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Speaker 1: at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you
Speaker 1: guys are having a great week so far. We have
Speaker 1: a really fun show today. We're gonna be hitting on
Speaker 1: the Elite eight games last night in the NCAA Women's Tournament.
Speaker 1: Highly highly entertaining stuff. Lots of debate about how Kim
Speaker 1: Moulchi and LSU decided to guard Caitlyn Clark. So I
Speaker 1: dove into the film and have a bunch of thoughts
Speaker 1: on what I would have done, Mostly just talking about
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of different types of coverages and
Speaker 1: the realities of dealing with the player of Kitlyn Clark's caliber,
Speaker 1: and just some information from the stuff that I pulled
Speaker 1: on tape. After that, we're gonna talk about the Phoenix
Speaker 1: Suns going into New Orleans and smacking the Pelicans. How
Speaker 1: unusual is this? Devin Booker has played the Pelicans twice
Speaker 1: this year and has two fifty two point games against them.
Speaker 1: Kind of rare to see something like that. And then
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, we got you know,
Speaker 1: five or six mail bag questions that we'll be hitting
Speaker 1: that go around the league. You guys know the jope
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Speaker 1: It's also super helpful if he leave a rating and
Speaker 1: a review on that front. And the last but not least,
Speaker 1: keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do a few more mail bags over the course
Speaker 1: of this week. So forty one points, seven rebounds and
Speaker 1: twelve assists against the team that knocked you out in
Speaker 1: the title game last year. Not just defeating the defending champion,
Speaker 1: a champion, but avenging a loss to the team that
Speaker 1: beats you and did it in resounding fashion and unbelievable
Speaker 1: performance by Kitlyn Clark against LSU. Now here's the question.
Speaker 1: Kaylen Clark was cooking against LSU, obviously, and seemed to
Speaker 1: be making it look easy for most of the night.
Speaker 1: And so there was a lot of question about whether
Speaker 1: or not LSU had the right defensive strategy to deal
Speaker 1: with Caitlin Clark. And that was especially apparent when we
Speaker 1: saw the second game and we saw Juju Watkins of
Speaker 1: USC getting very aggressive coverages from Yukon and Gino Arima.
Speaker 1: So it presented this question of whether or not that
Speaker 1: was the appropriate way to deal with what Caitlyn Clark
Speaker 1: was doing. And so what I did to kind of
Speaker 1: try to come at this with as much information as
Speaker 1: possible as I went back and I charted every single
Speaker 1: pick and roll in ISO that Caitlyn Clark ran in
Speaker 1: this game. She ran seven ISOs and eighteen pick and rolls.
Speaker 1: The ISOs were pretty few and far between, and they
Speaker 1: were more or less the same things. She hit up
Speaker 1: ISO three against Haley van Liz, where she gave her
Speaker 1: a little bit too much space, which was really the
Speaker 1: only possession that I didn't think Hayley did a good job,
Speaker 1: but that for the most part, Haley did a really
Speaker 1: good job within the scheme. It was the scheme that
Speaker 1: was getting burned, not Hayley, but for the most part
Speaker 1: in the ISOs, Caitlyn was beating her defender off the
Speaker 1: dribble and then running into all of LSU's size at
Speaker 1: the rim, and so it wasn't really the best strategy.
Speaker 1: Pick and roll was the best way for her to
Speaker 1: at least get the rim protectors a little bit further
Speaker 1: away from the basket, namely angel Reaes Right, So Kaitlyn
Speaker 1: ran eighteen pick and rolls total including passes in Iowa,
Speaker 1: got nineteen points out of them. Now, that's one point
Speaker 1: zero six point per possession, which seems low compared to
Speaker 1: our mediocre compared to some NBA numbers, but at the
Speaker 1: college level, that's in that just by looking at the
Speaker 1: over the season numbers this year, when it comes to
Speaker 1: Kitlyn Clark in the way she stacks up against other
Speaker 1: pick and roll ball handlers, that's about where she was
Speaker 1: for most of the season including passes, and that was
Speaker 1: in the very top tier of pick and roll ball
Speaker 1: handlers around the country. So like, that's excellent, especially in
Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament, which, by the way, Kitlyn Clark is
Speaker 1: getting almost one point three points per possession and pick
Speaker 1: and roll in this NCAA tournament when she shoots the basketball,
Speaker 1: so she's been cooking in these particular situations and shooting
Speaker 1: over sixty percent herself. Right. So I saw four different
Speaker 1: coverages in a pick and roll from LSU in this game,
Speaker 1: and then there were three possessions where she rejected the
Speaker 1: screen entirely, so we didn't get to see what the
Speaker 1: coverage means. What that means is screen's coming on this side,
Speaker 1: but instead she drives the other direction and just effectively
Speaker 1: turns into an ISO at that point. The four different
Speaker 1: coverages that I saw was going underneath the screen with
Speaker 1: out nail help meaning there's not help waiting on the
Speaker 1: other side of the screen, and then going under the
Speaker 1: screen with nail help, and then over the screen with
Speaker 1: drop and over the screen with a hedge. Now again
Speaker 1: the drop is the screen defenders hanging back in the lane.
Speaker 1: Now LSU was kind of hovering around the kind of
Speaker 1: like semi circle area just below the foul line, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't a super deep drop. They were there to
Speaker 1: try to contest a little bit, but they were sitting back,
Speaker 1: they were not up at the level of the screen.
Speaker 1: For the most part. There were to kind of go
Speaker 1: through them one by one, so under without help. There
Speaker 1: were four possessions. These were all early in the game,
Speaker 1: and every single one of them Caitlin Clark took a
Speaker 1: pull up three. There were four of these possessions. Caitlyn
Speaker 1: took a pull up three on every single one of them.
Speaker 1: She made two of them, so it was one point
Speaker 1: five points per possession in four possessions or six points
Speaker 1: in four possessions. Early in the game, there was a
Speaker 1: possession where Kate Markin Kate Martin was on the left
Speaker 1: wing and five J. Johnson actually jumped down in nail help,
Speaker 1: meaning as Caitlyn came off the screen, Flaje was waiting
Speaker 1: for her at the nail. Caitlyn just made a simple
Speaker 1: swing pass to Kate Martin, who's been a deadly unguarded
Speaker 1: three point shooter all season. According to Syenergy, she was
Speaker 1: at forty three percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots,
Speaker 1: which is right where she's at for the entire NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament as well. She made the three. They didn't try
Speaker 1: that again the rest of the game. No more nail
Speaker 1: help because what they would do is they'd just keep
Speaker 1: Kate Martin on the wing one pass away from where
Speaker 1: they were running those ball screens. So if you helped,
Speaker 1: you were just leaving a really good shooter wide open.
Speaker 1: So they tried that once burned for three points, so
Speaker 1: that's three points per possession in one possession. The most
Speaker 1: frequent coverage they used was just a traditional drop coverage
Speaker 1: with Hayley van Lyft chasing over the top of the screen,
Speaker 1: and they had a good amount of success there. It
Speaker 1: stops Caitlyn from taking pull up threes, mainly turned her
Speaker 1: into a passer, and a lot of those pocket passes
Speaker 1: were either turning into turnovers or at the rim against
Speaker 1: length that were missed. They scored seven points and eight
Speaker 1: possessions there. That zero point eighty eight points per possession,
Speaker 1: So the general coverage they used for the majority of
Speaker 1: the game actually worked pretty well. Then there were two
Speaker 1: possessions late in the game when Caitlyn really started to
Speaker 1: get going where they offered a hedge, and now that
Speaker 1: means Angel reaes as the screen was being set, was
Speaker 1: coming up and hedging just to stop Caitlin from taking
Speaker 1: the three high drop hedge whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker 1: coming up to the level of screen bothering and then
Speaker 1: rotating back to the basket. On those two possessions, they
Speaker 1: both resulted in pocket passes, and one was a turnover
Speaker 1: and one was a miss layup, So that was zero
Speaker 1: points per possession on two possessions. And then the three
Speaker 1: times that she rejected the screen meaning she didn't use
Speaker 1: the screen but she drove away from it, she had
Speaker 1: a driving and one layup, and then she had two misses,
Speaker 1: so three points in three possessions or one point per possession.
Speaker 1: So honestly, when you look back at it, it was
Speaker 1: a lot of really small sample sized stuff, like three
Speaker 1: of the coverages they only used repossessions or less, and
Speaker 1: then the main coverage they used actually worked pretty well
Speaker 1: on tape. Hailey van Lyft did her job when she
Speaker 1: was going under the screen early it was very clear
Speaker 1: that that was actually the coaching staff's decision because other
Speaker 1: defenders that ended up on Kate for random possessions ended
Speaker 1: up going underneath as well. That was what they were
Speaker 1: doing at the beginning of the game. That's not Hailey's fault,
Speaker 1: and it was a bad idea. If there was one
Speaker 1: thing to really shine the light on in this particular game,
Speaker 1: it was the early game possessions when they were going
Speaker 1: underneath screens that didn't make any sense. But when Haley
Speaker 1: was chasing over the top, she was doing a good job.
Speaker 1: She was staying attached, she was fighting over the top
Speaker 1: of screens. There were several possessions where Kitlyn came off
Speaker 1: on the other side of the screen and Hailey's just
Speaker 1: right there waiting for her. She did her job. It
Speaker 1: was mainly just a product of the coverage that the
Speaker 1: openings that were there ended up being there. So the
Speaker 1: question is this was the most frequent one I see.
Speaker 1: What was the one coverage that I did not mention
Speaker 1: in that list? A blitz. So a blitz is where
Speaker 1: you have Hailey van Lyt the top and you have
Speaker 1: Angel rees Hard Hedge and both of them try to
Speaker 1: trap Caitlin and basically force her to immediately get rid
Speaker 1: of the basketball. LSU did not do this a single
Speaker 1: time in the game. So the question is, why why
Speaker 1: didn't LSU try blitzing? To me? When I look at it,
Speaker 1: the reality of LSU's defensive scheme, the way that they're
Speaker 1: set up. Angel Reese is one of their best rim protectors,
Speaker 1: if not their best rim protector. She had three blocks
Speaker 1: in this game. They want to keep her at the rim.
Speaker 1: It's the same reason why you might not necessarily want
Speaker 1: to blitz with a Brook Lopez the way that Adrian Griffin.
Speaker 1: Adrian Griffin wasn't necessarily blitzing, but he was bringing Brook
Speaker 1: Lopez way up high to the level of the screen
Speaker 1: to start the season. The same reason why you don't
Speaker 1: want to do that is that's just not the best
Speaker 1: use of what Brooke does well defensively. Same thing for
Speaker 1: Angel Reece. Now, Angel Reese is a player that can
Speaker 1: force a lot of turnovers and cause a lot of problems.
Speaker 1: I would have personally tried blitzing, but my guess is
Speaker 1: Kim Molkie's thought was I want to keep angele Rees
Speaker 1: as close to the rim as possible. And again, the
Speaker 1: hedge worked, but it was in a really small sample size.
Speaker 1: They did it two possessions, both late in the game.
Speaker 1: If you start the game hedging or blitzing, or you
Speaker 1: go to the hedge or blitz early in the game,
Speaker 1: and you stick with it, there's a chance that Iowa
Speaker 1: just gets going a different way. You're gonna be running
Speaker 1: four on threes on the back end with Angel Reese
Speaker 1: twenty plus feet away from the basket right and again,
Speaker 1: like in a small sample it might work, but in
Speaker 1: a large sample eventually there's like a tic tac toe
Speaker 1: that forms. The players on the floor kind of figure
Speaker 1: out the reds and they can get going out of
Speaker 1: that and get really easy shots. My guess is Kim
Speaker 1: Moulkie was thinking, I'd rather just see if Caitlin can
Speaker 1: make enough shots. I want to see if we can
Speaker 1: fatigue her and wear her down, especially because we play physical,
Speaker 1: we attack the offensive glass. I think she wanted to
Speaker 1: wear Caitlyn down and see if she was capable of
Speaker 1: making enough shots, and she got burned, and by the way,
Speaker 1: you can get burned the other way. This is where
Speaker 1: I want to use Steph Curry as an example. Steph
Speaker 1: Curry in the twenty twenty two finals against the Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics primarily faced a high drop coverage, but in that
Speaker 1: drop coverage because Steph can shoot so deep a lot
Speaker 1: of times, Al Horford and Robert Williams were coming out
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty two feet, but Steph was hitting pull
Speaker 1: up threes at twenty four to twenty six feet and
Speaker 1: Steph burned them, namely in Game four, Steph burned the
Speaker 1: deep drop, made a ton of shots and it cost
Speaker 1: them the series. And a lot of people were like,
Speaker 1: why are they running drop, including myself, mainly just because
Speaker 1: I wanted to see them mix things up and try
Speaker 1: something different. And here's the reality. You go back to
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals, they go,
Speaker 1: we're sick of watching Steph hitting all these pull up
Speaker 1: threes against Matthew Delavadoba. We're gonna blitz and so they did.
Speaker 1: And when they blitzed, it turned out Steph was really
Speaker 1: good at getting the ball over the top to Draymond
Speaker 1: Green on the roll. Turns out Draymond Green is really
Speaker 1: good at rolling down the lane and making decisions. And
Speaker 1: it turns out Andre Gudala and everyone else on that
Speaker 1: roster is really smart on the backside as cutters and
Speaker 1: as corner three point shooters and things like that, and
Speaker 1: it burned the Caps. So again, like when we look
Speaker 1: at this, it's like, why didn't they blitz, Why didn't
Speaker 1: they blitz? Why didn't they blitz? Well, Caitlyn's an elite
Speaker 1: passer as well, and that just might burn you in
Speaker 1: the same way. And so again, like, if there's anything
Speaker 1: to be really critical of, I felt like she should
Speaker 1: have mixed things up more. It should have been here's
Speaker 1: a random blitz, here's a possession of zone to kind
Speaker 1: of throw things off. Here's a classic drop coverage possession.
Speaker 1: Here on this possession, we're gonna, you know, deny the
Speaker 1: screen and try to funnel her to help on the
Speaker 1: other side. Whatever it is hard nail help, you know,
Speaker 1: pre switching, putting a guard on the big girl as
Speaker 1: she goes up to set the screen so that you
Speaker 1: can just switch that screening action. There's so many different
Speaker 1: things you can do, and for the most part it
Speaker 1: was the same. It was like they went under to
Speaker 1: start the game, and then they went over late in
Speaker 1: the game, and there was never really much help. There
Speaker 1: were a handful of hedges in there, but that's really it.
Speaker 1: There just wasn't enough in terms of mixing it up
Speaker 1: to try to make Caitlin do different stuff on every possession.
Speaker 1: Because again, once you get comfortable once you know what
Speaker 1: the coverage is and you're facing it every time down
Speaker 1: on the floor, you kind of just kept getting a
Speaker 1: rhythm going against that particular coverage. And this is honestly
Speaker 1: just the classic question when you're dealing with this type
Speaker 1: of player, this particular type of player, the elite scorer
Speaker 1: who is also an elite playmaker, and playmakers is the
Speaker 1: operative word there because Juju Watkins of USC she's an
Speaker 1: elite scorer, but she had one hundred and forty turnovers
Speaker 1: this year to just one hundred and twelve assists. So
Speaker 1: for Yukon, it actually made more sense to be a
Speaker 1: lot more aggressive with her, like that is the coverage
Speaker 1: you want to do against that particular type of player
Speaker 1: because you want to test her playmaking ability. There's a
Speaker 1: player in the third quarter of that game where she
Speaker 1: came off of a ball screen and Page Beckers came
Speaker 1: over with hard nail help, like full on double walled
Speaker 1: up on her hard double team, and Juju just shot
Speaker 1: over the top of it. That same type of nail
Speaker 1: help happened in the first quarter of the LSU Iowa game,
Speaker 1: and it was five J. Johnson that came over and
Speaker 1: katelin Clark made the pass and Kate Martin made the shot.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. You can get away with a lot
Speaker 1: of those really aggressive coverages against a player that's a
Speaker 1: lesser playmakers. By the way, it's the same kind of
Speaker 1: thing we talk about with like Kevin Durant, right, Like
Speaker 1: you're playing the Lebron Luca types. A lot of coaches
Speaker 1: are like, make them score, maybe they'll get tired, and
Speaker 1: they don't want to get in the blender of those
Speaker 1: guys as playmakers picking you apart. But then you go
Speaker 1: up against the you know, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant types,
Speaker 1: you want to throw as much defensive attention at them
Speaker 1: as possible and play into what makes them uncomfortable, which
Speaker 1: is being a passer. Right, and so again, like I'm
Speaker 1: not even necessarily saying that when it comes to Juju Watkins,
Speaker 1: that's the only way you could you could play against
Speaker 1: a player like that. I'm just saying, like you're looking
Speaker 1: at two different types of players. The elite scorer, they
Speaker 1: were throwing the kitchen sink catter, the elite scorer and playmaker.
Speaker 1: They tried to dare her to beat them scoring the
Speaker 1: basketball and they lost, and again, like it, it's very
Speaker 1: possible that they could have tried more aggressive coverages and
Speaker 1: lost anyway. If anything, it's likely given the amount of
Speaker 1: talent and just the reality of trying to defend in
Speaker 1: a four on three every single possession down the floor.
Speaker 1: And again, my one complaint is I would have mixed
Speaker 1: it up more. And that was one of the things
Speaker 1: Yukon was doing. Yukon against USC. They were running drop
Speaker 1: on some possessions, they were offering nail help on some
Speaker 1: possessions and not on others. They were blitzing on some possessions,
Speaker 1: they were hard doubling on some possessions. It was all
Speaker 1: mixed up, and it did a better job of keeping
Speaker 1: her off balance. One other note with LSU Angel Reese
Speaker 1: was seven for nineteen on shots in the paint, all
Speaker 1: on attempts that were right around the rim. She's shooting
Speaker 1: forty nine point three percent at the rim for this
Speaker 1: entire season, including both tournaments, in below forty percent. In
Speaker 1: this NC DOUBLEA tournament, she missed twelve shots in this
Speaker 1: particular game right around the rim. I thought that was
Speaker 1: probably the biggest factor in the game. I mean, we
Speaker 1: talked so much about the defense. Like I talked about,
Speaker 1: on a per possession basis, they did a good job defensively. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the box score numbers looked big and the lead was big,
Speaker 1: but the reality was is the problem for LSU is
Speaker 1: they were missing too many shots around the rim, and
Speaker 1: that was a consistent theme throughout the season. Kaitlyn Clark
Speaker 1: shoots in the mid sixties at the rim, Angel Rees
Speaker 1: shoots below fifty percent at the rim right like, and
Speaker 1: that just ended up being the thing that kind of
Speaker 1: stalled them out offensively. Now, what do I expect to
Speaker 1: see in the Final four, at least in the Yukon
Speaker 1: Iowa game, because of the two teams that I've watched
Speaker 1: more closely. I expect, you know, Rima to bring just
Speaker 1: a better mix of coverages. I think you will see blitzes.
Speaker 1: I think you will see hard hedges. I think you
Speaker 1: will see hard nail help. You're gonna see all of that,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna be mixed in an attempt to keep
Speaker 1: Iowa off of balance and to keep Kaitlyn Clark off balance.
Speaker 1: I also think Yukon has a few more lengthy defenders
Speaker 1: on the perimeter that will make things a little more interesting.
Speaker 1: Obviously LSU's interior size is kind of their advantage. I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna see just a little bit more layingth
Speaker 1: on Caitlyn Clark as well. It's gonna be real challenge
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be really fun game. We do plan
Speaker 1: uncovering the women's final four on this show. It should
Speaker 1: be fun, all right. Moving on to Suns Pelicans, This
Speaker 1: game was crazy. The Suns just lit him up from
Speaker 1: the opening tip. They had fourteen points in the first
Speaker 1: two minutes and fifty eight seconds on pace for damn
Speaker 1: near sixty point quarter. They were consistently getting the Pelicans
Speaker 1: in rotation, a lot of the same stuff that I've
Speaker 1: talked about with the Suns, where you just inevitably end
Speaker 1: up drawing in help and then you're playing driving kick
Speaker 1: basketball with just incredibly talented offensive players. The Pelicans were
Speaker 1: making a lot of mistakes early in this game. Devin
Speaker 1: Booker and Kevin Durant each got two wide open jumpers
Speaker 1: in the opening minutes. There was a Nurkic offensive rebound
Speaker 1: that got Devin Booker a wide open fifteen footer. There
Speaker 1: was a play on the left wing where Herb Jones
Speaker 1: was prepping for a specific type of coverage and wasn't
Speaker 1: paying close enough attention to his man, Devin Booker on
Speaker 1: this play, and Devin Booker got a wide open corner
Speaker 1: three just because he was a step light. KD got
Speaker 1: two wide open kickouts because his man got pulled into
Speaker 1: help situations. All four of these jumpers went in. That
Speaker 1: was a big part of extuly me. Katie made one
Speaker 1: to miss the other. But like three of those four
Speaker 1: jumpers went in, they got into rhythm pretty quickly. They
Speaker 1: just kept leaving Devin Booker open. After that, we talked
Speaker 1: about the two mistakes early, but Devin Booker's next three
Speaker 1: out of that that he made came in a stack
Speaker 1: pick and roll situation. So stack pick and roll is
Speaker 1: when Devin Booker's coming off of the Nurkits ball screen.
Speaker 1: But as he's coming off of the Nurkits ball screen,
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen underneath the basket is coming up in backscreening
Speaker 1: Nurkic's man so that he can get open on the role.
Speaker 1: The way the Pelicans were guarding it was Zion Williamson
Speaker 1: was guarding Grayson Allen, and so what Herb Jones and
Speaker 1: Zion Williamson were doing is they were switching that Grayson
Speaker 1: Allen Devin Booker element, So basically, Zion Williamson would have
Speaker 1: to split out and guard Devin Booker and Herb Jones
Speaker 1: would essentially take Grayson Allen as he's flashing to the
Speaker 1: top of the key. And in both of these situations,
Speaker 1: Zion Williamson is closing out at Devin Booker right, so
Speaker 1: it's a difficult defensive match for him. Just by the
Speaker 1: way the coverage is set up, they're basically pulling Zion
Speaker 1: into this ball screen situation right. So Booker's next three
Speaker 1: came out of a stack pick and roll situation where
Speaker 1: Zion was supposed to switch out, but he was too late.
Speaker 1: Devin Booker made the three. They ran another stack pick
Speaker 1: and roll a few possessions later. This time Zion comes
Speaker 1: out hard. This was on the left side of the floor.
Speaker 1: Zion comes out hard, but it's a bad close out.
Speaker 1: Devin Booker goes right by him and gets an easy layup.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is one of the many
Speaker 1: reasons why I don't take the Pelicans very seriously as
Speaker 1: a playoff threat. Regardless of what the defensive numbers look like.
Speaker 1: Their defensive front court is bad and good offenses are
Speaker 1: going to find a way to score easily against them,
Speaker 1: just like the suns that Sons did. There was another
Speaker 1: three in there on the left wing where they left
Speaker 1: Devin Booker wide open in transition where they just weren't
Speaker 1: matched up. There were tough shots in there too. Devin
Speaker 1: hit a step back three in the first quarter at
Speaker 1: the top of the key, but like he's in full
Speaker 1: rhythm at that point, there's not really much you can
Speaker 1: do to stop a player once he's that confident and
Speaker 1: in that kind of groove. So four minutes left in
Speaker 1: the first cour the Pells bench group comes in and
Speaker 1: they start. This is before the bench came in four
Speaker 1: minutes left in the first quarter. The Pells are trying
Speaker 1: to slow down Devin Booker at this point, so they
Speaker 1: start blitzing it. As soon as they start blitzing Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: the Sun score eight points immediately on the next three possessions.
Speaker 1: Eric Gordon corner three in the right corner, Grayson Allen
Speaker 1: corner three in the left corner, and then a Grayson
Speaker 1: Allen close out opportunity from the left wing where he
Speaker 1: drives and gets a nasty dunk like a posterizing dunk,
Speaker 1: so like no matter what they did, they were just
Speaker 1: in the blender. Late first quarter, the Pells bench group
Speaker 1: comes in and I don't know how this happened, but
Speaker 1: somehow Zion Williamson drew the Devin Booker assignment in this
Speaker 1: bench group. Devin Booker took him through one simple flare
Speaker 1: screen and got another wide open three. We're not even
Speaker 1: ten minutes into this game. Devin Booker has nineteen and
Speaker 1: the Suns are up by twenty one points and the
Speaker 1: game is over. This was an unseerious effort from the
Speaker 1: New Orleans Pelicans. Use of Nurkic was just ignoring Yonas
Speaker 1: Valancunis and frolling the paint, which stopped Zion's dribble penetration
Speaker 1: and really bogged down their offense. Obviously, brandon Ingram being
Speaker 1: out plays a factor there. Right. The Pelicans are a
Speaker 1: statistically good defense. They're sixth in defensive rating on the
Speaker 1: season and fourth post All Star Break, But I don't
Speaker 1: actually think they can guard any of the good offenses
Speaker 1: in any sort of serious game. Their front court players
Speaker 1: can't guard in space. They kind of require a certain
Speaker 1: type of matchup for their wing defenders. To be able
Speaker 1: to impact things enough for them to kind of hold
Speaker 1: down an elite defense. They need to be able to
Speaker 1: kind of like load up on a singular player. Anything
Speaker 1: that can really spread them out is going to put
Speaker 1: them in a lot of trouble. On the Suns front,
Speaker 1: It's no secret that they need Devin Booker to be
Speaker 1: at this level to be where they need to be Offensively.
Speaker 1: Devin Booker had been struggling coming back from the ankle injury,
Speaker 1: shooting just forty eight percent from the field in twenty
Speaker 1: eight percent from three in the ten games before last night,
Speaker 1: just twenty four points per game as well. And you
Speaker 1: saw the offense struggle at bit a little bit, particularly
Speaker 1: in the Oklahoma City game, in the San Antonio game,
Speaker 1: even struggle a little bit against Denver. They just won
Speaker 1: that game. But they broke out in a big way
Speaker 1: in this game, and the Sun's offense broke out with him.
Speaker 1: But the Suns have a absolute murderer's row here to
Speaker 1: end the season. Their next seven games before we get
Speaker 1: into the playoffs are Cleveland, Minnesota, New Orleans again who's
Speaker 1: gonna want revenge, the Clippers twice, the Kings, and the
Speaker 1: timber Wolves. Now I think the Suns are good enough
Speaker 1: to do well in a lot of those games. Also
Speaker 1: just from personal experience having rooted for the Lakers last year.
Speaker 1: Urgency plays a major role here, Like Cleveland doesn't have
Speaker 1: the urgency because they have a locked in playoff spot
Speaker 1: that the Suns do. Minnesota doesn't have the urgency because
Speaker 1: they've a locked in playoff spot that the Suns do.
Speaker 1: New Orleans They're obviously still in some sort of vague
Speaker 1: threat to drop into the play in but they're in
Speaker 1: better position than most of these teams, right, So they're
Speaker 1: less threatened. Right. The Clippers obviously same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: They want to play better basketball, they have some motivation,
Speaker 1: but they're not threatened the way that Phoenix is Sacramento.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be a tough game, but Sacramento obviously is
Speaker 1: down to their most important players in the Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 1: say thing like at the end of the season, just
Speaker 1: like they play them earlier in the stretch as well,
Speaker 1: But same sort of thing, not really jockeying for positions.
Speaker 1: So they have a huge urgency advantage in a lot
Speaker 1: of these games. So I actually, if I had to
Speaker 1: guess on a team dropping down into the nine to
Speaker 1: ten and letting the Lakers pass. I actually think it's
Speaker 1: more likely that ends up being Sacramento than Phoenix, because
Speaker 1: Sacramento has the same type of urgency, but they've got
Speaker 1: also a tough schedule and they're missing some important players.
Speaker 1: I think the Suns are really freaking good, and I
Speaker 1: think when they play that hard and they bring that
Speaker 1: level of urgency, it's really tough to beat them. All right,
Speaker 1: moving on to our mailbag. So the context for this
Speaker 1: first question. I had an opportunity at the end of
Speaker 1: the show, at the end of the MAVs segment yesterday,
Speaker 1: to talk about where I'd rank them in the Western Conference,
Speaker 1: and I made the case that all of the teams
Speaker 1: that are in that tier, so like the Suns, the Clippers,
Speaker 1: the Lakers, the Thunder, and the Timberwolves, all those teams
Speaker 1: are more or less just as formidable, and so I
Speaker 1: don't think Dallas has done anything to separate from that group.
Speaker 1: So that's the context of this first question. Here's the question.
Speaker 1: The case for the MAVs in a tier of their
Speaker 1: own in the West below Denver is Luca. He's the
Speaker 1: only player who has a chance shot for shot with
Speaker 1: Jokic late in a game, and when Luca isn't giving
Speaker 1: you tough, untoppable buckets, Kyrie is. Sons come close to
Speaker 1: that firepower, but it's not the same. Respectfully, I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think all of these teams except if there's one
Speaker 1: team that you could say Luca is just clearly better
Speaker 1: than the Stars by a wide margin, and it's not close.
Speaker 1: It's Luca's better than Anthony Edwards, right, And even then,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards could break out any one of these postseason
Speaker 1: runs and enter into that tier, right, But obviously with
Speaker 1: Luca and Kyrie, the star power is just better. But
Speaker 1: like the Sons have Kevin Durant, Bradley Beial and Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: Devin Booker just had fifty two last night. Like I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but there's not a tangible gap between Luca and Kyrie
Speaker 1: and kd Devin Booker and Bradley Beal on the Clippers front,
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden on the Lakers front,
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Anthony Davis and all their skill that
Speaker 1: they have on the perimeter Oklahoma City, Shakeyaldes, Alexander and
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams, like I could, you could argue that Luca
Speaker 1: is the best player in that group. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably him and Kawhi in terms of playoff players, and
Speaker 1: I'd probably give a slight edge to Lucas. So I
Speaker 1: agree with you that Lucas probably the best, but there's
Speaker 1: not a sizeable star power gap between any of those guys,
Speaker 1: and in the Luca Kyrie duo, they're not anything that's
Speaker 1: worth really mentioning. There's probably a small gap there, but
Speaker 1: nothing that's really going to be substantial when you get
Speaker 1: to the postseason. So again, really like Dallas playing the
Speaker 1: best basketball right now, which is a huge indicator of
Speaker 1: their potential playoffs success. But I push back on the
Speaker 1: idea that they're just superior to all of the teams
Speaker 1: in that tier. Question for the best breakdown pot in
Speaker 1: the game. Thank you, that's a very nice compliment. Do
Speaker 1: you think there's a chance Tatum is saving his legs
Speaker 1: on drives to the basket for the playoffs like a
Speaker 1: running back in football. He's shown some bad habits this year,
Speaker 1: but I find it hard to believe that he forgot
Speaker 1: his biggest flaw from the twenty two, twenty twenty two finals.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I do think that there's some
Speaker 1: reality to the fact that you are more physically engaged
Speaker 1: when the urgency goes up and Boston is not bringing
Speaker 1: that type of urgency. That said, I've never known Tatum
Speaker 1: to be the guy that's like, oh, the chips are down,
Speaker 1: I'm playing bully ball now. So from that standpoint, like,
Speaker 1: I do think there's a level of aggression that he'll
Speaker 1: have when he gets to the postseason, but not in
Speaker 1: some massive way that significantly changes his shot diet compared
Speaker 1: to what we're accustomed to seeing. Next question, I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan from Australia and I've been watching since your
Speaker 1: first playoff breakdowns in twenty twenty two. Thanks for supporting
Speaker 1: the show. My question fast forward five years. Oklahoma is
Speaker 1: the new dynasty in the NBA, SGA, Chet and j
Speaker 1: Dub are all still there, But who are the first, second,
Speaker 1: and third players on that particular team in your opinion?
Speaker 1: I've heard you say both Chet and Jay Dubb have
Speaker 1: top ten potential, and you have also expressed concerns over
Speaker 1: SGA's game translating to the playoffs. So do you think
Speaker 1: the best version of the Thunder is SGA's the second option.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, it's really hard to say. Chet's playing
Speaker 1: his first season of NBA basketball and Jalen Williams is
Speaker 1: playing his second season, So shake kildess. Alexander has played
Speaker 1: twice as many NBA seasons as the other two guys combined,
Speaker 1: So like, it's just really hard to tell where Chet
Speaker 1: and Jalen are going to get to. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I think Sja is a definitive top ten player right now.
Speaker 1: Right I think you can make a case he's top five,
Speaker 1: although I would wait to do that until he has
Speaker 1: a successful postseason run. But here's the thing. Chet has
Speaker 1: the potential to be a top five defensive player in
Speaker 1: the league and a top ten ish offensive player in
Speaker 1: the league as just a guy that can be this
Speaker 1: wing scorer, slash stretch, big kind of guy, right like
Speaker 1: he has this guy's the limit for that guy. And
Speaker 1: then I talked yesterday on the show, We're gonna get
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper into it here in a second.
Speaker 1: But Jalen Williams, I think has the best combination of
Speaker 1: downhill force, deadly pull up shooting, and playmaking that I've
Speaker 1: seen from a wing prospect. In a very long time,
Speaker 1: so he has the potential to be one of the
Speaker 1: best players in the NBA. So honestly, like it's not
Speaker 1: really about who's first, second, or third. They played complimentary positions,
Speaker 1: right Like j Dub is a second side creator, Shae's
Speaker 1: a primary creator. Chet is your perfect kind of like
Speaker 1: big that can kind of play with all of those guys.
Speaker 1: So like, I don't really get caught up on who's
Speaker 1: the best because they're all really really good. And in
Speaker 1: a situation where the Thunder have three of the top
Speaker 1: ten players in the league, they're just gonna be really
Speaker 1: good and they're gonna kick everybody's butt, And so I
Speaker 1: don't really I I if I had to gun to
Speaker 1: my head, say who's gonna be the best player in
Speaker 1: the long run, I'm gonna pick Shay just because he's
Speaker 1: already there. Therefore it's a safe bet. There's a lot
Speaker 1: theoretical going on with Chet and with Jay Dub at
Speaker 1: this point, whereas Shay is like already there, so he's
Speaker 1: the safest bet. But I wouldn't be surprised if he
Speaker 1: was the third best player on the team when we
Speaker 1: get into the future. That is the potential that chet
Speaker 1: and j dubb have at this point. So I was
Speaker 1: talking about comps because I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a player that had a similar type of you know,
Speaker 1: skill set that he brings to the table as Jalen
Speaker 1: Williams and I at the A comp I ended up
Speaker 1: coming up with was like a like a better shooting
Speaker 1: version of Jimmy Butler. Now in the comments, I had
Speaker 1: two suggestions. One guy said, the comp you were looking
Speaker 1: for for Williams was Pacers Paul George. Another one was
Speaker 1: Kawhi is the comp for Jalen Williams. So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I have never viewed Paul George as the level of
Speaker 1: playmaker that some of the better wings wings in the
Speaker 1: league are, And then uh, Jalen Williams is a much
Speaker 1: more significant driving and finishing threat than both of those guys.
Speaker 1: He averages more drives and restricted area finishes than both
Speaker 1: by a pretty significant margin. There's like a real downhill
Speaker 1: force with Jalen Williams. Paul George can beat people off
Speaker 1: the dribble with quickness and with his ball handling. We
Speaker 1: know that's a part of his game, but it's not
Speaker 1: like a real, real strength of his game. Kawhi Leonard
Speaker 1: brings power, but it's a back to the basket post
Speaker 1: up power. Kauhi is not really a slasher, that's not
Speaker 1: what he does. So like those guys can do that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think Jalen Williams has the potential to be
Speaker 1: a substantially better driving threat than both of them, So
Speaker 1: I don't really view that as the comp The thing
Speaker 1: that I look at with a guy like Jimmy Butler
Speaker 1: is the real, like downhill, like rip through, beat guys
Speaker 1: off the dribble type of force, especially that he had
Speaker 1: earlier in his career. But I'm really curious to see
Speaker 1: where he ends up. And honestly, when it comes to
Speaker 1: player comps, there's no such thing as a perfect comp
Speaker 1: because every player is so unique, and Jalen's kind of
Speaker 1: unique in his own way. To me, he's almost like
Speaker 1: he's almost the way he has defenders on their heels
Speaker 1: actually reminds me a little bit of Russell Westbrook and
Speaker 1: it's like it's like he's getting into these easy pull
Speaker 1: up jumpers, but he can make them. He's one of
Speaker 1: the best shooters in the league, and so what if
Speaker 1: he's like a bigger, better shooting Russell Westbrook, Like, wouldn't
Speaker 1: that be a crazy type of prospect in the NBA?
Speaker 1: All Right, two more and then we're out of here.
Speaker 1: How much easier is the East compared to the West.
Speaker 1: The Lakers are seventeen and eleven against the best teams
Speaker 1: in the league. The Knicks are five and seventeens. The
Speaker 1: Lakers and most other West teams played six more games
Speaker 1: against good teams than the Knicks and most other East
Speaker 1: East teams. That's a massive difference. So one thing. In
Speaker 1: the next defense, they've had stars injured all year, so
Speaker 1: of course they're going to struggle against the best teams,
Speaker 1: so I don't really hold them against that against them, I
Speaker 1: think the top of the East is every bit as
Speaker 1: good as the West. I think the Celtics are really good.
Speaker 1: I think the Bucks are really good. I think the
Speaker 1: Knicks are really good. I think the Calves and Magic
Speaker 1: are you know, takerm or leave them. But with the
Speaker 1: Sixers healthy, those four teams, Bucks, Sixers, Knicks, and Celtics
Speaker 1: I think are every bit as good as the top
Speaker 1: seven teams in the West. Not in the standings, but
Speaker 1: like the the Nuggets, the Clippers, the Timberwolves, the Suns,
Speaker 1: the Lakers, the Thunder, and who's the team I'm missing.
Speaker 1: There's one in there, the one I was mentioning earlier.
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter anyway, those teams I put the four in
Speaker 1: the East on the same level as those teams in
Speaker 1: Boston and Denver obviously on their own tier, right, But
Speaker 1: it's the bottom of the Eastern Conference where the bottom
Speaker 1: just completely falls out. There's just you play because you
Speaker 1: play teams in the Western Conference twice, right, So you
Speaker 1: play thirty games against the West, you play fifty two
Speaker 1: games against the East, and so you get four matchups
Speaker 1: with that shitty Hornets team or that shitty Pistons team
Speaker 1: or that shitty Wizard's team, right, Like, you get all
Speaker 1: of these games against bad teams at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the conference. And there's a lot of truth to the
Speaker 1: fact that most of these Western Conference teams their records
Speaker 1: look lower simply because they're just playing better teams night
Speaker 1: in and night out. And there's no doubt that that's
Speaker 1: played a difference or played a factor into the way
Speaker 1: the season is shaped out. All right, last question, what
Speaker 1: is your take on Luca not being higher in the
Speaker 1: MVP list. I know the league is stacked with talent,
Speaker 1: but with Embiid being out of the race, I can
Speaker 1: only see Yokic being higher than him and just buy
Speaker 1: a hair. With the MAVs being a top five seed
Speaker 1: in the West, now, it sounds like the media can't
Speaker 1: come up with a seating excuse any longer. Thank you
Speaker 1: for your take. Thank you for educating us fans every day.
Speaker 1: Love the content. Keep doing some great work. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate the support. Again, every time I see those comments,
Speaker 1: it definitely helps push me along. I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing right now, on the recent Windstrenk win streak,
Speaker 1: the MAVs have the seventh best record in in basketball,
Speaker 1: which is definitely an MVP territory now where he wasn't
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. Right, totally agree with you guys there,
Speaker 1: But in the event that you're trying to make it
Speaker 1: into a serious MVP situation or like be an MVP
Speaker 1: favorite to win, if you're not in that like upper tier,
Speaker 1: and I mean like one of the top seeds in
Speaker 1: your conference, which MAVs are not. The MAVs are seventh
Speaker 1: in the league, but you know, Denver's a clear tier
Speaker 1: above them in the Western conference. Right, With that being
Speaker 1: the case, Luca would have to demonstrate a substantial gap
Speaker 1: in terms of the level of play. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: as good as Luca has been, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of mass fans have been like I saw comments yesterday
Speaker 1: like no one's played better than Luca this year. I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think in the context of the regular season, Jay's
Speaker 1: played really damn good. Nikole Yoka just played really damn good.
Speaker 1: Giannis has played really damn good. Like there's no, like tangible,
Speaker 1: massive gap between the level of play Luca and those
Speaker 1: guys and Denver and no can see better records by
Speaker 1: a pretty sizable margin. So like again, I think Luca
Speaker 1: has put himself into the conversation, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: top three finishes in the on the table here, and
Speaker 1: if he if they go on a win streak that
Speaker 1: ends the season and Luca averages you know, thirty five
Speaker 1: a game in that stretch, then yeah, he might just
Speaker 1: smash his way to the top. But there's a reason
Speaker 1: why he's not getting buzzed as the favorite at this point.
Speaker 1: There are teams above him that have better records and
Speaker 1: that have players that are playing about as well. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's just gonna make them better MVP candidates as
Speaker 1: of right now. Don't worry. Luca's gonna get an MVP
Speaker 1: at some point. He's gonna get championships at some point.
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in Luca. He's only twenty five
Speaker 1: years old. There's timing to this stuff, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: that's all I have for this morning show or actually
Speaker 1: coming back. What's the night game tonight? I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember exactly what it is. We are coming back after
Speaker 1: MAVs Warriors tonight. That'll be fun. It's a ten pm
Speaker 1: East and tip. We'll be coming live on YouTube right
Speaker 1: after the final buzzer. I'll see you guys. Then the
Speaker 1: volume