. But now the
Speaker 1: Warriors are in rotation and they get a bucket out
Speaker 1: of it. Like I just thought, he had a really
Speaker 1: really good all around game, and since he came back,
Speaker 1: he's been playing really damn well. I talked about this
Speaker 1: the other day. He built his confidence in rhythm back
Speaker 1: just by playing hard, and so even though the box
Speaker 1: score wasn't super impressive in the in the like the
Speaker 1: Memphis game, he still was just playing good basketball. And
Speaker 1: then in the last three games, as a result of
Speaker 1: him building that confidence, now he's starting to really produce
Speaker 1: his last three games thirty point seven rebounds, nine assists
Speaker 1: on fifty seven percent from the field in only two
Speaker 1: point three turnovers per game. The focus is there, the
Speaker 1: energy is there, and now he's in a rhythm and
Speaker 1: it's coming all together and he's back to playing at
Speaker 1: the superstar level that the Lakers desperately need him to
Speaker 1: be at Ruyacha Mura hit a bunch of huge threes
Speaker 1: in this game. A lot of it was in like
Speaker 1: kind of like situations with Austin where he's hitting picking
Speaker 1: pops in the two man game, chaos situation, so like
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds are in transition skip passes and pick and
Speaker 1: roll where he's hitting threes. A lot of like quality
Speaker 1: spacing that he brought to the table. And then he
Speaker 1: had a really big play late in the game and
Speaker 1: one against Steph Curry on a duck in. And so
Speaker 1: what a duck in is is like when you identify
Speaker 1: that you have a mismatch, it's just basically a quick
Speaker 1: post up.
Speaker 2: So like the.
Speaker 1: Everyone's matched up, Ruey's in the left corner. Ruey realizes
Speaker 1: Steph is on him. Lebron's ribbling at the top of
Speaker 1: the key, and Ruey just goes like, I've got Steph
Speaker 1: on me. So he just runs into Steph as hard
Speaker 1: as he can, gets that left shoulder and there clears
Speaker 1: out calls for the basketball, turns over his right shoulder
Speaker 1: and gets an and one. That's a big time play
Speaker 1: in a smart play taking advantage of a mismatch by
Speaker 1: virtue of a transition cross match, meaning like you're running
Speaker 1: up the floor in transition, everyone's grabbing the nearest guy.
Speaker 1: Now Steph suddenly on Ruey quick duck in he gets
Speaker 1: a bucket. I thought that was huge. Max Christy really
Speaker 1: solid game from him. He generated some key offense. He
Speaker 1: had sixteen points, hit some big shots in the Lebron
Speaker 1: off units, a couple contested threes. He had this big
Speaker 1: driving layup on Dennis where he just went at him
Speaker 1: in a late clock situation, protected the ball, thought through
Speaker 1: him and made a little bank shot. He had a
Speaker 1: big clutch bucket out of a two man game with
Speaker 1: Lebron where he slipped to the basket and turned and finished.
Speaker 1: I think it was over drama. It's either Draymond or
Speaker 1: tray Jackson. Davis right at the rim, a nice floater
Speaker 1: off the glass, just made a few more defensive mistakes
Speaker 1: than you'd like to see. And that again, that's young
Speaker 1: basketball player stuff, like you don't leave Steph Curry in
Speaker 1: la game situation. You give anybody else an open shot
Speaker 1: before you give Steph Curry a shot. I think Buddy
Speaker 1: Heil had like five points in that game. You don't
Speaker 1: You're not You're focused on guarding Steph Curry and Steph
Speaker 1: Curry only he's the only problem there pointing and saying
Speaker 1: somebody else do it. That's not your job. Those are
Speaker 1: little mistakes that he'll have to learn and throughout the game.
Speaker 1: I thought the Lakers did a poor job with their switching.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that in a minute. Don't connects a
Speaker 1: lot of smothered scoring as well. I'd like this kind
Speaker 1: of scoring, I think is super important because, like again
Speaker 1: I talk about this, over the course of a game,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a bunch of different types of shots. Right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna get a certain amount of like really easy
Speaker 1: buckets right at the rim, through like defensive breakdowns, transition
Speaker 1: pushes off of turnovers that's offensive rebound putbacks, meant a
Speaker 1: certain amount of shots where it's like these are going
Speaker 1: in every single time, no matter what. Then you're gonna
Speaker 1: get like a certain amount of like open catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes, right like you're somewhere around you know, ten
Speaker 1: to twenty depending on the game wide open catch and
Speaker 1: shoot threes.
Speaker 2: Are they gonna go in or are they not? Right?
Speaker 1: Then there's like the moderately contested catching shoot threes. Like
Speaker 1: team plays good defense, we don't get a great look,
Speaker 1: but we get like a moderately contested catching shoot three,
Speaker 1: or like a moderately contested floater and a ball screen,
Speaker 1: or a moderately contested shot at the rim at a
Speaker 1: late clock situation.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But then the fourth type is like rescue possessions. This
Speaker 1: is like great defense. Nothing's open now, it's like someone's
Speaker 1: got to create a bucket out of nothing. Right, and
Speaker 1: like Dalton like a smothered catch and shoot three in
Speaker 1: the left corner in the first half, like a ridiculous turnaround,
Speaker 1: left shoulder fade away over Draymond Green driving a close
Speaker 1: out in a late clock situation where it's like we're
Speaker 1: gonna get zero points out of this possession unless Dalton
Speaker 1: makes a tough shot, and he makes a tough shot.
Speaker 1: He had another like smothered driving left handed finish over
Speaker 1: Trace Jackson Davis in the first half. Like when you
Speaker 1: look at offensive ratings and a lot of cases, they're
Speaker 1: all separate, Like all the teams are getting somewhere around
Speaker 1: one o eight to one twenty points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 1: That's really only a like a what a ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent gap right between the best and the worst,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times the differences are like, all
Speaker 1: these teams are getting the easy layups on the defensive
Speaker 1: breakdowns and steals and runouts and stuff, and all these
Speaker 1: teams are getting these wide up and catching shoot threes
Speaker 1: that they're either making or missing. And obviously the good
Speaker 1: teams generate more of those, But like a lot of times,
Speaker 1: it's like the other parts, the tougher shot making that
Speaker 1: elevate your offense to that elite level, and the Lakers
Speaker 1: offense is at their best when they have their guys
Speaker 1: making tough shots to kind of just squeeze extra points
Speaker 1: out of additional possessions. Overall, thoughts on the Lakers rolle
Speaker 1: Lebron being disengaged and this good is the main difference
Speaker 1: between the team now in the way the team looked
Speaker 1: year three weeks ago. He has brought this incredible level
Speaker 1: of both mental and physical engagement. It has trickled down.
Speaker 1: Everyone is following suit. As a result, everyone's playing some
Speaker 1: of their best basketball of the year, and it's coming
Speaker 1: together in a more respectable basketball product. The defense, though
Speaker 1: I talked about this after the defense looked really good
Speaker 1: in that five game stretch. One of the things I
Speaker 1: said is it's one thing to defend really well when
Speaker 1: you play five games in sixteen days or whatever it
Speaker 1: was over the course of that end season tournament stretch,
Speaker 1: when you have eleven days off to rest your body,
Speaker 1: that's great. But guess what, immediately now that they've started
Speaker 1: playing every other night, the defense has slipped. They had
Speaker 1: a one to nineteen defensive rating against the Pistons and
Speaker 1: the loss in a one to nineteen defensive rating against
Speaker 1: the Warriors in a win. So the defense has already
Speaker 1: fallen way off since they started playing every other night again,
Speaker 1: and in both games, it's just that attention to detail.
Speaker 1: I thought the switching was really really bad against Golden State.
Speaker 1: A lot of bots switches passive switches where guys are
Speaker 1: getting open shots on interchanges, meaning like while the switching
Speaker 1: defenders pulling off or the main defenders pulling off and
Speaker 1: the switching defenders getting there, there's like a gap and
Speaker 1: in that gap, guys are hitting shots or just not
Speaker 1: picking up and they're getting downhill again. You saw that
Speaker 1: on the last possession where it's like Max is conceding
Speaker 1: a switch which he shouldn't be doing, and Austin's not
Speaker 1: ready for the switch, which he should be doing. And
Speaker 1: it's like there's just a lot of mistakes in the
Speaker 1: details there. And again like they had good stretches of
Speaker 1: defense in this game. I thought they were pretty good
Speaker 1: defensively in the second and third quarter against the Warriors.
Speaker 1: But again, this team isn't good enough to accomplish anything
Speaker 1: in the big picture unless they have a consistent commitment
Speaker 1: to the defensive end and building out those details. And
Speaker 1: I won't take them seriously until they make that commitment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in a good seventeen and thirteen six seed in
Speaker 1: the West. Good spot right now, eleventh best record in
Speaker 1: the league. I've seen a lot more Lakers optimism after
Speaker 1: the win last night. I don't disagree, But again, these
Speaker 1: things can shift in a matter of weeks. In the
Speaker 1: Western Conference, you have two bad weeks, you could be
Speaker 1: the eleven seed, you know. So like again, it's not
Speaker 1: about what the ceilings are for these teams. It's about consistency.
Speaker 1: Who can consistently raise their floor to the point where
Speaker 1: they're playing better basketball on both ends of the floor
Speaker 1: so that they get to their ceiling more often and
Speaker 1: they're not as punished as they are by their low end,
Speaker 1: and so again I just want to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on them in the big picture. Again, this was a
Speaker 1: tough stretch of games, the two road games in Sacramento,
Speaker 1: the home game for Detroit, and the road game at
Speaker 1: Golden State. Ironically, I thought they'd lose the three road
Speaker 1: games and beat Detroit. They lost to Detroit, won the
Speaker 1: three road games. So it's kind of a confusing team.
Speaker 1: But again, you're playing good ball, but it's about consistency
Speaker 1: and I'm still skeptical on that front. On the Warriors front,
Speaker 1: there's three main things I want to hit. Obviously, we
Speaker 1: talked about step and the show that he put on
Speaker 1: earlier in the show, but I want to talk about
Speaker 1: Johnathan Kaminga because we had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: story earlier in the week centering around Jonathan Kaminga in
Speaker 1: his shot selection, a comment that Steve Kerr made in
Speaker 1: a postgame presser, some confusion about who he was talking about,
Speaker 1: a bunch of different stuff like that, and the main
Speaker 1: idea was based around Steve Kerr basically pointing out like, hey,
Speaker 1: like when we're playing basketball, this like tough contested mid
Speaker 1: range jump shot with fifteen seconds on the shot clock
Speaker 1: while Steph Curry is on the.
Speaker 2: Floor is a bad shot.
Speaker 1: And guess what, Steve Curr's right, they are really bad
Speaker 1: shots in this game. Jonathan Kaminga took with eighteen seconds
Speaker 1: on the shot clock a smothered jump shot against Jonathan
Speaker 1: Kaminga while the Lakers were on a seven to two run,
Speaker 1: while Steph Curry was on the floor barely Gray's the
Speaker 1: right side of the rim. The Lakers got a transition
Speaker 1: run out layup. Now it's a nine to two run.
Speaker 1: That is a bad shot. There's this thing that happens
Speaker 1: with young basketball players where they think and I've been there,
Speaker 1: I've been there, I've been in this spot. I was
Speaker 1: an All conference scorer in JUCO and then I went
Speaker 1: to Arizona Christian University and suddenly I was asked to
Speaker 1: play a role and take better shots. And I was
Speaker 1: the guy that was like, but, well, like, I should
Speaker 1: be able to take this shot. I should be able
Speaker 1: to try to find my rhythm. And it's like, you
Speaker 1: have to understand that the shots are going to come
Speaker 1: to you naturally in the flow of the game, and
Speaker 1: by forcing the action, you disrupt rhythm for yourself and
Speaker 1: for your team, and so like, for instance, eighteen seconds
Speaker 1: on the shot clock the pull up jump shot. No
Speaker 1: one's telling you that you can't take a contested mid
Speaker 1: range jump shot. All they're saying is you flow action
Speaker 1: side to side in the system. And if you catch
Speaker 1: with six seconds on the shot clock and nothing has materialized,
Speaker 1: by all means, drive on Dalton, connect and fade over.
Speaker 2: Your right shoulder for a little twelve foot ter.
Speaker 1: If that's the shot that you can get in that situation,
Speaker 1: because we've tried everything else. But again, when you're listing
Speaker 1: the types of shots in a basketball game, the worst
Speaker 1: shot you can take is a contested mid range pull
Speaker 1: up jump shot. It is literally the worst shot in
Speaker 1: the game. So if you ever take it with more
Speaker 1: than ten seconds on the shot clock, you had better
Speaker 1: be in a great rhythm. If you're Mikale Bridges like
Speaker 1: and you're in that rhythm that you were in against
Speaker 1: the Spurs yesterday, then by all means, you want to
Speaker 1: trust that rhythm and flow. But when you're out of
Speaker 1: rhythm and you're taking the worst shot in basketball, while
Speaker 1: one of the best offensive players in the league is
Speaker 1: on the floor with you and there's that much time
Speaker 1: left on the shot clock. You are hurting your team
Speaker 1: and you're hurting yourself. And so like, I don't blame
Speaker 1: Steve Kerf for speaking up. There's a big play in
Speaker 1: the fourth corner six minutes left, Jonathan minga driving in transition.
Speaker 1: There are three Lakers back. It's a one on three
Speaker 1: and he tries to shoot through all three of them
Speaker 1: and misses, and Lakers get the ball. They're going back
Speaker 1: the other way. It is a decision making problem, and
Speaker 1: he's just not sharp enough elsewhere for it to be
Speaker 1: a positive impact. Like, his off ball defense has always
Speaker 1: been bad. I'm complaining about it, but it's always been bad.
Speaker 1: What happened on that last play is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that Jonathan does a lot because he's a young
Speaker 1: basketball player. He was minus seventeen last night. Think about
Speaker 1: how close that game was. Jonathan Dimingo is minus seventeen.
Speaker 1: So like, regardless of how you feel about him in
Speaker 1: the big picture, he's not helping this team right now.
Speaker 1: All year long, they've been substantially better with him off
Speaker 1: the floor versus on. So it's in the best interest
Speaker 1: of all parties to move on. He's not helping the Warriors,
Speaker 1: he's probably making them a bit worse. So it's not
Speaker 1: helping Golden State in their organization. Two, He's not going
Speaker 1: to be a superstar. He does not have that upside,
Speaker 1: so like it's not in the best interest of the
Speaker 1: Golden State organization in the long run. Okay, and for
Speaker 1: Jonathan Kaminga in his development. On his end, this is
Speaker 1: not a good spot for him because he needs to
Speaker 1: be able to go somewhere where he can make mistakes
Speaker 1: and not be under a ton of pressure. He needs
Speaker 1: to go somewhere where he can learn to not make
Speaker 1: mistakes over a five year period with a lot less
Speaker 1: stress and a lot less pressure. Like there are young
Speaker 1: players who are ready right away to contribute to this
Speaker 1: type of environment. Jonathan Kaminga is not one of them.
Speaker 1: So it's in the best interest of both parties to
Speaker 1: use Jonathan Kamena to bring in talent to help this
Speaker 1: Warriors team while sending Jonathan Minga to a situation where
Speaker 1: he can learn how to play basketball at a slower less.
Speaker 2: Pressure to pace.
Speaker 1: Dennis Roeder I thought this was his best game since
Speaker 1: coming over in the four games that he's played. He
Speaker 1: defended great all game, he held down the bench group.
Speaker 1: They were I think minus one with Steph off the
Speaker 1: floor in this game. That's really good. I thought he
Speaker 1: made several huge plays late. He had a big steal
Speaker 1: on Austin that led to a runout. He had a
Speaker 1: big three off of that Lebron James block in transition.
Speaker 1: The big thing that stood out to me is, like
Speaker 1: you can start to see all the way his dribbil.
Speaker 2: Penetration creates advantages for everyone.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of players where Trace Jackson Davis
Speaker 1: kind of fumbled the pass away, but he's getting a
Speaker 1: lot of rim pressure that's generating opportunities for Trace, not
Speaker 1: just on roles, but also on offensive rebound where like
Speaker 1: Dennis goes in and smokes a layup, but he's got
Speaker 1: such a downhill pressure that he brings a bunch of
Speaker 1: Lakers with him. In the void that fills in behind him,
Speaker 1: there comes Trace Jackson Davis for a dunk. Again, Like
Speaker 1: like I talked about, I like this Dennis move in
Speaker 1: the context of bringing in another type of player, right,
Speaker 1: which brings me to the big one of the big
Speaker 1: takeaways I had from this game. The Lakers played small
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of Lebron Ruey in the front court,
Speaker 1: a lot of like three guard lineups, a lot of
Speaker 1: small Lakers on the floor. This is where if you
Speaker 1: have a big forward that can create shots, someone like
Speaker 1: a brandon Ingram, someone like a Jimmy Butler. That's the
Speaker 1: kind of guy that would torture a small ball Lakers group,
Speaker 1: picking on their smaller guards and getting to his spots
Speaker 1: and creating great offense. That's something that this Warriors roster
Speaker 1: right now cannot do. And so as a result, the
Speaker 1: Lakers were able to get away with those small ball
Speaker 1: groups and actually play really well for those stretches. That's
Speaker 1: the reason why I keep talking about that type of player.
Speaker 1: It's about the versatility of attack different types of games,
Speaker 1: different parts of the games, different types of matchups, depending
Speaker 1: on what the circumstances call for. I get it that
Speaker 1: it's discouraging for Warriors fans right now. Here's what I
Speaker 1: would say, There's still a lot of good role players
Speaker 1: on this team. You need the star power to craft
Speaker 1: smaller roles so that guys can start exceeding expectations in
Speaker 1: those roles. As long as you have one star and
Speaker 1: he's not feeling as many of those responsibilities as some
Speaker 1: of the other teams with more firepower are all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, those roles are a little bigger for your
Speaker 1: role players, and they will start to underwhelm in those situations.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't like again. That's what your optimism
Speaker 1: has to center around bringing in additional talent. It's just
Speaker 1: on the front office to make that happen. Now, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: it's all I have for show number one. I'll see
Speaker 1: you guys a few hours later today for a breakdown
Speaker 1: to the rest of the games.
Speaker 2: I'll see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume