April 5, 2025 • 41 mins
He starts with the news of KD getting injured and how that will impact the Suns the rest of the season, the huge night from Joker where he had a 60 point triple-double, only the be ruined by Russ, and how the number 1 pick in last years draft is finally playing like the number 1 pick. #Volume #Herd
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. Welcome to the Best of Hoops Tonight, featuring
my top takes from recent shows. Let's move on to
(00:22):
Zachary Resache. So he drops his career high thirty six
in a dominant victory over the Bucks. So the third
game this year he scored over thirty points. Zach's played
twenty seven consecutive games. In those games, he's averaging fifteen
point two points per game. He's shooting fifty two percent
from the field forty three percent from three on over
(00:44):
five attempts per game. He's showcasing a little bit more
of a quick release against the Bucks. Hit a couple
of no dip jumpers. Those are where the ball is
already is caught in the pocket and you flow immediately
into the shot instead of having to catch somewhere else
and then dip down into your release and like kind
of restart your chain of energy from the floor up
(01:04):
to the top of the shot. He's showing a lot
of really high level scoring. I want to talk about
this concept for a minute because I think it's a
really important part of team building moving forward in the NBA.
Scoring is the ultimate compliment to playmaking. I've been thinking
a lot about this concept this season. When you have
elite playmaking on your team, guys like Trey Young, guys
(01:25):
like Lebron, Luca and Nicola Jokic, these really really high
level passers, you need elite play finishing to pay those
sequences off. Whether it's a vertical spacer like Aaron Gordon
alongside Jokic, or Derek Lively alongside Luca, Jackson Hayes alongside Luca,
or a deadly spot up guy someone like Kyle Korver
(01:47):
back with Lebron when he was with the Cavs, or
Malik Beasley playing with Kad Cunningham. Guys that can pay
off these sequences from your playmakers. But one of the
manifestations of that type of player that I've been talking
a lot about this year and referring to it as
the weak side scoring forward. This is why I went
into detail about the strong side corner help thing that
we talked about earlier. This same concept is built into
(02:09):
pick and roll coverages too. There's a reason why they
don't offer low man help out of the strong side corner.
They offer low man help out of the weak side corner.
Why do they do that so that for the same
reason on an ISO drive. If a guy's getting downhill
in a ball screen, the opening for him as a
playmaker is across the court and across his body. That's
the goal. You want to make it across the court
and across the body, across as many help defenders as
(02:32):
possible to make that past difficult, right, But that is
ultimately the opening, and all of the best playmakers in
the league consistently capitalize on those openings. We've talked about
this concept a ton making reads in pick and roll.
What are my reads? Big man steps up, I'm making
a read based on the roll man or the weak
(02:53):
side corner, based on what the lowman does. If the
one man steps over, I'm skipping it. If the one
man stays home, excuse me, I'm throwing the lot. If
the big man drops back and the guard is chasing,
my read is to shoot in the mid range. My
read is to get as close to the basket for
as high percentage of a shot as possible. Those are
the pick and roll reads. And so when these teams,
the majority of teams are bringing their big up to
(03:15):
the level and bringing the low man over, that skip
pass is open, and those skip passes are going to
be made especially by Trey Young. In these sorts of situations,
there's a bunch of different ways that you can look
to score right. It's not just hitting spot up threes.
It's running your lane in transition as an athlete, it's
(03:36):
driving closeouts. It's oh, they switched a screen or we
ran in transition and got a cross match, and now
there's a guard on this forward. You need that forward
to do a lot more of this high level scoring.
These are professional scorers, but primarily in an off ball context.
Examples are like Michael Porter, Junior ogn Andobi Ruey Hachimura,
(04:00):
DeAndre Hunter, Lori Markenen is kind of a high end
version of that for the Jazz Denny Avdya, even though
he's been doing more on ball stuff as of late,
Kyle Kuzma, PJ Washington, this is becoming an extremely important
archetype in the NBA. Zacharyrissaschet has been doing some of
the best week side scoring work you'll see out of
a rookie forward starts in transition. I was watching the
(04:23):
Rockets Hawks game from about a week ago. You'll find
him on my Twitter feed. I shared some clips, but
Zachary Rissache was amazing in transition in that game, just
literally out running everybody up the floor, didn't matter if
the rebound was captured and he was on the baseline.
He was sprinting, and it was so visually jarring that
(04:45):
I clipped these examples and I put them on my
Twitter feed for you guys to see. Watch these three clips.
Watch the way Zachary Risasche runs. Watch when he gets
his head of steam, how it literally looks like he's
moving a different speed than everyone else on the floor.
Is a gazelle. It's crazy. And he'll get two or
three wide open attempts at the rim every game just
(05:07):
by running the floor. And that pairs perfectly with Trey Young,
who's one of the best hit a head passers in
the league. I had to coach my last year in
college at Arizona Christian University. Shout out to Jeff Rudder.
They just won their conference tournament on a buzzer beater,
crazy buzzer beater, and then they made it to the
final four before losing in the NAIA tournament. But he
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used to say to all of us that you can
manufacture twelve points a game just by getting a transition layup,
running the floor, crashing the offensive glass and getting to
the foul line once per half. It's such a simple
way to produce in a basketball game. And even if
you take the foul line part out, because obviously there's
some out of your control stuff there with the whistle,
if you just crash the offensive glass and you just
(05:51):
run your lane in transition and you get one bucket
a half each, that's eight points right there. You're one
bucket away from double figures. It is such a simil
way to produce in a basketball game. Run every time,
crash every time. And he presents such a massive passing
target for Trey because he's so athletic, so rangy and long.
(06:13):
He caught a behind the back lob from Trey in
the Bucks game where he dunked it behind his head
because it's just a massive passing target. Then in the
half court, as we talked about, when they load up
the strong side in those skips, it's just like king
of the court. When you're playing with your buddies on
short closeouts, you need to knock down threes. He's starting
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to do that at a really high level. In this
twenty seven game span, he's at forty three percent on
over five attempts per game. Now, what's gonna start happening.
If he can maintain that level of shooting for a
substantial amount of time, he's gonna start getting chased off
the line. And that's where I think he has a
ton of potential as a score. He has downhill burst
attacking closeouts. He had a dunk against Shangoon in the
(06:56):
Rockets game where he drove a close out off the
left wing and hammered it with his left hand on
Shangon's face, a wildly athletic play. He has good footwork
on like spins in Euros. He had a bucket against
the Nets. Driving a close out against Nick Claxton in
the left corner. He jabbed, got back to it deep
in the corner with a hesitation dribble, cross back over,
(07:18):
got into the lane, pump, faked, pivoted over his right
shoulder on his step through for a left handed finish.
That's a really high level scoring move. He had one
on Harden off the left wing, jabbed left, drove right,
snatched back to the left, drove high gather through zubach
and finished at the basket. These are really high level
scoring moves attacking with an advantage in those king of
(07:42):
the court situations. He had a left to right euro
against Zubatch a couple of weeks ago where he drove
out of the corner. Like left to right euro is
one of the most complex footwork pieces you'll see for
a right handed player. Most guys don't know how to
do it, and he still has a ton of growth
in front of him. Shooting hot for a couple of
months is not the same as being an elite shooter.
(08:03):
We've all seen it. This guy's shooting forty three percent
from three over his last whatever. Games. You gotta do
it for a long stretch of time before teams game
plan for you in that way. That that will take
a few years, probably, but that will be what truly
unlocks his off the dribble game, because I don't think
like as good as he is in the open court
(08:23):
as an athlete, he's his start stop quickness isn't quite
as impressive as his athleticism in the open court, which
is going to make it so it's a little harder
for him to beat people off the dribble unless his
jumper comes around, which again will take some time, but
that's part of his development. He still needs a lot
of improvement on the defensive end too. His athleticism has
not translated yet as like a really high level off
(08:44):
ball defender. He's often a bit behind the play on
his help rotations, which prevents him from having an impact.
That's about processing speed. That's about learning, like learning the
actions so well that you know what's going to happen
as it's developing, so that you can be there a
step earlier. And again, as we talked about, his start
stop quickness isn't as good. That's why that processing speed
is going to be so important for him because he's
(09:05):
gonna need to be there sooner in terms of the
way he's reading these plays. But the bottom line is
he's a rookie that projects to be one of the
best people at his particular job in the NBA, which
is being that weak side scoring forward, which is very
exciting for Hawks fans. I think it might officially be
over for the Suns. They got absolutely smacked by the
(09:26):
Rockets last night. Shannguon was cooking all their bigs again.
Jalen Green poured in another thirty three points email Udoka
in the second quarter brought out that zone defense that
he's been using a bunch for the last month or so,
and they immediately sparked a massive run in that second
quarter and they never looked back. It was a complete
and total physical domination by Houston. They out rebounded them
(09:48):
by six, They forced nineteen turnovers, They scored thirty four
points off of those turnovers. They won the fast break
points battle thirty two to eight. Houston scored forty points
in transition int in this game. But I want to
focus on Phoenix here for a second, because we're gonna
hit Houston in tonight's show as they play the Lakers again.
We're going live on YouTube tonight after the T and
(10:09):
T slate. What did I say about Phoenix a month ago?
I said they struck me as the stereotypical, older veteran
team that knows deep down that they don't really have
a chance to win anything this year. And the way
that that's gonna manifest is in these short week or
two long bursts where they compete and they look they
(10:32):
look decent, they defend their rebound, they do their jobs,
but that they inevitably let go of the rope because
they can't sustain it, because they don't believe and that's
exactly what just happened. They won five out of six,
some quality wins versus the Calves and the Bucks. They
were defending in rebounding top ten and both. They think
they might have been top five in both over that span.
(10:52):
But the NBA schedule does not let up. Boston came
to town without Tatum and kicked their ass. Then it
was Minnesota and it was Houston, a couple of these big,
strong athletic teams that were going to truly test Phoenix's
commitment to the work, and instead of hanging onto the rope,
they just completely let go of it. One thirty seven
(11:14):
point four defensive rating in the last three games, they
gave up an offensive rebound on thirty five percent of
opponents misses. That's damagingly bad. And now KD has an
ankle sprain, Anthony Davis is back, and the MAVs are
climbing in the standings. We talked before the year that
(11:35):
there was going to be a team that had dead
serious championship aspirations but that would miss the playoffs entirely,
and no matter who that would be, it would be
a catastrophe. And it looks like it's going to be
the Suns. I keep watching them and thinking that it's
not a Kevin Durant and Devin Booker problem. But at
the same time, I do think it's worth mentioning that
(11:56):
neither of those two guys can really leverage their physical
galths on the game. Katie has length and he has
mobility that helps him on defense, but he carries a
massive offensive load, so he can't devote too many resources
to that end, and he's not very strong. He can
be pushed around, which is very very dangerous quality for
(12:17):
a front court player. Defensively on the glass duck ins
things along those lines. It's tough to do that job.
Outside of like rangey rotating and rim contests. There's just
a limitation when you can't win the ground battle. And again,
it's just one of those things where you watch these
other teams. It's like watching Houston Jalen Green can leverage
(12:41):
his athleticism to get to spots. Shane goun Is bullying
these dudes when you watch these teams that have these players,
where it's like, I can inflict myself physically on the
game to assist my team in these key areas that
they need help. Booker and KD are not necessarily as capable.
(13:04):
This is why I still believe it's worth exploring the
idea of keeping those two. They still give you such
a high offensive floor in terms of shot quality. I
would still just look to find every discount bruiser I
can find at every position group and try to breed
that culture around them, because regardless of what direction you
(13:25):
go this summer, even if you do choose to get
rid of Kevin Durant or Devin Booker or both, you
still need an organizational identity. I talked about this concept
after the Celtics win against the Suns last week. I
talked about it with Colin Coward last night on his show.
You need an organizational identity that is separate from your stars.
And so regardless of what direction you go, you need
(13:46):
to begin the process of establishing that new owner, new coach.
You need to start establishing a basketball culture. This season
was a massive step back, and so that's the thing.
Unless you think there's some magical trade that's going to
just solve all your problems, which I don't think there is,
you need to begin the process of changing that culture anyway.
(14:09):
And so from that standpoint, if you tweak things enough
around those two. That's where Kevin Durant, Devin Booker's upside
can actually start to lift you to where you want
to go. But this is a team that is completely
let go of the rope, and I think I would
be stunned at this point if we got to see
them play meaningful basketball here in a couple of weeks.
All right, let's talk some Denver Nuggets. So Jokics goes
(14:31):
for sixty one, ten and ten against the Wolves the
other night, just an absolutely wild games, dogfight for the
most part, and then the Nuggets finally pulled away in
the fourth courter. They end up going up by ten.
But then Anthony Edwards just went absolutely berserk. And this
has become a kind of a recurring theme with it.
As a game is unfolding, I was thinking to myself,
it really hasn't hit kind of a hot jump shooting
(14:52):
streak yet, and that felt like a factor that would
come into play at some point down the stretch. And
it did, and he just started rising like it just
has this a to rise up at a spot on
the court, and he gets such great lift on his
jump shot that he can really get to it whenever
he wants, and he's become such a great jump shooter
that it's kind of just like a let's cross our
(15:14):
fingers and pray he misses kind of thing. And he
just wasn't missing down the stretch of that game, and
it allowed the Wolves to get back into control. It
felt like the Wolves had that game won at multiple points,
but Denver just did a good job of doubling the
ball out of Anthony Edwards's hands. Minnesota looked like they'd
never seen a double team before, as they just pissed
down their leg and get a terrible shot over and
(15:35):
over again in those situations. The Wolves led in the
final minute of the fourth quarter of overtime and double overtime,
yet still needed that insane Russell Westbrook sequence at the
end in order to win table. That Russell Westbrook thing.
We'll talk about that here in a minute, but there
is another reason, in addition to Minnesota's poor execution, that
(15:55):
Denver was able to consistently come back and almost win
that game. Jokic in crunch time had fourteen points, four assists,
and zero turnovers in the clutch. A portion of this
game spanning the end of the fourth quarter in both overtimes,
he was completely indomitable, throwing Gobart around and getting an
easy floater in the lane. He had a nasty turnaround
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left shoulder fade away over Julius Randall. He hit one
of his patented above to break threes at the top
of the key. He had another nasty left shoulder hook
over Julius Randall again, all while being doubled and hounded
and grabbed and scratched and clawed everywhere. He'd often take
a double team, have to get rid of the ball,
sprint back up the flash to get the ball back,
(16:38):
and then quickly turn away from the double to try
to get a bucket before the double came. It was
just remarkably high degree of difficulty and he was just
crushing these dudes. I talked after Jokic's thirty twenty twenty
game a few weeks back that it probably wasn't even
a top five performance from him this year. These are
all now Jokic statlines from the year sixty one, ten
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and ten, fifty six, sixteen and eight, forty eight, fourteen
and eight, forty one, eighteen and nine, this one's crazy,
thirty seven, eighteen and fifteen, thirty six, twenty two and eleven,
thirty five, twelve and fifteen. Here's another crazy one, thirty five,
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twenty two and seventeen, the thirty one twenty one twenty
two game earlier this year, he had a twenty three
twenty and sixteen as well. He's averaging thirty thirteen and
ten on sixty six percent true shooting for the season.
This is the greatest offensive basketball player to ever touch
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the court. Conversations get way more complicated when you factor
in defense, like yo kicch is having legitimately a really
bad defensive season, and I've seen a lot of talk
about people wanting to vault yoll kitch up the all
time list for what's happening in this regular season. I
think that's a little more complicated because it's been a
two sided coin with Yokic at times this year. But
(18:06):
I have never seen a basketball player produce at this volume,
with this variety, with this level of efficiency, with this
complete level of unstoppability. You literally cannot stop Jokic from
either getting a great shot for himself or for someone else.
You can tilt it towards a lesser teammate to make
(18:28):
a shot. Denver's margin for air has shrunken a little
bit over the years as the supporting cast has lost
a little bit of that firepower. But you just about
never see Nikola Jokicic look visibly uncomfortable on a basketball court.
There have been these brief moments here in time, like
for instance, against Minnesota in the postseason last year, he
(18:48):
had his moments, but he also had like Game five
of that series where he just ripped through him like
tissue paper for one of the greatest playoff performances I've
ever seen. As good as Steph Curry was offensively, and
he's up there, he never had the physical imposition that
Jokics brings to the table that, oh, you leave me
in single coverage, I'm just gonna get a shot right
(19:09):
at the rim with zero variants, guaranteed two points like
Steph never had that. As good as Lebron was offensively
back in twenty eighteen, like he could get high percentage looks,
he had sky high efficiency and volume, but he still
never had that go to move against any type of
defender that he could hit sixty plus percent of the time.
(19:32):
Jokic does. The three point shot was the variable that
put him over the top. For me last year when
he couldn't shoot, it felt like you could do more
with double teams and crowding him on pick and roll
in particular, when he was like rolling into that short
roll area. You can do more of that kind of
stuff to lessen his impact. You guys might remember the
tail end of the Timberwolve series where he kept popping
(19:54):
above the break to avoid that traffic jam on those
rolls and he just couldn't hit that shot. He hit
six of them against Minnesota on Tuesday. That's the thing
that makes him completely unguardable. I'll just say from personal experience,
as someone who's actively rooted against this guy in a
playoff series three times, I can confidently state I've never
(20:16):
been more scared of an offensive player on that end
of the floor in any sort of big spot light
in the game. Then I was scared of nicolea Jokic,
and I hope to the basketball gods that I don't
have to do it again this year. I want to
talk about Westbrook for a minute. I want to set
aside the reality of Westbrook's fit and how things have
(20:38):
gone in total with the Nuggets just for a minute.
I think we can all agree, including Laker fans that
Russell Westbrook is a much better basketball fit with Denver
than he was with either of the LA teams. Right,
So let's just take that piece and set it aside
for a second. When Russell Westbrook signed with the Nuggets,
(21:00):
you Nuggets fans will probably remember what I said. I
said that he undoubtedly has a higher ceiling than Reggie Jackson.
There's no way that Reggie Jackson could ever do the
things on a basketball court that Russell Westbrook is capable
of doing. But I also said that he has a
(21:21):
much lower floor than Reggie Jackson, and a lot of
people like interpreted that as like, oh, like he'll have
games where he doesn't produce. That's not it at all.
It's strictly mistake making. Russell Westbrook is incredibly prone to mistakes,
regardless of the surrounding circumstances of the game. Doesn't matter
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if it's the first quarter or the final possession of
a big game, he is mistake prone. He plays with
a lot of energy and a lot of passion, but
it's not very refined, and I would argue when it
comes to like game plan discipline, attention to detail, he's
one of the worst players I've ever seen in those categories,
(22:03):
and so what ends up happening is Russell Westbrook will
make all these good plays over the course of a
game and bring all of this positive impact, but he
just has a tendency to make these mistakes that undercut
that success. So like, for instance, everyone's gonna focus on
the final sequence, I want to set that aside for
a second as well. The overtime possession where he makes
(22:27):
the post entry past to Jokic and then he cuts
through the lane and then he just throws Ni Kiel
Alexander Walker to the ground with a swim move right
in front of the reth easiest offensive foul call in
the league. They're going the other way, just turn the
ball over for no reason in a big spot in overtime.
In second overtime, Nuggets up by one, he's guarding Anthony Edwards,
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the only guy who's been torching your ass over clutch time.
He's guarding Anthony Edwards out up at the top of
the key and he just goes catatonic and he's just
standing up there like twenty five feet from the basket
and ant just backcuts right behind him. Easy pass. I
think it was from Julius randolf I remember, correctly easy
pass on the back cut layup. Now Minnesota has the
(23:14):
lead again. Forget about like just that split second decision
making at the end of the game. There were two
other situations in that same overtime sequence where Russ either
tricked off an offensive possession or gave up a bucket
because he's just mistake prone. He just makes mistakes. And
like a lot of these people were like making Laker
(23:35):
fans out to be jerks for just pointing out these
like basic things that we learned from rooting for the guy.
I still vividly remember in big spots many times fourth quarters,
two three minutes, left huge possession, Russ forcing it in
transition when there was nothing there in smoking a layup.
(23:57):
You guys saw it again last night as they blew
a game to the Spurs in a big sequence late
down too, as he smoked this crazy reverse layup and
it led to another layup going out the other way.
That happened to me two other Laker fans rooting for
him many times over the course of the year and
a half that he was there. I still vividly remember
(24:17):
a game against the Brooklyn Nets in La Stanley Johnson
signs with the Lakers like day of does an incredible
job picking up hard in like full court all game.
It's this really important game for the Lakers too, as
they're trying to float in the standings. In one of
the biggest possessions of the game. Late in a one
possession game, Russell Westbrook is guarding Patty Mills. What's your
job guarding Patty Mills? Game playing, discipline, attention to detail.
(24:41):
He's the best shooter on the court. You gotta track him.
He was ball watching, just like that play I was
talking about with Aunt. Pat Mills relocated to the left
corner hard and hit him. He hit the dagger, the
game was over. I've been there, guys. I wasn't trying
to like talk shit for the sake of talk. I
wasn't trying to be personal. I wasn't trying to be
(25:03):
a dick. I like, I rooted for the guy for
a year and a half. It was in my best
interests as a fan for him to be good, and
he just repeatedly undercut his successes with that mistake making.
And then there you go, in a big possession late,
Anthony Edwards turns the ball over. You're up one with
the ball, you don't take a shot unless you are
(25:26):
one hundred percent sure you are going to make it,
and instead it's another one of those reckless transition pushes.
Then he compounds the mistake after missing the layup by
getting back into one of those no man's lands kind
of floating around situations around the right elbow, and next
thing you know, there's a skip pass and he has
to throw a reckless close out and he fouls a
three point shooter and he literally turned a win into
(25:47):
a loss, and like, look, Nikole jokicch after the game,
excellent leadership says, this kind of shit happens sometimes, and
he's not wrong. I literally just watched Lebron do it
the other day. I watched Lebron the other day lose
a shooter in the week's side corner and then turn
the ball over on the baseline. Here's the thing I've
(26:09):
been watching Lebron his entire career. That was fucking weird.
That was highly unusual from Lebron James. I watched Russell
Westbrook this entire phase of his career. That is something
he is absolutely prone to doing in these sorts of
spots and so like again it's there's there are some realities, right,
(26:30):
like Jamal Murray's healthy, Russell Westbrooks probably not out there, right.
There are ways for Mike Malone and the Nuggets to
shield against this sort of thing by keeping him out
of the game in those spots. But the problem is
is like there is some reality to the fact that
there is an opportunity, There is a there is a
potential outcome here where the Nuggets are in a big game,
(26:53):
four down two to one in a series on the
road at you know, some one of these big Western
con Conference teams, and it's a late third quarter stretch
where the Nuggets are up by two and Russ could
take over the game and win it for you, and
you could go into the mid fourth quarter stretch up
(27:15):
by twelve. That's the high ceiling. But there's also a
version of that where he has two or three bad turnovers,
two or three mislayups, two or three bad three point shots,
and a couple of bad defensive breakdowns and suddenly your
two point lead turns into a ten point deficit. That
is also an available outcome. Because of the wild oscillations
(27:37):
of that Russell westbrook experience, And the only reason I'm
saying any of this is because at the start of
the year when I pointed this out, I wasn't trying
to be a dick. I was just being honest about
my own personal experience rooting for the guy, in relaying
a message that every Lakers fan will tell you, even
Clippers fans will tell you that this was a reality.
(27:57):
It's not a big deal. They're gonna be able to
cover fourth, they should be able to keep him out
of these sort of high leverage situations. But keep an
eye on it in the postseason for a big bench
stretch and a big quarter there he's mistake prone and
it could be something that ends up costing you a game.
You could really tell in the early part of the
game that neither team knew how they wanted to attack
each other, and so there's a lot of standing around,
(28:19):
a lot of passing the ball around the perimeter, a
lot of really ugly offensive possessions from both teams, and
some of those possessions for Jimmy Butler manifested. I thought
Lebron was doing this too early in the game where
where he had those two back to back turnovers where
he's driving into the lane and no one's helping, so
he's in a one on one, but he's like trying
to force some pass to a guy that's guarded. It's like, no,
(28:40):
you need to be looking to score. You're leading a
unit without your star on the floor. Same thing goes
for Jimmy Butler in those situations, like they need him
to look to be aggressive if you're not going to
get you know, eight made threes out of Brandon Pajemski
every single night. They're going to need more production out
of Jimmy in that spot. But overall, I thought he
made a bunch of big plays late. I thought that
corner three he made was big at three steals in
(29:01):
the game, was beating the Lakers to a bunch of
loose balls in some key situations. Really really impressive performance
from the Warriors top to bottom. I thought, Steph to
last piece, they'll say in the Warriors before we get
to the Lakers. You know, Steph has been fantastic since
the Jimmy Butler trade. He's at coming into tonight. He
was at like twenty eight points per game on sixty
(29:21):
six percent true shooting over his last twenty three games
on a court that had Jimmy Butler that had Lebron James,
to have Luka Doncic, that had all this star talent
on the floor. I thought Steph was the best player
on the floor. And I even though Lebron statistically performed
really well, I thought Steph was able to consistently break
(29:42):
down the defense. I talked earlier about how both teams
didn't really seem to know how they wanted to attack
each other in the early portions of the game. It
crystallized for Golden State they found out, you know, they're
about halfway through that second quarter. In that second quarter
they found out it's like, actually, let's just get Death
out into space against Luca and we'll have him drive
(30:05):
by Lucas. Sometimes we'll have him look to attack immediately
off the catch off of some off ball screening action
Will There was one late the Big Three he hit
late where Draymond fell down like he had Luca on
a switch. But then Draymond just sprinted into a ball screen.
I talked earlier today when we were talking about Jared
Allen and the Caves. When you sprint into actions, it
makes you that much harder to guard. Draymon sprinted into
(30:27):
that ball screen, and Lebron was too far back and
Lebron was late. It was bad defensive possession from Lebron,
and a big part of that was Draymon sprinted into
the ball screen, got Steph another clean look at it,
basically a drop coverage possession off the left wing. But
this is Steph is heating up right in time for
what they're going to need him to be in this
postseason run. And I thought he just came in here
(30:49):
tonight and kicked the shit out of the Lakers and
badly outplayed Luca and set his team up to be
in a really good position in the standings as we
come down the stretch here on the Lakers front. As
I always say, I don't really look at the scoreboard
when I'm thinking about the postseason. And one of the
(31:09):
main reasons why is because there's just so much noise
in the regular season, whether it's from the schedule or
it's a random role player doing this or a random
guy being out of the lineup for whatever reason. There's
also a lot of noise relative to the postseason, where
you'll see, oh, you know, the Phoenix Suns beat the
Timberwolves every single game last year, and they had this
awesome game plan for like how to beat the Timberwolves,
(31:33):
but then they get into a playoff series and it's like, oh,
actually none of these guys can guard Aunt and they're
being super physical on defense and we can't even like
dribble the ball of the floor without losing it. So
like everything shifted and changed, right. So what I'm looking
at is are there any things from tonight that translate
to a potential postseason series between these two teams? And
(31:55):
the first one that screams off the screen to me
is their struggles with switching ever since Luca came over
to the Lakers. And again I've broken this down before.
I'll do a very short version of it here, but
the short version of it is against drop coverage, against
traditional coverages, Luca is so good at making all the
natural reads. If you don't pick him up going downhill,
(32:17):
he's just gonna get into that like right around the
block where he can shoot that little seven foot bank
shot that he's gonna make like sixty percent of the time.
If you do step up with your big man, he's
throwing a lob to the center for a dunk. And
if you tag the roller, he's skipping it to the
weak side for a wide open three, and it's just
he's so surgical with it that it's just it's a
death sentence. There's literally nothing you can do. And every team,
(32:40):
for the most part that has run that coverage against
the Lakers this year with Luka, Doncic has gotten torch
and for the most part, they've had a couple of
good games, but for the most part against these teams
that just switch with their fives or switched generally everywhere
on the floor, they've really struggled to score. And one
of the big reasons why is when Lebron was healthy
(33:02):
earlier on, Luca was bad, and then Lebron goes out.
And during the phase that Lebron was out, Luca was
very good. His shot making bounced back in a major way,
but they just didn't have that additional defensive rebounding presence
in the front court over that span because Ruiy, Lebron,
and Jackson were all out. Now everybody's back, but Lebron
(33:23):
is still kind of getting back into form, and here
goes Luca again into another kind of like spiraling type
of sequence. Luca has shot below fifty percent from the
field in five of his last six games, he has
absolutely no touch on his short range shot making before
tonight he was just twenty eight for eighty eight on
(33:44):
floaters and or excuse me, on jump shots inside his
seventeen feet. So all those like jump shots that he
was hitting NonStop in the playoffs last year, he made
three of them per game last year in the postseason
at forty six percent. He's shooting just thirty two percent
on him this year, and he's barely making one again
with the Lakers. He has like no touch on his
(34:06):
short range shot, making zero for six from three tonight,
bizarrely ineffective Luka Doncic, And like, the thing is is
there's a version of this where the Lakers can theoretically
be very good against switching, but it's going to require
the Lebron James that was there before he heard his groin,
and the Luka Doncic that was there last year in
the NBA playoffs. And so it's one of those things where,
(34:30):
like I've talked a lot about this, the Lakers have
arguably the largest amount to potentially improve between now and
May first. The Lakers could be dramatically better by May first,
just simply from Lebron and Luca getting back to form
and some team chemistry stuff and regaining their defensive identity,
which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the
reality is is it's it's also possible that they just don't.
(34:55):
And I'm just gonna be perfectly frank with you, guys.
If Luca plays like this in the postseason, they're they're
they're gonna get beat. They're gonna get beat in the
first or second round. Like it, They're just there's no
going the distance. If you make a trade with Anthony
Davis for Luka Doncic and you get this type of
performance out of Luca in a big game. And I mean,
(35:18):
strangely enough, the Lakers have dominated the middle tier of
the NBA since Luca came. Every Houston, Minnesota, you know, Phoenix,
every team that's in that you know, kind of like
just outside the top tier of contenders. The Lakers are
kicking the shit out of those guys. They've faced two
of the teams that I said that I would consider
(35:40):
as the top tier contenders, Boston, who's been there all year,
in Golden State, who I said I would add when
we do our contender's list with SA Vassini right before
the start of the postseason, and in those two games,
the Lakers pretty much got out played wire to wire
and Luka Doncic looked really, really bad in both games,
and I am, I am. Here's the thing. Early on
(36:02):
after the trade, I wasn't worried about it. I was
just kind of like, give Lucas some time. He'll be fine.
He's one of the greatest players that we've ever seen
at his age in this league. But here we are, Guys,
it's been months now, spend two months, and he's going
in the wrong direction. So I don't know what's going
(36:23):
on with him. Part of the thing that I'm seeing too,
is like he's he's not even trusting himself in the
short range, like he's pump fakingn Like he's pump faking
NonStop in that ten to fifteen foot range and just
looking to grift for fouls instead of looking to take
and make the shots that he was hitting half of
at decent volume when he was in the postseason last year.
(36:43):
So I'm again, I'm hopeful that Luca will figure it out.
I'm hopeful that this will all come together. But guys,
like we've already the hoops tonight's staff, we've already gone
over our schedule for the week of the playing tournament.
Like this shit is right around the corner. It's here,
It's like here, now, there's no like, let's give Luca
a runway and see what he can do. Like there's
(37:03):
a chance you're facing the Clippers, the Timberwolves, how the
Warriors in two in three weeks like that. This needs
to be this, These problems need to be resolved yesterday.
And so I'm starting to get a little bit concerned
about whether or not the Lakers are hitting at the
right type of level they need to be hitting at
(37:26):
to go on the run that they need to go on.
The defensive struggle with speed, A lot of miss rotations tonight,
a lot of miss defensive rebounds where they're slower to
the ball. In this sort of situation, I want to
at least account for some of the fact that the
Lakers are kind of not in the same defensive rhythm
(37:47):
that they were in in the past. But the reality
is there was only a very brief stretch there where
they were good defensively with Luca right after the trade.
There's been a pretty large sample now after that where
they've been pretty bad defensively with Luca, and teams are
looking to attack him out front over and over and
over again. We did see an example in the second
(38:07):
half tonight of a pre switch, meaning where they brought
Luca's man up into his screen and then Lebron went
instead of Luca, But that was the only time I
saw it, and for the most part, they were just
conceding that switch. And if they're going to concede that switch,
then they're just going to have to be better in
their rotations than they've been being. If they defend like
this behind Luca, who's been giving up driple penetration the
(38:29):
way that he has, I think they could get cut
pieces by a good offensive team when they get into postseason.
I talked a lot in other games about the idea
of leveraging your strengths to hide your weaknesses. There's no
doubt that all this stuff is connected. I'll give you
guys some examples. Luca plays better from the start of
(38:51):
this game. Immediately starts kicking ass, punishing mismatches, drawing double teams,
spraying out beautiful kick out passes to shooters. Now the
threes that Dorian gets the threes that Gabe gets. They're cleaner,
they're more in rhythm now instead of those guys going
(39:12):
one for ten from three. They have much better shooting
nights now. As a result, the team is able to
set their defense more. Now that they're setting their defense
more and they're in control of the game and they're
not trailing by ten, they're more invigorated, they're more motivated,
they're flying around, they're making plays. See how like you
(39:33):
can imagine a scenario where these things are connected. You
can leverage your strengths to hide your weaknesses. The part
that gets scary for me there is, as I said,
like we're on almost a two week stretch there where
Lucas just hasn't been as good, and so it's just
a little concerning from the standpoint of right now, I
haven't seen the Lakers put together a consistent stretch of
(39:55):
like great basketball since Lebron came back from his injury,
and so I'm definit only a little bit. I'm a
little bit concerned there. That said, there is time, and
you know, if they do get a favorable first round
matchup and they end up getting a win, they could
have until May to get some of this together before
they face a more serious team. Similar to what I
talked about with Jonathan Minga, I did think we saw
(40:18):
one clear advantage for the Lakers tonight, and that's that
the Warriors can't guard Lebron. Lebron did exactly what I
was just talking about Luca needing to do. He consistently
methodically found mismatches against guards where he liked his size,
and he liked the spacing of the floor, and he
was able to get downhill and he was able to
consistently compromise the defense for kickout passes and for layups
(40:40):
right at the front of the rim. That is, to
me a translatable thing to a series between the Lakers
and Warriors. And so in an event where the Lakers
beat the Warriors in a playoff series, it will require
Lebron to continue to leverage that and for Luca to
meet him at that level. And that really is the
advantage there. The Lakers are going to leverage their size,
(41:02):
it's got to be Lebron and Luca together punishing them
all over the floor. The volume m
The volume. Welcome to the Best of Hoops Tonight, featuring
my top takes from recent shows. Let's move on to
(00:22):
Zachary Resache. So he drops his career high thirty six
in a dominant victory over the Bucks. So the third
game this year he scored over thirty points. Zach's played
twenty seven consecutive games. In those games, he's averaging fifteen
point two points per game. He's shooting fifty two percent
from the field forty three percent from three on over
(00:44):
five attempts per game. He's showcasing a little bit more
of a quick release against the Bucks. Hit a couple
of no dip jumpers. Those are where the ball is
already is caught in the pocket and you flow immediately
into the shot instead of having to catch somewhere else
and then dip down into your release and like kind
of restart your chain of energy from the floor up
(01:04):
to the top of the shot. He's showing a lot
of really high level scoring. I want to talk about
this concept for a minute because I think it's a
really important part of team building moving forward in the NBA.
Scoring is the ultimate compliment to playmaking. I've been thinking
a lot about this concept this season. When you have
elite playmaking on your team, guys like Trey Young, guys
(01:25):
like Lebron, Luca and Nicola Jokic, these really really high
level passers, you need elite play finishing to pay those
sequences off. Whether it's a vertical spacer like Aaron Gordon
alongside Jokic, or Derek Lively alongside Luca, Jackson Hayes alongside Luca,
or a deadly spot up guy someone like Kyle Korver
(01:47):
back with Lebron when he was with the Cavs, or
Malik Beasley playing with Kad Cunningham. Guys that can pay
off these sequences from your playmakers. But one of the
manifestations of that type of player that I've been talking
a lot about this year and referring to it as
the weak side scoring forward. This is why I went
into detail about the strong side corner help thing that
we talked about earlier. This same concept is built into
(02:09):
pick and roll coverages too. There's a reason why they
don't offer low man help out of the strong side corner.
They offer low man help out of the weak side corner.
Why do they do that so that for the same
reason on an ISO drive. If a guy's getting downhill
in a ball screen, the opening for him as a
playmaker is across the court and across his body. That's
the goal. You want to make it across the court
and across the body, across as many help defenders as
(02:32):
possible to make that past difficult, right, But that is
ultimately the opening, and all of the best playmakers in
the league consistently capitalize on those openings. We've talked about
this concept a ton making reads in pick and roll.
What are my reads? Big man steps up, I'm making
a read based on the roll man or the weak
(02:53):
side corner, based on what the lowman does. If the
one man steps over, I'm skipping it. If the one
man stays home, excuse me, I'm throwing the lot. If
the big man drops back and the guard is chasing,
my read is to shoot in the mid range. My
read is to get as close to the basket for
as high percentage of a shot as possible. Those are
the pick and roll reads. And so when these teams,
the majority of teams are bringing their big up to
(03:15):
the level and bringing the low man over, that skip
pass is open, and those skip passes are going to
be made especially by Trey Young. In these sorts of situations,
there's a bunch of different ways that you can look
to score right. It's not just hitting spot up threes.
It's running your lane in transition as an athlete, it's
(03:36):
driving closeouts. It's oh, they switched a screen or we
ran in transition and got a cross match, and now
there's a guard on this forward. You need that forward
to do a lot more of this high level scoring.
These are professional scorers, but primarily in an off ball context.
Examples are like Michael Porter, Junior ogn Andobi Ruey Hachimura,
(04:00):
DeAndre Hunter, Lori Markenen is kind of a high end
version of that for the Jazz Denny Avdya, even though
he's been doing more on ball stuff as of late,
Kyle Kuzma, PJ Washington, this is becoming an extremely important
archetype in the NBA. Zacharyrissaschet has been doing some of
the best week side scoring work you'll see out of
a rookie forward starts in transition. I was watching the
(04:23):
Rockets Hawks game from about a week ago. You'll find
him on my Twitter feed. I shared some clips, but
Zachary Rissache was amazing in transition in that game, just
literally out running everybody up the floor, didn't matter if
the rebound was captured and he was on the baseline.
He was sprinting, and it was so visually jarring that
(04:45):
I clipped these examples and I put them on my
Twitter feed for you guys to see. Watch these three clips.
Watch the way Zachary Risasche runs. Watch when he gets
his head of steam, how it literally looks like he's
moving a different speed than everyone else on the floor.
Is a gazelle. It's crazy. And he'll get two or
three wide open attempts at the rim every game just
(05:07):
by running the floor. And that pairs perfectly with Trey Young,
who's one of the best hit a head passers in
the league. I had to coach my last year in
college at Arizona Christian University. Shout out to Jeff Rudder.
They just won their conference tournament on a buzzer beater,
crazy buzzer beater, and then they made it to the
final four before losing in the NAIA tournament. But he
(05:28):
used to say to all of us that you can
manufacture twelve points a game just by getting a transition layup,
running the floor, crashing the offensive glass and getting to
the foul line once per half. It's such a simple
way to produce in a basketball game. And even if
you take the foul line part out, because obviously there's
some out of your control stuff there with the whistle,
if you just crash the offensive glass and you just
(05:51):
run your lane in transition and you get one bucket
a half each, that's eight points right there. You're one
bucket away from double figures. It is such a simil
way to produce in a basketball game. Run every time,
crash every time. And he presents such a massive passing
target for Trey because he's so athletic, so rangy and long.
(06:13):
He caught a behind the back lob from Trey in
the Bucks game where he dunked it behind his head
because it's just a massive passing target. Then in the
half court, as we talked about, when they load up
the strong side in those skips, it's just like king
of the court. When you're playing with your buddies on
short closeouts, you need to knock down threes. He's starting
(06:34):
to do that at a really high level. In this
twenty seven game span, he's at forty three percent on
over five attempts per game. Now, what's gonna start happening.
If he can maintain that level of shooting for a
substantial amount of time, he's gonna start getting chased off
the line. And that's where I think he has a
ton of potential as a score. He has downhill burst
attacking closeouts. He had a dunk against Shangoon in the
(06:56):
Rockets game where he drove a close out off the
left wing and hammered it with his left hand on
Shangon's face, a wildly athletic play. He has good footwork
on like spins in Euros. He had a bucket against
the Nets. Driving a close out against Nick Claxton in
the left corner. He jabbed, got back to it deep
in the corner with a hesitation dribble, cross back over,
(07:18):
got into the lane, pump, faked, pivoted over his right
shoulder on his step through for a left handed finish.
That's a really high level scoring move. He had one
on Harden off the left wing, jabbed left, drove right,
snatched back to the left, drove high gather through zubach
and finished at the basket. These are really high level
scoring moves attacking with an advantage in those king of
(07:42):
the court situations. He had a left to right euro
against Zubatch a couple of weeks ago where he drove
out of the corner. Like left to right euro is
one of the most complex footwork pieces you'll see for
a right handed player. Most guys don't know how to
do it, and he still has a ton of growth
in front of him. Shooting hot for a couple of
months is not the same as being an elite shooter.
(08:03):
We've all seen it. This guy's shooting forty three percent
from three over his last whatever. Games. You gotta do
it for a long stretch of time before teams game
plan for you in that way. That that will take
a few years, probably, but that will be what truly
unlocks his off the dribble game, because I don't think
like as good as he is in the open court
(08:23):
as an athlete, he's his start stop quickness isn't quite
as impressive as his athleticism in the open court, which
is going to make it so it's a little harder
for him to beat people off the dribble unless his
jumper comes around, which again will take some time, but
that's part of his development. He still needs a lot
of improvement on the defensive end too. His athleticism has
not translated yet as like a really high level off
(08:44):
ball defender. He's often a bit behind the play on
his help rotations, which prevents him from having an impact.
That's about processing speed. That's about learning, like learning the
actions so well that you know what's going to happen
as it's developing, so that you can be there a
step earlier. And again, as we talked about, his start
stop quickness isn't as good. That's why that processing speed
is going to be so important for him because he's
(09:05):
gonna need to be there sooner in terms of the
way he's reading these plays. But the bottom line is
he's a rookie that projects to be one of the
best people at his particular job in the NBA, which
is being that weak side scoring forward, which is very
exciting for Hawks fans. I think it might officially be
over for the Suns. They got absolutely smacked by the
(09:26):
Rockets last night. Shannguon was cooking all their bigs again.
Jalen Green poured in another thirty three points email Udoka
in the second quarter brought out that zone defense that
he's been using a bunch for the last month or so,
and they immediately sparked a massive run in that second
quarter and they never looked back. It was a complete
and total physical domination by Houston. They out rebounded them
(09:48):
by six, They forced nineteen turnovers, They scored thirty four
points off of those turnovers. They won the fast break
points battle thirty two to eight. Houston scored forty points
in transition int in this game. But I want to
focus on Phoenix here for a second, because we're gonna
hit Houston in tonight's show as they play the Lakers again.
We're going live on YouTube tonight after the T and
(10:09):
T slate. What did I say about Phoenix a month ago?
I said they struck me as the stereotypical, older veteran
team that knows deep down that they don't really have
a chance to win anything this year. And the way
that that's gonna manifest is in these short week or
two long bursts where they compete and they look they
(10:32):
look decent, they defend their rebound, they do their jobs,
but that they inevitably let go of the rope because
they can't sustain it, because they don't believe and that's
exactly what just happened. They won five out of six,
some quality wins versus the Calves and the Bucks. They
were defending in rebounding top ten and both. They think
they might have been top five in both over that span.
(10:52):
But the NBA schedule does not let up. Boston came
to town without Tatum and kicked their ass. Then it
was Minnesota and it was Houston, a couple of these big,
strong athletic teams that were going to truly test Phoenix's
commitment to the work, and instead of hanging onto the rope,
they just completely let go of it. One thirty seven
(11:14):
point four defensive rating in the last three games, they
gave up an offensive rebound on thirty five percent of
opponents misses. That's damagingly bad. And now KD has an
ankle sprain, Anthony Davis is back, and the MAVs are
climbing in the standings. We talked before the year that
(11:35):
there was going to be a team that had dead
serious championship aspirations but that would miss the playoffs entirely,
and no matter who that would be, it would be
a catastrophe. And it looks like it's going to be
the Suns. I keep watching them and thinking that it's
not a Kevin Durant and Devin Booker problem. But at
the same time, I do think it's worth mentioning that
(11:56):
neither of those two guys can really leverage their physical
galths on the game. Katie has length and he has
mobility that helps him on defense, but he carries a
massive offensive load, so he can't devote too many resources
to that end, and he's not very strong. He can
be pushed around, which is very very dangerous quality for
(12:17):
a front court player. Defensively on the glass duck ins
things along those lines. It's tough to do that job.
Outside of like rangey rotating and rim contests. There's just
a limitation when you can't win the ground battle. And again,
it's just one of those things where you watch these
other teams. It's like watching Houston Jalen Green can leverage
(12:41):
his athleticism to get to spots. Shane goun Is bullying
these dudes when you watch these teams that have these players,
where it's like, I can inflict myself physically on the
game to assist my team in these key areas that
they need help. Booker and KD are not necessarily as capable.
(13:04):
This is why I still believe it's worth exploring the
idea of keeping those two. They still give you such
a high offensive floor in terms of shot quality. I
would still just look to find every discount bruiser I
can find at every position group and try to breed
that culture around them, because regardless of what direction you
(13:25):
go this summer, even if you do choose to get
rid of Kevin Durant or Devin Booker or both, you
still need an organizational identity. I talked about this concept
after the Celtics win against the Suns last week. I
talked about it with Colin Coward last night on his show.
You need an organizational identity that is separate from your stars.
And so regardless of what direction you go, you need
(13:46):
to begin the process of establishing that new owner, new coach.
You need to start establishing a basketball culture. This season
was a massive step back, and so that's the thing.
Unless you think there's some magical trade that's going to
just solve all your problems, which I don't think there is,
you need to begin the process of changing that culture anyway.
(14:09):
And so from that standpoint, if you tweak things enough
around those two. That's where Kevin Durant, Devin Booker's upside
can actually start to lift you to where you want
to go. But this is a team that is completely
let go of the rope, and I think I would
be stunned at this point if we got to see
them play meaningful basketball here in a couple of weeks.
All right, let's talk some Denver Nuggets. So Jokics goes
(14:31):
for sixty one, ten and ten against the Wolves the
other night, just an absolutely wild games, dogfight for the
most part, and then the Nuggets finally pulled away in
the fourth courter. They end up going up by ten.
But then Anthony Edwards just went absolutely berserk. And this
has become a kind of a recurring theme with it.
As a game is unfolding, I was thinking to myself,
it really hasn't hit kind of a hot jump shooting
(14:52):
streak yet, and that felt like a factor that would
come into play at some point down the stretch. And
it did, and he just started rising like it just
has this a to rise up at a spot on
the court, and he gets such great lift on his
jump shot that he can really get to it whenever
he wants, and he's become such a great jump shooter
that it's kind of just like a let's cross our
(15:14):
fingers and pray he misses kind of thing. And he
just wasn't missing down the stretch of that game, and
it allowed the Wolves to get back into control. It
felt like the Wolves had that game won at multiple points,
but Denver just did a good job of doubling the
ball out of Anthony Edwards's hands. Minnesota looked like they'd
never seen a double team before, as they just pissed
down their leg and get a terrible shot over and
(15:35):
over again in those situations. The Wolves led in the
final minute of the fourth quarter of overtime and double overtime,
yet still needed that insane Russell Westbrook sequence at the
end in order to win table. That Russell Westbrook thing.
We'll talk about that here in a minute, but there
is another reason, in addition to Minnesota's poor execution, that
(15:55):
Denver was able to consistently come back and almost win
that game. Jokic in crunch time had fourteen points, four assists,
and zero turnovers in the clutch. A portion of this
game spanning the end of the fourth quarter in both overtimes,
he was completely indomitable, throwing Gobart around and getting an
easy floater in the lane. He had a nasty turnaround
(16:17):
left shoulder fade away over Julius Randall. He hit one
of his patented above to break threes at the top
of the key. He had another nasty left shoulder hook
over Julius Randall again, all while being doubled and hounded
and grabbed and scratched and clawed everywhere. He'd often take
a double team, have to get rid of the ball,
sprint back up the flash to get the ball back,
(16:38):
and then quickly turn away from the double to try
to get a bucket before the double came. It was
just remarkably high degree of difficulty and he was just
crushing these dudes. I talked after Jokic's thirty twenty twenty
game a few weeks back that it probably wasn't even
a top five performance from him this year. These are
all now Jokic statlines from the year sixty one, ten
(17:02):
and ten, fifty six, sixteen and eight, forty eight, fourteen
and eight, forty one, eighteen and nine, this one's crazy,
thirty seven, eighteen and fifteen, thirty six, twenty two and eleven,
thirty five, twelve and fifteen. Here's another crazy one, thirty five,
(17:23):
twenty two and seventeen, the thirty one twenty one twenty
two game earlier this year, he had a twenty three
twenty and sixteen as well. He's averaging thirty thirteen and
ten on sixty six percent true shooting for the season.
This is the greatest offensive basketball player to ever touch
(17:44):
the court. Conversations get way more complicated when you factor
in defense, like yo kicch is having legitimately a really
bad defensive season, and I've seen a lot of talk
about people wanting to vault yoll kitch up the all
time list for what's happening in this regular season. I
think that's a little more complicated because it's been a
two sided coin with Yokic at times this year. But
(18:06):
I have never seen a basketball player produce at this volume,
with this variety, with this level of efficiency, with this
complete level of unstoppability. You literally cannot stop Jokic from
either getting a great shot for himself or for someone else.
You can tilt it towards a lesser teammate to make
(18:28):
a shot. Denver's margin for air has shrunken a little
bit over the years as the supporting cast has lost
a little bit of that firepower. But you just about
never see Nikola Jokicic look visibly uncomfortable on a basketball court.
There have been these brief moments here in time, like
for instance, against Minnesota in the postseason last year, he
(18:48):
had his moments, but he also had like Game five
of that series where he just ripped through him like
tissue paper for one of the greatest playoff performances I've
ever seen. As good as Steph Curry was offensively, and
he's up there, he never had the physical imposition that
Jokics brings to the table that, oh, you leave me
in single coverage, I'm just gonna get a shot right
(19:09):
at the rim with zero variants, guaranteed two points like
Steph never had that. As good as Lebron was offensively
back in twenty eighteen, like he could get high percentage looks,
he had sky high efficiency and volume, but he still
never had that go to move against any type of
defender that he could hit sixty plus percent of the time.
(19:32):
Jokic does. The three point shot was the variable that
put him over the top. For me last year when
he couldn't shoot, it felt like you could do more
with double teams and crowding him on pick and roll
in particular, when he was like rolling into that short
roll area. You can do more of that kind of
stuff to lessen his impact. You guys might remember the
tail end of the Timberwolve series where he kept popping
(19:54):
above the break to avoid that traffic jam on those
rolls and he just couldn't hit that shot. He hit
six of them against Minnesota on Tuesday. That's the thing
that makes him completely unguardable. I'll just say from personal experience,
as someone who's actively rooted against this guy in a
playoff series three times, I can confidently state I've never
(20:16):
been more scared of an offensive player on that end
of the floor in any sort of big spot light
in the game. Then I was scared of nicolea Jokic,
and I hope to the basketball gods that I don't
have to do it again this year. I want to
talk about Westbrook for a minute. I want to set
aside the reality of Westbrook's fit and how things have
(20:38):
gone in total with the Nuggets just for a minute.
I think we can all agree, including Laker fans that
Russell Westbrook is a much better basketball fit with Denver
than he was with either of the LA teams. Right,
So let's just take that piece and set it aside
for a second. When Russell Westbrook signed with the Nuggets,
(21:00):
you Nuggets fans will probably remember what I said. I
said that he undoubtedly has a higher ceiling than Reggie Jackson.
There's no way that Reggie Jackson could ever do the
things on a basketball court that Russell Westbrook is capable
of doing. But I also said that he has a
(21:21):
much lower floor than Reggie Jackson, and a lot of
people like interpreted that as like, oh, like he'll have
games where he doesn't produce. That's not it at all.
It's strictly mistake making. Russell Westbrook is incredibly prone to mistakes,
regardless of the surrounding circumstances of the game. Doesn't matter
(21:42):
if it's the first quarter or the final possession of
a big game, he is mistake prone. He plays with
a lot of energy and a lot of passion, but
it's not very refined, and I would argue when it
comes to like game plan discipline, attention to detail, he's
one of the worst players I've ever seen in those categories,
(22:03):
and so what ends up happening is Russell Westbrook will
make all these good plays over the course of a
game and bring all of this positive impact, but he
just has a tendency to make these mistakes that undercut
that success. So like, for instance, everyone's gonna focus on
the final sequence, I want to set that aside for
a second as well. The overtime possession where he makes
(22:27):
the post entry past to Jokic and then he cuts
through the lane and then he just throws Ni Kiel
Alexander Walker to the ground with a swim move right
in front of the reth easiest offensive foul call in
the league. They're going the other way, just turn the
ball over for no reason in a big spot in overtime.
In second overtime, Nuggets up by one, he's guarding Anthony Edwards,
(22:51):
the only guy who's been torching your ass over clutch time.
He's guarding Anthony Edwards out up at the top of
the key and he just goes catatonic and he's just
standing up there like twenty five feet from the basket
and ant just backcuts right behind him. Easy pass. I
think it was from Julius randolf I remember, correctly easy
pass on the back cut layup. Now Minnesota has the
(23:14):
lead again. Forget about like just that split second decision
making at the end of the game. There were two
other situations in that same overtime sequence where Russ either
tricked off an offensive possession or gave up a bucket
because he's just mistake prone. He just makes mistakes. And
like a lot of these people were like making Laker
(23:35):
fans out to be jerks for just pointing out these
like basic things that we learned from rooting for the guy.
I still vividly remember in big spots many times fourth quarters,
two three minutes, left huge possession, Russ forcing it in
transition when there was nothing there in smoking a layup.
(23:57):
You guys saw it again last night as they blew
a game to the Spurs in a big sequence late
down too, as he smoked this crazy reverse layup and
it led to another layup going out the other way.
That happened to me two other Laker fans rooting for
him many times over the course of the year and
a half that he was there. I still vividly remember
(24:17):
a game against the Brooklyn Nets in La Stanley Johnson
signs with the Lakers like day of does an incredible
job picking up hard in like full court all game.
It's this really important game for the Lakers too, as
they're trying to float in the standings. In one of
the biggest possessions of the game. Late in a one
possession game, Russell Westbrook is guarding Patty Mills. What's your
job guarding Patty Mills? Game playing, discipline, attention to detail.
(24:41):
He's the best shooter on the court. You gotta track him.
He was ball watching, just like that play I was
talking about with Aunt. Pat Mills relocated to the left
corner hard and hit him. He hit the dagger, the
game was over. I've been there, guys. I wasn't trying
to like talk shit for the sake of talk. I
wasn't trying to be personal. I wasn't trying to be
(25:03):
a dick. I like, I rooted for the guy for
a year and a half. It was in my best
interests as a fan for him to be good, and
he just repeatedly undercut his successes with that mistake making.
And then there you go, in a big possession late,
Anthony Edwards turns the ball over. You're up one with
the ball, you don't take a shot unless you are
(25:26):
one hundred percent sure you are going to make it,
and instead it's another one of those reckless transition pushes.
Then he compounds the mistake after missing the layup by
getting back into one of those no man's lands kind
of floating around situations around the right elbow, and next
thing you know, there's a skip pass and he has
to throw a reckless close out and he fouls a
three point shooter and he literally turned a win into
(25:47):
a loss, and like, look, Nikole jokicch after the game,
excellent leadership says, this kind of shit happens sometimes, and
he's not wrong. I literally just watched Lebron do it
the other day. I watched Lebron the other day lose
a shooter in the week's side corner and then turn
the ball over on the baseline. Here's the thing I've
(26:09):
been watching Lebron his entire career. That was fucking weird.
That was highly unusual from Lebron James. I watched Russell
Westbrook this entire phase of his career. That is something
he is absolutely prone to doing in these sorts of
spots and so like again it's there's there are some realities, right,
(26:30):
like Jamal Murray's healthy, Russell Westbrooks probably not out there, right.
There are ways for Mike Malone and the Nuggets to
shield against this sort of thing by keeping him out
of the game in those spots. But the problem is
is like there is some reality to the fact that
there is an opportunity, There is a there is a
potential outcome here where the Nuggets are in a big game,
(26:53):
four down two to one in a series on the
road at you know, some one of these big Western
con Conference teams, and it's a late third quarter stretch
where the Nuggets are up by two and Russ could
take over the game and win it for you, and
you could go into the mid fourth quarter stretch up
(27:15):
by twelve. That's the high ceiling. But there's also a
version of that where he has two or three bad turnovers,
two or three mislayups, two or three bad three point shots,
and a couple of bad defensive breakdowns and suddenly your
two point lead turns into a ten point deficit. That
is also an available outcome. Because of the wild oscillations
(27:37):
of that Russell westbrook experience, And the only reason I'm
saying any of this is because at the start of
the year when I pointed this out, I wasn't trying
to be a dick. I was just being honest about
my own personal experience rooting for the guy, in relaying
a message that every Lakers fan will tell you, even
Clippers fans will tell you that this was a reality.
(27:57):
It's not a big deal. They're gonna be able to
cover fourth, they should be able to keep him out
of these sort of high leverage situations. But keep an
eye on it in the postseason for a big bench
stretch and a big quarter there he's mistake prone and
it could be something that ends up costing you a game.
You could really tell in the early part of the
game that neither team knew how they wanted to attack
each other, and so there's a lot of standing around,
(28:19):
a lot of passing the ball around the perimeter, a
lot of really ugly offensive possessions from both teams, and
some of those possessions for Jimmy Butler manifested. I thought
Lebron was doing this too early in the game where
where he had those two back to back turnovers where
he's driving into the lane and no one's helping, so
he's in a one on one, but he's like trying
to force some pass to a guy that's guarded. It's like, no,
(28:40):
you need to be looking to score. You're leading a
unit without your star on the floor. Same thing goes
for Jimmy Butler in those situations, like they need him
to look to be aggressive if you're not going to
get you know, eight made threes out of Brandon Pajemski
every single night. They're going to need more production out
of Jimmy in that spot. But overall, I thought he
made a bunch of big plays late. I thought that
corner three he made was big at three steals in
(29:01):
the game, was beating the Lakers to a bunch of
loose balls in some key situations. Really really impressive performance
from the Warriors top to bottom. I thought, Steph to
last piece, they'll say in the Warriors before we get
to the Lakers. You know, Steph has been fantastic since
the Jimmy Butler trade. He's at coming into tonight. He
was at like twenty eight points per game on sixty
(29:21):
six percent true shooting over his last twenty three games
on a court that had Jimmy Butler that had Lebron James,
to have Luka Doncic, that had all this star talent
on the floor. I thought Steph was the best player
on the floor. And I even though Lebron statistically performed
really well, I thought Steph was able to consistently break
(29:42):
down the defense. I talked earlier about how both teams
didn't really seem to know how they wanted to attack
each other in the early portions of the game. It
crystallized for Golden State they found out, you know, they're
about halfway through that second quarter. In that second quarter
they found out it's like, actually, let's just get Death
out into space against Luca and we'll have him drive
(30:05):
by Lucas. Sometimes we'll have him look to attack immediately
off the catch off of some off ball screening action
Will There was one late the Big Three he hit
late where Draymond fell down like he had Luca on
a switch. But then Draymond just sprinted into a ball screen.
I talked earlier today when we were talking about Jared
Allen and the Caves. When you sprint into actions, it
makes you that much harder to guard. Draymon sprinted into
(30:27):
that ball screen, and Lebron was too far back and
Lebron was late. It was bad defensive possession from Lebron,
and a big part of that was Draymon sprinted into
the ball screen, got Steph another clean look at it,
basically a drop coverage possession off the left wing. But
this is Steph is heating up right in time for
what they're going to need him to be in this
postseason run. And I thought he just came in here
(30:49):
tonight and kicked the shit out of the Lakers and
badly outplayed Luca and set his team up to be
in a really good position in the standings as we
come down the stretch here on the Lakers front. As
I always say, I don't really look at the scoreboard
when I'm thinking about the postseason. And one of the
(31:09):
main reasons why is because there's just so much noise
in the regular season, whether it's from the schedule or
it's a random role player doing this or a random
guy being out of the lineup for whatever reason. There's
also a lot of noise relative to the postseason, where
you'll see, oh, you know, the Phoenix Suns beat the
Timberwolves every single game last year, and they had this
awesome game plan for like how to beat the Timberwolves,
(31:33):
but then they get into a playoff series and it's like, oh,
actually none of these guys can guard Aunt and they're
being super physical on defense and we can't even like
dribble the ball of the floor without losing it. So
like everything shifted and changed, right. So what I'm looking
at is are there any things from tonight that translate
to a potential postseason series between these two teams? And
(31:55):
the first one that screams off the screen to me
is their struggles with switching ever since Luca came over
to the Lakers. And again I've broken this down before.
I'll do a very short version of it here, but
the short version of it is against drop coverage, against
traditional coverages, Luca is so good at making all the
natural reads. If you don't pick him up going downhill,
(32:17):
he's just gonna get into that like right around the
block where he can shoot that little seven foot bank
shot that he's gonna make like sixty percent of the time.
If you do step up with your big man, he's
throwing a lob to the center for a dunk. And
if you tag the roller, he's skipping it to the
weak side for a wide open three, and it's just
he's so surgical with it that it's just it's a
death sentence. There's literally nothing you can do. And every team,
(32:40):
for the most part that has run that coverage against
the Lakers this year with Luka, Doncic has gotten torch
and for the most part, they've had a couple of
good games, but for the most part against these teams
that just switch with their fives or switched generally everywhere
on the floor, they've really struggled to score. And one
of the big reasons why is when Lebron was healthy
(33:02):
earlier on, Luca was bad, and then Lebron goes out.
And during the phase that Lebron was out, Luca was
very good. His shot making bounced back in a major way,
but they just didn't have that additional defensive rebounding presence
in the front court over that span because Ruiy, Lebron,
and Jackson were all out. Now everybody's back, but Lebron
(33:23):
is still kind of getting back into form, and here
goes Luca again into another kind of like spiraling type
of sequence. Luca has shot below fifty percent from the
field in five of his last six games, he has
absolutely no touch on his short range shot making before
tonight he was just twenty eight for eighty eight on
(33:44):
floaters and or excuse me, on jump shots inside his
seventeen feet. So all those like jump shots that he
was hitting NonStop in the playoffs last year, he made
three of them per game last year in the postseason
at forty six percent. He's shooting just thirty two percent
on him this year, and he's barely making one again
with the Lakers. He has like no touch on his
(34:06):
short range shot, making zero for six from three tonight,
bizarrely ineffective Luka Doncic, And like, the thing is is
there's a version of this where the Lakers can theoretically
be very good against switching, but it's going to require
the Lebron James that was there before he heard his groin,
and the Luka Doncic that was there last year in
the NBA playoffs. And so it's one of those things where,
(34:30):
like I've talked a lot about this, the Lakers have
arguably the largest amount to potentially improve between now and
May first. The Lakers could be dramatically better by May first,
just simply from Lebron and Luca getting back to form
and some team chemistry stuff and regaining their defensive identity,
which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the
reality is is it's it's also possible that they just don't.
(34:55):
And I'm just gonna be perfectly frank with you, guys.
If Luca plays like this in the postseason, they're they're
they're gonna get beat. They're gonna get beat in the
first or second round. Like it, They're just there's no
going the distance. If you make a trade with Anthony
Davis for Luka Doncic and you get this type of
performance out of Luca in a big game. And I mean,
(35:18):
strangely enough, the Lakers have dominated the middle tier of
the NBA since Luca came. Every Houston, Minnesota, you know, Phoenix,
every team that's in that you know, kind of like
just outside the top tier of contenders. The Lakers are
kicking the shit out of those guys. They've faced two
of the teams that I said that I would consider
(35:40):
as the top tier contenders, Boston, who's been there all year,
in Golden State, who I said I would add when
we do our contender's list with SA Vassini right before
the start of the postseason, and in those two games,
the Lakers pretty much got out played wire to wire
and Luka Doncic looked really, really bad in both games,
and I am, I am. Here's the thing. Early on
(36:02):
after the trade, I wasn't worried about it. I was
just kind of like, give Lucas some time. He'll be fine.
He's one of the greatest players that we've ever seen
at his age in this league. But here we are, Guys,
it's been months now, spend two months, and he's going
in the wrong direction. So I don't know what's going
(36:23):
on with him. Part of the thing that I'm seeing too,
is like he's he's not even trusting himself in the
short range, like he's pump fakingn Like he's pump faking
NonStop in that ten to fifteen foot range and just
looking to grift for fouls instead of looking to take
and make the shots that he was hitting half of
at decent volume when he was in the postseason last year.
(36:43):
So I'm again, I'm hopeful that Luca will figure it out.
I'm hopeful that this will all come together. But guys,
like we've already the hoops tonight's staff, we've already gone
over our schedule for the week of the playing tournament.
Like this shit is right around the corner. It's here,
It's like here, now, there's no like, let's give Luca
a runway and see what he can do. Like there's
(37:03):
a chance you're facing the Clippers, the Timberwolves, how the
Warriors in two in three weeks like that. This needs
to be this, These problems need to be resolved yesterday.
And so I'm starting to get a little bit concerned
about whether or not the Lakers are hitting at the
right type of level they need to be hitting at
(37:26):
to go on the run that they need to go on.
The defensive struggle with speed, A lot of miss rotations tonight,
a lot of miss defensive rebounds where they're slower to
the ball. In this sort of situation, I want to
at least account for some of the fact that the
Lakers are kind of not in the same defensive rhythm
(37:47):
that they were in in the past. But the reality
is there was only a very brief stretch there where
they were good defensively with Luca right after the trade.
There's been a pretty large sample now after that where
they've been pretty bad defensively with Luca, and teams are
looking to attack him out front over and over and
over again. We did see an example in the second
(38:07):
half tonight of a pre switch, meaning where they brought
Luca's man up into his screen and then Lebron went
instead of Luca, But that was the only time I
saw it, and for the most part, they were just
conceding that switch. And if they're going to concede that switch,
then they're just going to have to be better in
their rotations than they've been being. If they defend like
this behind Luca, who's been giving up driple penetration the
(38:29):
way that he has, I think they could get cut
pieces by a good offensive team when they get into postseason.
I talked a lot in other games about the idea
of leveraging your strengths to hide your weaknesses. There's no
doubt that all this stuff is connected. I'll give you
guys some examples. Luca plays better from the start of
(38:51):
this game. Immediately starts kicking ass, punishing mismatches, drawing double teams,
spraying out beautiful kick out passes to shooters. Now the
threes that Dorian gets the threes that Gabe gets. They're cleaner,
they're more in rhythm now instead of those guys going
(39:12):
one for ten from three. They have much better shooting
nights now. As a result, the team is able to
set their defense more. Now that they're setting their defense
more and they're in control of the game and they're
not trailing by ten, they're more invigorated, they're more motivated,
they're flying around, they're making plays. See how like you
(39:33):
can imagine a scenario where these things are connected. You
can leverage your strengths to hide your weaknesses. The part
that gets scary for me there is, as I said,
like we're on almost a two week stretch there where
Lucas just hasn't been as good, and so it's just
a little concerning from the standpoint of right now, I
haven't seen the Lakers put together a consistent stretch of
(39:55):
like great basketball since Lebron came back from his injury,
and so I'm definit only a little bit. I'm a
little bit concerned there. That said, there is time, and
you know, if they do get a favorable first round
matchup and they end up getting a win, they could
have until May to get some of this together before
they face a more serious team. Similar to what I
talked about with Jonathan Minga, I did think we saw
(40:18):
one clear advantage for the Lakers tonight, and that's that
the Warriors can't guard Lebron. Lebron did exactly what I
was just talking about Luca needing to do. He consistently
methodically found mismatches against guards where he liked his size,
and he liked the spacing of the floor, and he
was able to get downhill and he was able to
consistently compromise the defense for kickout passes and for layups
(40:40):
right at the front of the rim. That is, to
me a translatable thing to a series between the Lakers
and Warriors. And so in an event where the Lakers
beat the Warriors in a playoff series, it will require
Lebron to continue to leverage that and for Luca to
meet him at that level. And that really is the
advantage there. The Lakers are going to leverage their size,
(41:02):
it's got to be Lebron and Luca together punishing them
all over the floor. The volume m
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