Hoops Tonight - Damian Lillard injury reaction: Bucks down bad, will Giannis get traded this summer?
March 26, 2025 • 32 mins
Jason reacts to the injury news that Damian Lillard is out indefinitely with a blood clot in his calf and how that could impact the career outlook of Giannis Antetokounmpo with the Milwaukee Bucks. He also goes around the NBA and discusses Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James appearing on the Pat McAfee show, Bronny James overcoming serious adversity, the Oklahoma City Thunder outclassing the Sacramento Kings, and the Houston Rockets staying hot and beating the Atlanta Hawks.
Visit microsoft.com/challengers to learn more.
Timeline
4:15 - Start
6:00 - Bucks down bad
10:30 - Bron on McAfee
12:30 - Bronny James
25:00 - Thunder dominate Kings
32:30 - Rockets stay hot
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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co slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here
(01:46):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, opeall, if you guys
are having a great week, got a jam packed show
for you today. We're gonna hit some NBA storylines off
the top. We're going to talk a little bit about
the Damian Lillard news and how it's got me thinking
a little bit more about the what feels kind of
like an inevitable blow up of the Bucks that's happening
in a few years, and a team that I think
would be really fascinating to go after Giannis. After that,
(02:09):
I want to talk about some comments Lebron made about
Giannis dropping two hundred and fifty points per game in
the seventies. I want to talk about that and how
I don't think it's necessarily good for the situation in
the way we talked about the game. And then for
our course correction segment, I'm gonna shout out Bronni, who
had another big game last night, who's really been playing
some good basketball over the course of the last week.
After that, we're gonna hit two games from last night slate,
(02:31):
as the two top seeds in the Western Conference got
impressive wins where they basically blew out their opponents, then
kind of sort of lost control and then pulled away
at the end. As the Thunder got a big win
in Sacramento against the Kings and the Houston Rockets got
a big win against the Atlanta Hawks. We're gonna be
breaking down both of those games from the perspective of
both teams all right before we get started, You guys
(02:53):
know the drill. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. So
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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the season. Make sure you guys keep dropping mail bag
questions in the YouTube comments as well. We are recording
(03:15):
a mail bag a little bit later today, so it's
too late for that mail bag, but we're gonna be
doing another one next week, so make sure you guys
keep dropping questions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's
talk some basketball. So our first NBA storyline, Damian Lillard
is out indefinitely due to a blood clot in his
calf muscle. First of all, this is just a huge
bummer and let's all just hope that he can be
back in time for the playoffs because, regardless of how
(03:37):
we all feel about the Bucks, I would certainly like
to see them get their chance to show what they
can do in the postseason at full strength. But this
situation has me thinking, because things look more than bleak
for Milwaukee right now, even healthy, I have the Bucks
firmly outside of my top tier of championship contenders. I
don't think they're close to good enough on either end
(03:59):
of the floor to actually win for playoff series. And
now you add this wrinkle with Dame's condition, which is
going to have, at the best case scenario, him just
barely stepping on the floor before they start playing real
playoff games. So to me, it's just becoming increasingly likely
that the Bucks have a disappointing playoff performance, and that
Giannis in the trade buzz surrounding him starts to get
(04:21):
really loud this summer, because again, I don't think the
Bucks are close. I like, there's to me if I
look at the top tier of contenders, and it's going
to be you know, five, six, seven teams when it's
all said and done, we'll see. But you know, I
look at Boston and Oka se as kind of like
clearly above the rest of the teams in that tier,
and the team's below there, the teams like Cleveland, Denver,
the Lakers, whether it ends up being the Knicks, or
(04:43):
the Warriors teams like that, I view those teams as
substantially less likely than Boston and ok Se to win
the title. And so when you get to the following
tier after that, I mean we're talking it's pipe dream
territory for most of these guys. And like that's with
Gianni's playing as well as he've been he's been playing
this year, it just doesn't feel like they're close. Jannis
(05:03):
will have two guaranteed years left as well as a
player option. Obviously I would view that player option as
something that he would end up opting out of or
extending out of. And so realistically, you've got these two
guaranteed years left this summer, and so if you wait
an additional summer, now you have the whole like, well,
what if he doesn't resign problem that's affecting his trade value,
(05:24):
And so I think it's possible that we end up
seeing a Jannis and Tenetkumpo trade this summer. And so
we've talked about a lot of different teams in a
different places that he could potentially go. But I've talked
a lot about the thunder going after a guy like
a Kevin Durant or a Lori, Marknen or something. What
if Yannis is the guy that the Thunder ended up
(05:44):
going after, they obviously can afford him. He's thirty years old.
He is a perfect compliment to Chet Holmern. As a
matter of fact, you could argue that the Hartenstein salary
is the best vehicle with which to facilitate that sort
of trade. Hartenstein and then throwing in some of the
younger talent, maybe someone like a case On Wallace and
maybe one other player with a bunch of draft compensation.
(06:07):
You can visualize the scenario where the team is built
around a core of Shay and j Dubb and Chet
with Giannis, and like Giannis would immediately make them a
good rebounding team when they've been a terrible rebounding team
in the shaegifs Alexander Era, I think he's just a
shoe in basketball fit. In general, with all of those guys,
(06:27):
he immediately changes the physical profiles of the team and
makes them that much more bruising on the frontline, especially
if the Thunder end up struggling this year in the
postseason and they end up like losing in the second
round despite someone like Shay having a great series. I
think it could end up putting more pressure on OKC
to make a more aggressive type of deal, and you
(06:49):
could see a trade partnership kind of forming there. And
like it's like the Wemby problem we talked about with
San Antonio. If your star is ready to go and
like ready to win the title, but your guys, like
your young players around them that are progressing at the
same time but maybe not at the same rate, and
it looks like they're not ready, then you end up
(07:10):
in a situation where it's like, we can't just wade
around while you know, Victor wemin Yama becomes one of
the best players in the league and we can't support
him properly. And that's the thing, Like you don't want
to run into a situation with Shay where he feels
like the Thunder are just processing a bunch of young
talent and they're not really going for it. And so
if that ends up being the case, you could see
(07:32):
that pressure start to build and you could see a
trade partnership start to form, and if they end up
making a deal for someone like Giannis, they would immediately
solve all of their weaknesses and I think that would
make them the most talented team since the twenty eighteen Warriors.
So that's a dynamic that I see kind of sort
of taking some shape, and man, that would be a crazy,
league altering type of deal. Lebron goes on Pat McAfee
(07:56):
show and he starts pontificating about out Giannis and what
he would average in the seventies, and he says Yiannis
would average two hundred and fifty points if he played
back in that era. And like Frankly, I just don't
see the point in this. For the same reason why
it's lame when the older players start disrespecting this era,
(08:17):
I think it's lame for today's players to do the
same thing with the past. Now, for the record, there's
a reason why they're doing this. There's a reason why
JJ Reddick said those guys played against plumbers. There's a
reason why Lebron James is talking this shit, and it's
because they're sick and tired of the old guys talking shit.
I just think it's pointless to stoop down to that level.
If Frankly, it's just not productive. It doesn't actually solve anything.
(08:38):
And here's the thing. Would Yannis score two hundred and
fifty points a game? If he played in the seventies, No,
but yeah, he kill those guys, he'd average forty probably
maybe even closer to fifty. But who cares. Comparing eras
is completely pointless. Jalen Green basically has the same career
true shooting percentag justs Kobe Bryant. Does that mean Jalen
(08:59):
Green was just as efficient putting the ball in the
basket as Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, in a literal.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Sense, but not in a realistic sense, because the game
of basketball is very, very different now. Dudes in the
seventies had bad shoes, they had shitty flights that they
took to their road games, they played brutal schedules. They
had nowhere near the knowledge and understanding we have today
to make our professional athletes the best they can be.
(09:27):
Schematics have involved over the years is just more smart
minds have gotten involved in the game and made their
imprint strategically. I think it makes absolutely no sense to
compare basketball from fifty years ago to today, and again,
even if you justify it with the way that those
guys have been treated by the older generations, I just
think stooping to that level, all it does is further
(09:49):
detegrate the game, and now we're in this weird war
where like the younger players are shit talking the old days,
and the older dudes are shit talking the young guys,
and everyone's just being disrespectful to the game of basketball.
And so I hope that that stops you. And I
disagreed with Lebron's approach there. But for our third top story,
we're gonna do our Microsoft Course Correction segment. Welcome to
(10:10):
Course Correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star
players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today
are under immense pressure to get things right. They must
rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers
these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management
and trustworthy responsible AI. And when you're in the NBA
(10:31):
and you have your own hurdles to face, in this segment,
we're exploring the challenges faced by teams or star players
and how they can turn things around. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on.
This week, we're discussing Bronni James in his recent surge
as both an MBA and G League player. So last night,
(10:51):
Broni hits five more threes, finished with seventeen points, nine rebounds,
and six assists in a win.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
This is on the heels of him.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Dropping a career high thirty nine points in a previous
G League game a couple days prior, and that was
on the heels of him dropping seventeen points in a
real deal NBA game against the Bucks where he made
a lot of moves that looked very much like a
well rounded professional basketball player. I thought this was a
great time for us to just remind everybody that Ronnie
(11:23):
James was the twentieth ranked prospect in the nation in
his high school class. He was a McDonald's All American.
He was absolutely, unquestionably on an NBA trajectory before he
experienced cardiac arrest at usc But then he got his
NBA opportunity despite struggling for a while after the cardiac
(11:47):
arrest incident, and as a result, he became one of
the biggest stories in all of media, not just in
sports media, but the whole thing got picked up by
political media because lebron has ventured into that arena a
few times and obviously made enemies in there. That is
one hell of a cesspool in political media, and it
is as contentious as it can be, and there's an
(12:07):
entire side there that will jump on every little thing
that Lebron does, and so it became absolutely nasty. Can
you imagine being Bronny? And again I want you to
disconnect from Lebron for a second. Bronni James is an
entirely different human being than Lebron, an entirely different person.
(12:29):
Anything that he gets as an association from Lebron imagine
being in his shoes and dealing with that. Can you
imagine getting on his phone and scrolling Instagram and seeing
content creators making highlight reels of his mistakes in Summer
League or in garbage time in an NBA game, or
(12:50):
in the early G league days, And can you imagine
the comments underneath those videos and the direct messages that
he receives. Again, as we've talked about, like when you
venture into this world, there are perks that greatly outweigh
the negativity you face online. That doesn't make the negativity
like just go away, or that it's just super easy
(13:14):
to handle or anything like that. It sucks I on
a much much smaller level, just as a content creator
in the NBA media face a certain amount of negativity,
Like you don't wake up one day and like read
the comment that's talking shit about the way you look
or the way you sound, and then suddenly just be like,
oh that's fine.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No wheries will go about to day. It still sucks, and.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
This kid was getting it at a preposterous volume every
single day because he suffered an injury and a condition
that dramatically affected his basketball development. I was thinking about
I was actually talking about this with my buddy Richmond
Weaver on the radio a little bit earlier this morning.
I remember when I broke my foot in between my
(13:57):
first two seasons playing in college. I had a really
rough first semester in non conference play because I was
struggling with like confidence in my foot, like my ability
to plant that foot, I you know, play at about
back in college. I was playing at two hundred and
twenty five pounds, Like it's just a lot of weight
to be planting really heavy on a foot that I
was nervous was gonna give way, and it affected my
(14:19):
play for months. Can you imagine cardiac arrest? Can you
imagine like playing hard after cardiac arrest? Can you imagine
pushing yourself and like feeling your body like start to
like really get into high heart rates, and how that
could potentially scare you, how that could affect your willingness
(14:40):
or ability to compete to a certain extent. Like, I
just have so much sympathy for what Bronni has been
through over the course of this last year, in the
sense that he's been put through hell because of his
dad and his persona. And look, has Lebron done something
that has accentuated the amount of attention on his son. Yes,
(15:03):
he's made some comments, He's done some things. I'm not
going to sit here and pretend that that hasn't happened.
But he's Lebron James, So we're not also going to
pretend that if Lebron shut up that Bronni wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Be a public figure. He still would.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Lebron could have said nothing, and Bronni would have faced
ninety nine percent of the exact same circumstances that he's
faced over the last year, and the fact that his
entire basketball pedigree and everything he accomplished up until the
cardiac arrest was just crumpled up and thrown in the trash.
As part of the way that whole thing was discussed.
(15:37):
It just was nasty, and I just feel really bad
for him, and I'm just excited for him that he's
starting to break through on the other side of this
and show some of that pedigree that he demonstrated when
he was in high school.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Now, for the record, this won't be linear.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
The development of young players is not something that just
goes up and up and up. He'll have stretches where
he has bad games in the NBA, He'll have bad
stretches of games in the G League. He'll make mistakes,
there will be more content creators that have more opportunities
to slander him for whatever reason. But what you're starting
to see is the upside. You're starting to see that
(16:13):
he can shoot. JJ Reddick talked the other day about
how he expects Brownie in the big picture to be
a great shooter. You've seen some of the upside with
him as a defensive playmaker. You've seen some of the
upside with him as a downhill threat towards the rim.
As a playmaking talent. He's got ability in there now.
I still maintain that I think it'll be at least
(16:34):
a year or two before he can be a guy
that plays real rotational minutes at the NBA level as
a guard off the bench for somebody in the NBA.
I still think he needs quite a bit of time
to get there, but the potential has always been there.
It was missing in terms of the production for a
little while as a result of what happened to him
(16:55):
at USC and I'm happy that we're all starting to
see some of that potential start to come to fruition
right now, because it's just a reminder and quite frankly,
a resounding statement that most of the stuff that was
set about Bronnie and set about lebron over the course
of the year with Bronni in his journey to where
he has in the NBA was just complete and utter bullshit.
(17:16):
And Bronnie's just rubbing that in everybody's face right now,
and I'm happy for him. That's it for this week's
course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take
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and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers
(17:39):
to learn more. All right, let's get into a couple
games from last night. The Thunder just completely outclassed the
(17:59):
King right out of the gate. They put Keegan Murray
on chet Holmgrin to start in. The Thunder just immediately
started running him through off ball screens. They ran a
backscreen on the week side with shy backscreening for Chet.
Kean Ellis did not want to switch off of Shey.
Keegan got caught on the screen. Chet got a wide
open layup that was on the first play of the game.
(18:20):
Second play of the game, they run a Chicago action
which is just the DHO guys up top and there's
a screener in front. The screener will pin down, the
DHO guy will follow, and Check comes off of both
of those screens. I think it was Dorton Hartenstein if
I remember correctly. So basically two screens, Chet comes flying
off of him up to the right wing and knocks
down with three off the catches. Keegan gets run through
(18:41):
a bunch of screens again. It's Chet is kind of
a cheat code in these off ball actions for a
couple of reasons. One, he's a big so teams are
most likely not going to switch guards on him. So
if you run screening action for him with guards involved,
he's probably gonna get some separation because you're probably going
to guard him with a bigger player. Bigger players notoriously
(19:03):
struggle with screens. Even a guy like Kei can murray
as good as he is in ISO, he can struggle
sometimes getting over the top of screens right. And when
you have a situation where you're not switching because of
a big and a small it just puts big guys
in position where they have to navigate a bunch of screens,
and that's difficult. That's why inverted ball screens work so
(19:23):
well with the Jokic's and some of the other centers
that run that sort of action throughout the league. Even
Giannis runs that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
The second piece of it, though, is he's a really
big target. He had another bucket later in the first
half against Jake Laavia where they ran a kind of
like an off ball action that Check curled into the
lane and Jake saw it, Jake evaded the screen. Jake
ran into the lane to guard Chet, but Chet's seven
(19:50):
feet tall and so Isa Hartenstein, who is the passer
at the top of the key, just kind of rifled
up a pass that was up high and to the
right where Jake had no chance to get it, and Chet,
in his you know, go go gadget arms, just went
out and grabbed it and brought it in and by
the time Jake Larravio was on the ground, Chet was
dunking it. And that's the thing, Like he's just such
(20:11):
a big target passing wise, and he's so tall that
like if he catches anything around the rim, it's just
an automatic dunk. And I just thought seeing Chet run
all that off ball action was just casual reminder of
some of the big picture potential this team has offensively.
As Chet continues to develop on that end of the floor,
their defense was immediately stifling against Sacramento's guards. Started with
(20:34):
the bigs, like Hartenstein did a wonderful job against the
bonus as he keeps racking up great defensive nights against
some really tough defensive matchups. We've been talking about that
a lot. They were roaming off of Keegan Murray with
Chet Holmgren, and that burned them a little bit. Keegan
got twenty eight points and most of them were on
threes when chet was roaming or digging down into the lane.
But the end result was a disaster for DeRozan and
(20:55):
Levine and the Kings couldn't score. They combined for just
twenty nine points on thirty one shots between those two guys.
I thought Caruso in particular, did a great job of
pressuring Levine, forced him to rush on his drives. Levine
would be running right into heart and sign at the rim,
and he just was hesitant to test heart and sign
at the rim, so he'd like drop it off to
(21:16):
Valenceiunis underneath the basket. But because Hartenstein didn't have to
jump at the rim, he's just right there and then
he would just tie up Valenceiunis on the catch. I've
really been enjoying watching Alex Crusoe on defense lately. He
just does all the little things that you see the
great defenders in NBA history do. Starts with pressure off ball.
When he's guarding a score, he's staying attached to the
(21:37):
body on ball. He's applying pressure as they come up
the floor. But when you start trying to attack him,
he attacks you. As a defender in every phase of
the shot you're trying to take. I was watching him
guard DeMar Derozen on a post up and Damar really
drops that left shoulder and bumps him and Crusoe absorbs
the contact, so he kind of disrupts the base a
(21:59):
little bit. Right Then as Derozen spun into the right
shoulder fade, he swipes at the gather. So again, as
the shooter's gathering the ball in the shooting pocket, there's
a moment where the ball is exposed in front. That's
a great opportunity for a defender to disrupt the gatherer
by swiping at the basketball. Then after the gather, DeMar
DeRozan rises up into the right shoulder fade and Cruzo
(22:21):
gets a contest on the shot. And I was sitting
there thinking, I was like, every time I watch one
of the elite defenders in the league, this is the
way they guard. They you think of a contest. And this,
by the way, is why you know it's impossible to
quantify all the little minute details in basketball, and why
even something silly like like, oh, contested shot percentage versus
(22:42):
regular shot percentage doesn't factor in what kind of contest
was it. I'll give you an example I remember when
KD hit the game winner against not the game winner,
but the Yeah it was the game winner ended up
being the game winner in game three. I think of
the twenty seventeen Finals, the one where he hit the
kind of transition hesitation pull up three on Lebron. Bron
got his hand up. Lebron's there had his hand up.
(23:05):
That'll go down in the books as a contested three.
Do you think KD was uncomfortable at all on that shot. No,
he just rose right up into it in rhythm and
knocked it down because Lebron did not disrupt Katie's base
and he did not disrupt Katie's gather. There's all of
these different phases to a shot that you have to
(23:25):
disrupt in order to make an offensive player uncomfortable. Bump
them on the base so that when they get their
lift it feels different than when they're shooting or alone
in the gym. If you get any sort of contact
on the shooting pocket, like if you hit the basketball
a little bit there, you'll disrupt their energy transfer. That's
the power that they drive from their feet up through
their gather up to the top of the shot. Then
(23:46):
getting a contest on the top of the shot is
a great way to tie all of that together. Alex
Cruso is amazing at this concept, this idea of disrupting
all three phases of a shot, and it's a very
important detail to what puts a defensive player into another
stretch at his sphere, making stars and other shot creators uncomfortable.
The Kings went on a little bit of a run
in the late third quarter that cut the lead down
(24:07):
to six, and then shake Gildess Alexander just decided that
their fund was over. He just drove right past Jake
Laabia for dunk, drove right by him again and drew
a foul. They switched Keon Ellis onto him, and he
shot a step back three on the left wing that
he hit. The lead was right back to eleven. All
of Sacramento's momentum was gone and they never got that
close again. This, to me, is one of the defining
characteristics of a superstar in the NBA, one of the
(24:29):
biggest responsibilities on the shoulders of players who have that role.
You are the guy with the superpower. You have the
thing that you do that nobody can stop when things
are getting messy and your teammates who don't have superpowers
are struggling to find their footing. Sometimes you have to
force the issue, find a way to make a few
(24:50):
plays to regain control of the situation. Cha's team needed
him in that spot to just get a few buckets
to settle things down, his superpower being his downhill driving ability.
And oh, you switched a smaller guard onto him to
try to get away from the dribble penetration and he
hits a jump shot over the top. He just straight
(25:11):
up forced the issue, generated seven quick points, and any
momentum that Sacramento had was gone. The Thunder have won
seven in a row. Now they're the first team in
the league this year to get to sixty wins if
they go ten, and oh, they'll get to seventy over
the course of the final couple weeks. They are now
two games up on Cleveland for the best record in basketball,
starting to really separate. And they're doing all of this
(25:33):
without j Dubb. Just a remarkable season for the Thunder.
All right, Hawks, Rockets. So the Rockets handled the Hawks
at home to win their tenth game and eleven. Trucks
a little bit of a light stretching the schedule, but
there's a handful of impressive wins, and they're Jalen Green
goes off for thirty two points in this one. He's
getting to the rim at will. He found some matchups
that he liked throughout the game. He attacked Trey a
(25:54):
few times. He went at Vit Kretschie quite a bit,
Garrison Matthews quite a bit. Gave some wild buckets to
Terrence Man. He had a baseline spin on him that
like literally left Terrence stuck in the mud.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Threw down a dunk. Had had two nasty dunks.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
In this game, because he had one where he split
I think it was an an Yeka congu and a
ball screen where Dyson Daniels was trailing him and ended
up just going up the elevator at the semi circle
and throwing down a jackhammer. He also hit one of
the biggest shots of the game against Terrence Man, like
a little fifteen foot fade away along the right baseline.
He had two huge stabilizing buckets after Atlanta made their run.
(26:31):
Similar to the Sacramento game with OKC, Houston controls the
game right away from the start, build a big lead.
They go on a late third quarter run gets the
lead down. Atlanta actually cut this down to four at
one point. Terrence Man had a nice little scoring run,
hit a big three, hit a little mid range fade
away in the lane. They cut it down to four
(26:51):
and Jalen Green makes four plays down the stretch that
kind of ice the game. He has a driving layup
against Vit Kretschie that gets goaltended off the glass. He
has another driving and one shot against Zachary Rosa Chet,
a little like kind of fading jump shot after he
gets some contact on a drive. He attacks Trey Young
(27:11):
in action and draws him into a two on the
ball situation where Trey hedges and then tries to recover,
but they swing the ball out of it quickly. And
against Jabari Smith Junior, a wide open three on the
right wing that he knocks down that again was generated
by Atlanta putting two on the ball because of the
damage that Jalen Green was doing attacking matchups in those situations.
And then he hit the dagger over Terrence Man. Really
(27:34):
really impressive game from Jalen Green. He's had at least
twenty eight points in five of his last eight games.
I thought Shang gun was a big problem Frontlanta and
this one. It's crazy how often I've watched the Rockets,
and the biggest thing that stands out to me is
that the other team just can't guard Shangun and it
just changes the dynamic of the game. There is no
Clint Capella for the Hawks in this game, so it's
(27:55):
a combination of Nyika Congu, Georges Niang, and Dominic Barlow
who are getting the Shang assignments, and Shangyun just killed
those guys. Niang and Barlow especially. He had a couple
of plays against Niang and Barlow where he scored on
them like one on two, and it just didn't matter
because he was just going through them. He also made
a huge play in that late run that we talked about.
He posted a congou in the middle of the floor,
(28:15):
drew a double team swing swing got a wide open
three for Jabari Smith. Shout out to Jabari Smith, by
the way, just three for nine from three in the game,
but hit some huge ones late in the game that
were really important. I want to zoom in on the
defensive end for a minute, though, because the Rockets ran
a ton of zone in this game, and they've been
running a ton of zone as of late. This is
actually a crazy stat According to Synergy, the Houston Rockets
(28:35):
ran zero possessions of zone defense in their first twenty
nine or excuse me, in their first fifty nine games
this season, zero possessions of zone in fifty nine games.
They've run two hundred and forty two possessions of zone
in the last fourteen games. That's over seventeen possessions of
zone a game.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
It's been matchup specific like they've run it over forty
times in three games specifically against Atlanta or and OKC.
A lot of like speedy, kind of transition attack types
of teams. Right, But they're running it at least a
little bit every game and it's working. They're allowing just
zero point eighty six points per possession with their zone defense.
That's the third best in the entire NBA. They're running
(29:17):
two different variations of it, and they're both built out
of a two to three base. But they have a
version with Steven Adams at center where he lags more
back around the rim. It's more of a traditional two
three zone. And then they have a version where they
put Jabari Smith Junior at the center position. The de
facto center position under the basket, and they'll have him
be much more active coming up the floor, so like he'll,
(29:39):
like when they're looking to drive on the top guy,
he'll like be up around the elbow just waiting in help.
Or if someone flashes to the middle of the floor
to try to catch, Jabari will come up and the
two guys on the wing will kind of shrink down
around him. It's more of like a a Meeba matchup
zone kind of thing with Jabari Smith out there at
the at the center position. But like it works because
(29:59):
the active in their zone. They pressure the ball, meaning
like they don't just sit back, they get up and
guard the ball. They move and shift as a unit.
They ran forty eight possessions of a zone in this
game against Atlanta, and Atlanta managed to zero point eight
eight points per possession. As a comparison, Houston attacking Atlanta's
man demand coverage got one point one to one points
(30:22):
per possessions, or a dominating performance on the heels of
their I should say on the strength of their zone defense.
It's worth mentioning that the Rockets have played a relatively
light schedule in this ten and one stretch, but It's
also worth mentioning that they've really been scoring the ball.
They have a one to nineteen offensive rating in this
eleven game span that ranks eighth in the NBA. And remember,
(30:42):
even at their best, they've struggled to score this year.
Still number four in defense over the last eleven games,
they've been the number one rebounding team in the league
over that span. The offense is the interesting trend though,
because if they can continue to maintain that level of
offensive production against the league competition, they've become way more
dangerous as a playoff threat. It's been kind of like
(31:04):
a bi committee sort of thing. They have seven players
averaging double figures. Fred van Vliet is back and he's
shooting the three ball really well. Dylan Brooks in the
seven game span, excuse me, in this eleven game span
is taking over seven threes a game and he's hitting
forty one percent of them. Shane Goon eighteen points per game,
fifty four from the field, forty three percent from three
(31:25):
in that span. Tarry Easen is pouring in fifteen points
a game in the span. They're just getting a lot
of contributions around the board, and they're really scoring the ball. Well,
the Rockets are playing some very good basketball. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. As always, this sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show,
the game plan as of right now. We're going live
tonight on YouTube after the final buzzer of Celtic Suns
(31:46):
to break that game down as well as the Lakers
Pacers game. That's going to be a really fun one.
I think that's a great test to the Lakers because
they're a fast team that plays in transition a lot,
and they've got a quick guard, and that's a couple
of things that have caused the Lakers issues over the
course of the season. So I'll be really interested to
watch that one as well. I look forward to seeing
you guys. Then I will see you guys on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Today the volume What's Up? Guys.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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co slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight here
(01:46):
at the volume heavy Wednesday. Everybody, opeall, if you guys
are having a great week, got a jam packed show
for you today. We're gonna hit some NBA storylines off
the top. We're going to talk a little bit about
the Damian Lillard news and how it's got me thinking
a little bit more about the what feels kind of
like an inevitable blow up of the Bucks that's happening
in a few years, and a team that I think
would be really fascinating to go after Giannis. After that,
(02:09):
I want to talk about some comments Lebron made about
Giannis dropping two hundred and fifty points per game in
the seventies. I want to talk about that and how
I don't think it's necessarily good for the situation in
the way we talked about the game. And then for
our course correction segment, I'm gonna shout out Bronni, who
had another big game last night, who's really been playing
some good basketball over the course of the last week.
After that, we're gonna hit two games from last night slate,
(02:31):
as the two top seeds in the Western Conference got
impressive wins where they basically blew out their opponents, then
kind of sort of lost control and then pulled away
at the end. As the Thunder got a big win
in Sacramento against the Kings and the Houston Rockets got
a big win against the Atlanta Hawks. We're gonna be
breaking down both of those games from the perspective of
both teams all right before we get started, You guys
(02:53):
know the drill. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. So
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't mis sho announcements.
Don't forget about it. Podcast feed wherever you get your podcast,
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the season. Make sure you guys keep dropping mail bag
questions in the YouTube comments as well. We are recording
(03:15):
a mail bag a little bit later today, so it's
too late for that mail bag, but we're gonna be
doing another one next week, so make sure you guys
keep dropping questions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's
talk some basketball. So our first NBA storyline, Damian Lillard
is out indefinitely due to a blood clot in his
calf muscle. First of all, this is just a huge
bummer and let's all just hope that he can be
back in time for the playoffs because, regardless of how
(03:37):
we all feel about the Bucks, I would certainly like
to see them get their chance to show what they
can do in the postseason at full strength. But this
situation has me thinking, because things look more than bleak
for Milwaukee right now, even healthy, I have the Bucks
firmly outside of my top tier of championship contenders. I
don't think they're close to good enough on either end
(03:59):
of the floor to actually win for playoff series. And
now you add this wrinkle with Dame's condition, which is
going to have, at the best case scenario, him just
barely stepping on the floor before they start playing real
playoff games. So to me, it's just becoming increasingly likely
that the Bucks have a disappointing playoff performance, and that
Giannis in the trade buzz surrounding him starts to get
(04:21):
really loud this summer, because again, I don't think the
Bucks are close. I like, there's to me if I
look at the top tier of contenders, and it's going
to be you know, five, six, seven teams when it's
all said and done, we'll see. But you know, I
look at Boston and Oka se as kind of like
clearly above the rest of the teams in that tier,
and the team's below there, the teams like Cleveland, Denver,
the Lakers, whether it ends up being the Knicks, or
(04:43):
the Warriors teams like that, I view those teams as
substantially less likely than Boston and ok Se to win
the title. And so when you get to the following
tier after that, I mean we're talking it's pipe dream
territory for most of these guys. And like that's with
Gianni's playing as well as he've been he's been playing
this year, it just doesn't feel like they're close. Jannis
(05:03):
will have two guaranteed years left as well as a
player option. Obviously I would view that player option as
something that he would end up opting out of or
extending out of. And so realistically, you've got these two
guaranteed years left this summer, and so if you wait
an additional summer, now you have the whole like, well,
what if he doesn't resign problem that's affecting his trade value,
(05:24):
And so I think it's possible that we end up
seeing a Jannis and Tenetkumpo trade this summer. And so
we've talked about a lot of different teams in a
different places that he could potentially go. But I've talked
a lot about the thunder going after a guy like
a Kevin Durant or a Lori, Marknen or something. What
if Yannis is the guy that the Thunder ended up
(05:44):
going after, they obviously can afford him. He's thirty years old.
He is a perfect compliment to Chet Holmern. As a
matter of fact, you could argue that the Hartenstein salary
is the best vehicle with which to facilitate that sort
of trade. Hartenstein and then throwing in some of the
younger talent, maybe someone like a case On Wallace and
maybe one other player with a bunch of draft compensation.
(06:07):
You can visualize the scenario where the team is built
around a core of Shay and j Dubb and Chet
with Giannis, and like Giannis would immediately make them a
good rebounding team when they've been a terrible rebounding team
in the shaegifs Alexander Era, I think he's just a
shoe in basketball fit. In general, with all of those guys,
(06:27):
he immediately changes the physical profiles of the team and
makes them that much more bruising on the frontline, especially
if the Thunder end up struggling this year in the
postseason and they end up like losing in the second
round despite someone like Shay having a great series. I
think it could end up putting more pressure on OKC
to make a more aggressive type of deal, and you
(06:49):
could see a trade partnership kind of forming there. And
like it's like the Wemby problem we talked about with
San Antonio. If your star is ready to go and
like ready to win the title, but your guys, like
your young players around them that are progressing at the
same time but maybe not at the same rate, and
it looks like they're not ready, then you end up
(07:10):
in a situation where it's like, we can't just wade
around while you know, Victor wemin Yama becomes one of
the best players in the league and we can't support
him properly. And that's the thing, Like you don't want
to run into a situation with Shay where he feels
like the Thunder are just processing a bunch of young
talent and they're not really going for it. And so
if that ends up being the case, you could see
(07:32):
that pressure start to build and you could see a
trade partnership start to form, and if they end up
making a deal for someone like Giannis, they would immediately
solve all of their weaknesses and I think that would
make them the most talented team since the twenty eighteen Warriors.
So that's a dynamic that I see kind of sort
of taking some shape, and man, that would be a crazy,
league altering type of deal. Lebron goes on Pat McAfee
(07:56):
show and he starts pontificating about out Giannis and what
he would average in the seventies, and he says Yiannis
would average two hundred and fifty points if he played
back in that era. And like Frankly, I just don't
see the point in this. For the same reason why
it's lame when the older players start disrespecting this era,
(08:17):
I think it's lame for today's players to do the
same thing with the past. Now, for the record, there's
a reason why they're doing this. There's a reason why
JJ Reddick said those guys played against plumbers. There's a
reason why Lebron James is talking this shit, and it's
because they're sick and tired of the old guys talking shit.
I just think it's pointless to stoop down to that level.
If Frankly, it's just not productive. It doesn't actually solve anything.
(08:38):
And here's the thing. Would Yannis score two hundred and
fifty points a game? If he played in the seventies, No,
but yeah, he kill those guys, he'd average forty probably
maybe even closer to fifty. But who cares. Comparing eras
is completely pointless. Jalen Green basically has the same career
true shooting percentag justs Kobe Bryant. Does that mean Jalen
(08:59):
Green was just as efficient putting the ball in the
basket as Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, in a literal.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Sense, but not in a realistic sense, because the game
of basketball is very, very different now. Dudes in the
seventies had bad shoes, they had shitty flights that they
took to their road games, they played brutal schedules. They
had nowhere near the knowledge and understanding we have today
to make our professional athletes the best they can be.
(09:27):
Schematics have involved over the years is just more smart
minds have gotten involved in the game and made their
imprint strategically. I think it makes absolutely no sense to
compare basketball from fifty years ago to today, and again,
even if you justify it with the way that those
guys have been treated by the older generations, I just
think stooping to that level, all it does is further
(09:49):
detegrate the game, and now we're in this weird war
where like the younger players are shit talking the old days,
and the older dudes are shit talking the young guys,
and everyone's just being disrespectful to the game of basketball.
And so I hope that that stops you. And I
disagreed with Lebron's approach there. But for our third top story,
we're gonna do our Microsoft Course Correction segment. Welcome to
(10:10):
Course Correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like star
players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today
are under immense pressure to get things right. They must
rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers
these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management
and trustworthy responsible AI. And when you're in the NBA
(10:31):
and you have your own hurdles to face, in this segment,
we're exploring the challenges faced by teams or star players
and how they can turn things around. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on.
This week, we're discussing Bronni James in his recent surge
as both an MBA and G League player. So last night,
(10:51):
Broni hits five more threes, finished with seventeen points, nine rebounds,
and six assists in a win.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
This is on the heels of him.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Dropping a career high thirty nine points in a previous
G League game a couple days prior, and that was
on the heels of him dropping seventeen points in a
real deal NBA game against the Bucks where he made
a lot of moves that looked very much like a
well rounded professional basketball player. I thought this was a
great time for us to just remind everybody that Ronnie
(11:23):
James was the twentieth ranked prospect in the nation in
his high school class. He was a McDonald's All American.
He was absolutely, unquestionably on an NBA trajectory before he
experienced cardiac arrest at usc But then he got his
NBA opportunity despite struggling for a while after the cardiac
(11:47):
arrest incident, and as a result, he became one of
the biggest stories in all of media, not just in
sports media, but the whole thing got picked up by
political media because lebron has ventured into that arena a
few times and obviously made enemies in there. That is
one hell of a cesspool in political media, and it
is as contentious as it can be, and there's an
(12:07):
entire side there that will jump on every little thing
that Lebron does, and so it became absolutely nasty. Can
you imagine being Bronny? And again I want you to
disconnect from Lebron for a second. Bronni James is an
entirely different human being than Lebron, an entirely different person.
(12:29):
Anything that he gets as an association from Lebron imagine
being in his shoes and dealing with that. Can you
imagine getting on his phone and scrolling Instagram and seeing
content creators making highlight reels of his mistakes in Summer
League or in garbage time in an NBA game, or
(12:50):
in the early G league days, And can you imagine
the comments underneath those videos and the direct messages that
he receives. Again, as we've talked about, like when you
venture into this world, there are perks that greatly outweigh
the negativity you face online. That doesn't make the negativity
like just go away, or that it's just super easy
(13:14):
to handle or anything like that. It sucks I on
a much much smaller level, just as a content creator
in the NBA media face a certain amount of negativity,
Like you don't wake up one day and like read
the comment that's talking shit about the way you look
or the way you sound, and then suddenly just be like,
oh that's fine.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
No wheries will go about to day. It still sucks, and.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
This kid was getting it at a preposterous volume every
single day because he suffered an injury and a condition
that dramatically affected his basketball development. I was thinking about
I was actually talking about this with my buddy Richmond
Weaver on the radio a little bit earlier this morning.
I remember when I broke my foot in between my
(13:57):
first two seasons playing in college. I had a really
rough first semester in non conference play because I was
struggling with like confidence in my foot, like my ability
to plant that foot, I you know, play at about
back in college. I was playing at two hundred and
twenty five pounds, Like it's just a lot of weight
to be planting really heavy on a foot that I
was nervous was gonna give way, and it affected my
(14:19):
play for months. Can you imagine cardiac arrest? Can you
imagine like playing hard after cardiac arrest? Can you imagine
pushing yourself and like feeling your body like start to
like really get into high heart rates, and how that
could potentially scare you, how that could affect your willingness
(14:40):
or ability to compete to a certain extent. Like, I
just have so much sympathy for what Bronni has been
through over the course of this last year, in the
sense that he's been put through hell because of his
dad and his persona. And look, has Lebron done something
that has accentuated the amount of attention on his son. Yes,
(15:03):
he's made some comments, He's done some things. I'm not
going to sit here and pretend that that hasn't happened.
But he's Lebron James, So we're not also going to
pretend that if Lebron shut up that Bronni wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Be a public figure. He still would.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Lebron could have said nothing, and Bronni would have faced
ninety nine percent of the exact same circumstances that he's
faced over the last year, and the fact that his
entire basketball pedigree and everything he accomplished up until the
cardiac arrest was just crumpled up and thrown in the trash.
As part of the way that whole thing was discussed.
(15:37):
It just was nasty, and I just feel really bad
for him, and I'm just excited for him that he's
starting to break through on the other side of this
and show some of that pedigree that he demonstrated when
he was in high school.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Now, for the record, this won't be linear.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
The development of young players is not something that just
goes up and up and up. He'll have stretches where
he has bad games in the NBA, He'll have bad
stretches of games in the G League. He'll make mistakes,
there will be more content creators that have more opportunities
to slander him for whatever reason. But what you're starting
to see is the upside. You're starting to see that
(16:13):
he can shoot. JJ Reddick talked the other day about
how he expects Brownie in the big picture to be
a great shooter. You've seen some of the upside with
him as a defensive playmaker. You've seen some of the
upside with him as a downhill threat towards the rim.
As a playmaking talent. He's got ability in there now.
I still maintain that I think it'll be at least
(16:34):
a year or two before he can be a guy
that plays real rotational minutes at the NBA level as
a guard off the bench for somebody in the NBA.
I still think he needs quite a bit of time
to get there, but the potential has always been there.
It was missing in terms of the production for a
little while as a result of what happened to him
(16:55):
at USC and I'm happy that we're all starting to
see some of that potential start to come to fruition
right now, because it's just a reminder and quite frankly,
a resounding statement that most of the stuff that was
set about Bronnie and set about lebron over the course
of the year with Bronni in his journey to where
he has in the NBA was just complete and utter bullshit.
(17:16):
And Bronnie's just rubbing that in everybody's face right now,
and I'm happy for him. That's it for this week's
course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take
bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to
help drive your business forward. With Microsoft as your trusted partner,
you can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions
and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers
(17:39):
to learn more. All right, let's get into a couple
games from last night. The Thunder just completely outclassed the
(17:59):
King right out of the gate. They put Keegan Murray
on chet Holmgrin to start in. The Thunder just immediately
started running him through off ball screens. They ran a
backscreen on the week side with shy backscreening for Chet.
Kean Ellis did not want to switch off of Shey.
Keegan got caught on the screen. Chet got a wide
open layup that was on the first play of the game.
(18:20):
Second play of the game, they run a Chicago action
which is just the DHO guys up top and there's
a screener in front. The screener will pin down, the
DHO guy will follow, and Check comes off of both
of those screens. I think it was Dorton Hartenstein if
I remember correctly. So basically two screens, Chet comes flying
off of him up to the right wing and knocks
down with three off the catches. Keegan gets run through
(18:41):
a bunch of screens again. It's Chet is kind of
a cheat code in these off ball actions for a
couple of reasons. One, he's a big so teams are
most likely not going to switch guards on him. So
if you run screening action for him with guards involved,
he's probably gonna get some separation because you're probably going
to guard him with a bigger player. Bigger players notoriously
(19:03):
struggle with screens. Even a guy like Kei can murray
as good as he is in ISO, he can struggle
sometimes getting over the top of screens right. And when
you have a situation where you're not switching because of
a big and a small it just puts big guys
in position where they have to navigate a bunch of screens,
and that's difficult. That's why inverted ball screens work so
(19:23):
well with the Jokic's and some of the other centers
that run that sort of action throughout the league. Even
Giannis runs that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
The second piece of it, though, is he's a really
big target. He had another bucket later in the first
half against Jake Laavia where they ran a kind of
like an off ball action that Check curled into the
lane and Jake saw it, Jake evaded the screen. Jake
ran into the lane to guard Chet, but Chet's seven
(19:50):
feet tall and so Isa Hartenstein, who is the passer
at the top of the key, just kind of rifled
up a pass that was up high and to the
right where Jake had no chance to get it, and Chet,
in his you know, go go gadget arms, just went
out and grabbed it and brought it in and by
the time Jake Larravio was on the ground, Chet was
dunking it. And that's the thing, Like he's just such
(20:11):
a big target passing wise, and he's so tall that
like if he catches anything around the rim, it's just
an automatic dunk. And I just thought seeing Chet run
all that off ball action was just casual reminder of
some of the big picture potential this team has offensively.
As Chet continues to develop on that end of the floor,
their defense was immediately stifling against Sacramento's guards. Started with
(20:34):
the bigs, like Hartenstein did a wonderful job against the
bonus as he keeps racking up great defensive nights against
some really tough defensive matchups. We've been talking about that
a lot. They were roaming off of Keegan Murray with
Chet Holmgren, and that burned them a little bit. Keegan
got twenty eight points and most of them were on
threes when chet was roaming or digging down into the lane.
But the end result was a disaster for DeRozan and
(20:55):
Levine and the Kings couldn't score. They combined for just
twenty nine points on thirty one shots between those two guys.
I thought Caruso in particular, did a great job of
pressuring Levine, forced him to rush on his drives. Levine
would be running right into heart and sign at the rim,
and he just was hesitant to test heart and sign
at the rim, so he'd like drop it off to
(21:16):
Valenceiunis underneath the basket. But because Hartenstein didn't have to
jump at the rim, he's just right there and then
he would just tie up Valenceiunis on the catch. I've
really been enjoying watching Alex Crusoe on defense lately. He
just does all the little things that you see the
great defenders in NBA history do. Starts with pressure off ball.
When he's guarding a score, he's staying attached to the
(21:37):
body on ball. He's applying pressure as they come up
the floor. But when you start trying to attack him,
he attacks you. As a defender in every phase of
the shot you're trying to take. I was watching him
guard DeMar Derozen on a post up and Damar really
drops that left shoulder and bumps him and Crusoe absorbs
the contact, so he kind of disrupts the base a
(21:59):
little bit. Right Then as Derozen spun into the right
shoulder fade, he swipes at the gather. So again, as
the shooter's gathering the ball in the shooting pocket, there's
a moment where the ball is exposed in front. That's
a great opportunity for a defender to disrupt the gatherer
by swiping at the basketball. Then after the gather, DeMar
DeRozan rises up into the right shoulder fade and Cruzo
(22:21):
gets a contest on the shot. And I was sitting
there thinking, I was like, every time I watch one
of the elite defenders in the league, this is the
way they guard. They you think of a contest. And this,
by the way, is why you know it's impossible to
quantify all the little minute details in basketball, and why
even something silly like like, oh, contested shot percentage versus
(22:42):
regular shot percentage doesn't factor in what kind of contest
was it. I'll give you an example I remember when
KD hit the game winner against not the game winner,
but the Yeah it was the game winner ended up
being the game winner in game three. I think of
the twenty seventeen Finals, the one where he hit the
kind of transition hesitation pull up three on Lebron. Bron
got his hand up. Lebron's there had his hand up.
(23:05):
That'll go down in the books as a contested three.
Do you think KD was uncomfortable at all on that shot. No,
he just rose right up into it in rhythm and
knocked it down because Lebron did not disrupt Katie's base
and he did not disrupt Katie's gather. There's all of
these different phases to a shot that you have to
(23:25):
disrupt in order to make an offensive player uncomfortable. Bump
them on the base so that when they get their
lift it feels different than when they're shooting or alone
in the gym. If you get any sort of contact
on the shooting pocket, like if you hit the basketball
a little bit there, you'll disrupt their energy transfer. That's
the power that they drive from their feet up through
their gather up to the top of the shot. Then
(23:46):
getting a contest on the top of the shot is
a great way to tie all of that together. Alex
Cruso is amazing at this concept, this idea of disrupting
all three phases of a shot, and it's a very
important detail to what puts a defensive player into another
stretch at his sphere, making stars and other shot creators uncomfortable.
The Kings went on a little bit of a run
in the late third quarter that cut the lead down
(24:07):
to six, and then shake Gildess Alexander just decided that
their fund was over. He just drove right past Jake
Laabia for dunk, drove right by him again and drew
a foul. They switched Keon Ellis onto him, and he
shot a step back three on the left wing that
he hit. The lead was right back to eleven. All
of Sacramento's momentum was gone and they never got that
close again. This, to me, is one of the defining
characteristics of a superstar in the NBA, one of the
(24:29):
biggest responsibilities on the shoulders of players who have that role.
You are the guy with the superpower. You have the
thing that you do that nobody can stop when things
are getting messy and your teammates who don't have superpowers
are struggling to find their footing. Sometimes you have to
force the issue, find a way to make a few
(24:50):
plays to regain control of the situation. Cha's team needed
him in that spot to just get a few buckets
to settle things down, his superpower being his downhill driving ability.
And oh, you switched a smaller guard onto him to
try to get away from the dribble penetration and he
hits a jump shot over the top. He just straight
(25:11):
up forced the issue, generated seven quick points, and any
momentum that Sacramento had was gone. The Thunder have won
seven in a row. Now they're the first team in
the league this year to get to sixty wins if
they go ten, and oh, they'll get to seventy over
the course of the final couple weeks. They are now
two games up on Cleveland for the best record in basketball,
starting to really separate. And they're doing all of this
(25:33):
without j Dubb. Just a remarkable season for the Thunder.
All right, Hawks, Rockets. So the Rockets handled the Hawks
at home to win their tenth game and eleven. Trucks
a little bit of a light stretching the schedule, but
there's a handful of impressive wins, and they're Jalen Green
goes off for thirty two points in this one. He's
getting to the rim at will. He found some matchups
that he liked throughout the game. He attacked Trey a
(25:54):
few times. He went at Vit Kretschie quite a bit,
Garrison Matthews quite a bit. Gave some wild buckets to
Terrence Man. He had a baseline spin on him that
like literally left Terrence stuck in the mud.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Threw down a dunk. Had had two nasty dunks.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
In this game, because he had one where he split
I think it was an an Yeka congu and a
ball screen where Dyson Daniels was trailing him and ended
up just going up the elevator at the semi circle
and throwing down a jackhammer. He also hit one of
the biggest shots of the game against Terrence Man, like
a little fifteen foot fade away along the right baseline.
He had two huge stabilizing buckets after Atlanta made their run.
(26:31):
Similar to the Sacramento game with OKC, Houston controls the
game right away from the start, build a big lead.
They go on a late third quarter run gets the
lead down. Atlanta actually cut this down to four at
one point. Terrence Man had a nice little scoring run,
hit a big three, hit a little mid range fade
away in the lane. They cut it down to four
(26:51):
and Jalen Green makes four plays down the stretch that
kind of ice the game. He has a driving layup
against Vit Kretschie that gets goaltended off the glass. He
has another driving and one shot against Zachary Rosa Chet,
a little like kind of fading jump shot after he
gets some contact on a drive. He attacks Trey Young
(27:11):
in action and draws him into a two on the
ball situation where Trey hedges and then tries to recover,
but they swing the ball out of it quickly. And
against Jabari Smith Junior, a wide open three on the
right wing that he knocks down that again was generated
by Atlanta putting two on the ball because of the
damage that Jalen Green was doing attacking matchups in those situations.
And then he hit the dagger over Terrence Man. Really
(27:34):
really impressive game from Jalen Green. He's had at least
twenty eight points in five of his last eight games.
I thought Shang gun was a big problem Frontlanta and
this one. It's crazy how often I've watched the Rockets,
and the biggest thing that stands out to me is
that the other team just can't guard Shangun and it
just changes the dynamic of the game. There is no
Clint Capella for the Hawks in this game, so it's
(27:55):
a combination of Nyika Congu, Georges Niang, and Dominic Barlow
who are getting the Shang assignments, and Shangyun just killed
those guys. Niang and Barlow especially. He had a couple
of plays against Niang and Barlow where he scored on
them like one on two, and it just didn't matter
because he was just going through them. He also made
a huge play in that late run that we talked about.
He posted a congou in the middle of the floor,
(28:15):
drew a double team swing swing got a wide open
three for Jabari Smith. Shout out to Jabari Smith, by
the way, just three for nine from three in the game,
but hit some huge ones late in the game that
were really important. I want to zoom in on the
defensive end for a minute, though, because the Rockets ran
a ton of zone in this game, and they've been
running a ton of zone as of late. This is
actually a crazy stat According to Synergy, the Houston Rockets
(28:35):
ran zero possessions of zone defense in their first twenty
nine or excuse me, in their first fifty nine games
this season, zero possessions of zone in fifty nine games.
They've run two hundred and forty two possessions of zone
in the last fourteen games. That's over seventeen possessions of
zone a game.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
It's been matchup specific like they've run it over forty
times in three games specifically against Atlanta or and OKC.
A lot of like speedy, kind of transition attack types
of teams. Right, But they're running it at least a
little bit every game and it's working. They're allowing just
zero point eighty six points per possession with their zone defense.
That's the third best in the entire NBA. They're running
(29:17):
two different variations of it, and they're both built out
of a two to three base. But they have a
version with Steven Adams at center where he lags more
back around the rim. It's more of a traditional two
three zone. And then they have a version where they
put Jabari Smith Junior at the center position. The de
facto center position under the basket, and they'll have him
be much more active coming up the floor, so like he'll,
(29:39):
like when they're looking to drive on the top guy,
he'll like be up around the elbow just waiting in help.
Or if someone flashes to the middle of the floor
to try to catch, Jabari will come up and the
two guys on the wing will kind of shrink down
around him. It's more of like a a Meeba matchup
zone kind of thing with Jabari Smith out there at
the at the center position. But like it works because
(29:59):
the active in their zone. They pressure the ball, meaning
like they don't just sit back, they get up and
guard the ball. They move and shift as a unit.
They ran forty eight possessions of a zone in this
game against Atlanta, and Atlanta managed to zero point eight
eight points per possession. As a comparison, Houston attacking Atlanta's
man demand coverage got one point one to one points
(30:22):
per possessions, or a dominating performance on the heels of
their I should say on the strength of their zone defense.
It's worth mentioning that the Rockets have played a relatively
light schedule in this ten and one stretch, but It's
also worth mentioning that they've really been scoring the ball.
They have a one to nineteen offensive rating in this
eleven game span that ranks eighth in the NBA. And remember,
(30:42):
even at their best, they've struggled to score this year.
Still number four in defense over the last eleven games,
they've been the number one rebounding team in the league
over that span. The offense is the interesting trend though,
because if they can continue to maintain that level of
offensive production against the league competition, they've become way more
dangerous as a playoff threat. It's been kind of like
(31:04):
a bi committee sort of thing. They have seven players
averaging double figures. Fred van Vliet is back and he's
shooting the three ball really well. Dylan Brooks in the
seven game span, excuse me, in this eleven game span
is taking over seven threes a game and he's hitting
forty one percent of them. Shane Goon eighteen points per game,
fifty four from the field, forty three percent from three
(31:25):
in that span. Tarry Easen is pouring in fifteen points
a game in the span. They're just getting a lot
of contributions around the board, and they're really scoring the ball. Well,
the Rockets are playing some very good basketball. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. As always, this sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show,
the game plan as of right now. We're going live
tonight on YouTube after the final buzzer of Celtic Suns
(31:46):
to break that game down as well as the Lakers
Pacers game. That's going to be a really fun one.
I think that's a great test to the Lakers because
they're a fast team that plays in transition a lot,
and they've got a quick guard, and that's a couple
of things that have caused the Lakers issues over the
course of the season. So I'll be really interested to
watch that one as well. I look forward to seeing
you guys. Then I will see you guys on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Today the volume What's Up? Guys.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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