Speaker 1: The volume. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season?
Speaker 1: You are with all the new ways to get in
Speaker 1: on the action at Draft Kings sports Book, an official
Speaker 1: sports betting partner of the NBA. From Monster Slams to
Speaker 1: dishing the rock to cleaning the glass, get behind your
Speaker 1: favorite players and the prop bets you can make on DraftKings,
Speaker 1: the home of NBA player props. Ready to place your
Speaker 1: first bet? Try betting on something simple like picking how
Speaker 1: many points your favorite player will have. Go to the
Speaker 1: Draft Kings Sportsbook app and make your pick right now.
Speaker 1: The Oklahoma City Thunder have supplanted the Boston Celtics as
Speaker 1: the favorites to win the title on DraftKings at plus
Speaker 1: two to twenty five, with the Celtics right behind them
Speaker 1: at plus two thirty five. First time, here's something special
Speaker 1: just for you new DraftKings customers. Bet five dollars to
Speaker 1: get one hundred and fifteen bonus bets instantly take it
Speaker 1: to the rack with DraftKings sports Book, Every point counts.
Speaker 1: Download the Draft Kings sports Book app and use code
Speaker 1: hoops that's h oops, that's code hoops for new customers
Speaker 1: to get one to fifteen bonus bets when you bet
Speaker 1: just five bucks only on DraftKings.
Speaker 2: The Crown is yours.
Speaker 1: Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler and New York
Speaker 1: call eight seven seven eight hope and why our text
Speaker 1: hope and why to four six seven three six nine.
Speaker 1: Connecticut help is available for problem gambling called eight eight
Speaker 1: eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or.
Speaker 2: Visit CCPG dot org.
Speaker 1: Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort
Speaker 1: in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by
Speaker 1: jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible
Speaker 1: gaming resources, see dkang dot co. Slash b ball. All right,
Speaker 1: welcome to tonight. You're at the volume yout A quick
Speaker 1: show for you guys. Tonight we're going to hit that
Speaker 1: incredibly entertaining and very interesting game between two of the
Speaker 1: league's best teams, the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: the teams with the third and fourth best records in
Speaker 1: basketball right now. Very very interesting. A lot of key
Speaker 1: players missing, but a lot of stuff that's going to
Speaker 1: be the case if these two teams were to face
Speaker 1: and face each other in a post season run, so
Speaker 1: I thought it was very revealing. We got some bad
Speaker 1: news about a Lebron James injury that we'll discuss a
Speaker 1: little bit further on, and then I want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about some realities about both the Celtics
Speaker 1: and the Lakers in the playoff context. After that, at
Speaker 1: the tail end of the show, I just have a
Speaker 1: quick rant about the Jokic Shay Gilgas Alexander MVP race,
Speaker 1: which is heating up. I just want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about where I stand in that debate. You
Speaker 1: guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: Oops and my YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
Speaker 1: of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS.
Speaker 1: You guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a
Speaker 1: podcast feed where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight.
Speaker 1: It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
Speaker 1: a review on that front in the last minut least.
Speaker 1: Keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. We
Speaker 1: get to our mailbags typically on Fridays when I'm not
Speaker 1: on vacation throughout the season, and we'll have another one
Speaker 1: coming up this Friday. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So I thought, obviously the story of this game was
Speaker 1: Boston's defense. The Lakers actually, for large portions of this
Speaker 1: game played well, but there was the stretch from the
Speaker 1: end of the second quarter to the end of the
Speaker 1: third quarter where the Celtics literally strangled the life out
Speaker 1: of the Laker offense. Now, the Laker offense has been
Speaker 1: a work in progress since the Luka doncicch trade. They've
Speaker 1: had phases where it's looked really good and a lot
Speaker 1: of phases where it's looked really bad as Lucas struggled
Speaker 1: to get his legs underneath him. As a team, they're
Speaker 1: playing so hard on defense that they're not making shots.
Speaker 1: On the other end, they've been shooting really poorly in
Speaker 1: spot up situations over the course of the last month.
Speaker 1: It's been a work in progress, but there have been
Speaker 1: phases where they've looked downright unguardable, and Boston was the
Speaker 1: first team that I saw straight up strangle the life
Speaker 1: out of them to where it looked like they couldn't
Speaker 1: even get good shots for a stretch there from the
Speaker 1: late second to the late third. So I want to
Speaker 1: talk about three different concepts that Boston was deploying in
Speaker 1: this game that had such a profound effect on Luka
Speaker 1: Doncic and that Lakers offense. I was joking with our
Speaker 1: producer Jackson before the before the show started. It's crazy
Speaker 1: because Luca finished like eleven for twenty two from the
Speaker 1: field and five to ten from three with thirty four points,
Speaker 1: and you'd think that was awesome, but he was legitimately
Speaker 1: terrible for the majority of the game, and specifically he
Speaker 1: was bad on both ends, but he was especially bad
Speaker 1: on offense during the majority of the game until Boston
Speaker 1: ended up going up by twenty and a big part
Speaker 1: of that was Jaylen Brown and the ball pressure that
Speaker 1: he applied to Luca all game long. I talked about
Speaker 1: this concept after the knixt game on Thursday, the idea
Speaker 1: that there are these types of defenders in the NBA
Speaker 1: that Luca has his that he just has his way
Speaker 1: with right the skinnier, rangier athletes like Jaden McDaniels is
Speaker 1: consistently touted as one of the best, one of the
Speaker 1: best perimeter defenders in the league, and he just is
Speaker 1: hopeless against Luka Doncic. Herb Jones hopeless against Luka Doncics.
Speaker 1: Guy like Dyson Daniels, hopeless against Luka Doncic, any of
Speaker 1: these guys where he's given up, They're giving up forty
Speaker 1: to fifty pounds in the matchup. Like Luca just has
Speaker 1: his way with those guys. But there are these like bigger,
Speaker 1: stronger types of perimeter defenders that can give Lucas some issues.
Speaker 1: And Ognobi gave him some issues. We talked about guys
Speaker 1: like Lou Dort in the past. I thought Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: did an absolutely amazing job on Luca Dantchen this game,
Speaker 1: bringing a This game was very physical on both ends.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of uncalled fouls, which is something
Speaker 1: that's going to benefit a good strong perimeter defensive corps
Speaker 1: like the Boston Celtics, and Brown just brought this insane
Speaker 1: physical ball pressure on Luca every single time he was
Speaker 1: swiping at the basketball, every time Luca put the ball
Speaker 1: on the floor. There was this consistent theme of Jalen
Speaker 1: winning the early battle. When Lucas started getting the ball
Speaker 1: dribbling around a lot, he was able to get into
Speaker 1: some of his combinations of moves and footwork to where
Speaker 1: he can get closer to the rim, and you saw
Speaker 1: him get a couple of easier layout against Jalen in
Speaker 1: the second half, but for the majority of the game,
Speaker 1: either while Luca was fighting to get the ball at
Speaker 1: a spot, he'd beat him to the basketball and knock
Speaker 1: it away, or right when Luca would get it, he
Speaker 1: would turn and face and like a triple threat, and
Speaker 1: he'd put the ball on the floor and Jalen would
Speaker 1: just immediately lunge in and swipe out at the basketball.
Speaker 1: He had a bunch of tip aways. He was obviously
Speaker 1: frustrating Luka Doncin. So that's always the hard part when
Speaker 1: I'm watching Luca, when he's like kind of favoring some
Speaker 1: sort of injury. Is Over the years, I've noticed like
Speaker 1: when he's playing poorly, he tends to heavily favor the injury,
Speaker 1: and then when he's playing well, he has a habit of,
Speaker 1: you know, suddenly moving around like he's fine and like
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, obviously there was some real stuff
Speaker 1: with Luca. He was wearing a heat pad before the game.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to insinuate that he's faking it. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, like Jalen frustrated him so much that Luca
Speaker 1: is doing a lot of complaining, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of favoring that injury and just playing it up,
Speaker 1: And I just thought it was a credit to Jalen
Speaker 1: who just did an amazing job on him all game.
Speaker 1: Second piece of it was the defensive scheme that the
Speaker 1: Celtics deployed. Now, this was something that the Celtics did
Speaker 1: early in the NBA Finals last year too, and it's
Speaker 1: something that you're gonna see a lot of teams do
Speaker 1: against the Lakers. But the Celtics have been doing a
Speaker 1: lot with Horford at the five, and that's switching ball screens,
Speaker 1: right Like, that's the book if you've done any sort
Speaker 1: of research on the Lakers. The two big weaknesses for
Speaker 1: their offense right now is pressure the hell out of
Speaker 1: the basketball all game long and try to wear them down.
Speaker 1: And Lebron and Luca can both be a little sloppy
Speaker 1: and they're passing out of those sorts of situations, you
Speaker 1: can get turnovers, you can get out in transition and
Speaker 1: then switch if you run drop coverage, like JJ Redick said,
Speaker 1: against Luka Doncic, it's death because his ability to kind
Speaker 1: of take advantage of the baked dribble penetration that comes
Speaker 1: from those ball screens. But if you switch, you gotta
Speaker 1: have guys that can hold up. And the Lakers made
Speaker 1: a decision tonight to attack Al Horford. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that in a minute, because I think the Lakers
Speaker 1: probably should have taken a different strategy in terms of who.
Speaker 2: They were attacking.
Speaker 1: That said, they decided to go at Horford, and Horford
Speaker 1: played really well against those guys. Horford has this combination
Speaker 1: of he's reasonably quick enough to be able to stay
Speaker 1: in front of people, but he's also very big and
Speaker 1: strong and good at absorbing contact. If you look at
Speaker 1: Lebron and Luca, they are guys that like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: they get deer in space, like these big, tall, lanky
Speaker 1: centers that can't change direction, Yeah, they can hit series
Speaker 1: of moves and generate drib penetration or get to a
Speaker 1: good look at a pullback three right, something like that.
Speaker 1: But if they go against bigger, stronger players they like
Speaker 1: especially as Lebron's gotten older and Luca in general, like
Speaker 1: we've talked about earlier, they can actually struggle to get
Speaker 1: to their spots and to get separation right, And so
Speaker 1: Horford It's just such a valuable weapon in this matchup.
Speaker 1: If you look at a potential Lakers Celtics playoff series
Speaker 1: or an NBA Finals series, it would involve matchup attacking
Speaker 1: no matter what. Because these are teams, the Lakers that
Speaker 1: switch one through and the Celtics that switch one through
Speaker 1: five with everybody but Porzingis and Cornette who won't play
Speaker 1: in a playoff series, and Porzingis generally has been asked
Speaker 1: to switch at times as well. These are teams that
Speaker 1: do a ton of switching. So if they're gonna do
Speaker 1: a ton of switching, it's gonna turn into who can
Speaker 1: you attack?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: For the Lakers, they're looking at Horford and Derek White
Speaker 1: in terms of the starting lineup, the core lineup of
Speaker 1: the team.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: For the Celtics, they were looking at Austin Reeves and
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic. And sometimes it's just a simple equation of
Speaker 1: like who's more comfortable Tatum and Brown versus Luca and Austin,
Speaker 1: or Lebron and Luca versus Horford and White. And especially
Speaker 1: through the first two and a half quarters of this game,
Speaker 1: the Lakers were almost exclusively attacking Horford, and Horford looked
Speaker 1: fine in that matchup, while on the other end of
Speaker 1: the floor, Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown were ripping through
Speaker 1: Austin and Luca like they were tissue paper. That really
Speaker 1: is the story of the game. In a switching scheme,
Speaker 1: It's gonna come down to attacking matchups in the Celtics
Speaker 1: in this one game. And it's just one game, guys.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. The Lakers played the Celtics
Speaker 1: a little over a month ago and Lebron and Ad
Speaker 1: badly outplayed Jalen and Jason and they got a big win.
Speaker 1: This is all the regular season. However, there are certain realities.
Speaker 1: If you ask me who's gonna be more comfortable attacking
Speaker 1: matchups Lebron and Luca versus Horford, and we'll see you.
Speaker 1: They got to have some success against Derek White in
Speaker 1: the second half, but or Tatum and Brown going against
Speaker 1: Austin and Luca. Those are matchups that favor Boston. I
Speaker 1: think in a large sample that would bear out in
Speaker 1: Boston getting better shots. And that's a reality that you
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge after watching tonight, Like the Lakers don't
Speaker 1: have an answer for how are they gonna guard with
Speaker 1: Austin and Luca in space other than sending an extra defender,
Speaker 1: which is a suicide mission against Boston, who's actually at
Speaker 1: their best when they're going at catch and shoot stuff right.
Speaker 1: And so that was kind of the dynamic at play
Speaker 1: in this game. But Horford was just doing an amazing
Speaker 1: job defending in switches.
Speaker 2: And then I thought.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of really smart help. This is
Speaker 1: the third piece for Boston and their defense. I thought
Speaker 1: there was a lot of really smart help from guys
Speaker 1: like Jason Tatum and the guards as well. How many
Speaker 1: times tonight did you see Jason Tatum like peel off
Speaker 1: of a defender late shot clock right when Luca or
Speaker 1: Lebron started to get really aggressive downhill towards the rim. Again,
Speaker 1: if you offer really easy help to read, So for instance,
Speaker 1: if I'm posting and you help from one pass away
Speaker 1: and I'm staring right at the guy, it's really easy
Speaker 1: for me to throw the ball back out and there's
Speaker 1: a wide open three right. But like, let's say I'm
Speaker 1: driving to my right and I spin into my left,
Speaker 1: or let's say I get under the basket and I'm
Speaker 1: pump baking and I'm worrying about this guy, there's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for someone to peel off and help and offer
Speaker 1: a late contest off of a shooter without really running
Speaker 1: the risk of getting burned for it, especially in late
Speaker 1: shot clock situations. There were a lot of those sequences
Speaker 1: tonight where Boston just was smarter with their help right
Speaker 1: And meanwhile on the other end, the Lakers, they've been
Speaker 1: a team that's been offering a ton of help in
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks as their defense has been
Speaker 1: really successful, but not against Boston. Against Boston, you can't
Speaker 1: get away with that. If you gap into the driving lane,
Speaker 1: it's a simple swing pass. We'd saw one of those
Speaker 1: in the first half. Luka Doncic helping off of Al
Speaker 1: Horford in the left corner. He's gapped right in the
Speaker 1: driving lane for the ball handler. If he's going to
Speaker 1: go to his left, simple swing pass to Al Horford
Speaker 1: in the corner. He knocks down to three. That's not
Speaker 1: a strategy that works against Boston. If you guys, remember
Speaker 1: when I was talking after I think it was the
Speaker 1: Pelicans game, I talked about how like Luca can guard.
Speaker 1: He's I think he's a better defender than he gets
Speaker 1: credit for in terms of like his off ball defense,
Speaker 1: his basketball IQ, his ability to read and react to play.
Speaker 1: He's defensively, but what did I talk about? I said,
Speaker 1: Boston is an entirely different challenge. Luca was good in
Speaker 1: the playoffs last year defensively until he got to Boston
Speaker 1: and he completely fell apart. Because Boston presents this unique problem,
Speaker 1: which is if you guard one on one, if you
Speaker 1: offer help in those one on one situations, They've got
Speaker 1: all these catch and shoot threats around, and they're really
Speaker 1: good at setting up their spacing and picking you apart.
Speaker 1: It's a very different setup than Luca's on the ball.
Speaker 1: And there's a dude three feet to his right, and
Speaker 1: there's a dude three feet to his left, and if
Speaker 1: he somehow gets through all three of those, there's another
Speaker 1: guy helping, because the Lakers have two or three guys
Speaker 1: that they feel comfortable giving catch and.
Speaker 2: Shoot shots too.
Speaker 1: That's really the like as we start to get real
Speaker 1: about who Boston is as a championship contender. Yeah, their
Speaker 1: record hasn't been as good as Cleveland or Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: this year, Who cares, They don't have the same life
Speaker 1: level of urgency. Cleveland is having the best season in
Speaker 1: franchise not in franchise history, but in a very long
Speaker 1: time in terms of the regular season, and I think
Speaker 1: the last team to win at this rate was what
Speaker 1: the two thousand and nine Calves, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: But like, this team is playing really well. They're stoked.
Speaker 1: Every game is another opportunity for them to continue to
Speaker 1: build this cool new thing Oklahoma City. This is their
Speaker 1: first year where they're like, we actually can win the title.
Speaker 1: We're a dead serious team. Let's go get this thing
Speaker 1: every night. And all their players are like twenty six
Speaker 1: and younger. Boston's older Jason Tatum is the only guy
Speaker 1: in their core eight who's twenty six and younger. They
Speaker 1: have won the championship before, they've been in all these
Speaker 1: deep playoff runs. They are not under the same level
Speaker 1: of day to day give a shit that the other
Speaker 1: teams are in the league. And the reality is when
Speaker 1: the shit hits the fan and they need to turn
Speaker 1: it up, they can put together multiple five man groupings
Speaker 1: where none of them are a real weak point on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the floor and all of them
Speaker 1: can dribble, shoot and pass really well. So like you're
Speaker 1: in this situation where it's like, oh shit, we either
Speaker 1: have to leave our worst defender on Tatum and Brown
Speaker 1: one on one and just pray that they take stupid
Speaker 1: shots and miss, or we're gonna have to send a
Speaker 1: second defender and allow them to get these catch and
Speaker 1: shoot looks that they burn everybody with. And what you
Speaker 1: just saw tonight was a team with Lebron James, Luka, Doncic,
Speaker 1: and Austin Reeves unable to create a decent look for
Speaker 1: like a fifteen minute stretch of game time. That is
Speaker 1: the scalability that they have on defense, That is the
Speaker 1: scalability that they have on offense. And that's why no
Speaker 1: matter what I've seen this year, whether it's Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: going on a run, or it's Cleveland, or it's Houston
Speaker 1: beating every good team in the league for like three weeks,
Speaker 1: or it's this recent Lebron James led Lukadancic led Laker run,
Speaker 1: I don't think any of these teams can reach the
Speaker 1: level on both ends of the floor that the Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics can reach. And that's why to me, they're just
Speaker 1: clearly the favorite. Does that mean they can lose or
Speaker 1: that they can't lose, of course not. They're beatable. Cleveland
Speaker 1: could beat them, Milwaukee could beat them. I still think
Speaker 1: that the Lakers could play a lot better than they
Speaker 1: play tonight. If the Lakers and Celtics met in the
Speaker 1: series in the finals, of course I think the Lakers
Speaker 1: could win. But we would all be foolish to not
Speaker 1: pick Boston to win these matchups because when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, they got five dudes that are all big
Speaker 1: and strong, that can guard a bunch of different positions,
Speaker 1: and they've got a million ways to create great shots.
Speaker 1: There's a whole portion there where they're like, hey, why
Speaker 1: don't we just throw the ball in the post to
Speaker 1: Al Horford against Austin Reeves and they got a bunch
Speaker 1: of good stuff out of it. Porzingis is a whole
Speaker 1: other option that they can go to on that front.
Speaker 1: There's just so many different ways they can win, so
Speaker 1: many different shapes they can take. I believe that's the
Speaker 1: best team in the NBA right now. I want to
Speaker 1: shout out Jason Tatum. He was doing an amazing job
Speaker 1: picking up Luka Doncica, Jon Austin Reeves in this game.
Speaker 1: Forty points, twelve rebounds, and eight assists. I thought he
Speaker 1: was fantastic. This is a concept that I've been talking
Speaker 1: about for a little while. There's a reputation around the
Speaker 1: league that Jason Tatum has, And for the record, I
Speaker 1: felt this way last year, so I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: like call anybody out, but there's this opinion out there
Speaker 1: that is somewhat pervasive in the NBA Twitter world where
Speaker 1: Tatum's like a second tier guy, and I think there
Speaker 1: was a combination of a bunch of factors that led
Speaker 1: to that reputation.
Speaker 2: He was such a good jump.
Speaker 1: Shooter early in his career, and then he really fell
Speaker 1: off and struggled to shoot the jump shot over the
Speaker 1: course of the previous few years. In terms of like
Speaker 1: like being reliably great as a jump shooter, he added
Speaker 1: a bunch of strength and a bunch of playmaking talent
Speaker 1: over that time, and so it was like there was
Speaker 1: this early version of Tatum that wasn't as big as
Speaker 1: and strong and not as good at reading the floor.
Speaker 2: We could shoot the shit out of the ball.
Speaker 1: And then there was this other version of Tatum that
Speaker 1: was like big and strong and super versatile defensively and
Speaker 1: like a much better playmaker than most of his peers
Speaker 1: at his position. But he just wasn't as good as
Speaker 1: a jump shooter as he needed to be. Tatum has
Speaker 1: added those two pieces of his game into one now,
Speaker 1: and he's become this like really dynamic shot maker from
Speaker 1: all these different spots on the floor, one of the
Speaker 1: best three point shooters, like high volume, create his own
Speaker 1: shot type of three point shooters that we have in
Speaker 1: the league. And he's this big, strong, superversaal defensive player,
Speaker 1: and he's one of the best playmakers in the NBA
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: He's put it all together.
Speaker 1: And like, look, does that mean he's gonna go out
Speaker 1: play the top guys over and over again. No, We've
Speaker 1: talked about that earlier. Like I've seen Tatum get out
Speaker 1: played by some of the top guys too, But I've
Speaker 1: also seen Tatum on the same floor with the top
Speaker 1: guys multiple times. Here, look like he's better he was
Speaker 1: on the same floor Luka doncicin Lebron James, both of
Speaker 1: whom who have like Lebron's been playing at like a
Speaker 1: top five level for a month and a half and
Speaker 1: Luca is, Luka Doncic and Jason Tatum just looked like
Speaker 1: he was better than them tonight. And that is a
Speaker 1: level he can get to forty twelve and eight guys
Speaker 1: like he is absolutely one of the top tier guys
Speaker 1: in this league and deserves to be respected as one.
Speaker 1: I just think that needs to be acknowledged. It's undeniable
Speaker 1: at this point. Moving on to the Lakers, a couple things.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the Lebron news in a minute, because
Speaker 1: it's kind of like separate from the basketball team. I
Speaker 1: disagreed with their approach of attacking Horford. They really really
Speaker 1: focused on attacking Al Horford for the majority of the game,
Speaker 1: for like two and a half quarters, And I think
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where Lebron and Luca
Speaker 1: liked it as a as an alternative to facing pressure.
Speaker 1: So smaller players they're going to react to mismatches by
Speaker 1: applying ball pressure, right, and so you like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you attack Derek White or Drew Holliday, Peyton Pritchard or
Speaker 1: same Houser, you're gonna have to deal with them up
Speaker 1: in your business, swiping at the basketball, being super physically aggressive,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So I think there was
Speaker 1: more of just like it's easy because Horford's like giving
Speaker 1: us space and letting us mess around with our dribble
Speaker 1: a little bit be a little bit more comfortable. But
Speaker 1: that played directly into Boston's hands because al Horford was
Speaker 1: either conceding tough pull up threes that Lebron and Luca
Speaker 1: weren't making enough of, or holding up really well in
Speaker 1: the two point range, like holding up really well there.
Speaker 1: I understand that it's harder on the body, but the
Speaker 1: advantage there is like the advantage there in particular for
Speaker 1: Lebron and Luca is to attack the smaller players. And
Speaker 1: by the way, there was a lot of success. Lucas
Speaker 1: started attacking Derek White, like in that second half run,
Speaker 1: and he gets an easy step through for a left
Speaker 1: handed layup, gets plenty of separation for a step back three,
Speaker 1: They got open shots in rotation out of that. Lebron
Speaker 1: had some success attacking Pritchard, like going at the smalls.
Speaker 1: I think is the way to go for Lebron and Luca.
Speaker 1: Austin reeves his game is shifty and quick and good
Speaker 1: at getting defenders at a position. That's the kind of
Speaker 1: guy that you want attacking Al Horford because that's a
Speaker 1: matchup where he feels more comfortable. So I thought, I
Speaker 1: thought the Lakers just weren't as smart as Boston tonight.
Speaker 1: In just the way they went about matchup attacking throughout
Speaker 1: the game. I thought that was an area for improvement.
Speaker 1: Luca just has to be better, Like, yeah, dude, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna let Jaylen Brown like take your lunch money
Speaker 1: for two and a half quarters, the Lakers aren't winning
Speaker 1: an NBA Finals series against Boston.
Speaker 2: They have no chance.
Speaker 1: Like Eve, when I talk about the chance that the
Speaker 1: Lakers have in a potential final series with Boston if
Speaker 1: they were to get to that point, it's Luca's incredible
Speaker 1: and Jaylen Brown played him into what I thought was
Speaker 1: a really, really rough game. I didn't talk about it
Speaker 1: too much, but like the defensive end was really bad
Speaker 1: for Luca as well. He was offering a lot of
Speaker 1: unnecessary help, leaving shooters open. There's a play where he
Speaker 1: straight up like hacked Jason Tatum on a pull up
Speaker 1: three because he was frustrated.
Speaker 2: That was really bad.
Speaker 1: Luca just had a nightmare game, I thought, which is
Speaker 1: hilarious because he had thirty four or on you know,
Speaker 1: fifty percent from the field and fifty percent from three.
Speaker 1: But that's that's all world talents for you. That's what
Speaker 1: it looks like, but Luca just has to be better
Speaker 1: if if Luca is going to every superstar in NBA
Speaker 1: history has run into their weakness, right Lebron, it was
Speaker 1: teams conceding the three point shot. Even with Jokich, we've
Speaker 1: seen it's can't he figure out a way to be
Speaker 1: useful on defense? Steph Curry in his career had to
Speaker 1: figure that specific part out, right, Like, there's all these
Speaker 1: different challenges that superstars face in their career. For Luka Doncic,
Speaker 1: it's specifically guarding in space. It's there are a lot
Speaker 1: of defenders in the league that if you offer them
Speaker 1: lots of help and you set up a game plan
Speaker 1: to where their job is easy, they can thrive. But
Speaker 1: at the highest levels, as you get further along in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, you run into better teams that are better
Speaker 1: at exploiting your weaknesses. For Luka Doncic, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: to find a way to at least heast make isoing
Speaker 1: him not the easiest pathway for another team to continually
Speaker 1: generate awesome shots. He's got to find a way to
Speaker 1: win more of those battles, to keep the defense out
Speaker 1: of rotation, to contain the ball a little bit better.
Speaker 1: There were some good possessions in there where he forced
Speaker 1: him into tough step back jump shots. I thought he
Speaker 1: had a couple of good ones late against Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: where he slid his feet well and kind of flattened
Speaker 1: out some drives, but overall in the large sample, he
Speaker 1: was too easy of an opening there. Same thing for
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves. Austin won some battles late in the game,
Speaker 1: but he was getting picked apart in the middle portion
Speaker 1: of the game. Those guys have to hold up better
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. I thought the Lakers made too
Speaker 1: many mistakes in this game, Like they were within four
Speaker 1: with like what four or five minutes left, and Jared
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt like just gifts the Celtics three free throws on
Speaker 1: a possession because he won't take his hand off Derek
Speaker 1: White while he's shooting a jump shot. That weird sequence
Speaker 1: from Jordan Goodwin to end the third quarter where he
Speaker 1: like stole a wide open three from Austin and threw
Speaker 1: the ball away and then had a wide open layup
Speaker 1: in transition and trick the layup off. There was just
Speaker 1: way too much sloppiness, way too many mistakes for this
Speaker 1: caliber of NBA team to beat the way that the
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics can reach on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: I thought it was another game that was pretty revealing
Speaker 1: in terms of Jared vanderbuilt in the dunker spot. We've
Speaker 1: been talking about this a lot over the course.
Speaker 2: Of the season.
Speaker 1: It seems consistent to me that teams that really have
Speaker 1: like overwhelming size in athleticism that can really grind things
Speaker 1: to a haul around the paint, that Jared Vanderbilt cannot
Speaker 1: catch and finish anything underneath the basket.
Speaker 2: That is a problem. That is a reality.
Speaker 1: Like again, when you're looking at these games, you want
Speaker 1: to pick the things out that you can separate, right
Speaker 1: Like Jackson Hayes is out, Ruey Hachimura is out, Luca
Speaker 1: plays terrible. These are things that you can view as
Speaker 1: like things that will probably go in your favor in
Speaker 1: the long run, But in the that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: take absolutely nothing from a game where you struggle. There
Speaker 1: are things that are there are real things that you
Speaker 1: can take away from those situations against the the teams
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the floor, Jared Vanderbilt is
Speaker 1: gonna be a problem on offense. That's just a reality.
Speaker 1: That is part of the construct of this Laker team.
Speaker 1: On the Lebron front, it looked like it was a
Speaker 1: classic case. So I don't know if you guys have
Speaker 1: ever played and done one of those crazy spin moves,
Speaker 1: but when you start really pivoting back and forth, it
Speaker 1: puts an enormous amount of strain on your groin. It's
Speaker 1: just centripetal force as you're spinning your body around in
Speaker 1: one of your legs that weighs forty to fifty pounds
Speaker 1: is getting slung out away from you, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to keep that thing under control. Looks like you heard,
Speaker 1: is growing. There's six weeks until the playoffs, so I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any reason to like get super freaked
Speaker 1: out about it. We don't even know the degree of
Speaker 1: the injury. If it's a apparently, if it's pretty mild,
Speaker 1: he might be back in a couple of weeks. If
Speaker 1: it's a little more serious, he might be out four
Speaker 1: to six weeks.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Like, if anything, Lebron ramping up for a playoff run
Speaker 1: is probably not the worst thing in the world as
Speaker 1: far as like making sure he's fresh for that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. However, these are the realities that I pointed
Speaker 1: out right after the Luca trade, you traded two starters
Speaker 1: for one, and this was a team that already was
Speaker 1: somewhat thin on high level players. I viewed like eight
Speaker 1: guys as high level right like Lebron, Luca, Austin Jackson,
Speaker 1: and Rui and then Dorian Finney, Smith, Jared Vanderbilt, Gabe
Speaker 1: Vincent and Jackson Hayes. Is maybe if you're considering a
Speaker 1: ninth Jackson Hayes, Jackson's down now, Ruey hot Tamura is
Speaker 1: down now, Lebron James is down now, Austin Reeves missed
Speaker 1: some time recently. Guys are dropping because this is a hard,
Speaker 1: competing defensive team that doesn't have a very deep rotation.
Speaker 1: And so these are like when I talk about the Lakers,
Speaker 1: by far, the biggest weakness that I've seen is they
Speaker 1: just have a lot of different areas where if they
Speaker 1: get a key injury, things fall apart, Like Lebron and
Speaker 1: Ruey both out. You basically don't have a power forward
Speaker 1: on the roster. That's a concern moving forward. So like
Speaker 1: there are some frustrations that there are some realities that
Speaker 1: the Lakers have to deal with in terms of their
Speaker 1: lack of depth that are starting to come to the surface. Now,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, before we get out of here for
Speaker 1: the night, I wanted to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Nicola Jokis shake kills Alexander MVP debate. So this
Speaker 1: ends up being a constant debate over the course of
Speaker 1: the years because there is a lack of consistent criteria
Speaker 1: in my time following the NBA, everything shifts back and forth.
Speaker 1: Different voters value different things. There are huge portions of
Speaker 1: the voting base for MVP that like dramatically consider, like
Speaker 1: seriously consider catch all metrics, which I vehemently disagree with.
Speaker 1: I think it's a bad way to try to make
Speaker 1: a decision of this caliber that involves such NBA history.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different things about the MVP
Speaker 1: that I don't like, and that's why I don't spend
Speaker 1: too much time talking about it. That said, I think
Speaker 1: there's a specific issue arising here that is probably not
Speaker 1: that should not be an issue involving whether or not
Speaker 1: Yokich has a real case.
Speaker 2: Is Yokich the best player in the NBA? Yes? Why?
Speaker 1: Because that sort of thing is determined in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: When we get to the playoffs. Over the course of
Speaker 1: the last few years, jo Kich is the indomitable force
Speaker 1: that I've seen. He is the one guy that reaches
Speaker 1: a level that no team can reach. And even back
Speaker 1: in that twenty twenty three season, he had a very
Speaker 1: very good defensive season, and he was very good defensively
Speaker 1: on the way to the title that year. Jokic is
Speaker 1: the best player in the league. There's nothing that Shaye
Speaker 1: could do in the regular season context to take that away.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, that's it. There is this idea that
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City is overwhelmingly talented and that's why they're winning.
Speaker 1: And as a result, a lot of people are writing
Speaker 1: off Shay and it's like, Shay's the guy that's on
Speaker 1: the overwhelmingly talented team. Jokich is the guy that's carrying
Speaker 1: a bunch of bums. He's the guy that deserves to
Speaker 1: win the MVP. Chet Holmgren's been out most of the season.
Speaker 1: His secondary shot creator, Jalen Williams, is very young by
Speaker 1: NBA standards. I saw a lot of people saying, like,
Speaker 1: Shay is surrounded by all this all world defensive talent.
Speaker 1: You're right, Shay is surrounded by a very good defensive team.
Speaker 1: There's no offensive player playing off of Shay that's as
Speaker 1: good as Jamal Murray is. There's no shooter that plays
Speaker 1: for the Thunder who's as good as Michael Porter Junior is.
Speaker 1: They the Denver's construct is built more around offensive talent.
Speaker 1: Ogoma City's construct is built more around defensive talent. What
Speaker 1: Shay's job this year has been has been to create
Speaker 1: every single shot for his team throughout this entire season.
Speaker 1: With Jalen Williams off the floor, just playing with a
Speaker 1: bunch of defensive minded young athletes, He's been able to
Speaker 1: consistently put the ball in the basket and keep his
Speaker 1: team afloat on the offensive end. And when you really
Speaker 1: get down to it, they are eleven games better, eleven
Speaker 1: games b better in the standings than Denver. Do you
Speaker 1: have any idea how much better Jokich would have to
Speaker 1: be than Shay in the regular season context for eleven
Speaker 1: games to be overcome. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: to me, MVP should come down to three factors. It
Speaker 1: should come down to who's been the best player on
Speaker 1: the best team in the league, So team success, value
Speaker 1: to your team, how your team performs with or without you,
Speaker 1: And then Lastly, I personally think it should factor in
Speaker 1: somewhat what your big picture reputation is in the league.
Speaker 1: Like if you're a player that we know can't play
Speaker 1: in the playoffs and is a merchant of regular season basketball,
Speaker 1: I think that should factor in. If there's another player
Speaker 1: that's pretty close, but that's a proven we know this
Speaker 1: is one of the dudes in the NBA when we
Speaker 1: get to the playoffs, I do believe that should factor in.
Speaker 1: I do think Jokic has an advantage in that case.
Speaker 1: I'd even argue Jokic is more valuable to the Nuggets
Speaker 1: than Shae is to the Thunder, although I think Shay
Speaker 1: is a lot more valuable to the Thunder than people
Speaker 1: give him credit for. They're a good team without Shay,
Speaker 1: they're a fucking awesome team with Shae. He lifts them
Speaker 1: to that level. I saw people say like, oh, if
Speaker 1: you take Jokic off the Nuggets, what does that team win?
Speaker 1: Take Shae off the Thunder? How many get they're in
Speaker 1: the play it? So it really comes down to that
Speaker 1: last piece, which is who's been the best team, And
Speaker 1: there's just such a massive advantage there. The Nuggets have
Speaker 1: very like the Nuggets have had substantial issues on defense.
Speaker 1: They've consistently struggled against good teams in the league. They
Speaker 1: have not been nearly as good as a basketball team
Speaker 1: as the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the gap in value
Speaker 1: and reputation between the two is too small in my
Speaker 1: opinion to make up that gap, And it gets a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper when you start to factor in the
Speaker 1: reasons why Denver is struggled. Denver has been a bad
Speaker 1: defense this year, and it's not all Jokich's fault. I
Speaker 1: don't want to sit there and make it seem like
Speaker 1: that's the case. There are a lot of guys that
Speaker 1: are struggling defensively on this team. Jamal can be a
Speaker 1: problem at times, Michael Porter Junior can be a problem
Speaker 1: at times. Aaron Gordon's been banged up all year and
Speaker 1: hasn't been as good defensively. The young guys, guys like
Speaker 1: Julian Strather's been a disaster on defense at times this year.
Speaker 1: There are other guys at fault, but there is a
Speaker 1: simple concept, a simple reality about Denver's construct that limits
Speaker 1: them on the defensive end of the floor. Jokich cannot
Speaker 1: defend and drop coverage, and he cannot switch if he
Speaker 1: defends and drop coverage. He's nowhere near good enough at
Speaker 1: protecting the rim. A guy like that on his heels,
Speaker 1: guys go right around into the basket, and if you
Speaker 1: put him in space to switch, can't slide his feet
Speaker 1: well enough. He'll just give up dribble penetration. So there's
Speaker 1: like two coverages that the Nuggets can legitimately deploy, and
Speaker 1: both of them involved putting two on the ball. They
Speaker 1: can bring Yokic up to the level, and they can
Speaker 1: blitz with him. Those are really the only two things
Speaker 1: they can do, and so they exist in rotation. They
Speaker 1: exist in these four on threes off the ball, and
Speaker 1: they're just not very good on the backside rotating out
Speaker 1: of it. That is a reality of why Denver struggles
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the floor. Jokic is a
Speaker 1: big part of it. That's why Phoenix continues to have
Speaker 1: success against this team scoring the basketball, even though obviously
Speaker 1: they've lost their last few against them. But Phoenix can score.
Speaker 1: When the Lakers went in there and won, it was
Speaker 1: just two on the ball, four on threes, easy, wide
Speaker 1: open threes every single time down the floor. Their defense
Speaker 1: struggles because their base concept demands excellent rotations on the
Speaker 1: backside due to Yokic, and they haven't been very good
Speaker 1: on the backside. I think that that is just too
Speaker 1: big of a factor in a gas that is eleven
Speaker 1: games wide in the standings for me to just be like, well,
Speaker 1: Jokicic is the best player in the world, so therefore
Speaker 1: he deserves MVP. It's never been that way. The best
Speaker 1: player in the world deserve MVP. Lebron would have ten
Speaker 1: of them, mj would have ten of them. It'd be
Speaker 1: a completely different story. Kobe'd have five or six of them.
Speaker 1: That's just not how it works. It's never been how
Speaker 1: it works. Shay's having a nearly as good season as
Speaker 1: Jokic for a much better team, and he may not
Speaker 1: be as valuable to them as Jokic is, but he's
Speaker 1: valuable enough that I think he deserves to be the
Speaker 1: favorite to win MVP. At this point, there's what twenty
Speaker 1: something games left. Maybe Shae falls apart and Jokic is
Speaker 1: amazing and Yokic snatches it, But if the season ends today,
Speaker 1: I think Shaye deserves it, and I hope that he.
Speaker 1: I hope that if the circumstances stay the same that
Speaker 1: he ends up getting it, because that's the way we've
Speaker 1: done it throughout throughout NBA history. All right, guys, that
Speaker 1: is all I have for tonight. As always a sincerely
Speaker 1: appreciate you for support me and supporting the show. Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I'm going with Colin in the evening, so keep an
Speaker 1: eye on his feed for that, and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back to it finally back to our normal routine on Monday,
Speaker 1: where we can start bouncing around the rest of the league.
Speaker 1: There's always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me
Speaker 1: and supporting the show, and I will see you tomorrow
Speaker 1: the volume What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually
Speaker 1: be really helpful for us if you guys would take
Speaker 1: a second and leave a rating and a review. As always,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could
Speaker 1: take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.