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Speaker 1: and conditions apply on that note talks in basketball. So
Speaker 1: goodwin for Phoenix UM. Their offense was humming, and even
Speaker 1: though their defense wasn't great in the first half, they
Speaker 1: had one strong defensive quarter there in the third quarter,
Speaker 1: holding the Warriors to twenty, and then it was pretty
Speaker 1: much over. At that point, CP three finally got going
Speaker 1: as a score, something I know the Suns have been
Speaker 1: waiting to happen, literally ever since Game two of the
Speaker 1: uh second round series last year against the Mavericks. He
Speaker 1: hit a monumentally important shot I thought at the end
Speaker 1: of the first half, that three pointer just before the buzzer,
Speaker 1: that really changed the tone and tenor of the game.
Speaker 1: I think that ended up putting them up six. Went
Speaker 1: from feeling kind of like a back and forth game
Speaker 1: at that point, to a game that the Suns had
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of control over. So it
Speaker 1: was good to see CP three have a nice game again. Um,
Speaker 1: Jock land Deal, that was an interesting performance from him.
Speaker 1: He's really good operating out of the short role, scoring
Speaker 1: against switches in the post, which is obviously a vitally
Speaker 1: important part of the Phoenix offense, and had demonstrated kind
Speaker 1: of a pretty nasty little short hook shot there in
Speaker 1: the lane that he seemed to make every single one of.
Speaker 1: But I gotta come back to Devin Booker. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been talking about him a lot to start this season.
Speaker 1: He's a huge part of why Phoenix has been so
Speaker 1: impressive to start this season. To be clear, Devin Booker
Speaker 1: has been one of the six or seven best players
Speaker 1: that I've seen in the league to start this year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: his shot making is off the charts. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: he's over from the field and from three at this point. Um.
Speaker 1: His passing in particular has been above and beyond even
Speaker 1: what I've ever expected from Devin Booker. Even in their
Speaker 1: loss the other night to Portland, I thought he made
Speaker 1: some really impressive passes down the stretch. I think he
Speaker 1: notched another six assist tonight. He's that that's a huge
Speaker 1: element to his game. That was that, you know, he
Speaker 1: had some stretches where we put up big assist numbers
Speaker 1: on bad Sons teams. But getting him to kind of
Speaker 1: demonstrate that and to figure out the defensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor where the two things that were vitally important
Speaker 1: to him taking that next step from being more more
Speaker 1: like a you know, a franchise cornerstone than just like
Speaker 1: another another taller Bradley Beal, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And his defense has been incredible to start this season again,
Speaker 1: although that's something he's been doing well with for the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. But here's the reality. If you're
Speaker 1: a dominant three level score who passes the ball well
Speaker 1: and defends really well, you're a superstar. Now. It remains
Speaker 1: to be seen how consistent he'll be as the season
Speaker 1: goes along, but that's definitely an exciting development for the
Speaker 1: Suns fans. I had a conversation I had an NBA player,
Speaker 1: a multi time All Star that reached out to me
Speaker 1: last year who asked me about my all NBA teams
Speaker 1: and uh, this player was very adamant that Devin Booker
Speaker 1: should have been first team All m b A. I
Speaker 1: disagree obviously. I think I had him second team for me.
Speaker 1: UM might have even been their team, I can't remember
Speaker 1: off the top of my head. But there's clearly been
Speaker 1: this movement from players in the league like, hey, Devin
Speaker 1: Booker is awesome, and all of us are like, he's great,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's there's clearly levels to this and
Speaker 1: he's not quite at that top level. Well, we gotta
Speaker 1: call out what we're seeing here. To start this year,
Speaker 1: he's been one of the best players in the league,
Speaker 1: and if he continues to play this well, it changes
Speaker 1: the way that we have to kind of project with
Speaker 1: Phoenix UM. A lot of players that this phase in
Speaker 1: their career after they have enough experience, you know, because
Speaker 1: Devin Booker didn't have the luxury of playing in an organized, smart,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, well intentioned basketball environment for
Speaker 1: the first several years of his career. He's been in
Speaker 1: this kind of winning environment. Now, what is this three
Speaker 1: years ever since the Chris Paul trade. So he's starting
Speaker 1: to pick up all of those winning habits and winning
Speaker 1: details that he didn't really have much of an opportunity
Speaker 1: to work on early in his career because he was
Speaker 1: just never playing in truly high stakes environment. So it's
Speaker 1: cool to see him take these leaps. Again, we're only
Speaker 1: what four games into this, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: basketball left to be played. I'm a big believer, as
Speaker 1: you guys know, and you earned those spots through consistent
Speaker 1: production game in game out that translates to the highest
Speaker 1: levels of the playoffs. To be clear, Devin Booker struggled
Speaker 1: mightily at the end of that Dallas Maverick series. That's
Speaker 1: part of being a star player. You continue that production
Speaker 1: at the highest levels of the game. But that said,
Speaker 1: I mean, we were sitting here over the summer pretty
Speaker 1: depressed about where things were going with the sons, and
Speaker 1: Devin Booker has been awesome, So you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: call out which you can what you can see there. Um.
Speaker 1: This game was so back and forth and so entertaining,
Speaker 1: you know as the even as uh um the announcers
Speaker 1: were saying through two and a half quarters, But it
Speaker 1: really turned on that Clay ejection. I'm not gonna talk
Speaker 1: too much about it right now. We're gonna save that
Speaker 1: for later on. But Clay Thompson was defending Devin Booker
Speaker 1: really well in that third quarter, which was part of
Speaker 1: what was leading to that trash talk. And then you
Speaker 1: sub Clay out for Jordan Pool, is a much lesser
Speaker 1: defensive player, and then Poenix comes out playing with emotion
Speaker 1: to end that quarter and to start the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: and they just beat the brakes off of them, which
Speaker 1: is not the not not the craziest thing to see
Speaker 1: in the NBA. We all know that ejections, particularly for
Speaker 1: the home crowd, tend to fire them up and lead
Speaker 1: to um, lead to high effort, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times when you're planning against a really talented team, that
Speaker 1: can lead to a loss. We're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the ejection and a little bit because
Speaker 1: I do think there was a lesson to learn. They're
Speaker 1: not something that I would necessarily chastise Clay for because
Speaker 1: that's his first ejection of his career, but it's something
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, just kind of as a lesson.
Speaker 1: I had a feeling this would be a tough game
Speaker 1: for Golden State coming in. Their defense has not been
Speaker 1: great to start the year, specifically defending pick and roll
Speaker 1: and specifically defending the paint. They really struggled again defending
Speaker 1: the pick and roll against Sacramento the other night. They
Speaker 1: could not stop Deer and Fox and lak Monk from
Speaker 1: getting downhill they allowed. So I just, I just kind
Speaker 1: of you know, defense is about details, Defenses about habits,
Speaker 1: Defenses about being sharp and if you're not, if you're
Speaker 1: not completely you know, those things don't happen overnight. You
Speaker 1: have to build those habits, You have to build those
Speaker 1: connective tissues that make you a great defense, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it can take a couple of weeks for you to
Speaker 1: figure that out. There are a lot of teams around
Speaker 1: the league, teams that we expected to be good defensively
Speaker 1: that are struggling so far, and the Warriors are one
Speaker 1: of them. They gave up another sixty two paints excuse me,
Speaker 1: paint points tonight. Um Phoenix's pick and roll offense. Like
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, Golden State has been struggling
Speaker 1: specifically with pick and roll defense to start the season,
Speaker 1: and Phoenix is the highest volume pick and roll team
Speaker 1: in the league. They're gonna come at you every possession
Speaker 1: down the floor with some variation of pick and roll,
Speaker 1: and they do it a bunch of different ways. Now,
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr clearly in this game did not want to
Speaker 1: offer help. So when they ran two on two pick
Speaker 1: and roll, so like a standard like book or eight
Speaker 1: and pick and roll or CP three eight and pick
Speaker 1: and roll, they just defended it too on two and
Speaker 1: stayed home on shooters on the back end. And then
Speaker 1: when they ran their Spain pick and roll when they
Speaker 1: involve Booker and Paul with Aighton and they have Booker
Speaker 1: real locate to the top of the key as he's
Speaker 1: rolling down, they were just defending that with three players.
Speaker 1: And so what ended up happening is because Chris Paul
Speaker 1: had a great offensive night and Devin Booker has been
Speaker 1: awesome to start the season, and Eton is who waitan
Speaker 1: is those three guys went off and obviously they managed
Speaker 1: to hold the role players in check. But it was
Speaker 1: a big part of why. It's just it's just it's
Speaker 1: already extremely difficult to defend the Phoenix pick and roll
Speaker 1: with two guys or with three guys when you're not
Speaker 1: sending help, and you know, it's just one of those
Speaker 1: things where I think, like I think that if it
Speaker 1: was a playoff series or something along those lines, you
Speaker 1: would have probably seen an adjustment and seen more help
Speaker 1: sent that way. But it's the regular season, and honestly, guys,
Speaker 1: I really think Steve Kerr is leaning heavily into um
Speaker 1: trying to to buide reps and opportunity for guys like
Speaker 1: Moses Moody to get better defensively and guys like James
Speaker 1: Wiseman to get better defensively. You know, Feenix Golden State
Speaker 1: lost some defensive personnel this time. That's just that's just
Speaker 1: a fact. Them a big driving force, So there's success defensively.
Speaker 1: Last year was Gary Payton the second. That's all you
Speaker 1: guys have to do is go online and look up
Speaker 1: the on off numbers in the playoff run when Gary
Speaker 1: Payton was on the floor versus when Gary Payton was
Speaker 1: off the floor. Perimeter defense, as I've always said, is
Speaker 1: one of the most important skills in the league, and
Speaker 1: in the starting lineup the Warriors have outstanding perimeter defensive players.
Speaker 1: Steps a great defensive player. Clay is a fantastic defensive player.
Speaker 1: His defense in the NBA Finals helped turn that series around.
Speaker 1: Andrew Wiggins is in the conversation for best perimeter defensive
Speaker 1: player in the league, and then Looney and Draymond are
Speaker 1: both awesome, But once you get past that first five,
Speaker 1: you immediately take a huge step back in perimeter defense.
Speaker 1: And I think I think that Steve Kerr is leaning
Speaker 1: heavily on this season. This regular season as basically an
Speaker 1: opportunity for guys like Moses Moody. Jonathan Comingo, who didn't
Speaker 1: play in the first half of this game. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if he was in the doghouse or if that
Speaker 1: was just intended to get James Wiseman more minutes, but
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be giving these guys a
Speaker 1: lot of minutes over the course of the regular seas
Speaker 1: and deliberately throwing them tough matchups so that they can
Speaker 1: hopefully be ready by the time you get to the postseason. Specifically,
Speaker 1: Moses Moody again spent most of the night guarding Chris
Speaker 1: Paul or Devin Booker, and in every single game that
Speaker 1: I've seen him play, he's been specifically guarding the other
Speaker 1: team's quicker, quickest, perimeter defensive players, and I think that's
Speaker 1: on purpose. He's an upright top heavy six eight wing
Speaker 1: who needs to work on his foot speed, anticipation, and
Speaker 1: understanding the proper balance between how much position he can
Speaker 1: give and contest with length versus where he's too far
Speaker 1: back and guys can get to their pull up jump
Speaker 1: shot too easy. That might take eighty two games for
Speaker 1: him to really figure out dependably enough that they can
Speaker 1: plug him into that Gary Payton the second roll, or
Speaker 1: they can plug him in to that out of porter
Speaker 1: junior role, and it remains to be seen. But the
Speaker 1: reality is is right now they're not sharp enough in
Speaker 1: those details to go on the road and beat a
Speaker 1: really good Phoenix Suns team, especially when Chris Paul is
Speaker 1: playing really well. Now, what do we know about Phoenix.
Speaker 1: We know that eventually, over the course of the playoffs,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul runs out of gas, Suddenly they lose that
Speaker 1: shot creation, Suddenly too much gets put on Devin Booker's plate,
Speaker 1: and then you find out really quickly that mcguys like
Speaker 1: Michail Bridges and Deandreton and Cam Johnson are good enough
Speaker 1: creating their own shot to kind of make up that gap.
Speaker 1: So that's the reality of the Phoenix Suns matchup. But
Speaker 1: in the regular season, especially on a night where Chris
Speaker 1: Paul and Devin Booker are both playing well, you have
Speaker 1: to be sharp and Golden State. It's not sharp right now. Defensively.
Speaker 1: It might take a few weeks for them to get there.
Speaker 1: It might take longer, but this is something they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get used to. It's possible that, especially over
Speaker 1: tougher stretches of their schedule, when they're playing tougher opponents,
Speaker 1: that their record doesn't look as dominant as it did
Speaker 1: last year because they're investing into those young perimeter defensive
Speaker 1: players to try to get them ready for the postseason.
Speaker 1: Um And I mean Steve Kerr specifically said that at
Speaker 1: the end of the first quarter in the ear at
Speaker 1: the start of the second quarter, and that like little
Speaker 1: coaches interview that they always do. I've been talking and
Speaker 1: about this all season, all preseason, and all regular seasons,
Speaker 1: so I'm not overly surprised, but I did think it
Speaker 1: was interesting to see, uh, to see Kerr specifically mentioned
Speaker 1: that at the end of the first quarter, just to
Speaker 1: kind of put a stamp on that, so you guys
Speaker 1: know exactly what's happening there. Um so with Clay's injection,
Speaker 1: and I thought this was kind of an interesting sequence. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I noticed in the first half that Steph seemed like
Speaker 1: he was a little bit annoyed. It's always tough to
Speaker 1: tell exactly what's happening on the court because the production
Speaker 1: team is constantly switching camera angles and and you're not
Speaker 1: always seeing everything that's happening. All of you guys who
Speaker 1: have ever been to an NBA game, no that it's
Speaker 1: just a lot easier to track that stuff when you're
Speaker 1: in the arena. So if you guys happened to be
Speaker 1: in the arena, you just saw something or saw a
Speaker 1: clip from a fan and you saw exactly what happened,
Speaker 1: drop it into just tell us what happened in the comments,
Speaker 1: so maybe we could see it for tomorrow. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell exactly what was going on in the
Speaker 1: first half, but something was boiling over between Steph and
Speaker 1: one of the sons because he seemed really annoyed and
Speaker 1: then he was super locked in as a result. And
Speaker 1: then uh, in the third quarter, Clay Thompson, you know,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker, tried one of his patented step back moves
Speaker 1: on the left wing and and Clay just snuffed it out,
Speaker 1: gained gained the ground and attack the shooting pocket and
Speaker 1: stripped Clay little tip for perimeter defensive players to like
Speaker 1: a lot of times, with really good pull up jump shooters,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna bother them up top because once they
Speaker 1: get to their rhythm, once they get to the footwork
Speaker 1: that they like, and they elevate up into the shot,
Speaker 1: they've practiced that shot tens of thousands of times in
Speaker 1: their career, they're gonna knock it down. So you're not
Speaker 1: really bothering him at that point. But if you can
Speaker 1: disrupt that gather target the ball down low, especially if
Speaker 1: you're a player like Clay that's got long arms and
Speaker 1: you can make up ground there, you're not gonna bother
Speaker 1: Devin Booker up top, but you might be able to
Speaker 1: bother him down low. And like I said before, Clay
Speaker 1: was defending Devin Booker really well in that third quarter.
Speaker 1: But something happened there after that strip. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Clay said something like, you know, give me that
Speaker 1: ship or or some other sort of trash talk, but
Speaker 1: Devin Booker just started going right back at him. And
Speaker 1: Devin Booker is a legendary trash talker in this league.
Speaker 1: I think it was either Kevin Durant or JJ Reddick,
Speaker 1: but one of the major NBA players that has a
Speaker 1: podcast said something along the lines of like they were
Speaker 1: asked to the biggest trash talkers in the league, and
Speaker 1: Devin Booker's name always gets thrown out in those conversations.
Speaker 1: He's a famous ship talker. So as soon as Clay
Speaker 1: went at it with him, it was just we were
Speaker 1: off to the races at that point, and Clay immediately
Speaker 1: pulled the four rings thing. And then I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what Booker said, but I think he might have
Speaker 1: said that you guys got lucky, because there was another
Speaker 1: angle at the free throw line where Draymond was on camera,
Speaker 1: and it looked like he said something like we have
Speaker 1: four how do you think we got lucky four times?
Speaker 1: Or something along those lines. It looked like just me
Speaker 1: trying to play detective on my couch watching the game.
Speaker 1: It looked like something like that happened. And then it
Speaker 1: goes to the time out, and then things escalated, and
Speaker 1: then we back from the time out and Clays out
Speaker 1: of the game, and so it's it was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. It's just fun during the
Speaker 1: course of the regular season. Um. But I mean, if
Speaker 1: there's one lesson to take from it. It's like, don't
Speaker 1: punch down. And what I mean by that is like
Speaker 1: everyone who's watching the game knows what's happening. We all
Speaker 1: saw Devin Booker struggle in the second round after trash
Speaker 1: talking Luca don Chich to go out in embarrassing fashion. Uh.
Speaker 1: In Game seven, we saw that. We also have seen
Speaker 1: Clay Thompson over the years, time and time again, play
Speaker 1: incredibly well in a huge playoff moment. We call him
Speaker 1: Game six Clay for for a reason. He has time
Speaker 1: and time again had huge playoff moments. He's one of
Speaker 1: the best perimeter defenders to ever play consistently in the
Speaker 1: NBA playoffs. Has taken monumentally important defensive matchups like guarding
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving when he's on fire in the two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen finals, or you know, guarding Jalen Brown for long
Speaker 1: stretches during the finals. This guy, your resume is stamped.
Speaker 1: We there's no Draymond's right. You don't get lucky four
Speaker 1: times like you. Your resume is rock solid. And Devin
Speaker 1: Booker is the one that's overstepping his boundaries with his
Speaker 1: trash talk. And in that situation, you actually played directly
Speaker 1: into their hands because you got yourself ejected and then
Speaker 1: they got all emotional and now they're beating you. And
Speaker 1: so if there's one thing, it's like, if you could
Speaker 1: somehow just have some fun talk some trash plays the
Speaker 1: trash talker too. You need to lean into that. Draymond's right,
Speaker 1: You need to play into your emotion up to a
Speaker 1: certain point. But you gotta stay in the game because
Speaker 1: you were playing well, Clay defensively on Booker in that
Speaker 1: third quarter. Your team was playing well. If you stay
Speaker 1: in the game, you might win, at which point you
Speaker 1: get to go have your moment in front of their
Speaker 1: bench and and talk all the ship you want right back,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, the winner gets
Speaker 1: to tell the story. But it is what it is.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal. Not chastising him by any stretch.
Speaker 1: He literally this is the first dejection of his career.
Speaker 1: But I did think it was weird to see it
Speaker 1: go off the rails as much as it did, especially
Speaker 1: in a winnable basketball game like that. And then it
Speaker 1: went to a time out. He was sitting on his
Speaker 1: bench at one point he must have somebody from Phoenix
Speaker 1: must have been yelling something across the benches that got
Speaker 1: him going. But yeah, big big win for Phoenix. They're
Speaker 1: better than I thought to start the season. I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about Golden State because they're just ironing out details
Speaker 1: for the postseason. They're undergoing roster turnover, not roster turnover, rotation,
Speaker 1: turnover in a specific spot in their roster that was
Speaker 1: very strong defensively last year, and so that they're gonna
Speaker 1: go through some growing paints and it's just something for
Speaker 1: us to watch over the course of the season. We
Speaker 1: want to see everything like paint points, defensive rating, you know,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. We want to see those tick
Speaker 1: down into lower numbers as the season progresses, because that
Speaker 1: will demonstrate Moses Moody getting better. That will demonstrate James
Speaker 1: Wiseman getting better. That will demonstrate Jonathan Comini getting better.
Speaker 1: That's all part of that s s alright. So on
Speaker 1: that note, let's talk some Mavericks and Pelicans. Um interesting
Speaker 1: there at the end Luca going too for one, as
Speaker 1: he was dribbling up the left wing down by three,
Speaker 1: I remember sitting there thinking like, man, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a tough step back defenders kind of riding on his hip,
Speaker 1: and at the moment, I was like, I was confused
Speaker 1: as why he was going for the quick layup because
Speaker 1: I didn't think there was quite enough time left. But
Speaker 1: everything worked out just about as perfectly as it could
Speaker 1: for Dallas on that sequence. He gets to the room,
Speaker 1: he lays it in. With four seconds left, they foul
Speaker 1: DeVante Graham. He misses a free throw, and then you
Speaker 1: set it up and he gets basically the same type
Speaker 1: of fading three on that left wing, except for this
Speaker 1: time it's for the win rather than for the tie,
Speaker 1: and he just missed it, which it is what it is.
Speaker 1: I had a feeling this game would be close. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the interest of full disclosure, this is one of
Speaker 1: my first bets of the season. I bet New Orleans
Speaker 1: money line because I got them at plus two hundred
Speaker 1: on fan duel. You know they're down three starters. Obviously,
Speaker 1: with the Jones being out he hyper extended his knee.
Speaker 1: The other day, Brandon Ingram got a concussion and then
Speaker 1: Zion Williamson took a pretty nasty fall that on a
Speaker 1: shot that he got blocked, which led to a hip contusions.
Speaker 1: All three of those guys were out, and obviously that's
Speaker 1: gonna skew things towards Dallas, But the New Orleans Pelicans
Speaker 1: have one of the most talented rosters in the league.
Speaker 1: And the reality is is that if you uh, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about this a little bit more in
Speaker 1: a minute, as it pertains to the rest of the league,
Speaker 1: but when you're playing these super talented teams and you
Speaker 1: don't bring your a game, you could get beat. This
Speaker 1: Pelicans team is deep on the wing. They're deep and
Speaker 1: skilled pull up jump shooting. I like their front court.
Speaker 1: This is actually one of my favorite Kevin Durant destinations
Speaker 1: over the course of the summer. If you guys remember
Speaker 1: I was pro them trying to flip um Zion Williamson
Speaker 1: for k D because I thought the rest of the
Speaker 1: roster was so incredibly stacked that I thought it was
Speaker 1: immediately propel you into being a top tier contender, if
Speaker 1: not something better. And you know, Zion, obviously, with his
Speaker 1: injury history, I thought was a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a risk. Um. I don't think you're wrong going either way.
Speaker 1: They're obviously going to be fantastic with Zion. Zion looks
Speaker 1: amazing to start the season. But I've always been a
Speaker 1: huge fan of this roster and and UH, David Griffin
Speaker 1: in particular deserves a lot of credit, you know, um
Speaker 1: in this You know, I was tweeting about this earlier
Speaker 1: today because Anfrony Simon's just completely went off against the
Speaker 1: Denver Nuggets last night, had like a twenty four point
Speaker 1: quarter and was hitting all these shots. And the level
Speaker 1: of skill in the n b A at the guard
Speaker 1: position in particular right now is so incredibly high that
Speaker 1: there's just this ridiculous amount of parody because the it
Speaker 1: used to be, you know that you didn't have guys
Speaker 1: hitting crazy wild pull up jump shots if you got
Speaker 1: caught on a ball screen or if you had your
Speaker 1: big man dropping back to the basket. You weren't having
Speaker 1: guys consistently beat you with pull up floaters or pull
Speaker 1: up jump shots or things along those lines. But now
Speaker 1: that skill level is is all over the place in
Speaker 1: this league. I mean, you took out three starters for
Speaker 1: New Orleans and UH and coming back any coming back
Speaker 1: at you anyway. You have c. J. McCollum, one of
Speaker 1: the better three level scorers in the league, Davante Grahama,
Speaker 1: player that can hit a lot of pull up jump shots,
Speaker 1: Trey Murphy had an awesome offensive game as well. They
Speaker 1: just have tons and tons of offensive talent, and in
Speaker 1: in this league, in this era, if you bring eight
Speaker 1: percent defensive effort and you kind of get caught on
Speaker 1: ball screens and your bigs are too far back and drop,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get barbecued, just because that's how skilled the
Speaker 1: NBA is right now. Now, Dallas did take control of
Speaker 1: this game later on in the third quarter. They put
Speaker 1: together a much better defensive quarter ended up taking a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lead. But any time that you
Speaker 1: play a poor defensive game and you allow game to
Speaker 1: stay close, you throw shot variants into the equation. And
Speaker 1: when they are all these skilled players in the league,
Speaker 1: all it takes is somebody beating hot. And in this
Speaker 1: fourth quarter it was c. J. McCollum. And what an unbelievable,
Speaker 1: magnificent fourth quarter it was from him. Do It started
Speaker 1: in pick and roll. He had like a nice little
Speaker 1: floater um against a dropping big. He had a pull
Speaker 1: up three against the drop. But then after that, uh,
Speaker 1: Dallas started sending lots of defensive attention to him outright
Speaker 1: doubling him on a couple of different occasions, and he
Speaker 1: just started to pick them apart with the past. There
Speaker 1: was a really like c J. McCollum is really gifted
Speaker 1: in particular with setting his man up, which is such
Speaker 1: an important skill when you're not a fantastic athlete. And
Speaker 1: c J McCollum, for all of his great qualities, he's
Speaker 1: not a fantastic athlete at the guard position. But there
Speaker 1: was a play he ended up getting Maxi Cleiba on
Speaker 1: a switch and he kind of dragged him out to
Speaker 1: half court and he did a retreat dribble and kind
Speaker 1: of exposed the basketball and relaxed for a second and
Speaker 1: just waited for Cleban to get a little too aggressive
Speaker 1: and lean forward. And as soon as he leaned forward,
Speaker 1: he blew right past him, drew help, swung over to
Speaker 1: Trey Murphy, and try Murphy knocked down to three. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that CJ is so good at,
Speaker 1: is baiting you into getting out of position because he's
Speaker 1: not gonna beat you off the dribble if you're in position,
Speaker 1: because you're probably gonna be a better athlete than him.
Speaker 1: But in this particular case, he's he's gonna get you
Speaker 1: to make a mistake and throw yourself out of position
Speaker 1: so that he can gain his advantage. After that, he
Speaker 1: hit Larry Nance in the short roll for a kick
Speaker 1: out three there. Then after that they just started outright
Speaker 1: double teaming him. There's a play where they just dribbled
Speaker 1: the ball off the floor. He was dribbling it on
Speaker 1: the right wing and Dallas just a band in Davonte
Speaker 1: Graham to double him on the wing and it was
Speaker 1: just easy swing pass, Bam, Davontae Graham makes the three.
Speaker 1: Then there's another play where Reggie Bullock and Luca don
Speaker 1: Che's just randomly double to him on the right wing
Speaker 1: and he ended up throwing a bounce pass to Larry
Speaker 1: Nance for a lap. And you know, I always say like,
Speaker 1: when you play with fire, you have the chance to
Speaker 1: get burned. See Jim McCollum. You know, Is has always
Speaker 1: been capable of that type of fourth quarter. He's not
Speaker 1: the most consistent player in the world. But when you
Speaker 1: let a game stay close because you didn't bring the
Speaker 1: quisite defensive effort against a team that's down three starters,
Speaker 1: you put yourself at risk for a guy getting hot
Speaker 1: and c J just you know, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: all time favorite playoff moments. So CJ McCollum going into
Speaker 1: Denver in Game seven a few years back and just
Speaker 1: executing the Nuggets on their home floor to steal a
Speaker 1: playoff series. He has that type of high end ceiling.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite things about him being in
Speaker 1: New Orleans because if he's your third best player, you
Speaker 1: are in fantastic shape. This is when one of my
Speaker 1: favorite rosters in the league as a result Trey Murphy
Speaker 1: his offensive ability. He's actually a much better offensive player
Speaker 1: than Irv Jones. He kind of fell out of the
Speaker 1: rotation last year in the playoffs just because of some
Speaker 1: defensive limitations, so that's typical for a young player, but
Speaker 1: he is a super, super talented offensive player. And then
Speaker 1: we got this other wing, one of my favorite defensive
Speaker 1: wings from the draft, a guy who really physically developed
Speaker 1: in his year in the G League, Dyson Daniels, who
Speaker 1: was given Lucas some problems and Luca was doing everything
Speaker 1: he could to get him switched off of him. He
Speaker 1: has a nose for the basketball, and he's got super
Speaker 1: strong hands and just another super exciting wing uh in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and if you're a Pelicans fan, you've just
Speaker 1: got to be incredibly stoked. At this point with where
Speaker 1: your team is sitting, with all this talent coming back
Speaker 1: to from injury soon um Dallas. You know, obviously their
Speaker 1: defense wasn't good in the first half and in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter they had really struggled with c. J. McCollum,
Speaker 1: but their offense was fantastic throughout this game. Coming into tonight,
Speaker 1: they were number one in offensive rating by a mile.
Speaker 1: I believe they were about six points better than the
Speaker 1: next best team in the league on the offensive end
Speaker 1: of the floor. I attribute that to three things in particular. One,
Speaker 1: they're truly playing five out basketball all the time. Dwight
Speaker 1: Powell is out of the rotation. Now they're just going
Speaker 1: with Christian Wood and Maxi Cleveland. So as a result,
Speaker 1: they've constantly got four shooters surrounding Luca and now they
Speaker 1: just have all sorts of space to operate. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, like vertical spacing is a
Speaker 1: real thing. Wipal is not even really much of a
Speaker 1: vertical spacer. But you know, JaVale McGee gives you some
Speaker 1: vertical spacing. But the the when they they're going away
Speaker 1: from JaVale McGee early in these games, they're not playing
Speaker 1: him more than maybe one or two shifts a game,
Speaker 1: and they're just staying five out the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: Vertical spacing is real, but it's not the same as
Speaker 1: five out spacing, real perimeter spacing. The main reason why
Speaker 1: is you have to cover more ground defensively. It's just
Speaker 1: a much harder rotation to make coming out of the
Speaker 1: week side corner to protect the rim than it is
Speaker 1: to come out of the dunker spot to protect the rim.
Speaker 1: It makes everybody cover more ground, it makes defenses make
Speaker 1: more mistakes. It will always make you better on the
Speaker 1: offensive end of the floor at a minimum, and Maxikaliba
Speaker 1: is arguably their best perimeter defender at the big position. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you actually had a lot of success against C. G.
Speaker 1: McCollum and isolation, especially throughout the majority of the game
Speaker 1: before that fourth quarter Um. But yeah, if you look
Speaker 1: at some of their offensive nun last year in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: you know, with Dwight Powell in particular, their offense just
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly as good. And you go around the league
Speaker 1: and you look at the vertical spacing biggs versus the
Speaker 1: perimeter spacing biggs, and almost every team in the league
Speaker 1: plays much better on the offensive end when they go
Speaker 1: five out and with the flexibility of having Christian Wood
Speaker 1: and Maxi Cleib on your roster, you could play five
Speaker 1: out basketball all the time if you want to. But
Speaker 1: you've got JaVale McGee if you should need a bigger
Speaker 1: center for specific matchups, which is important. The second thing
Speaker 1: I attribute their offense too is Christian Wood. And this
Speaker 1: dude is you know. I remember when I when I
Speaker 1: was watching the stuff of him in Houston to kind
Speaker 1: of prep for the season. I was looking at the
Speaker 1: stuff he does well, Like he catches and shoots the ball, well,
Speaker 1: he's good catching shoot shooter. He's was actually a pretty
Speaker 1: damn good pull up three point shooter. He was taking
Speaker 1: like two a game and hit him at in Houston.
Speaker 1: He was good in post ups, and he was good
Speaker 1: in the short role. And if you guys remember my
Speaker 1: question was, I'm confused as to whether or not that
Speaker 1: was just garbage time basketball with a bad team where
Speaker 1: he's just jacking up shots, or whether it was real,
Speaker 1: legitimate scoring that translates in a winning environment. And I
Speaker 1: think we I think he has answered that question resoundingly
Speaker 1: to start this season. This dude has, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's so hard to explain. It's just a natural scoring ability.
Speaker 1: Yes he can shoot, Yes he has touched. But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of guys around the league that have touch,
Speaker 1: that can shoot, that can dribble, that have all of
Speaker 1: those things, but they just don't have a scores mentality.
Speaker 1: A scores mentality is a combination of creativity, a willingness
Speaker 1: to try things that go outside of your rigid fundamentals,
Speaker 1: and then audacity, the bravery to take difficult shots and
Speaker 1: difficult situations like Christian Wood staring down Dyson Daniels and
Speaker 1: ripping through getting cut off by Dyson Daniels, but then
Speaker 1: euro stepping back to finish with his left hand like
Speaker 1: overly fundamental basketball players don't have that level of creativity,
Speaker 1: And there's just there's a number of years around the
Speaker 1: league that have that kind of mix of audacity and
Speaker 1: creativity with skill level that makes them natural scores. And
Speaker 1: Christian Wood is one of those guys, and they they've
Speaker 1: been able to throw it to him in the post
Speaker 1: and he's been able to create advantages, he's been able
Speaker 1: to succeed in the role. Luka Dontech already has really
Speaker 1: good chemistry with him there. He's bailing out possessions with
Speaker 1: step back threes. He hit like a really nasty kind
Speaker 1: of like Kobe used to do this like triple threat
Speaker 1: three point shot where he would kind of start to
Speaker 1: rip through like a jab step and then elevate from
Speaker 1: there as opposed to his normal shooting pocket. He had
Speaker 1: one of those on the right baseline that was a
Speaker 1: big shot in the fourth quarter that I think tied
Speaker 1: the game at eight seven. He's either late third or
Speaker 1: early fourth. He's got all sorts of natural scoring ability
Speaker 1: and that's just a huge influx of offensive creation that
Speaker 1: has made their offense better. And the last but at
Speaker 1: least Luca don Che's he is coming into the season
Speaker 1: in shape because of euro Basket, and as a result,
Speaker 1: he's averaging thirty four, eight and eight on sixty try shooting.
Speaker 1: That's career high. Is obviously early for both points and
Speaker 1: true shooting. He's been really really good, and so at
Speaker 1: this point, at this point, like there, you gotta be
Speaker 1: extremely excited about their offense. Obviously they need to play
Speaker 1: better defensively, especially in games like this, but too really
Speaker 1: exciting basketball games. Excuse me, basketball teams that played a
Speaker 1: really interesting game. All right, We're gonna do rapid fire
Speaker 1: through these last two games. We're gonna hit Brooklyn Memphis
Speaker 1: really quick and then Spurs Wolf. So obviously Katie and Kyrie,
Speaker 1: John Moran, Desmond Baine, they all combined for or they
Speaker 1: all score at least thirty seven points. Brooklyn kept it
Speaker 1: close in the first half, but they ended up giving
Speaker 1: seventy in the second half. They never really tripped, they
Speaker 1: never really truly threatened. I think they got it within
Speaker 1: six in the fourth quarter, but never really felt close.
Speaker 1: Desmond Baine finally got going, so that's good for Memphis
Speaker 1: fans because he didn't really look like himself to start
Speaker 1: the season. Still looked a little stiff and his jump
Speaker 1: shot was really short, didn't really um amount too much
Speaker 1: early on, but he finally he got He was on
Speaker 1: fire in that second half. Katie talked a lot after
Speaker 1: the game about three point shooting being the biggest issue.
Speaker 1: The Grizzlies attempted night team open or wide open threes
Speaker 1: and then Net's only attempt at twelve. Yes, they shot
Speaker 1: better than you, but they got better threes than you
Speaker 1: because you're not defending the same way that they are defending,
Speaker 1: and that is all a distraction away from the fact
Speaker 1: that the Nets it's not about them knocking down shots.
Speaker 1: Their offense. They've been seventh and offense, and they're actually
Speaker 1: gonna get better as time goes on. But the reality
Speaker 1: is is they are continuing night and the night out
Speaker 1: to get absolutely obliterated in the effort in physicality areas
Speaker 1: of the game. They are dead last in defensive writing,
Speaker 1: so they're giving up more points per possession than anybody
Speaker 1: in the league. They're dead lasted defensive rebounding percentage, so
Speaker 1: when the other team shoots a shot, they are the
Speaker 1: worst team in the league gets at ending the possession
Speaker 1: with the defensive rebound. They are giving up the highest
Speaker 1: three point percentage in the league. Now, so much of
Speaker 1: that is shot result, and you see a lot of
Speaker 1: guys be like, oh, teams will shoot better, teams will
Speaker 1: shoot worse. I see part of that, but I also
Speaker 1: see the other side of it, which is your shot
Speaker 1: result is also a product of the defensive intensity throughout
Speaker 1: the game. If you are playing physical, if you are
Speaker 1: getting into people with ball pressure, if you are playing
Speaker 1: hard on both ends of the floor and making the
Speaker 1: other team work, then when they are open, they will
Speaker 1: be tired and they are less likely, and because they're
Speaker 1: less comfortable and they're more fatigued, they're less likely to
Speaker 1: make those open shots. So yes, over the course of
Speaker 1: the ad two game season, we'll get to learn how
Speaker 1: good they really are defending the three point line. But
Speaker 1: I tend to think that when you're playing bad defense
Speaker 1: and they're shooting well, those are too intricately connected things.
Speaker 1: You are allowing them to be too comfortable and comfortable
Speaker 1: NBA professional shooters are going to make shots, so at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you can't just blame three
Speaker 1: point percentage unless you're going out there and making teams
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. They are the second worst paint defense in
Speaker 1: the league. They're allowing one point six points per transition
Speaker 1: possession off of turnovers, which is fourth worst in the league,
Speaker 1: which means when they throw the ball away, it's a
Speaker 1: layup line the other way, basically, it made layup almost
Speaker 1: every single possession, and that's all inexcusable. They have plenty
Speaker 1: of length and athleticism with Kevin Durant, with Ben Simmons,
Speaker 1: with Roy so Knew, who they picked up with Nick
Speaker 1: Klaxton is obviously a good athlete in this league. They
Speaker 1: simply have to dedicate themselves to those details or they
Speaker 1: will not win basketball games. You can't win just by
Speaker 1: putting the ball in the basket. I used to joke
Speaker 1: all the time, I said this about Brooklyn. Actually last
Speaker 1: week you you you can love basketball, that's great, but
Speaker 1: you have to hate losing enough to do the things
Speaker 1: that are not fun in basketball. Because all of those
Speaker 1: things that I'm talking about getting back in transition, defense,
Speaker 1: boxing out, you know, playing defense, fighting over the top
Speaker 1: of screens, closing out on shooters, none of that is fun.
Speaker 1: No one plays basketball because it's fun to do that stuff.
Speaker 1: You do it because you hate to lose. And right
Speaker 1: now Brooklyn has not hated these losses enough to change
Speaker 1: their habits on those end of the floor. One note
Speaker 1: on Memphis that's exciting John Moran's jump shooting. Over the summer,
Speaker 1: I talked about how he's my favorite of the hyper
Speaker 1: athletic guards that have come through this league the because
Speaker 1: he's so good with passing the basketball already, so good
Speaker 1: getting to the rim. But he's a much better jump
Speaker 1: shooter already than any of those guys ever were. And
Speaker 1: this season he's starting super hot from the perimeter. He's
Speaker 1: fift on catching shoot threes and on pull up threes.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's gonna come down to earth a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I always thought he'd be a good jump shooter
Speaker 1: because he has good form, which is more than you
Speaker 1: could say about Russell Westbrook or about Derrick Rose, or
Speaker 1: about any of the super athletic guards that have come
Speaker 1: through the league in the past. So obviously still's got
Speaker 1: he still has to get better defensively in the half court.
Speaker 1: He's making some transition defensive plays, but he's looking like
Speaker 1: a player that is rapidly ascending alright, really quick before
Speaker 1: we get out of here. Spurs Wolves, So the Spurs
Speaker 1: just kicked the ship out of him. Was there's a
Speaker 1: fake come back late, um, But they were up by
Speaker 1: thirty five at one point. The Spurs are super athletic,
Speaker 1: they play super hard. They just did this to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: the other day as well. This is another NBA team
Speaker 1: that looks easy on the schedule, but if don't bring
Speaker 1: your a game, you're gonna get beat. Kind of similar
Speaker 1: to Utah. Just another example of all the things I've
Speaker 1: been talking about as it pertains to parody in the league. Um,
Speaker 1: Devin Vacel in particular, totally lit up the Timberwolves, made
Speaker 1: five threes's, averaging twenty five and five to start the season.
Speaker 1: He's another freaky, athletic, versatile wing coming through the San
Speaker 1: Antonio system. I'm super excited to watch more of him
Speaker 1: this season and to learn more about him because he
Speaker 1: is after you give up de John Day Murray, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reason to be depressed if you're a
Speaker 1: Spurs fan. But this kid just might be better than it,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna find out over the course of the
Speaker 1: next couple of years. So really quickly on Minnesota, my
Speaker 1: three main concerns after the Rudy Gobert trade coming into
Speaker 1: the season. If you guys remember I said I'm concerned
Speaker 1: about their perimeter defense. Because they lost some perimeter defensive players,
Speaker 1: You're now going to be asking uh Karl Anthony Towns
Speaker 1: to guard quicker players on the perimeter. And Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: is good defensively if you can keep him by the paint,
Speaker 1: but as soon as he starts getting pulled into help
Speaker 1: all over the place, and now he's rotating out to
Speaker 1: different players. Now there's different players on the back line
Speaker 1: and it's not as effective defensively. We just learned this
Speaker 1: with his entire career in Utah, Like, yes, if you
Speaker 1: can funnel to him, that's great, but if you can't
Speaker 1: and he's on the perimeter, then you're gonna struggle and
Speaker 1: um And that's been a that's been a problem to
Speaker 1: start the season. Their twentye and paint points allowed per game.
Speaker 1: That's with Rudy Gobert on the roster, and that's because
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert is being pulled away from the paint too often.
Speaker 1: The second thing I was concerned with was Rudy Gobert
Speaker 1: clogging up things on offense. They have a hundred and
Speaker 1: four point four offensive rating with Gobert on the floor,
Speaker 1: which is worst on the team for rotation players. Like
Speaker 1: I said, vertical spacing is a real thing, but it
Speaker 1: is not the same as perimeter spacing that you get
Speaker 1: from nas read and that you get from Carl Town's
Speaker 1: and it's gonna hurt you on the offensive end of
Speaker 1: the floor. Rudy Gobert cannot punish switches in the post.
Speaker 1: All he can do well is really screen hard on
Speaker 1: the perimeter and roll hard to the basket. For vertical spacing,
Speaker 1: he was inevitably going to mess things up for them offensively,
Speaker 1: and then last, but not least, transition defense. Um, anytime
Speaker 1: you have two bigs on the floor, I immediately become
Speaker 1: concerned about your overall foot speed. And it's not just
Speaker 1: about like, oh, Rudy Gobert because he's so damn long,
Speaker 1: he can defend a guard on a switch. I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about that. I'm worried about you know, you miss
Speaker 1: a shot and now Rudy Gobert and Carl Towns are
Speaker 1: running or jogging up the floor. When you've got all
Speaker 1: these quick perimeter players on the other team, well, they're
Speaker 1: dead last in transition defense off of turnovers. Once again,
Speaker 1: if you throw the ball away with Minnesota, it's a
Speaker 1: layup line the other way because overall their foot speed
Speaker 1: is just too low. So where do they go from here?
Speaker 1: It's early. This might get better, but fundamentally, I don't
Speaker 1: think you can play with two bigs unless both are
Speaker 1: gifted on the perimeter on both ends of the floor,
Speaker 1: like you can do Lebron James Anthony Davis. Because they
Speaker 1: both can guard wings, and they both can guard guards,
Speaker 1: and they both can guard bigs. You can do Janie
Speaker 1: and brook Lopez, because brook Lopez can shoot the three,
Speaker 1: Janice is one of the best offensive players in the league,
Speaker 1: and they both can defend on the perimeter and on
Speaker 1: the interior. You need a specific type of personnel to
Speaker 1: play that style. And notice that's lap on in Janice,
Speaker 1: not Carl Towns playing at the four. So fundamentally, I
Speaker 1: don't really think this makes a ton of sense. Now
Speaker 1: we have this weird dynamic forming between Carl Towns and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards where it almost as like Anthony Edwards just
Speaker 1: making kind of subtle comments about their spacing and Carl
Speaker 1: Towns is insulting his diet. So there and you can
Speaker 1: see kind of like a rift forming there, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, the fan base is more in on Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 1: They view him as the star, as they should. He's
Speaker 1: the best player on the team in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: so Carl Towns is kind of getting the odd man
Speaker 1: out type of thing here. So I think this inevitably
Speaker 1: ends with the Wolves viewing go Bart and Edwards as
Speaker 1: their cornerstones, mainly because Gobert is never gonna be able
Speaker 1: to be traded for as much as they just got
Speaker 1: him for. So at the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: think they're gonna end up sending uh D'Angelo Russell and
Speaker 1: Carl Town's out to get players that compliment and and
Speaker 1: Gobert better. And I think that's what this will inevitably go.
Speaker 1: Not for a while. I think they'll give it, you know,
Speaker 1: for forty games or until the deadline to kind of
Speaker 1: see how this looks. But I do think this eventually
Speaker 1: ends with Carl Town's go wing out of town. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for right now. As always,
Speaker 1: I sincerely appreciate your support. The volume on