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Speaker 2: dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to tonight. You're
Speaker 2: at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody hopeful. If you guys
Speaker 2: are having a great week, got a jam packed show
Speaker 2: for you tonight. We're hitting four games from the Thursday
Speaker 2: nights late. Lebron just puts on an absolute masterclass against
Speaker 2: the Golden State Warriors with forty two, seventeen and eight.
Speaker 2: We're going to be breaking down that game from the
Speaker 2: perspective of both teams. Anthony Edwards who's had a couple
Speaker 2: of really explosive scoring games as of late, just goes
Speaker 2: absolutely crazy on the Houston Rockets in the last eight
Speaker 2: minutes of the fourth quarter. Another brilliant game from him.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about some of the specific ways
Speaker 2: his athleticism is so difficult to contend with. After that,
Speaker 2: the Dallas Favericks beat the Boston Celtics in Boston tonight
Speaker 2: as the Celtics continue their uneven play throughout the season,
Speaker 2: and a really nice impressive version of small ball from Dallas.
Speaker 2: They're going to be talking a lot about small ball
Speaker 2: and what makes it work in tonight's show. And then lastly,
Speaker 2: at the tail end, Nicole Jokic another triple double and
Speaker 2: a win against the Orlando Magic. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the concept of inverted pick and roll and what
Speaker 2: makes that so difficult to guard as he was just
Speaker 2: eviscerating the Orlando Magic big men in traffic by running
Speaker 2: them through screens all night long. It's gonna be a
Speaker 2: fun one. You guys are the job. Before we started
Speaker 2: to subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels, you don't
Speaker 2: miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter
Speaker 2: at underscore jcnlts you guys, don' miss announcements. Don't forget
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Speaker 2: It's also super helpful if he leave a rating in
Speaker 2: a review. On that front, we also have brand new
Speaker 2: social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're we're
Speaker 2: releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow
Speaker 2: us there. And the last about at least keep dropping
Speaker 2: mail back questions. At the tail end of tonight's show,
Speaker 2: We're gonna actually record our mailbag, So drop questions in
Speaker 2: the chat and our producer Paul is gonna actually send
Speaker 2: them to me and we'll hit about ten to fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes for a worth of questions right at the tail
Speaker 2: end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So I've been experiencing a bit of deja vus with
Speaker 2: Lebron James as of late. I've been talking a lot
Speaker 2: about this concept of belief and how much it matters
Speaker 2: when you're trying to win a championship, because playing championship
Speaker 2: basketball is hard. Have you seen Lebron take some hits
Speaker 2: in the last few games. Have you seen him end
Speaker 2: up on the ground, have you seen him skying for rebounds.
Speaker 2: Have you seen him making low man rotations that he
Speaker 2: wasn't making in the past. You're seeing Lebron like really
Speaker 2: exert himself because it is hard, and you absolutely we
Speaker 2: must believe that you can actually win the trophy in
Speaker 2: order to get a level of desperate commitment to what
Speaker 2: it takes to play winning basketball. I don't want to
Speaker 2: sit here and pretend like Lebron has had no belief
Speaker 2: all season, but we have to be honest. We've all
Speaker 2: seen Lebron give poor defensive efforts where he literally looks
Speaker 2: like he knows his team isn't very good. We've seen
Speaker 2: him look dejected at times in the postgame locker room.
Speaker 2: He's also had stretches where he's looked locked in and
Speaker 2: played very well, but they've been fewer and further between
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years as a in large
Speaker 2: part because it hasn't. I mean, we all know this
Speaker 2: Laker team. It's like, yeah, they got a chance. Maybe
Speaker 2: if Lebron and Ad play amazing and some role players
Speaker 2: out kick their coverage, so to speak, maybe they can
Speaker 2: get it done. But there was never any like true
Speaker 2: belief that there was this like clear championship ceiling there
Speaker 2: for that team. This isn't just a locked in and
Speaker 2: engaged Lebron we're seeing right now. This this is a
Speaker 2: Lebron that actually truly believes he has a great chance
Speaker 2: to win the title. And I'm actually excited, especially for
Speaker 2: Lakers fans, because it's been a long time since we've
Speaker 2: seen this. Last time we saw this guy was probably
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, right the year that they lost in
Speaker 2: the first round of Phoenix. Lebron is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest competitors of all time. Don't let the benevolent attitude
Speaker 2: fool you. This guy is a maniacal competitor and when
Speaker 2: he sees an opportunity, he locks in on it and
Speaker 2: he's literally going to make sure that everything that he
Speaker 2: can do in his power, everything in his control, he's
Speaker 2: going to take care. Forty two seventeen and eight Tonight
Speaker 2: one of the best rebounding games of the season from
Speaker 2: Lebron as he's had to anchor these small ball groups
Speaker 2: without centers. Just another level of shot creation we've seen
Speaker 2: from him in the last couple of like the last
Speaker 2: three four games, We're seeing incredible defensive rotations, communication, an
Speaker 2: attention to detail, and his playmaking remember those stretches this
Speaker 2: year where it kind of felt like Lebron was coasting
Speaker 2: through games mental and just kind of throwing the ball
Speaker 2: all over the court, and like he just didn't really
Speaker 2: seem invested mentally in the game. Like he's looked so
Speaker 2: laser focused every single time I've seen him in the
Speaker 2: last week or so, and it just looks like a different,
Speaker 2: more maniacally obsessively invested in this group version of Lebron James,
Speaker 2: and that to me, he's exciting on a bunch of
Speaker 2: different levels beyond just this is the guy that I
Speaker 2: became such a big fan of growing up, and the
Speaker 2: guy that dominated the league for a decade and a
Speaker 2: really fun thing to watch when you're rooting for the
Speaker 2: team that he's playing on. And so like, I'm just
Speaker 2: excited to be a part of another opportunity to watch
Speaker 2: Lebron James when he actually feels like he has a
Speaker 2: real chance to win the title. I'm super excited to
Speaker 2: see how it could potentially affect Luca. Luca's got a
Speaker 2: lot of motivation right now, as he just had a
Speaker 2: franchise pretty embarrassing fashion bail on him right at the
Speaker 2: beginning of his prime and so he's gonna have a
Speaker 2: certain amount of motivation from that. But I can't imagine
Speaker 2: a better ecosystem to take Luka Dancij out of and
Speaker 2: plug him into then the greatest basketball player of all time,
Speaker 2: as mentally engaged, as physically engaged as he's been in
Speaker 2: almost a half decade. And I think it's going to
Speaker 2: bring a level out of both of these guys, Luca
Speaker 2: to Lebron in the form of the belief that he
Speaker 2: has reinstored for him, and Lebron to Luca in terms
Speaker 2: of the example that he can set. And I think
Speaker 2: it's gonna lead to some really special basketball from this group.
Speaker 2: I want to zoom in on some x's and o's
Speaker 2: from tonight. I want to talk about the concept of
Speaker 2: small ball. You know, we're gonna be talking a lot
Speaker 2: about Mark Williams over the course the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And for those of you guys who missed it, we
Speaker 2: did a scouting report on Mark Williams earlier today, So
Speaker 2: just go to our YouTube channel scroll a little bit
Speaker 2: further back you can find the full breakdown of everything
Speaker 2: Mark Williams. I'm not going to get into him tonight,
Speaker 2: but one of the reasons why, like I didn't understand
Speaker 2: a lot of pessimism coming out of that deal because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of pessimismsunding. You know, Mark Williams is
Speaker 2: not a good defender, and that's true. Mark Williams is
Speaker 2: twenty three and he has absurd physical tools, but the
Speaker 2: the guy, he just has a lot of work still.
Speaker 2: He's pretty raw, needs a lot of work in terms
Speaker 2: of rounding out what he needs to be a good
Speaker 2: defensive player. And there will be games this year where
Speaker 2: Mark Williams looks really bad on defense and the Lakers
Speaker 2: defense looks really bad. But one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I wasn't super concerned about that was there was a
Speaker 2: huge upside by making this kind of deal, by going
Speaker 2: for a center that is on a cost controlled rookie
Speaker 2: contract as opposed to a you know, an extension that's
Speaker 2: a fifteen twenty twenty five million dollars deal, like a
Speaker 2: guy like a Nicholas Claxton, a guy like Robert Williams,
Speaker 2: a guy like Nikola Vucevich, a guy like Yaka pertl Right,
Speaker 2: some of these other options that the Lakers were looking at.
Speaker 2: By virtue of going for a cost controlled player and
Speaker 2: the two options there obviously that we saw were Walker
Speaker 2: Kessler and Mark Williams. By going after a guy like that,
Speaker 2: you can just package a couple of them contracts. That's
Speaker 2: what they did. They packaged Dalton connect And who, by
Speaker 2: the way, was like periodically in the rotation for the
Speaker 2: Lakers this year, but had his minutes messed with a lot.
Speaker 2: And I was pretty consistent that I didn't think he
Speaker 2: was a playoff rotation player yet, even though I believe
Speaker 2: in him long term as an offensive prospect. But you
Speaker 2: ship him out, you ship Cam Reddish out. You didn't
Speaker 2: lose any of these same guys that have been playing
Speaker 2: amazing basketball as of late. The only perimeter guy that's
Speaker 2: like kind of a regular rotation player you lost is
Speaker 2: Max Christy. He's a huge loss. Dallas fans are gonna
Speaker 2: love him. But there's subtly underneath the surface here, even
Speaker 2: dating back to the Knicks game when Anthony Davis didn't
Speaker 2: even play, there is a group of seven guys here,
Speaker 2: eight guys really if you count Jackson Hayes, who's been
Speaker 2: playing some pretty damn special basketball. And it's because they
Speaker 2: have more size on the perimeter, more defensive talent, more
Speaker 2: rebounding talent more than we've seen on this roster before,
Speaker 2: because Dorian Finney Smith came in in the deal, and
Speaker 2: because Jared Vanderbilt's healthy now. So now you're seeing these
Speaker 2: lineups that have Lebron James, Dorian Finney Smith, Ruey Hotchamura,
Speaker 2: Jared Vanderbilt on the floor. And even the guards, guys
Speaker 2: like Gave Vincent, guys like Austin Reeves, they compete, they
Speaker 2: do their job. Austin was guarding tonight, gave Vincent was
Speaker 2: guarding tonight. In order for small ball to work, there
Speaker 2: has to be a commitment athletically to the details. You
Speaker 2: need several things in order for small ball to work.
Speaker 2: You need a shot creation because you're gonna create a
Speaker 2: lot of space, and you're gonna have these good perimeter
Speaker 2: players operating in space against a mismatch right, and you
Speaker 2: need guys that can either consistently beat that coverage one
Speaker 2: on one or consistently get the defense in rotation, either
Speaker 2: by drawing a double team or by beating that guy
Speaker 2: at the dribble and drawing in help from there. You
Speaker 2: gotta have guys that can finish the play. Extended vantages, drive, closeouts,
Speaker 2: play that driving kick sequence through to fruition for those
Speaker 2: wide open catch and shoot threes and the stuff at
Speaker 2: the rim. So that's what you need to make it
Speaker 2: work on offense, and then on defense you have to
Speaker 2: be able to switch, contain the ball, that crowding mismatches,
Speaker 2: getting into passing lanes, making the floor feel smaller for
Speaker 2: the player that's trying to attack your weakest defender, and
Speaker 2: then out that you have to rebound you're smaller. Everyone's
Speaker 2: got to crash, everyone's got to be flying in and
Speaker 2: tapping at the ball, and there's just been excellent production
Speaker 2: in every single one of those categories. Lebron and Austin
Speaker 2: are just in one hell of a rhythm right now.
Speaker 2: And like Austin had a nightmare shooting game, both of
Speaker 2: them cooled off pretty bad in that second half, but
Speaker 2: they still did enough. Both guys did a good job
Speaker 2: getting to the foul line in the second half as
Speaker 2: ways to kind of just squeeze extra points out. But
Speaker 2: both of them were generating advantages, generating buckets for themselves
Speaker 2: all like they've been playing just fantastic basketball over the
Speaker 2: course of the last couple of weeks. And then off
Speaker 2: of that, Gabe Vincent's hitting shots. Riachimura is making plays.
Speaker 2: Jared Vanderbilt through his offensive rebounding and just his activity
Speaker 2: is maintaining himself as a threat on the Dorian Finney
Speaker 2: Smith knocking down shots. Everyone is doing their job within
Speaker 2: that advantage, extending and play finishing, and then on defense,
Speaker 2: just by virtue of having more good defenders on the floor,
Speaker 2: by virtue of having more good defenders in the rotation,
Speaker 2: there's just better talent in this switching scheme. Containing the
Speaker 2: ball being in the right place, is making the efforts
Speaker 2: you need to close out defensive possessions. And that's the
Speaker 2: last part. Rebounding, they're gonna go small. You've got to
Speaker 2: fly around for rebounds. Your perimeter players have to have
Speaker 2: dominating rebounding efforts. Lebron James and Jared Vanderbilt too, forwards
Speaker 2: had thirty one rebounds in this game, thirty one of them.
Speaker 2: You want to know how small ball works when you
Speaker 2: got guys that are small that play huge, and Jared
Speaker 2: Vanderbilt and Lebron are two of those guys. Austin Reeves,
Speaker 2: even your small guys have to battle. Austin Reeves only
Speaker 2: had four rebounds, but he had two of the biggest
Speaker 2: rebounding sequences of the night. What I thought was the
Speaker 2: play of the game. This crazy play where it's a
Speaker 2: high point right around the left lay line. Draymond's got
Speaker 2: positioned on the rebound. Austin comes flying in and just
Speaker 2: barely gets a piece of it, keeps it alive just
Speaker 2: long enough for Jared Vanderbilt to get it. Jared Vanderbilt
Speaker 2: can grabing go all night. He was getting rebounds and
Speaker 2: instead of having to give the ball to someone to
Speaker 2: run against ball pressure, he just would bring the ball
Speaker 2: up to floor. Jared Vanderbilt huge defensive rebound, throws a
Speaker 2: beautiful bounce pass in transition to Dorian Phinney Smith for
Speaker 2: a dunk. A remarkable play that captures the difference in
Speaker 2: the personality of this team compared to the pass because
Speaker 2: of Dorian Phinney Smith coming in in the trade. Jared
Speaker 2: Vanderbilt getting healthy. You just have more talent in those positions,
Speaker 2: and your small guys are scrapping too. He also had
Speaker 2: Austin got another huge contested rebound out of the left
Speaker 2: kind of corner area, just running to a loose ball.
Speaker 2: Loose ball that was going that way. No one was there.
Speaker 2: Austin beat everybody there. Those are things. Those things are
Speaker 2: non negotiable. When the Lakers switching defense look terrible, even
Speaker 2: with Anthony David in the early parts of the season,
Speaker 2: it mostly came down to that. It mostly came down
Speaker 2: to guys not being willing to do that work. And
Speaker 2: so that that is why I'm like kind of high
Speaker 2: on the Mark Williams move because to me, this inevitably
Speaker 2: is a small ball team. Maxi Kleiba is like a
Speaker 2: really solid small ball center, a guy that like will
Speaker 2: also be able to help anchor these minutes. He's not
Speaker 2: going to be healthy until most likely early April, but
Speaker 2: that's another option that continues to anchor that idea. We're
Speaker 2: gonna talk about it in a minute, but they're a
Speaker 2: buyout destination. There is potential for even more two way
Speaker 2: talent to join this roster. And when I look at
Speaker 2: the Mark Williams move, I look at it as like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be lineups out there that are Luca at
Speaker 2: the point with probably Austin and Mark Williams is going
Speaker 2: to be out there and they're gonna run a lot
Speaker 2: of pick and roll and they're gonna score a million points.
Speaker 2: And they'll also give up a million points on the
Speaker 2: other end. But like, those lineups will still be good
Speaker 2: because they're going to be extremely difficult to guard. And
Speaker 2: then they're also going to small ball looks. They're going
Speaker 2: to be able to throw out lineups with Luca and
Speaker 2: Lebron in Austin, but with Dorian Finney Smith and Vando
Speaker 2: next to them, and they'll run spread ball screens with
Speaker 2: Jared Vanderbilt or with Lebron and have Vanderbilt operate as
Speaker 2: a cutter along the baseline, and those lineups will be
Speaker 2: able to get enough stops because when Lebron is playing hard,
Speaker 2: he's a very good defender. Dorian Phinney Smith very good defender.
Speaker 2: Jared Vanderbilt is an amazing defender. Like, they're going to
Speaker 2: have looks that they can go to. Now, are there
Speaker 2: are there weaknesses here? Of course, they're a little thin
Speaker 2: on the front line for massive centers. They're going to
Speaker 2: struggle with Jokic type a type of bigs right, and
Speaker 2: that arguably is the kind of player they should be
Speaker 2: looking out in the looking for in the buyout market.
Speaker 2: Is just the best, big, bruising type of center that
Speaker 2: they can find. But like I look at this Lakers
Speaker 2: team that has many different shapes that they can take.
Speaker 2: They're playing such great basketball right now, and they managed
Speaker 2: to pull this off without giving a way any of
Speaker 2: those players that are playing such great basketball right now.
Speaker 2: And then you're gonna bring in this Luca Mark Williams
Speaker 2: dynamic that just gives you an entirely different punch that
Speaker 2: you can throw. Not to mention, like, let's talk about
Speaker 2: that second half. Lebron and Austin started to fatigue. The
Speaker 2: Warriors went small. Guess what. The Warriors are the original
Speaker 2: small ball team. They're very good at it too, and
Speaker 2: they up to their defensive pressure, they up to their
Speaker 2: rebounding effort, and they wore the Lakers down a little
Speaker 2: bit in that second half. Obviously, there was a little
Speaker 2: bit of the Lakers pulling back, and there's some of
Speaker 2: that natural push and pull that happens in NBA regular
Speaker 2: season games, but the actual tangible thing that was affecting
Speaker 2: the Lakers was Lebron and Austin started to fatigue a
Speaker 2: little bit. This is where Luka Doncic is like the
Speaker 2: trump card for that. Luka Doncic is going to just
Speaker 2: make everything so much easier in that situation where a
Speaker 2: defense really tightens the screws and Lebron and Austin start
Speaker 2: to show some of their lumps. Playing great, but Lebron's
Speaker 2: forty and Austin obviously has some athletic limitations. Luca is
Speaker 2: the second or third best basketball player on planet Earth,
Speaker 2: and specifically because his superpower is you can't pressure him
Speaker 2: and force him to speed up. You can't keep him
Speaker 2: from getting to his spots. You can't keep him from
Speaker 2: either getting a shot that he likes for himself or
Speaker 2: a shot that he likes for someone else. And that
Speaker 2: is going to add a layer of resilience to that
Speaker 2: group as they go through stretches like what they did
Speaker 2: in that second half. The Lakers are playing great basketball, man,
Speaker 2: and they're the premier buyout destination in the league. I
Speaker 2: literally can't even believe the reversal of fortune here over
Speaker 2: the course of where I felt about this team over
Speaker 2: the course of the last few months and where they're
Speaker 2: at now. Obviously, I'm not going to make any sort
Speaker 2: of declaration about where they land in my contender tier,
Speaker 2: not until I see a lot of basketball with Luka
Speaker 2: doncicin Mark Williams on the floor, certain point, I just
Speaker 2: want to be like, let's not overthink it, guys, they're
Speaker 2: gonna be really fucking good. Like they're they have this
Speaker 2: incredible identity, and these two guys aren't even there yet.
Speaker 2: And it's the walking thirty point triple double guy and
Speaker 2: the dude who can go for twenty five and fifteen
Speaker 2: on any given night, and and that's that's just a
Speaker 2: massive influx of talent on the Warriors front. Obviously, we
Speaker 2: didn't see Jimmy Butler in this game, and I thought
Speaker 2: they've generally played pretty well. In the stretches of the
Speaker 2: game where they had Steph Curry on the floor, they
Speaker 2: were minus three and steps minutes. They got beat up
Speaker 2: pretty bad by the starters in the opening stretch of
Speaker 2: the game, but every other stretch of the game they
Speaker 2: competed with the Lakers starters and played well. But then
Speaker 2: you just kept going to these bench groups and it's
Speaker 2: like Pat Spencer and Brandon Pajemski and it's like Pat
Speaker 2: Spencer's a really cool story. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: why the hell he went off the like off a
Speaker 2: handle on that and one against Lebron like that was
Speaker 2: that was a pretty funny sequence. But like, that's it.
Speaker 2: Pat Spencer's a cool story. Probably shouldn't be the secondary
Speaker 2: shot creator on your bench unit if you have serious
Speaker 2: championship aspirations. Brandon Pazemski really like him as a prospect.
Speaker 2: Had a rough shooting night tonight, especially at the foul line,
Speaker 2: But he's a guy that does a lot of little
Speaker 2: things well. Probably shouldn't be your primary shot creator on
Speaker 2: a bench unit. And so like, this is the beauty
Speaker 2: of having Jimmy Butler coming into this equation. In addition
Speaker 2: to anchoring those starting units with more talent on both
Speaker 2: ends of the floor, he just gives you a much
Speaker 2: better chance to survive those minutes you watched them. You
Speaker 2: saw they couldn't get good shots. That was the problem.
Speaker 2: They scrapped and they made plays here and there, but
Speaker 2: time and time again, that Laker defense was able to
Speaker 2: contain those guys. And so that's exactly why I'm so
Speaker 2: excited to see what Jimmy Butler looks like in this context.
Speaker 2: Like Steph, what he take thirty took damn your forty
Speaker 2: shots tonight, Like he's having to do everything right now,
Speaker 2: And that's exactly why you had to do what you did.
Speaker 1: Yesterday.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to Anthony Edwards just absolutely
Speaker 2: dominating the Houston Rockets. The Rockets are banged up when
Speaker 2: they're playing their worst basketball this season right now, but
Speaker 2: they had a lead at one point lead about eight
Speaker 2: minutes left in the fourth quarter up until Anthony Edwards
Speaker 2: came in and just completely eviscerated them. He has scored
Speaker 2: sixteen points over the final eight minutes of the game.
Speaker 2: The degree of difficulty on the work that he did
Speaker 2: was off the charge. Remember, Houston is probably one of
Speaker 2: the few teams in the league, probably the team that's
Speaker 2: best equipped actually to handle Anthony Edwards's power In athleticism, again,
Speaker 2: Anthony Ewards brings this unique combination of incredible athletic mobility,
Speaker 2: but he's just built like a refrigerator, and so he's
Speaker 2: just incredibly difficult to handle his like straight line power. Right.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, even though the Rockets have a
Speaker 2: lot of athletes that have power like ant is just
Speaker 2: a complete other level of athlete. In three plays that
Speaker 2: I wanted to quickly kind of like highlight to demonstrate this,
Speaker 2: he had an and one on Dylan Brooks coming down
Speaker 2: the left lane line on like a eurostep where Dylan
Speaker 2: Brooks went with the verticality, but he wanted to foul Ant,
Speaker 2: so he came down on top of him as easy
Speaker 2: call for the ref basically pushed Ant down backwards and
Speaker 2: at like a forty five degree ankle from the angle
Speaker 2: from the ground while falling down, somehow gets the strength
Speaker 2: to literally get a line drive jump shot off that
Speaker 2: bank's end. Just an incredible demonstration of strength that he has.
Speaker 2: Then he has his play on the left corner area
Speaker 2: after an offensive rebound where he's got Cam Whitmore on
Speaker 2: his high side and Jalen Green in front of him. Again,
Speaker 2: these are two A plus athletes that are bracketing Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards and basically a double team, but Ant is an
Speaker 2: A plus plus plus athlete and he just ripped right
Speaker 2: through them and got an easy and one layout. And
Speaker 2: then lastly that step back three over Dylan Brooks. Ellen's
Speaker 2: doing a great job playing the jump shot and getting it.
Speaker 2: Still gets a great contest, but Ant just goes to
Speaker 2: a shuffle stepide It's basically the step back with that
Speaker 2: extra shuffle step at the end and takes like a
Speaker 2: twenty seven footer with his momentum going away from the basket.
Speaker 2: But his legs are so damn strong that he just
Speaker 2: goes straight up and down and gets such great lift
Speaker 2: that it's just this easy, breezy flip of the wrist
Speaker 2: at the end. And he's become such a damn good
Speaker 2: shooter that like, that's a good shot for him. This
Speaker 2: is why I'm so high on Anthony Edwards in the
Speaker 2: big picture. He has the physical tools to overcome literally
Speaker 2: any surrounding circumstance. There isn't an athlete in the NBA
Speaker 2: that can stop Anthony Edwards from at least getting a
Speaker 2: decent look at a pull up jump shot. And again,
Speaker 2: he's gotten so good at making them that even a
Speaker 2: tough pull up jump shot is still a good look
Speaker 2: for Anthony Edwards. When he combines that with improved playmaking,
Speaker 2: improved defense, and honestly just a little bit Betters construction
Speaker 2: to take advantage of his downhill ability, the sky is
Speaker 2: the limit for this kid. I also wanted to shout
Speaker 2: out Jalen Clark. He's been getting minutes over the last
Speaker 2: couple of weeks with some injuries. He had seventeen points
Speaker 2: tonight doing his job on offense beeding low man help
Speaker 2: he had a steady dose of jack Landale, who was
Speaker 2: playing backup center for the banged up Rockets scene tonight.
Speaker 2: He had a steady dose of jack Landel on him,
Speaker 2: and jack Landil was just helping everywhere, and so he
Speaker 2: just kept ending up in the corner. He had three
Speaker 2: three's out of the corner. He had a really nice
Speaker 2: bucket on a back cut where jack Landiel was getting
Speaker 2: ready to double team nase Red on a post up
Speaker 2: and Jalen literally identified it and like looked like a
Speaker 2: sprinter along the baseline eighteen foot from the basket, just
Speaker 2: like waiting for the gun to fire, And as soon
Speaker 2: as jack Landiel went to hard double, you just shot
Speaker 2: down the baseline. And a lot of times you want
Speaker 2: to do that as a as a smaller player simply
Speaker 2: because you want to have a running start. Remember when
Speaker 2: you play NBA two K, they had that vertical jump metric.
Speaker 2: Like big guys can work out of the dunker spot
Speaker 2: without much of a running start because they could just
Speaker 2: get up off the grip so quick off two feet
Speaker 2: and they have such a high standing reach. These athletes
Speaker 2: that are on the perimeter, they need a running start
Speaker 2: to be able to finish over bigger players around the basket.
Speaker 2: I just thought he did a really nice job beating
Speaker 2: that low man help. The Wolves have won seven out
Speaker 2: of nine, and by the way, in that span, Anthony
Speaker 2: Everwards is averaging thirty two points, six rebound, six assists
Speaker 2: on sixty two percent true shooting six assists per game.
Speaker 2: Made two beautiful feeds out of double teams late in
Speaker 2: the game for a wide open three from Nasried at
Speaker 2: the top key that he missed, and then another double
Speaker 2: team that led to a wide open three for Mike
Speaker 2: Conley that ended up making and that basically put the
Speaker 2: gameway really special basketball from Anthony Edwards. Let's move on
Speaker 2: to the Dallas Mavericks, who get a big win on
Speaker 2: the road against the Boston Celtics. They pulled away with
Speaker 2: a small ball group to end the first quarter, Kyrie Irving, Spencer, Dinwiddie, Olivia,
Speaker 2: Maxon's prosper Max Christie fresh in from the Lakers, and
Speaker 2: Naji Marshall, and as I talked about earlier, that can
Speaker 2: work as long as your shot creators do a good
Speaker 2: job of consistently scoring one on one or starting driving
Speaker 2: kick sequences with advantage creation, and as long as you
Speaker 2: have guys finishing plays by finishing those driving kick sequences.
Speaker 2: And as long as on defense you can contain the
Speaker 2: ball and you can rebound, you can win playing small ball,
Speaker 2: and they just played better small ball than the Celtics
Speaker 2: did in that end of the first quarter group, Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown had a couple of bad turnovers trying to dribble
Speaker 2: through traffic. He had to post up against Max Christie
Speaker 2: right around like the semi circle. Max Christy's skinny, He's
Speaker 2: a guy you can go through. Jalen settled for a
Speaker 2: tough fade away and missed it. But on the other end,
Speaker 2: Spencer Dinwiddie is attacking the rim. He gets two driving layups,
Speaker 2: shoots a pull up three, but it comes after those
Speaker 2: driving laps when he's in rhythm and he has more separation.
Speaker 2: Spencer was great in this entire game, but it was
Speaker 2: really good in that stretch starting driving kick sequences too.
Speaker 2: Big time like dribble, penetration and spray out. Sometimes just
Speaker 2: simple stuff like I've got a nice on the right wing,
Speaker 2: we got a player on the left wing. We're in
Speaker 2: four out one in spacing, which is pretty typical for
Speaker 2: driving kick stuff. And the guy who's getting the left
Speaker 2: wing is kind of sitting around the nail. Spencer just
Speaker 2: takes two hard dribbles towards the middle, gets that guy
Speaker 2: to commit, throws a swing pass its Naji Marshall pump
Speaker 2: bake drive left. Naji Marshall ends up hitting a bucket.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it can be something simple like that. When a
Speaker 2: team is loading up on you, your job is just to
Speaker 2: create the advantage so that the players off of you
Speaker 2: can finish those plays. Right. Chris tops porzingis on the
Speaker 2: other end, posting up. Naji Marshall settles for really tough
Speaker 2: right shoulder fade away that he misses. Tatum comes in.
Speaker 2: He's being really aggressive towards the rim in that late
Speaker 2: first quarter stretch, but even he was sloppy. He missed
Speaker 2: a couple of layups, he had a turnover. The mass
Speaker 2: were just playing better small ball, and they just built
Speaker 2: a nice little lead. They drove and kicked better, they
Speaker 2: switched and contained the ball better, they rebounded better. They
Speaker 2: just did a better job then the Celtics did, even
Speaker 2: though the talent would lead you to believe that the
Speaker 2: Celtics should. And this has been a recurring theme for
Speaker 2: the Celtics and we're gonna talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 2: But Dallas has played better than then tonight. Klay Thompson
Speaker 2: was fantastic in this game. The Celtics were really hesitant
Speaker 2: to switch with him all night. And this is a
Speaker 2: acceptable strategy with shooters, like you can do the switching
Speaker 2: thing for off ball action. But in theory it's great,
Speaker 2: but there's just it leads to a lot of mistakes,
Speaker 2: right Like if you switch and the guy passively switches,
Speaker 2: meaning the guy that's switching on to the shooter just
Speaker 2: as a step late, he can find some separation and
Speaker 2: take a jump shot there. Sometimes people completely botch switches.
Speaker 2: You can get separated and lose that connection body to
Speaker 2: body and it can cause problems. But the problem is
Speaker 2: if you stay attached and you lock and trail, that
Speaker 2: puts you in the situation where you're vulnerable to drop
Speaker 2: coverage shots. So if they're not switching and they have
Speaker 2: their big sitting back and he's coming off of that action,
Speaker 2: if the guy's in trail position, there's movement jump shots
Speaker 2: that are open in the gap between the guy that's
Speaker 2: chasing him and the guy that's sitting back there in
Speaker 2: that drop coverage and it was weird because even there
Speaker 2: are even a lot of sequences in off ball action
Speaker 2: that didn't involve bigs where the Celtics were hesitant to
Speaker 2: switch and they would just have like Derek White, stay
Speaker 2: attached to him. But Clay was getting a lot of
Speaker 2: opportunities against those Boston drop coverage looks, and he's still
Speaker 2: one of the greatest movement shooters of all time, and
Speaker 2: he just got hot, and he just eviscerated their drop
Speaker 2: coverages all night with little movement jump shots in that
Speaker 2: gap between the screen defender and the trailing defender. And
Speaker 2: by the time Boston adjusted, they tried switching with the big,
Speaker 2: they tried rotating off ball with a different perimeter player,
Speaker 2: it just didn't matter because Clay was in too good
Speaker 2: of a groove at that point. Twenty five in this game,
Speaker 2: the MAVs led by as much as twenty seven in
Speaker 2: this game, is a really nice win for them on
Speaker 2: the road. And the Celtics are just so obviously so bored.
Speaker 2: I was talking about this with a Lakers fan buddy
Speaker 2: of mine earlier today, but like to me, the Celtics
Speaker 2: are so obviously the least motivated team in the NBA.
Speaker 2: This year, and they have such a difference between when
Speaker 2: they play with force on both ends, when they're defending
Speaker 2: like crazy, weaponizing their athleticism, and then on the other
Speaker 2: end of the floor just attacking, attacking, attacking and getting
Speaker 2: great shots and just picking teams apart, versus their like
Speaker 2: games where they play with less force and it's like
Speaker 2: they're just not defending the way that they're capable of
Speaker 2: and they're settling for a lot of bad jump shots.
Speaker 2: And it's been like a lot of both mixed in.
Speaker 2: It's not even like, oh, here's ten good games, here's
Speaker 2: ten shitty games. It's like they go into Cleveland and
Speaker 2: put together one of their most complete efforts of the season,
Speaker 2: and then they come home and lay an egg against
Speaker 2: a Dallas Mavericks team that doesn't have Luca or Anthony
Speaker 2: Davis and a Mavericks team that's spiraled without Luka Doncic
Speaker 2: this season. And so, like again, I'm gonna say the
Speaker 2: same thing I've been saying about it with the Celtics
Speaker 2: all year long. I know that championship upside is in there.
Speaker 2: I still believe in them. They's still my top tier
Speaker 2: championship contender. I still have them above the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 2: But the problem is is they're playing with fire by
Speaker 2: playing a lot of bad basketball mixed in with good basketball.
Speaker 2: When you play bad basketball, your habits aren't as sharp
Speaker 2: as they are when you're consistently playing great basketball. If
Speaker 2: your habits aren't as sharp, then when you run into
Speaker 2: adversity in a big playoff game, you don't have the
Speaker 2: same level of that habitual championship basketball that you can
Speaker 2: lean back on to help survive those moments. It feels
Speaker 2: a little bit like the Celtics are leaning on their
Speaker 2: talent this year instead of their relentless execution, which is
Speaker 2: how they won the title in addition to the talent
Speaker 2: that they had. And so again, it's not over for them.
Speaker 2: It's not like they're on a different tier than Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City or Cleveland. I still view them as the clear
Speaker 2: championship favorite, but we have to be honest about the
Speaker 2: fact that they're playing with some fire this year. Lastly,
Speaker 2: Tonight briefly on Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets. An absolute
Speaker 2: masterclass from Nikole jokicch puts up twenty eight points, ten
Speaker 2: rebounds in twelve assists thirty one minutes, did a ton
Speaker 2: of damage as a pick and roll ball handler. In
Speaker 2: tonight's game, he kept running goga bitadz through these inverted
Speaker 2: ball screens all over the floor, a lot on the
Speaker 2: right wing, a little bit at the top of the key.
Speaker 2: And one of the things I talk about a lot
Speaker 2: when it comes to inverted ball screens. And again for
Speaker 2: those of you gus who don't understand what that is
Speaker 2: is typically a ball screen is a perimeterive player handling
Speaker 2: and a big player setting the screen, and an inverted
Speaker 2: ball screen the big players handling, and you've got a
Speaker 2: perimeterive player setting the screen. And what it does is
Speaker 2: it reversus defensive roles. They're like, how many pick and
Speaker 2: rolls have you watched in the NBA this year? And
Speaker 2: most of them look roughly the same, right, like the
Speaker 2: guards chasing over the top, the big is somewhere waiting
Speaker 2: on the other end, either up at the level of
Speaker 2: shitting further back in a drop coverage, and all of
Speaker 2: them look the same. And they have a certain kind
Speaker 2: of like pattern that these guards have done their entire lives,
Speaker 2: and a certain pattern that these bigs have done their
Speaker 2: entire lives. You know, how many ball screens NBA centers
Speaker 2: have defended since they were playing high school basketball. Do
Speaker 2: you know how many ball screens guards have defended since
Speaker 2: they were playing high school basketball? Now, flip it and
Speaker 2: the big guy is handling a ball handler through balls
Speaker 2: through screens, and the small guy who's now in a
Speaker 2: position to help is having to help on a massive
Speaker 2: ball handler when he's never done that before, not in
Speaker 2: any sort of substantial context. Right, and again, it was
Speaker 2: so funny to watch Goga Patadze struggle with this comes
Speaker 2: off of an inverted ball screen from Michael Porter Junior
Speaker 2: in the first half along the right wing, and Gogo
Speaker 2: Patazz goes under but he by the time he actually
Speaker 2: meets Nikole Jokic, it's only like five feet from the rim.
Speaker 2: Nikole Jokic has like what thirty forty pounds on him
Speaker 2: and just has a head of steam and just easily
Speaker 2: bumps into him, and Goga goes flying back and he
Speaker 2: just gets an easy lap of Jokics running with ahead
Speaker 2: of steam against a player five feet from the basket.
Speaker 2: There's nobody in the league that could stop him there.
Speaker 2: But like, how do you get Jokic into that situation
Speaker 2: where he's running with the ball into a static player
Speaker 2: or a backpedaling player five feet from the basket by
Speaker 2: forcing that player to run through a screen that he
Speaker 2: has no idea what to do. The had one in
Speaker 2: the second half. Its top skey in the third quarter
Speaker 2: where Goga goes to run over the top of the
Speaker 2: screen and Jokic rejects the screen, and Goga literally had
Speaker 2: his back turned to Jokic while Jokic was driving past
Speaker 2: him the other way because he has no idea what
Speaker 2: he's doing. He has never defended ball screens. He doesn't
Speaker 2: know how to get that top foot over while keeping
Speaker 2: his chest square to the defender. He doesn't know that.
Speaker 2: You can't just commit to going over to the top
Speaker 2: of the screen against any good ball handler, because so
Speaker 2: many of those end up being rejected by the ball
Speaker 2: handler as soon as they know you commit to the screen,
Speaker 2: it's just cross right back over and you're going right
Speaker 2: to the basket. But that's the beauty of the inverted
Speaker 2: ball screen is it just puts defenders into compromising positions,
Speaker 2: and in order for it to work, you need to
Speaker 2: have a big that can both dribble, shoot and pass.
Speaker 2: And you're not going to find a big an NBA
Speaker 2: history that did that stuff better than Nicole Jokis. Brilliant
Speaker 2: game from him. Michael Porter Junior also put up thirty
Speaker 2: Really some of his best work. Just that every part
Speaker 2: of his game going was doing a ton of work
Speaker 2: off the dribble in the screening actions, just keeping his
Speaker 2: dribble alive so that he could get to spots and
Speaker 2: take advantage of people over pursuing him on screens. Made
Speaker 2: great reads in his off screen possessions all night, Like
Speaker 2: got free for a bunch of backdoor buckets, just like
Speaker 2: it got a nasty dunk off one too, Just like
Speaker 2: getting the defender to overplay the screen and then pushing
Speaker 2: then just pushing him out of the way and going
Speaker 2: back towards the basket, finding openings for threes in transition.
Speaker 2: Just a really nice game for Michael Porter Junior. Nice
Speaker 2: went for the Nuggets over a reeling Orlando Magic team.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into our male bad questions again.
Speaker 2: We're gonna go for about ten to fifteen minutes and
Speaker 2: then we'll be done here. From Doyle, I disagree with
Speaker 2: you about the Jimmy trades. Steph isn't the one that
Speaker 2: will benefit KAMINGA is going to be the true benefactor.
Speaker 2: Love everything you do, Thank you. So I agree in principle,
Speaker 2: just simply because that's what slotting is, right, Like, Steph
Speaker 2: to me is not the same player he was in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. And I want to be clear, like,
Speaker 2: do I think Steph's efficiency will improve after Jimmy starts playing. Yes,
Speaker 2: it will because he won't have to take as many
Speaker 2: bad shots. But Steph does have a little bit of
Speaker 2: an issue getting separation at this point in his career,
Speaker 2: and that's a real thing. And a lot of Steph's
Speaker 2: value at this point comes from just the way he's guarded,
Speaker 2: which is something I spent a lot of time talking
Speaker 2: about in the Jimmy Butler video on Wednesday Night, Like Steph,
Speaker 2: Steph is going to be guarded in such a way
Speaker 2: that he has such a high offensive floor even if
Speaker 2: he does go you know, six for nineteen from three
Speaker 2: or six for two, twenty for three, whatever it was
Speaker 2: that he went tonight.
Speaker 1: Right, But.
Speaker 2: The real problem for the Warriors was lower level offensive
Speaker 2: players slotted into higher roles. Asking Dennis Andrew Wiggins Jonathan
Speaker 2: Kaminga to be like reliable every night twenty point per
Speaker 2: game guys. Jonathan Kaminga has been just as likely to
Speaker 2: score twelve or fewer points this year as he is
Speaker 2: to score twenty plus. Like that, that's not a good
Speaker 2: spot for him at this phase in his career as
Speaker 2: a young player. He doesn't need to be in a
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be in a situation where he's being
Speaker 2: depended on offensively. Jimmy Butler comes in. He is that
Speaker 2: dependable high floor offensive player. All of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: can kind of pick and choose who plays well. Every
Speaker 2: great basketball team is the same story. It's you got
Speaker 2: your reliable offensive guys, and then there's like five other
Speaker 2: dudes where it's like who's got it tonight? And yeah,
Speaker 2: on the nights where all five of them suck, it
Speaker 2: can go dark for any team in the NBA. But
Speaker 2: like sometimes these two guys get going, and then these
Speaker 2: two guys get going, and then these three guys get going,
Speaker 2: and it's like this guy is seventeen when he normally
Speaker 2: averages eight, and this guy had twenty three tonight when
Speaker 2: he normally averages fifteen. That sort of variety is like
Speaker 2: totally normal. That is what you expect from those players.
Speaker 2: They just can't be dependent on or you're gonna be
Speaker 2: constantly you're gonna be constantly frustrated with what you get
Speaker 2: out of it from TK. Assuming Luca, Austin Reeves, Lebron,
Speaker 2: and Mark Williams are the four starters, who should be
Speaker 2: the last starter? And why so? I thought a lot
Speaker 2: about this. I expect JJ Reddick to go with Ruby Hachimura.
Speaker 2: I would personally go with Dorian Finney Smith for a
Speaker 2: very simple reason. I would want to deploy him against
Speaker 2: the opponent's best perimeter player, and then I would effectively
Speaker 2: have Austin Reeves defending as a defending the second best
Speaker 2: perimeter player. Luca is defending your third best perimeter player.
Speaker 2: Lebron's your low man. Mark Williams is in ball screens, right,
Speaker 2: So like that to me makes the most sense. If
Speaker 2: you bring Ruby Hotchi Mura in, you're probably going to
Speaker 2: more of a switching look, and that's just not gonna
Speaker 2: be good because that's going to put Mark Williams on
Speaker 2: the perimeter a lot. Charlotte almost exclusively used Mark Williams
Speaker 2: in a deep drop because he sucks at defending on
Speaker 2: the perimeter. He's not good at defending around the basket either,
Speaker 2: but at least around the basket. He's going to block
Speaker 2: some shots. His size can be a problem, and he's
Speaker 2: a very good defensive rebounder. Right, So ideally, by putting
Speaker 2: Mark Williams in that starting lineup, you have to run
Speaker 2: drop coverage with him, and that means that you have
Speaker 2: to ball screens, not switch, which means you've got to
Speaker 2: have somebody that's willing to defend on the perimeter and
Speaker 2: chase over the top of screens. A perfect example is
Speaker 2: like in tonight's game where Ruy Hatchamura and Dorian Finnis
Speaker 2: Smith are both starting, and again we all know Lucas
Speaker 2: going in for one of those guys who started on
Speaker 2: Steph Dorian Phinney Smith, Right, Dorian is not ideally suited
Speaker 2: to be that type of player. I like Dorian better
Speaker 2: is a switching guy who's kind of all over the floor,
Speaker 2: not navigating screens as much. But he also can do that,
Speaker 2: and he certainly can do it a lot better than Ruy,
Speaker 2: So that to me is an easy solution there. You
Speaker 2: start Mura, or excuse me, you start Dorian Finney Smith.
Speaker 2: Then also, Ruy's scoring is going to be of more value.
Speaker 2: On the bench, you can imagine a universe where you know,
Speaker 2: Braun and Dorian Finney Smith come out and gave Vincent
Speaker 2: and Ruy Hachimura come in, and Ruy has more opportunity
Speaker 2: to be aggressive with that bench group. Right. Is it
Speaker 2: possible for Mark Williams and Jared Vanderbilt to start at
Speaker 2: the same time and their offense not fall apart? I
Speaker 2: don't think so. It's more just you can make it work.
Speaker 2: To be clear, there's a certain amount of like rapid
Speaker 2: cutting and movement on the interior where guys can remain
Speaker 2: a threat even when there's multiple players that can't shoot
Speaker 2: from the perimeter. But it certainly is a lot more difficult,
Speaker 2: and I just think Jared Vanderbilt is going to be
Speaker 2: more anchoring the small ball groups when Mark Williams is
Speaker 2: off the floor. Do you think the Lakers This is
Speaker 2: from JM and thank you for the donation as well, Jams.
Speaker 2: Do you think the Lakers can win the championship this year?
Speaker 2: Now that they have two all time great matchup hunters
Speaker 2: and Luka Dancic and Lebron James. This is the thing
Speaker 2: that makes me so excited about this team. What you
Speaker 2: saw in that second half is a smaller version of
Speaker 2: what happens in almost every single NBA playoff game. A
Speaker 2: certain point, we're playing against a really good team that's
Speaker 2: playing desperate basketball, and when hit gets top, they're gonna
Speaker 2: ratchet things up. They're gonna get more physical, they're gonna
Speaker 2: pressure the ball, they're gonna be more aggressive in terms
Speaker 2: of their coverages, and everything's gonna get really difficult, and
Speaker 2: it's gonna become an absolute slow down, fistfight. And in
Speaker 2: that situation, you can't have two better rock fight basketball
Speaker 2: players on the offensive end of the floor than Lebron
Speaker 2: James and Luka Doncic. Especially Lebron James that legitimately, again
Speaker 2: is very small sample size, but in the last week
Speaker 2: has been playing at the level that you see the
Speaker 2: top five players in the league play at. And I mean,
Speaker 2: if Lebron can maintain that, we need to have an
Speaker 2: entirely different discussion about the potential that this that this
Speaker 2: team has after acquiring DeAndre acquiring DeAndre Hunter, have the
Speaker 2: Cavs leapfrog the Celtics for the best five man lineup
Speaker 2: who should be considered the favorite in that conference? Love
Speaker 2: the videos. I have not had the Cavs leap Frog
Speaker 2: Boston after that trade. I do think it's a smart
Speaker 2: move from them in that it avoided getting rid of
Speaker 2: any of their most valuable assets. The players they traded
Speaker 2: out are a little bit redundant. For instance, Karris Lavert
Speaker 2: is redundant with ty Jerome now that Ty Jerome has
Speaker 2: kind of come to the surface as one of the
Speaker 2: best backup guards in the league. Carris has got some
Speaker 2: defensive talent and does a lot of things well, but
Speaker 2: he's a little bit more redundant then George Kniang. DeAndre
Speaker 2: Hunter is just a much better player than him, so
Speaker 2: it's a talent add DeAndre Hunter. One of the big
Speaker 2: things I talked about in our trade deadline reaction today
Speaker 2: is like he's just got scoring chops and a lot
Speaker 2: of times in the playoffs when things really bogged down,
Speaker 2: it's about the guy that can take that skip pass
Speaker 2: from Donovan Mitchell. But he's got an A plus athlete
Speaker 2: closing out at him and he needs to score there,
Speaker 2: like create a bucket for himself. And DeAndre Hunter has
Speaker 2: been one of the better pull up jump shooters in
Speaker 2: the league this year. He's got the ability to put
Speaker 2: the ball on the foard and make plays for himself.
Speaker 2: I like that he gives you more physicality and size
Speaker 2: on the perimeter, which is obviously important for a Boston
Speaker 2: team that constantly is looking to attack mispatches. All of
Speaker 2: that is great, but I still think that Boston, as
Speaker 2: you guys saw when they went into Cleveland the other night,
Speaker 2: and as we've seen throughout this entire season, they just
Speaker 2: have this level they can get to when they really
Speaker 2: tighten the screws on defense and the Jays just get
Speaker 2: super physically aggressive on offense, where it's just tough to
Speaker 2: deal with their talent. And again, I think we have
Speaker 2: to be honest about the fact that Boston is just
Speaker 2: completely past this regular season process at this point. They
Speaker 2: are a April May June type of team, and so
Speaker 2: I think that there's some real difference and just what
Speaker 2: we can expect from those teams in the regular season. Now.
Speaker 2: As far as do they have a chance, of course,
Speaker 2: they do them a five game lead in the standings,
Speaker 2: so as long as they play mostly as good as
Speaker 2: they've been playing to start the year, they're going to
Speaker 2: be the number one overall seed, which means when we
Speaker 2: get to late May game one of the Eastern Conference Finals,
Speaker 2: is going to be in Cleveland. You ride a raucous
Speaker 2: crowd to a two zero series lead, you got a
Speaker 2: really good chance to win that series. So like, of
Speaker 2: course they can win. I don't think Boston is like
Speaker 2: the head and shoulders favorite to win the conference. I
Speaker 2: just think they're the favorite, and I think that their
Speaker 2: talent is a little underrated at this point because they're
Speaker 2: dealing with some regular season malaise. Who was carried more
Speaker 2: Rob Polinka by Nico or Ringo Star by Paul John
Speaker 2: and George. I did this segment for Microsoft Today where
Speaker 2: we talked about like overcoming adversity, and I did the
Speaker 2: whole thing on Rob and Paul, our producer, texted me
Speaker 2: right after and he's like, you should have just made
Speaker 2: Nico Harrison the start that segment. Oh man, All right,
Speaker 2: let's see, last time the Celtics won the title, the
Speaker 2: Lakers won the next season. That's super interesting. What do
Speaker 2: you think is the biggest question mark for the Lakers
Speaker 2: going forward whether or not they can put together a
Speaker 2: reasonable defense with Mark Williams at center, Which is gonna
Speaker 2: come down to whether or not they can find a
Speaker 2: a defensive scheme that kind of works with that group,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna have to find lineup construction that pairs
Speaker 2: somebody that can chase over the top of screens with
Speaker 2: Mark so they can keep him in a deep drop.
Speaker 2: And then coaching is going to play a big role.
Speaker 2: They've got to somehow pretty quickly. They have to pretty
Speaker 2: quickly develop Mark into a useful defensive player, and that's
Speaker 2: gonna be tough. What's going on with the Trailblazers. They
Speaker 2: are on fire, young players finally taking the next step,
Speaker 2: playing really good defense. Tomani Kamara has been one of
Speaker 2: the most impressive young defensive athletes that we've seen in
Speaker 2: the league this year. They're getting good shot creation from
Speaker 2: Anferny Simon's and Scoot Henderson's playing the best basketball of
Speaker 2: his young career. Their fun team, and I was kind
Speaker 2: of expecting them to be more sellers at the deadline,
Speaker 2: and I think they just played too well for that
Speaker 2: to be the case. All right, well we got one
Speaker 2: here from EGO donated five dollars, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Do you think Lucas saves Lebron's legs come May? This
Speaker 2: is huge for a real run. Lebron can coast a
Speaker 2: bit without the offense tanking legs in May June very important. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a play. There was a play where Lebron
Speaker 2: was posting Brandon Pizzimski along the left lane line and
Speaker 2: he shot a bank shop that went off the corner
Speaker 2: of the backboard. It was a pretty ugly miss, and
Speaker 2: it was just so abundantly clear that he was exhausted.
Speaker 2: And Austin can leverage the athletic gifts and these bursts.
Speaker 2: That's why I think the manager Nobili comp is such
Speaker 2: a great comp for Austin Reeves. But like both of
Speaker 2: them have a kind of a tendency to run into
Speaker 2: a wall at a certain point because of Lebron's agent,
Speaker 2: because of Austin's athletic limitations, and Luca just has the
Speaker 2: ability to overcome that. And I think it's a really
Speaker 2: underrated aspect of this that Lebron's going to be able
Speaker 2: to devote energy to the defensive end of the floors
Speaker 2: as a product of the U as a product of
Speaker 2: the load that Luca can take on the offensive end
Speaker 2: of the floor From maxim Sold, the Nuggets run more
Speaker 2: of their offense through Michael Porter Junior. No, I don't
Speaker 2: think so. Go ahead a great game tonight. I was
Speaker 2: really impressed by the off screen work that he did.
Speaker 2: But the problem with MPJ is he's another one of
Speaker 2: those guys that can kind of run into a wall
Speaker 2: in terms of athleticism, where like you saw this against
Speaker 2: Minnesota and all the Minnesota matchups. We even saw this
Speaker 2: a little bit in the Miami series in the finals.
Speaker 2: But like when teams can kind of physically pressure him
Speaker 2: and make him rush and feel a little bit uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: his game falls apart. And there are just more reliable
Speaker 2: offensive players in terms of Jamal Murray in particular in
Speaker 2: a playoff setting, even Russell Westbrook, who has an athlete
Speaker 2: when he's in a small role, can leverage himself as
Speaker 2: things get more intense. I think that it's there's obviously
Speaker 2: MPJ is always gonna have his role, and on nights
Speaker 2: like tonight, when he's really got it, you want to
Speaker 2: keep going to him, keep going to him. But I
Speaker 2: don't see it as a I don't really see it
Speaker 2: as a as a you know, foundational offensive concept, if
Speaker 2: that makes sense. A couple more, if Ben's his If
Speaker 2: Ben Simmons gets bought out, what's the team that is
Speaker 2: perfect for him? I mean, I suppose it would have
Speaker 2: to be a tea. Then he's a little like a
Speaker 2: four with some size. I'd be an interesting one for
Speaker 2: Golden State maybe, Like Ben Simmons is kind of like
Speaker 2: a Draymond Green esque drible handoff, roll into space kind
Speaker 2: of guy.
Speaker 1: Ben.
Speaker 2: Still, I've seen some moments this year where like he'll
Speaker 2: slide his feet on the perimeter. I'll be like, oh
Speaker 2: my God, Like remember how good Ben Simmons used to
Speaker 2: be on defense. I remember watching Ben Simmons once guard
Speaker 2: Damian Lillard when he was in his athletic prime and
Speaker 2: like easily blocked Dame on a step back jump shot
Speaker 2: going to his right. You know, Dame's go to like
Speaker 2: hard a pound dribble into the step back going right,
Speaker 2: Like Ben had this athletic burst that's just not there anymore.
Speaker 2: You still see it from time to time where you'll
Speaker 2: make a play, you'll get dunk, he'll you know, slide
Speaker 2: his feet on the perimeter and make a play. But
Speaker 2: still is super gun shy around the basket as a finisher.
Speaker 2: I don't really see him as a guy that I
Speaker 2: ever want playing meaningful minutes in a serious basketball game.
Speaker 2: What's your take on the first game with Aaron Fox
Speaker 2: on the Spurs. I haven't watched that one yet, Off
Speaker 2: to check it out later. Why does Austin Reeves look
Speaker 2: so bad at times? I think Austin has had some
Speaker 2: bad games this year when he really gets attacked on
Speaker 2: the defensive end of the floor. And he also, kind of,
Speaker 2: like Michael Porter Junior, can get a little bit messed
Speaker 2: up by specific types of matchups, physical types of perimeter
Speaker 2: players that can pressure him. But I've also seen him
Speaker 2: overcome that type of matchup, and like, here's the thing, Like,
Speaker 2: this is why Austin Reeves like to me, that twenty
Speaker 2: point per game, fifty forty ninety guy, That to me
Speaker 2: is the Austin Reeves experience. So the way it manifests
Speaker 2: itself is a lot of twenty seven point nights and
Speaker 2: a lot of thirteen point nights, right like, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that's going to have to do matchup to
Speaker 2: match up. But I think Austin Reeves played a lot
Speaker 2: better tonight than the shooting percentages would tell you. Consistently,
Speaker 2: got to the foul line, had that big bank shot
Speaker 2: in crunch time. I thought that was a big shot.
Speaker 2: I Austin's one of my favorite players that I've ever
Speaker 2: rooted for. All Right, guys, that's all I have for tonight.
Speaker 2: As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me
Speaker 2: and supporting the show. As of right now, the plan
Speaker 2: is to go after a game on Saturday. I'm not
Speaker 2: one hundred percent sure yet because I think it depends
Speaker 2: on whether or not Luca plays. So we'll figure that out
Speaker 2: and I'll let you guys know. But keep an eye
Speaker 2: on my Twitter feed at our sport jsonlt for show announcements,
Speaker 2: and I'll let you guys know when the next show is.
Speaker 2: If we don't go on Saturday, then obviously we'll be
Speaker 2: back on Monday for our power rankings and our usual
Speaker 2: routine from there. Again, sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking
Speaker 2: with me and supporting the show. I'll see you guys next.
Speaker 1: Time the volume.
Speaker 2: What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening
Speaker 2: to and supporting Hoops tonight. It would actually be really
Speaker 2: helpful for us if you guys would take a second
Speaker 2: and leave a rating and a review. As always, I
Speaker 2: appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take
Speaker 2: a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.