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Speaker 1: co slash b ball. All right, oldrid hoops. Today you're
Speaker 1: at the volume heavy Monday, everybody. Oh lol. If you
Speaker 1: guys had a great weekend, got a jam pack show
Speaker 1: for you today we're getting off the top with the
Speaker 1: Lakers getting a signature win for the first time since
Speaker 1: Lebron came back from injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1: Kind of a proof of concept of some of the
Speaker 1: things I've talked about in that matchup, albeit influenced by
Speaker 1: an absurd shooting performance by the Lakers, that should temper
Speaker 1: some of the some of the optimism coming out of
Speaker 1: that matchup. After that, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets and their showdown
Speaker 1: last night. The Rockets put Steph in jail, hold them
Speaker 1: to three points, showcase some of their upside in terms
Speaker 1: of their perimeter size. I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: difference between the Rockets defense and the OKC defense and
Speaker 1: some of the ways that that caused problems for the Warriors.
Speaker 1: And then at the tail end of the show, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about the Indiana Pacers Nuggets
Speaker 1: game from last night. As the Pacers shredded Denver's defense,
Speaker 1: showed I have a couple of troubling statistics coming out
Speaker 1: of Denver's defense. We're going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the Pacers offense and how they took advantage of
Speaker 1: those weaknesses. And then at the very end over the weekend,
Speaker 1: I missed it because I was busy, but there was
Speaker 1: a healthy out of reopening of the Steph versus Lebron debate,
Speaker 1: which everyone is entitled to their opinion. I personally disagreed
Speaker 1: with a lot of what I heard. I'll give you
Speaker 1: guys my take at the tail end of the show.
Speaker 1: You guys are the Joe before we started to subscribe
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Speaker 1: more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore JSNLTS,
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Speaker 1: It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
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Speaker 1: social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, where Jackson's doing
Speaker 1: incredible work this year. Make sure you guys follow us
Speaker 1: there for extra content. The last but not at least, keep
Speaker 1: dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we
Speaker 1: can hit them in our weekly mail bags throughout the
Speaker 1: remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1: So the Lakers blew out the thunder last night because
Speaker 1: they shot extremely well. That was the reasoning for the blowout.
Speaker 1: They shot fifty one jump shots. I got seventy eight
Speaker 1: points out of them. That's that's insane. It's one point
Speaker 1: five to three points per shot, So that was the
Speaker 1: reason for the dramatic differential between the two teams. But
Speaker 1: as I allays say is I literally always say on
Speaker 1: the show, shooting variants or luck or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it plays a role in shot result, but
Speaker 1: I always think comfort plays a larger role. The Lakers
Speaker 1: stars and by association, their role players were comfortable in
Speaker 1: that game, more comfortable than their Thunder counterparts. That allowed
Speaker 1: them to get into an offensive rhythm that the Thunder
Speaker 1: were not able to get into. You talk a lot
Speaker 1: about the Lakers shooting. That's the number three offense in
Speaker 1: the league that the Lakers held in ninety nine points
Speaker 1: last night. And yeah, the Lakers have been somewhat inconsistent
Speaker 1: defensively since Lebron's injury, but as we saw it before
Speaker 1: Lebron's injury, they are capable of getting to that type
Speaker 1: of level on the defensive end of the floor. Arguably,
Speaker 1: the most exciting thing about what happened last night was
Speaker 1: the Laker defense getting back to four. But the only
Speaker 1: way to flip shot result, like if you want shot
Speaker 1: result to go from seventy eight points on fifty one
Speaker 1: jump shots, to fifty two points on fifty one jump shots.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get that just by rolling the dice. Again.
Speaker 1: If you roll that same set of dice and you
Speaker 1: allow the Lakers to get as comfortable as they did,
Speaker 1: they may not get one point five to three points
Speaker 1: per shot. They'll probably be one point two one point
Speaker 1: three points per shot. If you let them get that comfortable.
Speaker 1: You have to find a way to flip the comfort
Speaker 1: dynamic in order to get that luck to play in
Speaker 1: your favor, which is why I always talk about that
Speaker 1: as a subsidiary factor and not the main factor in
Speaker 1: shot result when we're talking about basketball games. Why were
Speaker 1: Lebron and Lucas so comfortable They had forty nine points
Speaker 1: on thirty six shots, thirteen assists to just four turnovers.
Speaker 1: This is the Lakers advantage in this matchup perimeter size.
Speaker 1: This perimeter size dynamic is the main reason why I've
Speaker 1: been viewing the Thunder matchup in particular as a matchup
Speaker 1: that the Lakers are capable of winning. The Thunder are
Speaker 1: much better at center, but the Thunder centers aren't necessarily physical.
Speaker 1: They're not going to pass you around like a Yokich
Speaker 1: or a Shangoon or a zubats right, so they aren't
Speaker 1: able to bully the smaller groups. Then when you get
Speaker 1: out of the center position, the Lakers are just much
Speaker 1: much bigger and stronger on the perimeter, and so Luca
Speaker 1: and Lebron are able to use their size and strength
Speaker 1: to do two things. Get to spots on the floor
Speaker 1: because they can dislodge bases and fight for position because
Speaker 1: of their size and strength, and they can protect the ball.
Speaker 1: They can keep the ball away from those guys. Only
Speaker 1: two turnovers for Lebron, only two turnovers for Luca in
Speaker 1: this game, because they're going against dudes that are somewhere
Speaker 1: between six three and six six, and every single one
Speaker 1: of them is given forty to fifty pounds up at
Speaker 1: a minimum to Lebron and Luca in these situations when
Speaker 1: they're attacking. It wasn't even just the smalls. Luca was
Speaker 1: having his way with Isaiah Hartenstein at the start of
Speaker 1: this game. As far as the offensive side of the
Speaker 1: ball goes. The most exciting part of what we got
Speaker 1: out of that game, if you're a Lakers fan, is
Speaker 1: that they had success against a switching defense, an elite
Speaker 1: switching defense, historically a statistically prominent defense that switched every screen,
Speaker 1: and Luca was able to punish Isaiah Hartenstein and switches
Speaker 1: start to force the double teams that led to those
Speaker 1: kickout opportunities for the quality catch and shoot looks. Lebron
Speaker 1: and Luca attacking Smalls all right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the floor where it's hard to double team. The short
Speaker 1: range shot making is such an important piece of Lebron
Speaker 1: and Luca punishing Smalls. The Lakers made nine short to
Speaker 1: mid range shots in this game, either floaters or short
Speaker 1: jump shots or mid range jump shots. That is how
Speaker 1: you punish those matchups to the point where they start
Speaker 1: sending extra attention. They ran thirty seven thirty seven ISOs
Speaker 1: and post ups in this game and were well over
Speaker 1: a point per possession. That is the verse version of
Speaker 1: the team that can be successful against switching. Lebron and
Speaker 1: Luca both have to in Austin as well, to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, have to punish teams in single coverage enough
Speaker 1: to draw the help that leads to the rotation opportunities
Speaker 1: that lead to the rhythm and flow of their offense
Speaker 1: that gets them those catch and shoot threes that they
Speaker 1: get much more easily against a drop coverage or against
Speaker 1: an at the level coverage, but it requires a more
Speaker 1: diligent punishing of matchups against switching. They did that last night.
Speaker 1: That's what it can look like. That's what I've been
Speaker 1: talking about NonStop since this trade. They can be good
Speaker 1: at beating switching defense. It starts with Lebron and Luca.
Speaker 1: Like we're gonna talk about a little bit more in
Speaker 1: a minute, but like Luca has struggled so much against
Speaker 1: the top teams that they played against Boston, against Golden State,
Speaker 1: this was exactly what they needed from Luca in those games,
Speaker 1: punishing one on one attack that leads to the advantage
Speaker 1: situations that can come their way. The defense was equally impressive.
Speaker 1: They held the number three offense in the NBA to
Speaker 1: just ninety nine points. When the Laker defense was a
Speaker 1: was dominant before Lebron's injury. They had this swarming feel.
Speaker 1: Every drive seemed to run into a pre They would
Speaker 1: funnel drive towards the sideline. There's a pre planned helper
Speaker 1: that's waiting outside of the block in kind of like
Speaker 1: a catch help situation. The guy on the ball will
Speaker 1: immediately start rotating. Everyone's flying around and the openings that
Speaker 1: look like openings turn into pretty well contested threes. The
Speaker 1: Lakers allowed just ten unguarded catch and shoot jump shots
Speaker 1: yesterday against a team that should, in theory, be able
Speaker 1: to cut them to pieces with drive and kick. They
Speaker 1: kept them out of open threes. Okay See shot well
Speaker 1: on them, shot five for ten on their unguarded catch
Speaker 1: and shoot threes. But for all of that doubling and
Speaker 1: all of that swarming, they weren't getting a ton of
Speaker 1: open looks. Shay was great, got his twenty six points,
Speaker 1: but every other Thunder player was held in check and
Speaker 1: the Lakers were able to hold on to their dominant lead.
Speaker 1: And again, like even in that second half, as a
Speaker 1: Laker started to miss more shots and okay See started
Speaker 1: to turn up the defense, it was like every time
Speaker 1: okay Se'd make a couple plays in a row, it'd
Speaker 1: be like, here's another high post up for Lebron against
Speaker 1: Cason Wallace or Luca against Alex Crusoe, right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the floor, and just they're getting to an
Speaker 1: easy shot. If they can keep that dynamic, which is
Speaker 1: containing the ball, defending Oklahoma City well, keeping them out
Speaker 1: of transition, they can turn this into a matchup hunting contest,
Speaker 1: and if they turn it into a matchup hunting contest,
Speaker 1: I like Lebron and Luca picking on their smaller defenders
Speaker 1: more than I like Shay and Jay Dubb taking contested
Speaker 1: mid range jump shots over taller players, because again, this
Speaker 1: is a team with a lot of length on the perimeter,
Speaker 1: and so like there's a version of this that can
Speaker 1: tilt the other way, right, Lebron and Luca two turnovers each.
Speaker 1: There's a version of this game where you can imagine
Speaker 1: Lebron and Luke are a little more sloppy. They have
Speaker 1: a few early turnovers that lead to runouts. Okay, see
Speaker 1: gets a little bit of lead, gets a little bit
Speaker 1: of momentum. The pressure continues on the defensive end. The
Speaker 1: Lakers miss a few catch and shoot shots. Now they're
Speaker 1: down eighteen to nine. Are they still gonna slide their feet?
Speaker 1: Are they still gonna fly around in rotation? There's an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of mental discipline that it takes for this
Speaker 1: Laker team to be good defensively and to take care
Speaker 1: of the ball in this matchup. I don't think the
Speaker 1: Lakers are gonna sweep the Thunder. I think the Thunder
Speaker 1: should be favored if they were to face in a series.
Speaker 1: I am just saying the Lakers can beat them. If
Speaker 1: they can. This is what it would look like in
Speaker 1: the world where the Thunder control the series. Are in
Speaker 1: the moments where the Thunder control the series, it will
Speaker 1: be defense to transition, defense to transition, building momentum, lacking
Speaker 1: discipline from the Lakers, then in the half court them
Speaker 1: starting to cut them to pieces with driving kick as
Speaker 1: their defense starts to let go of the rope. Those
Speaker 1: are the versions of this matchup that will tilt Okac's direction.
Speaker 1: The versions that tilt LA's direction. Taking care of the ball,
Speaker 1: ruthless matchup, hunting, elite shot making, great transition defense, and
Speaker 1: great half court defense. That's the version of it that
Speaker 1: will go the Lakers direction. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: particularly important win for the Lakers for several week reasons.
Speaker 1: First of all, they needed it for the standings. They
Speaker 1: were in some moderate danger of dropping to the plan
Speaker 1: after the Golden State loss. That win last night makes
Speaker 1: it so that the Lakers need to go just two
Speaker 1: and two in their last four games in order to
Speaker 1: keep the three seed. If you drop both of these
Speaker 1: games to oksee then you have to beat Houston or Dallas,
Speaker 1: and those are gonna be tough games. Houston's beaten up
Speaker 1: on everybody. The Lakers are one of the few to
Speaker 1: get them as of late. And then you have that
Speaker 1: Dallas team, which is well rested. They don't play on Sunday, Monday,
Speaker 1: or Tuesday before they play on Wednesday. The Mavericks play
Speaker 1: the Lakers on Wednesday in Dallas. That's a really tough game.
Speaker 1: By winning that game last night, you took most of
Speaker 1: the pressure off. You just got to get one of
Speaker 1: the OKC games, the Thunder game, or excuse me, the
Speaker 1: Thunder game, the Rockets game, or the Dallas game now,
Speaker 1: assuming you can get the job done in Portland. So
Speaker 1: you did yourself a favor in the standing. Secondly, as
Speaker 1: a team, they had n't put together a signature win
Speaker 1: since Lebron's injury where they like that was a team
Speaker 1: before Lebron's injury that looked particularly exciting. After Lebron got
Speaker 1: hurt in that Celtics game, you start to zoom out.
Speaker 1: Didn't look good. They were just fourteen to ten after
Speaker 1: the Warriors game since the Luca trade. That's not very good.
Speaker 1: That was a statement that they are capable of getting
Speaker 1: to the championship level on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 1: The defense from before the lebron the injury, combined with
Speaker 1: the offense that we saw last night. Thirdly, Luca looked fantastic.
Speaker 1: Luca had been slumping a bit and had looked especially
Speaker 1: bad in their last two games against top tier contenders
Speaker 1: Boston and Golden State. He looked rough. The team looked rough.
Speaker 1: This was an important statement. Best team in the league,
Speaker 1: favored to win the title, best defense in the league, historically,
Speaker 1: great defense statistically, at least on their home floor, and
Speaker 1: Luca looked great. So again, it's not the end all
Speaker 1: be all. There are going to be tougher elements to
Speaker 1: this as Okase starts to leverage their advantages in this matchup,
Speaker 1: but it was a nice proof of concept of what
Speaker 1: they are capable of. Are that are the Lakers going
Speaker 1: to be able to maintain that discipline when they don't
Speaker 1: shoot as well. More misses equals more long rebounds. More
Speaker 1: long rebounds equals more transition opportunities. More transition opportunities means
Speaker 1: more situations where the Lakers have to be incredibly sharp
Speaker 1: with their game plan discipline, getting back It's not going
Speaker 1: to be easy, but they certainly can do this. They
Speaker 1: just have to drag the Thunder into these matchup attacking
Speaker 1: half court situations where Lebron and Luc are just better
Speaker 1: at it than their stars are. And then on the thunderfront,
Speaker 1: there's only so much they can do on defense with
Speaker 1: their size disadvantages, Like a certain amount of their approach
Speaker 1: is going to have to be hoping the Lakers missshots,
Speaker 1: meaning hoping Lebron and Luca miss their ISO jump shots,
Speaker 1: hoping that their role players miss their kickouts. On offense, though,
Speaker 1: it is an example of something I've talked about a
Speaker 1: lot this year, which is big game team comes in
Speaker 1: and punches him in the mouth, really going after them defensively.
Speaker 1: We saw this in the Rockets game too. How many
Speaker 1: of these guys do you actually trust to be consistently
Speaker 1: good on offense? The truth is is it's Shay end
Speaker 1: of list. And so that's the part that makes it
Speaker 1: really hard for me to buy into the Thunder as
Speaker 1: like a traditional dominant runaway championship contender. The way some
Speaker 1: of the metrics coming out of their look, the way
Speaker 1: the standings would look, That's why I view them as
Speaker 1: closer to the pack in the West, even if I
Speaker 1: have them at the top, because they're just prone to
Speaker 1: these like brutally bad stretches on offense. When you can
Speaker 1: keep them out of transition. It's just something to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on as a vulnerability. Okay, as of right now,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna jump the Lakers' way up just because
Speaker 1: they played really well one game against a great team.
Speaker 1: To me, OKAC still is deserving to be the favorite
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference. But they are not invulnerable, and
Speaker 1: I think we've seen that over the course of this weekend.
Speaker 1: All right, Moving on to Rockets Warriors. The Rockets are
Speaker 1: healthy again and they're back to doing what they did
Speaker 1: in January when they just started beating up on the
Speaker 1: top teams in the league over and over again. Back
Speaker 1: to back huge wins against the Thunder and the Red
Speaker 1: Hot Warriors in the Bay. All that defense Fred Van Vlietna,
Speaker 1: Men Thompson literally put Steph Curry in handcuffs night. I
Speaker 1: thought Steph looked a little tired too. It was his
Speaker 1: third game in four nights. All of his misses were
Speaker 1: short off the front of the rim, and you could
Speaker 1: literally see like his energy transfer just wasn't quite the
Speaker 1: same as it was in the previous couple of games,
Speaker 1: finished with just three points for the second time this year.
Speaker 1: But I do want to give the Rockets credit for
Speaker 1: the job they did defensively. They did not allow him
Speaker 1: to come free and clear off of anything. Both Fred
Speaker 1: and men were physical with him on and off the ball,
Speaker 1: wearing him down. Everything was contested, everything was off balanced.
Speaker 1: A lot of his threes were an extra two or
Speaker 1: three feet further back than he usually gets them as
Speaker 1: a result of that pressure. This is where I want
Speaker 1: to talk about Houston's superpower on the perimeter, which is
Speaker 1: their athletic signs. This is the thing that makes them
Speaker 1: fundamentally different than a team like Oka See. We think
Speaker 1: of them both as these young athletic teams, super fast,
Speaker 1: young athletic teams that play super hard, and that's their
Speaker 1: advantage in the regular season, and there's no doubt that's
Speaker 1: what it is. Like, I'm not prized that after having
Speaker 1: watched these teams all year that Okay See and Houston
Speaker 1: ended up at the top. It was pretty clear after
Speaker 1: the first month of the season. It's like, Okay, these
Speaker 1: guys are super young and athletic and these other older
Speaker 1: veteran teams in the West are gonna have a hard
Speaker 1: time keeping up. They pulled away the way that they did,
Speaker 1: But Okay sees the like kind of athletic profile is
Speaker 1: very different. Okay See has rim protection in the form
Speaker 1: of chet Houston does not. I'd argue they have the opposite.
Speaker 1: Shane Gun is often the main entry point for their
Speaker 1: defense because he's the one guy they're not switching with.
Speaker 1: It's the guy that you can get that baked in
Speaker 1: dribble penetration as long as you can lay a good
Speaker 1: screen on a men Thompson or Dylan Brooks, whoever it
Speaker 1: is that's on the ball, right. But once you get
Speaker 1: past that center position, Houston's athletic wings are also much
Speaker 1: bigger and stronger than Okay sees perimeter athletes. That size
Speaker 1: on a fundamental level gives them a better job, better
Speaker 1: ability to contest jump shots. I've talked about that in
Speaker 1: the thunder Lakers matchup. To me, when it comes to
Speaker 1: pull up shooting over the top, shooting length is the advantage, right,
Speaker 1: that's where you can actually bother shooters. It also allows
Speaker 1: them to hold up better against wing bullies. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a coincidence that Luca and Lebron struggled against
Speaker 1: Houston in a way they didn't against OKC. It's that
Speaker 1: extra two inches, it's that extra thirty pounds of muscle
Speaker 1: makes a huge difference when you're battling guys for position.
Speaker 1: It's a little different posting up a Haison Wallace or
Speaker 1: in Isaiah Joe that it is posting up at Dylan Brooks.
Speaker 1: You guys get the point, right, That size and strength
Speaker 1: gives them just a different athletic profile than OKAC does.
Speaker 1: The theoretical way that you would attack Houston if you
Speaker 1: are Golden State is to use Jimmy Butler and Jonathan
Speaker 1: Kamana to attack mismatches to get them in rotation. Right,
Speaker 1: But Jimmy took seven shots as he continues to be
Speaker 1: bizarrely unaggressive. He's driving to the rim, and every single
Speaker 1: time he drives to the rim about right on his
Speaker 1: last like gather dribble, he just starts looking away from
Speaker 1: the rim. He's not even looking at the room. He's
Speaker 1: just looking for those kickout opportunities. And like there's a
Speaker 1: time and a place when the offense is in a
Speaker 1: flow where that makes sense. But then there are times
Speaker 1: where they need you to be the bigger, stronger athlete
Speaker 1: than the big strong athletes that you're going against. Jonathan
Speaker 1: Camingos four for ninety and a few really really ugly
Speaker 1: turnovers in the backcourt that continue to cause Steve Krdilou's
Speaker 1: trust in him. He got pulled after one of them
Speaker 1: for Gee Santo's. Thankfully, Buddy healed and Brandon Pajemski had
Speaker 1: big games to keep things respectable. And that's an upside
Speaker 1: if you're a Golden State fan. Is Pods continues to
Speaker 1: play super well. He's been shooting forty percent from three
Speaker 1: for like almost four months now. That's a super exciting
Speaker 1: piece of it. But other than that, it was it
Speaker 1: was a pretty brutal offensive performance for the Warriors. On
Speaker 1: the Houston front. Jabari Smith, his development has been super
Speaker 1: fascinating to me because he came out in Summer League.
Speaker 1: I remember the first year that I covered him as
Speaker 1: a guy that was not a good ball handler, and
Speaker 1: it was so fun to There were two plays in
Speaker 1: particular that I thought demonstrated just the way that he's
Speaker 1: gotten better getting to his spots as a basketball player
Speaker 1: so that he can unlock his talent which he's got
Speaker 1: great size, great shooting touch. He's got like this like
Speaker 1: aggressive shot making piece to him too. And in order
Speaker 1: to get in order to get to that shot making talent,
Speaker 1: that size talent, you gotta be able to get your
Speaker 1: body to where you need to be on the floor.
Speaker 1: Footwork and ball handling. Foot work and ball handling are
Speaker 1: these skills that allow you to get your body from
Speaker 1: point A to point B with the basketball so that
Speaker 1: you can get to a spot where you can be
Speaker 1: a score. He had a play where he drove a
Speaker 1: close out Jimmy digs down from the top of the key.
Speaker 1: As he's driving, snapped a push dribble with his left
Speaker 1: hand up the floor. A couple of feet ran up
Speaker 1: to the spot, got to it, and then popped up
Speaker 1: off the ground at that spot and made a little
Speaker 1: ten foot or just a nasty ball handling move from
Speaker 1: Jabari Smith. He had a little baseline iso where he
Speaker 1: looked like Kevin Durant, grabbed it, faced up, left foot,
Speaker 1: pivot foot, ripped to the left one drim a pull
Speaker 1: up just rose up over the top of the defender
Speaker 1: with his size advantage knocked it down. He's turned into
Speaker 1: a super effective rebounder on both ends of the four.
Speaker 1: He had five offensive rebounds in the two games twenty
Speaker 1: six total rebounds against the Thunder and Warriors. His three
Speaker 1: point percentage is up to thirty eight percent on five
Speaker 1: attempts per game over his last sixteen games. Jabari's just
Speaker 1: turned into a really useful role player. Kind of a
Speaker 1: combination of like that weak side scoring forward that we
Speaker 1: talked about, while also having some of those bigger forward,
Speaker 1: defensive and athletic capabilities that you see from like an
Speaker 1: Aaron Gordon type of player. Just a really exciting young
Speaker 1: player for Houston in their big picture goals. Dylan Brooks
Speaker 1: was incredible. He was attacking size mismatches out of the post.
Speaker 1: He went right over the top of Steph for two
Speaker 1: right shoulder fades early in the game. His three point
Speaker 1: shot is so much quicker and more fluid now. Jalen Green,
Speaker 1: one of the things that consistently stood out to me
Speaker 1: against these more athletic defense is that he is able
Speaker 1: to get to his spots because he's such a good athlete.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like what you needed from KAMINGA last
Speaker 1: night was like it's almost like Jalen Green is hectic
Speaker 1: and gonna make some bad decisions, but he's able to
Speaker 1: rise to the occasion against these super elite defenses as
Speaker 1: a shot maker in a way that some lesser athletes can't.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what you needed from Kaminga in that
Speaker 1: matchup last night. Is he needed the mistakes. He's gonna
Speaker 1: make three, four, five big mistakes, but she needed seventeen
Speaker 1: points on fourteen shots as he was looking to be
Speaker 1: aggressive throughout the game, and that piece just wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Shane Gun continued his ass kicking tour. He went right
Speaker 1: at Draymond several times. He was destroying guards and switches.
Speaker 1: He hit fifty points in the last two games. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't I still don't view Houston as a legitimate
Speaker 1: threat to win the conference because I don't think they
Speaker 1: have the offensive variety or offensive resilience to be able
Speaker 1: to win three series with the types of teams that
Speaker 1: we have coming out of this Western Conference. But they
Speaker 1: will be a pain in the ass, and I absolutely
Speaker 1: think they're capable of upsetting eighteen. Like if we saw
Speaker 1: the Rockets play in the second round, I wouldn't be stunned,
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't be completely shocked I just would be
Speaker 1: shocked if they ended up winning the conference entirely. Moving
Speaker 1: out of PACER's Nuggets. The Pacers just absolutely shredded Denver's
Speaker 1: defense in the middle portion of this game. Denver got
Speaker 1: off to a little bit of a lead early. Jokic
Speaker 1: was incredible in this game. He had a three point
Speaker 1: shot going early in the game. They were leaving him
Speaker 1: in a lot of single coverage situations against Miles Turner
Speaker 1: and he was just being super aggressive. Jokic went for
Speaker 1: forty one points. It just didn't matter because in that
Speaker 1: middle portion of the game, the Pacers hung seventy four
Speaker 1: points in the second and third quarters on the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: And it all came down to a combination of two factors.
Speaker 1: One a reality that I've been discussing a lot on
Speaker 1: this show, which is that the Nuggets defense is bad,
Speaker 1: and the reason why it's bad is a combination of
Speaker 1: two factors. They have to bring Yokic up to the
Speaker 1: level because he can't switch or protect the rim, so
Speaker 1: they have to bring him up to the level, which
Speaker 1: puts two on the ball. Now you're in these four
Speaker 1: on three situations. Jokich has not been very good with
Speaker 1: being active with his hands and disrupting when he comes
Speaker 1: up to the level. So as a result, you're just
Speaker 1: playing four on three basketball and you haven't been very
Speaker 1: good in your rotations on the back line with those
Speaker 1: three guys. That is a death sentence. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: put two on the ball without bothering the ball and
Speaker 1: you're gonna operate three on four but not be a
Speaker 1: good rotation team, you're gonna get cut to pieces. On
Speaker 1: the other side of that is a red hot Pacers
Speaker 1: team that's now one four in a row with Tyre's
Speaker 1: Halliburton and Miles Turner just running a deadly high ballscreen attack,
Speaker 1: and that just kind of that confluence of those two
Speaker 1: events just led to some hilarious basketball in Denver last night.
Speaker 1: I clipped a thread of a bunch of examples of
Speaker 1: this concept so you guys can see it. It's on
Speaker 1: my Twitter feed at underscore json lt. But the Pacers
Speaker 1: just got either a wide open layup or a wide
Speaker 1: open three basically whenever they wanted against the Denver defense.
Speaker 1: A combination of a couple of things. Basic pick and
Speaker 1: pop action with Miles Turner Yo Kicch at the ball.
Speaker 1: Miles Turner is just sitting at the top of the key.
Speaker 1: They're not rotating from the weak side. Easy pitch back,
Speaker 1: He's wide open. Several like transition excuse me, transition trailing
Speaker 1: types of shots for Miles Turner, where like you know,
Speaker 1: Halliburton would just do like a probing dribble attack right
Speaker 1: around the top of the key and the on ball
Speaker 1: defender would kind of be there, but Jokich would just
Speaker 1: sink down to like the foul line as like a
Speaker 1: kind of a token help situation. Just pitch it back
Speaker 1: to Miles Turner. He's right there at the top of
Speaker 1: the key. Shot a Miles Turner, by the way, Like
Speaker 1: it's not just shooting, it's aggressive shooting. I talk about
Speaker 1: this all the time. There's a huge difference between a
Speaker 1: guy who hits forty percent of his threes and a
Speaker 1: guy who confidently and aggressively hunts his shot. That is
Speaker 1: the one that's gonna beat manifest better for the defense, right,
Speaker 1: that a manifest with more of a reaction from the defense,
Speaker 1: I should say. But like they the nuggets weren't accounting
Speaker 1: for him, and Turner was being aggressive. He ended up
Speaker 1: hitting like a twenty seven foot or huge one on
Speaker 1: the left wing on a play because he got comfortable
Speaker 1: with all these easy shots and then he went into
Speaker 1: a tougher one off the left wing. They ended up hitting,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them though they were rolling with
Speaker 1: Turner and tagging Turner, and so when they were tagging Turner,
Speaker 1: it just created those simple week side two on ones
Speaker 1: and it was just skip pass or swing swing wide
Speaker 1: open three, skip pass or swing swing wide open, layup,
Speaker 1: just over and over and over and over again, like
Speaker 1: it didn't even matter that Denver was scoring. On the
Speaker 1: other end. Christian Brown went for thirty, slashing him to
Speaker 1: pieces on drives and transition pushes like Jokic goes for
Speaker 1: forty one. It didn't matter because the Pacers just got
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted on the other end of the floor,
Speaker 1: Obi topping. He kind of fits the mold of that
Speaker 1: week side scoring forward that I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: He had twenty two points in this one, had a
Speaker 1: couple of possessions where he was on an island with Jokic,
Speaker 1: went right at Jokic with his speed, aggressive week side shooting,
Speaker 1: running his lane in transition. This is a Pacers offense
Speaker 1: that lives off of advantage creation, advantage extending and play finishing,
Speaker 1: everybody understanding their roles on the plays were Denver rotated better,
Speaker 1: there weren't many of them, but there were a few
Speaker 1: on the plays when Denver rotated better. A lot of
Speaker 1: these like Andrew Nemhard Aaron Nie Smith close out opportunities
Speaker 1: with a defender coming out of them. And it was
Speaker 1: the same thing every time hard right hand drive, defender
Speaker 1: sliding and putting that hand up snatchback dribble. On that
Speaker 1: snatchback dribble, the defender goes flying, there's a wide open
Speaker 1: twelve footer, and both Nemhard and Nie Smith hit a
Speaker 1: bunch of those in this game. That's what ties it
Speaker 1: all together, right, Like, you need a guy who can
Speaker 1: consistently get your defense in rotation. That's Tyrese Halliburton. Then
Speaker 1: you need guys that can be play finishers, right, Miles
Speaker 1: Turner hitting pick and pop three is Miles Turner finishing
Speaker 1: on the role obi top and hitting threes off of
Speaker 1: skip passes. Things along those lines. But then you also
Speaker 1: need advantage extenders. There are times when it's not as
Speaker 1: simple as drive and kick, swing, swing wide up in
Speaker 1: layup or three. Sometimes you need a guy that can
Speaker 1: take a close out situation and turn it into points.
Speaker 1: And that's where you get your close out attackers in
Speaker 1: the form of Nie Smith and Nemhard and again Pascal
Speaker 1: Siakam didn't even play in this game, and he unlocks
Speaker 1: an entire different element of the Pacers offense in the
Speaker 1: form of that matchup attacking from the post. But they
Speaker 1: just chewed up and spit out that Nuggets defense. They
Speaker 1: generated twenty six unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which
Speaker 1: is the second most that the Pacers have generated in
Speaker 1: any game this season, which brings me to the Nuggets
Speaker 1: part of this, and it's something that we have to
Speaker 1: be realistic about. The Nuggets since January twenty third, with
Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic on the floor, have a one to twenty
Speaker 1: defensive rating. To be clear, it's not all Jokic's fault.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a combination of two factors. Jokic
Speaker 1: constantly having to be at the level of the screen,
Speaker 1: but then him also not having the energy because he
Speaker 1: has so much offensive responsibility, he doesn't have the energy
Speaker 1: to be really active up at the level. So because
Speaker 1: he's not very active up at the level, the ball
Speaker 1: handler is able to make relatively easy reads and kickout
Speaker 1: passes from there, then you're in all these four on
Speaker 1: threes and the rotations are just not being made. There's
Speaker 1: not connectivity even with the athletes, even guys like Aaron Gordon,
Speaker 1: Payton Watson, like they're not doing their job rotating on
Speaker 1: the backside. So again it's both Jokic is putting you
Speaker 1: in a compromising position on every single possession defensively, but
Speaker 1: you don't have the personnel to cover for him. So
Speaker 1: at a certain point, there's like a directional change that
Speaker 1: this organization needs to go through in terms of anchoring
Speaker 1: Jokic as he gets older. I don't think he's going
Speaker 1: to get better at defense. So at a certain point,
Speaker 1: from a team construct standpoint, if you're gonna have Jokic
Speaker 1: generate everything for you on offense and you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get anything out of him on defense, and that at
Speaker 1: the level coverage, you've got to anchor him with better
Speaker 1: defensive talent. And I think that's something that they'll have
Speaker 1: to take a long look at when we get to
Speaker 1: this offseason. But like, here's the thing, I still view
Speaker 1: the Nuggets as a championship contender. I would be insane
Speaker 1: to write off Nikola Jokic. However, this is a long,
Speaker 1: extended half the season, long stretch where they haven't just
Speaker 1: been bad defensively, they've been so bad that it's basically
Speaker 1: impossible to win in the NBA playoffs with the type
Speaker 1: of defense that they've been playing. Jokic has said before,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in a switch, meaning he doesn't think
Speaker 1: we can just flip the switch and be better in
Speaker 1: the postseason. I agree. I've talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1: It's your habits. Your habits are what carry you when
Speaker 1: you run into adversity, when the shit hits the fan
Speaker 1: and you're not hitting shots and the other team has
Speaker 1: all this momentum. The only thing you can rely on
Speaker 1: is the instinctual way you play hard. What habitually? Have
Speaker 1: you been making these rotations all year? Have you been
Speaker 1: communicating through actions all year? Have you been cracked down
Speaker 1: rebounding and boxing out all year? If you've been doing
Speaker 1: those things, they will still work for you when you
Speaker 1: run into adversity and carry you through rough stretches so
Speaker 1: that your offense can carry you back to the forefront.
Speaker 1: The Snuggets team's going to score a lot of points.
Speaker 1: They can score, but they will have stretches where they
Speaker 1: cool lot, and teams will pull away from them if
Speaker 1: they don't have a higher level than this that they
Speaker 1: can reach defensively. Now, again, I won't write them off
Speaker 1: because I have seen this group play better defense than
Speaker 1: they've played. Hell, they played better defense in the early
Speaker 1: part of the year. But the problem is is they
Speaker 1: are practicing playing bad defense now. They are deliberately prepping
Speaker 1: for the postseason by playing a brand of basketball that
Speaker 1: will not work in the postseason on the defensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. So they're playing with fire. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Does I mean they can't win? Of course not.
Speaker 1: They could go on a run, they could play better defense,
Speaker 1: Jokic could go crazy, they could hoist the trophy. But
Speaker 1: basketball history tells us it's more likely than not that
Speaker 1: this season ends in disappointment because they're practicing playing bad
Speaker 1: defense at this point and not really making any sort
Speaker 1: of serious attempt to improve on that end of the floor.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get out of here today, I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about the Steph Lebron debate.
Speaker 1: So Steph fans reinstigated this discussion over the weekend, basically
Speaker 1: trying to paint the picture that Steph is the defining
Speaker 1: player of this era, the greatest player of this era,
Speaker 1: and then had a better career than Lebron James. Steph
Speaker 1: fans have felt this way since twenty fifteen. This is
Speaker 1: not exactly a new idea. Many of you might remember
Speaker 1: the Steph better, the hashtag that used to go around
Speaker 1: all the time. And to be clear, I don't blame
Speaker 1: more of yours fans for feeling this way. He's their hero,
Speaker 1: he brought them four titles. It'd be weird if they
Speaker 1: weren't lessly advocating for him in the all time context.
Speaker 1: I also find debates along these lines to be somewhat
Speaker 1: boring because no one's changing their mind. There's no Warriors
Speaker 1: fan that is going to budge based on this take
Speaker 1: that I'm about to unleash. You guys have your way
Speaker 1: that you feel I respect, that, I have my way
Speaker 1: that I feel I respect that, or I would ask
Speaker 1: for the same in return. Right. But I have literally
Speaker 1: never heard a basketball person who isn't a Warriors fan
Speaker 1: or an outspoken anti Lebron guy make the case that
Speaker 1: Steph was better than Lebron. Because it's absurd. Let's set
Speaker 1: aside the obvious stuff like that Lebron had a Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame career before Steph even entered his prime, and
Speaker 1: that Lebron is still every bit as good as him,
Speaker 1: or that Lebron has four times as many Finals MVPs
Speaker 1: or twice as many MVPs, or that Lebron is one
Speaker 1: of only two players in NBA history with four MVPs
Speaker 1: and four Finals MVPs. Let's set that stuff aside. Just
Speaker 1: the narrative that Warriors fans are trying to build as absurd.
Speaker 1: Steph won his first title against Lebron in a series
Speaker 1: where both of his co stars were injured. Lebron literally
Speaker 1: received more Finals MVP consideration than Steph after that series.
Speaker 1: I disagreed with that line of thinking because I don't
Speaker 1: believe in rewarding the loser. I think Steph should have
Speaker 1: won at Finals MVP, but Lebron literally got more consideration
Speaker 1: for Finals MVP than Steph that season. Then Lebron beat
Speaker 1: him in spectacular fashion in twenty sixteen back to back
Speaker 1: or two forty point games in Game five and Game
Speaker 1: six to extend the series. In that twenty sixteen series,
Speaker 1: Lebron badly outplayed Steph on both ends. Of the floor.
Speaker 1: Then Kevin Durant joined the team, and the Warriors were
Speaker 1: so insanely talented that they had a negative odds on
Speaker 1: sportsbooks before the season to win the title. You were
Speaker 1: going you bet a dollar on the Warriors to win
Speaker 1: the title in October those years in seventeen and eighteen,
Speaker 1: you'd have made less than at all at the end
Speaker 1: of the season. Because it wasn't just Katie and Steph.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the second and third best players in
Speaker 1: the league joining forces. It was Klay Thompson, the second
Speaker 1: best shooter of all time, one of the best perimeter
Speaker 1: defenders in basketball, with great size and strength at his
Speaker 1: positioned an awesome role player in this league. Draymond Green
Speaker 1: arguably the greatest defender of this era. Andra g Woodallas
Speaker 1: such a versatile forward that he got the Finals MVP
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, and during that era was a do
Speaker 1: everything player for them. I'm a big fan of Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving and Kevin Love and j R. Smith, but it
Speaker 1: was a different level of talent that was on those
Speaker 1: two rosters. The way that whole four year saga is
Speaker 1: now being retroactively rebuild as a one on one rivalry
Speaker 1: between Lebron and Steph is fucking outrageous. When Lebron was
Speaker 1: at his best, he was the best parts of Steph
Speaker 1: and Draymond put together. He was one of the most
Speaker 1: prolific offensive engines in the history of the sport and
Speaker 1: one of the best defensive players to ever play the game.
Speaker 1: What happened in the twenty sixteen Finals is kind of
Speaker 1: the perfect encapsulation of the difference between the two of them.
Speaker 1: Lebron in that fourth quarter surgically took the Warriors apart
Speaker 1: in a way Steph was not able to on the
Speaker 1: other end of the floor, and yet still at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, Lebron saved it by leveraging his
Speaker 1: athleticism to make a superhuman play when Kyrie on the
Speaker 1: other end, attacked step because he was the lesser athlete
Speaker 1: on the court and a player he could get easy
Speaker 1: separation from. That's the difference between the two two all
Speaker 1: time great offensive engines. I'd even argue Steph was a
Speaker 1: little bit better as an offensive engine than Lebron, but
Speaker 1: Lebron brought that Draymon level of playoff defensive impact while
Speaker 1: also being a five time First Team All NBA First
Speaker 1: Team All defensive player. Lebron was one of the great
Speaker 1: defenders to ever play this game. Think back to the
Speaker 1: Spurs series and the low man possessions on Tim Duncan
Speaker 1: and Tiago Splitter at the rim. Think about him in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen in on the famous brick that Steph shot
Speaker 1: over over Kevin Love at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: Lebron was lurking in the paint. He blocked nine shots
Speaker 1: over game five, six, and seven of that series. Think
Speaker 1: about the level Lebron was able to get to defensively
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty as he helped anchor one of the
Speaker 1: great defenses in NBA history as he won his fourth
Speaker 1: championship the year after Kevin Durant left the Warriors. There
Speaker 1: was a level Lebron could get to in terms of
Speaker 1: his athletic imposition that Steph could never get to, and
Speaker 1: that to me is why they are on different tiers.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge Steph fan. He's you gotta take my
Speaker 1: word for this. I get it. He's legitimately my second
Speaker 1: favorite player, and I actually like him more as like
Speaker 1: a dude than Lebron. Half the time Lebron opens his mouth,
Speaker 1: it drives me crazy, super corny there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things I don't like about the guy. To me,
Speaker 1: Steph is a more steady leader and a much more
Speaker 1: likable just guy. I'm a big Steph fan, but when
Speaker 1: it comes down to basketball, he's just not on the
Speaker 1: same tier as Lebron. All time, it's Lebron and MJ
Speaker 1: at the top, then there's a gap, and then it's Kobe,
Speaker 1: it's Magic, it's Steph, and it's Bird in that next tier.
Speaker 1: For me, I don't think Steph is even capable of
Speaker 1: entering into the next tier. He's never even had an
Speaker 1: undisputed hold on the best player in the World title
Speaker 1: the way that Lebron did back in twenty thirteen or
Speaker 1: that Jokic does. Now, we can celebrate Steph without rewriting
Speaker 1: history and journeying to fantasyland that guys like. It was
Speaker 1: an awesome rivalry between the Cavs and Warriors, and it
Speaker 1: was fun in a stretch of the of the NBA
Speaker 1: history where we got to see these teams face over
Speaker 1: and over again. But if you're painting that as like
Speaker 1: Steph versus Lebron playing one on one, that's dishonest and
Speaker 1: it's just it's not reality. So like I I like
Speaker 1: like that athletic imposition element we're talking about. You want
Speaker 1: to know why Lebron's never had single digit points and
Speaker 1: you know, if God knows how many games or that,
Speaker 1: Lebron hasn't had three points in a game since December
Speaker 1: of two thousand and four, because there's a certain floor
Speaker 1: that comes from being six' nine two hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: pounds and big and strong and being able to leverage
Speaker 1: yourself in ways that don't strictly tie to shot. Making,
Speaker 1: Now steph has a gravity. Element in The rockets game last,
Speaker 1: night for, instance he only had three. POINTS a lot
Speaker 1: of plays on film Where i'm Watching steph run off
Speaker 1: of an, action someone slip out of it and get.
Speaker 1: Open steph has value that goes beyond. It but there's
Speaker 1: more variance in his singular output on the game because
Speaker 1: he's a jump. Shooter sometimes the shots don't go. In
Speaker 1: sometimes he goes one for eight from three instead of you,
Speaker 1: know twelve for, Twenty and that's the up and down
Speaker 1: that can come from that type of. Experience it's again
Speaker 1: like to, Me steph is one of the greats IN nba.
Speaker 1: HISTORY i have him at, FIVE i have him the
Speaker 1: top five player IN nba, history BUT i just don't
Speaker 1: think he was on the same level As lebron AND
Speaker 1: i thought it was just kind of hilarious the way
Speaker 1: that that was attempted to be made as a case
Speaker 1: over the course of the. Weekend all, right, guys that's
Speaker 1: ALL i have for today is always a sincerely appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys for supporting me and supporting the. Show No
Speaker 1: oops tonight. Tonight we're going back, tomorrow BUT i am
Speaker 1: doing some stuff With kevin O'Connor tonight surrounding The National title.
Speaker 1: Game it's a little Bit Colle shoop, stuff SOME nba draft.
Speaker 1: Stuff we're also going to talk SOME nba in that,
Speaker 1: Show so make sure you guys check Out kevin's pod
Speaker 1: OTHERWISE i will see you guys. Tomorrow what, so, Guys as,
Speaker 1: ALWAYS i appreciate you for listening to and SUPPORTING oops.
Speaker 1: Tonight they would actually be really helpful for us if
Speaker 1: you guys would take a second and leave a rating
Speaker 1: and a. Review as, ALWAYS i appreciate you guys supporting,
Speaker 1: us but if you could take a minute to do,
Speaker 1: That i'd really appreciate. It the volume