Jason reacts live after the Minnesota Timberwolves grind out a win over the Los Angeles Lakers to win the series and send LA home. He discusses Anthony Edwards shooting struggles, Luka Doncic’s up and down play, and LeBron James having another good game but getting banged up. Then he discusses the Alperen Sengun and Dillon Brooks’ Houston Rockets dominating Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors to force a Game 6 on Friday.
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to
(02:34):
hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Wensday, everybody, O
ball of you guys are having a great week. On
a jampackshow for you guys. Tonight, we had the Minnesota
Timberwolves deliver the final nail into the confident of the
Los Angeles Lakers, the first iteration of the luka doncic
Los Angeles Lakers. We're going to start with that game,
breaking it down from every single angle. After that, the
Houston Rockets beat up on the Golden State Warriors tonight,
(02:57):
and now come that I kind of sort of sawcoming
that we'll talk about both why I'm not overly concerned
for the Warriors, but also some reality in terms of
the puncher's chance that Houston has moving forward in the
series that we'll talk about, and then we'll take some
questions at the tail end of the show. You guys
are the jope. Before we get started subscribe to the
Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jsonltc.
You guysn't miss you Announcementsn't forget about a podcast feed
(03:19):
where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's
also super helpful if you leave a rating and a
review on that front. Don't forget about our social media
feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's doing incredible
work throughout this postseason. Make sure you guys follow us
there and the last but not at least keep dropping
mail bag questions so we can get to them throughout
the remainder of the postseason. And then also, don't forget
we are doing our first playback after show tonight. We'll
talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes,
(03:40):
but after the show tonight, we're going to be heading
over to playback. I'm probably going to go through the
whole fourth quarter of that Wolves Lakers game because I
thought that was super fascinating. We'll watch some film, we'll
take some questions. You guys are going to be able
to come up on stage and talk be a lot
of fun on playback after the show. So let's talk
Lakers Wolves. I thought the Timberwolves sent a message tonight.
There was a certain dynamic after the first four games
(04:02):
of this series where it was clear that the Wolves
had won the key swing stretches of the series, but
it was also clear that the Lakers had some advantages
and there were extended stretch of the series. Is where
of the series or they had success right like through
the first three quarters of Game four, for instance, or
in Game three up until the point where it was
tied one o three, one oh three with a few
(04:22):
minutes left, or all of Game two when they were
in control. Right like the first two games they trade
blowouts and then you have these two knockdown, drag out
fights in Minnesota that come down to the final few possessions,
and in both games the Wolves did look better. But
you could at least talk yourself into the Lakers having
a chance, right, Well, Luca was very sick in Game
three of the series. There were a couple of calls
(04:45):
that went against the Lakers late in Game four, right,
you could at least talk yourself into the Lakers having
underachieved and potentially being capable of regaining control of the series.
Tonight was the game or the Wolves sent the clear
message that they're just the best, better basketball team. They
jumped tom early throughout the game, it was abundantly clear
that the Wolves were able to generate offense easier. The
(05:07):
only reason the Timberwolves didn't win this game by twenty
five something points is how many wide open threes they
ended up missing. You want to know a big part
of how Rudy go Bare ended up with nine rebounds,
it's because all these wide open threes were clanging off
the rim as the Lakers were in transition. That could
have gotten way uglier than it looked on the scoreboard.
Their defense seemed to clearly win. I was talking about
that battle, like which unit is going to make the
(05:30):
opposing unit more uncomfortable? I thought the defense for the
Timberwolves clearly did a better job of making the Lakers
uncomfortable than vice versa. The giveaway was tonight, there were
these possessions where Austin, Lebron, and Luca would all be
on the floor together, two of them would be on
the floor and the Wolves would be switching, and every
defender on the floor would be a good defender, and
(05:50):
it looked like the Lakers didn't have a guy who
was like, give me the fucking ball, I'm gonna go
to work here. All of them were kind of hot
potatoing the ball around because none of them really felt
comfortable attack any of the matchups. Any ground that the
Lakers seemed to gain as a half court offense was
lost in this game. I thought the Wolves clearly demonstrated
that they were the better team tonight and removed any
(06:11):
doubt as to any of the weird factors that might
have had any effect shifting the early games of the series.
Rudy Gobert was amazing tonight as an offensive rebounder and
as a vertical spacer. The Lakers tried to do a
lot more doubling against Anthony Edwards tonight. That led to
a lot of weak side disadvantages, meaning like guards trying
to box out Rudy or in many cases, nobody trying
(06:33):
to box out Rudy. I thought Lebron had one of
his worst games of this series, probably his worst game
of the series in terms of his defensive activity and
his work on the defensive glass. And when the problem
is is when Lebron's not really engaged on the defensive glass,
this team just can't rebound. They just don't have the
size on that back line, and Rudy Gobert just bullied
them over and over and over again. Twenty seven points
(06:55):
and twenty four rebounds. That's an unbelievable stat line for
Rudy go beher in in a closeout game, and a
big moment for him, especially after what happened between him
and Luca last year in the postseason. Had to have
been feeling good for Rudy Gobert there heading back to
the locker room after closing that deal. I thought Julius
Randall was awesome the entire series. I thought he was
(07:16):
awesome on defense. I thought, with exception of a handful
of bad shots here or there, I thought he was
effective as a score I thought that he keeked late
in games, was great creating advantages out of the post
and high post. In the fourth quarter of tonight's game.
He did work on the offensive glass in Game four. Julius,
this is one of the few things with Minnesota that
(07:37):
I had a good read on coming into the series.
I believed in Julius Randall. I thought that he was
a victim of circumstance in most cases, previously in his
playoff career, and I thought that he demonstrated that he's
capable of being a very impactful playoff player in this series,
specifically because of his size and physicality and how that
translates into these uber physical environments. And you know, one
(07:57):
of the things we talked about after the Julius Randall
tray was the idea that, you know, Carl Anthony Towns
is a better basketball player than Julius Randall in a vacuum, right,
And there are certain things that he does that were
helpful to Minnesota, specifically his ability to space the floor right.
But with Julius Randall from the day the trade was made,
(08:17):
one of the things I talked about was he is
a better high post, low post shot creator than Karl
Anthony Towns. He's better at that specific gift, right. And
in the fourth quarter tonight, they went to him repeatedly
there in that spot against Lebron, against Luca, against Austin Reeves,
and he repeatedly got to his spot in the middle
(08:38):
of the floor for shots or right at the front
of the rim. He was dominant tonight, and I thought
I thought he cleanly, clearly demonstrated that he's capable of
being an impactful playoff player when he's healthy and in rhythm,
and there was no advantage attacking Julius. There was nothing
that Lebron was getting on Julius on one on one.
There was nothing that Luca was getting on Julius one
on one. It's a good matchup for him and it'll
(09:01):
be interesting to see, let's say, if he faces a
Golden State in the next round, a team that more
attacks his focus and discipline defensively, because it's going to
be so much more about navigating the blender of the
Golden State offense and having to chase down to chase
around smaller, quicker players. But in this kind of matchup
where it's like a team led by two bully ball forwards,
(09:23):
Julius proved to be a very impactful defensive player because
of his ability to hold up on an island in
those situations. Jada McDaniels Jada McDaniels got his ass kicked
by Luka Doncics last year in the postseason. I thought
he just did a way better job this year with
this physicality shrinking that space as Luca was trying to
get into a step back in the mid range. There
was none of that dynamic we saw last year, or
(09:45):
it looked like Luca was constantly dislodging Jaden McDaniels off
of his base and just getting wherever he wanted to
on the floor. I thought he did a much better
job on Luca in this series than he did last year.
He also showed the pop as a week side scoring forward.
We've talked so much about this as like a very
important player archetype this year, and look, look there were
games where he wasn't as effective. He wasn't very good
(10:06):
in Game two offensively, He wasn't very good tonight offensively.
But there were games in this series, specifically Game one
and Games three and four at stretches, where he was
profoundly impactful offensively because of the ability to be that
weak side scoring forward. And it wasn't even knocking down threes.
It was catching and ripping on closeouts and just repeatedly
(10:27):
getting to the rim doing damage on the offensive glass.
He had two more offensive rebounds tonight, Like Jada, McDaniels
was better in this series than he was last year.
Nas Reed, I thought the story of his series was
late game shot making. They probably don't win Game three
or Game four if not for nas Reed being able
to come in and provide the scoring off of the
(10:47):
bench in that situation, the way he was able to
providing Anthony Edwards with a clean kickout Reid on the
left wing in Game three, him scoring out of action
in Game four coming off of a Horns action or
in transition in Game four attacking Austin Reeves in a
post up and getting to his right shoulder hook and
finishing in the lane. Nas Reed was a huge part
(11:08):
of their ability to score down the stretch in this series.
Dante DiVincenzo his ball pressure throughout the series, especially on
Austin Reeves. There were stretches of this series like tonight
for example, where he looked more impactful than Austin in
this series, like there was just down the line, so
many great contributions from a Minnesota team. And look, here's
the deal. If you're going to win a series in
(11:28):
five when you were an underdog going into the series,
it's going to require a bunch of guys down the
roster winning their matchups. And there were just so many
examples of that in this series. And so before we
talk a little bit more about the sport the Superstar matchup.
I want to get into our Course Correction segment with
Microsoft with respect to Anthony Edwards. Welcome to Course Correction,
(11:49):
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, you have
your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we will
(12:11):
highlight the player every week that has risen to the
occasion when his team needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Microsoft empowers you with expertise to say bring it on.
This week's player of the Week is Anthony Edwards and
his dominance in the Lakers Timberwolve series. I thought ant
was fantastic tonight in a way that won't show up
in the box score. Five for nineteen Right didn't have
(12:33):
a single turnover and eight assists, the third game in
the series where it was high playmaking totals with low turnovers.
He throughout this game, specifically in the second quarter when
the Lakers started bringing a lot of double teams, and
it was fantastic in that second quarter stretch, and then
like multiple times in the fourth quarter tonight, just making
simple reads like that simple driving kickout read off of
Luca to Mike Conley in the right corner. There were
(12:55):
so many examples where you remember in Game two when
Ant had zero assist how I talked about how he
didn't make the strong side corner pass a single time,
and how it was there and he just wasn't making
it there. In that second quarter, he was making it,
just thrusting Nikhil Alexander Walker there in the right corner,
even after he just airballed a shot from the same spot.
You know how mature it is for him in that
(13:15):
situation to go, I'm not going to force the issue here.
I'm just gonna dump it right back to the strong
side corner because it's open, and ni Kiel's gonna confidently
step into the shot and knock it down. I thought
he was so mature as a half court surgeon in
this series. And then in the big moments in Game three,
in Game four, down the stretch, Game three tie, game
(13:36):
late step back three boom, step back three, boom, driving
kick to nas Reed on the left wing, boom. He
was fantastic down the stretch. Game four starts the fourth
quarter down double digits, hits, three ridiculous off the dribble
jump shots that immediately changed the tone and tenor of
the game. Had another driving kick to Dante DiVincenzo on
(13:57):
the left wing, who drove it for an and one.
Every time series was hanging in the balance one way
or the other, Anthony Edwards grabbed the reins resoundingly and
just took control of the series. He has solidified himself,
in my opinion, as a top five player in this league.
I saw some comments on Twitter earlier today talking about
(14:19):
how the Lakers lack of rim protection was allowing people
to get fooled by Anthony Edwards again, and don't get
me wrong, there's no doubt that rim protection combined with
a better perimeter athlete will present a different problem for
Anthony Edwards right like Derek Jones Junior and Daniel Gafford
and Derek Lively, different type of challenge defensively than what
(14:40):
the Lakers presented. I'd even argue the Warriors with their
ability to put a guy like Moses Moody on the ball,
who's just a bigger, better athlete than the Lakers have
on the perimeter, and Draymond Green on the back line
is going to be a bigger challenge. And I think
Steve Kerr is a better coach than JJ Reddick. I
think the Warriors are overall a better, smarter team than
the Lakers. I think that I think that the Warriors defense,
(15:00):
as I've consistently said this year, is just another level
above what the Lakers are defensively. So Ant's going to
have another challenge in the next round. It's not going
to be the same, But I think I think trying
to minimize Ant's success in this series to just the
Lakers lacking rim protection is missing the point. He was
below fifty percent in the restricted area before tonight's game.
(15:23):
I haven't seen the numbers from tonight, but I would
imagine he is below fifty percent in the restricted area. Again,
he did not win this series getting to the rim.
He won this series making quality decisions as a point
guard and with his over the top shot making, and
those were the things last year that failed him in
the Dallas series. And so yeah, like there's more challenges ahead.
(15:46):
This Lakers team, I think has been pretty clearly revealed
in this first round series as a team that was
not as good as I thought they were. We're going
to talk a little bit about that in a few minutes.
But with ant moving forward, I did think that this
was a positive step in his development. The next lefe
that he had to pass. There's more levels ahead. He's
got a long way to go, but I think he's
clearly in the top five. I think he's clearly a
(16:08):
top tier superstar in this league. He was fantastic defensively
all series long. In this matchup, I thought Ant was
just amazing. 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
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(16:29):
new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more.
So where did I go wrong picking this series? There's
two main areas. The big one is is like I
thought that Anthony Edwards just cleanly and clearly outplayed Luka
Doncic in this series. I just thought he was the
better basketball player on both ends of the floor. And
(16:51):
you know, when I came into the series, I just
thought that that was a matchup that Luca would win.
And I thought like Ant would be closer to where
Lebron was. Is like a guy that looked like somewhere
in the five to tenth best player in the league,
but you know, not being able to be the same
kind of commanding presence that Luca is as an offensive
force in the series, and just was able to flip
(17:12):
that dynamic. And you know, for all of the talk
I've seen a lot of talk. I saw Carson Breber
when my friend from Nerd Sash do a video yesterday
talking about depth and how important depth is in the NBA,
and I don't disagree. I think depth is super important.
It'd be really nice if you could have a depth
piece that you can go to. Everyone was bitching at
a JJ Redick for not playing any of his bench
(17:33):
guys in Game four. How did Jared Vanderbilt look down
the strutch to night guys like there wasn't exactly a
guy that JJ trusted to put out there in those situations? Right.
The reality is, though, is that in these sorts of situations,
it comes down to when you're in the half court,
your superstar has a superpower and that superpower is what
(17:58):
overcomes surrounding circumstances and like that, that's the reality. Like
the Lakers couldn't score in this series. They had shooting
on the floor, they had play finishing on the floor,
and when they generated fantastic looks, they went in. But
it came down to ultimately, Luca could not create that
(18:21):
initial advantage. He could not beat his one on one
defender profoundly enough to dictate that second defender that could
get the defense in rotation and allow the Lakers to
generate wide open shots. He wasn't able to do it
effectively enough. On the other end of the floor, Anthony Edwards,
and what he does was dictating two sometimes three defenders
(18:44):
every single time down the floor, and so his team
was able to repeatedly generate fantastic looks. And so here's
the thing. Do I think the Lakers roster has issues? Yeah,
they need to get a legitimate, bona fide center. We're
going to talk about some of the other kind of
like deficits that they have and where the Lakers should
go from here. I didn't think JJ Reddick had a
good series, but ultimately I thought it came down to
(19:09):
Luke out played Aunt, Julius Randall out played Lebron. It's
really difficult to overcome that, no matter how good your
coach is, no matter how deep you are, no matter
what other you know, kind of cards you can pull
out of the deck, so to speak, if your stars
get beat, it's gonna be really hard to win. And
like when I saw that, you know that message from
(19:32):
from Carson, Like, I think it's valuable in terms of
like just how athletic the game is now, with how
fast everyone plays. To have seven or eight guys that
you really trust is a huge asset. But I look
at the Denver series and I think that they're winning
because Jokich is the best player and he's dominating the
star matchup and Jamal Murray is kicking James Harden's butt.
(19:55):
And I look at this series and I think Anthony
Edwards and Julius Randall outplayed Luke and Lebron. And I
look at the Celtics Magic series and I'm watching game four,
you know, Pivotal Game four down on the road in
Orlando and Jason Tatum is surgical on one end of
the floor and Pala Bancaro looks like he doesn't know
what he wants to do on the other end of
the floor. It even looking at the Pacers series, how
(20:19):
did the Pacers pull that out down the stretch? Tyrese
Haliburton just backpacked the team in crunch time. And ultimately,
I still think having the best player in a series
really does matter, even though depth also matters. I think
that this was a good example, and there were several
examples in this first round of the Star matchup playing
and big role in how these series go. So where
(20:39):
do the Lakers go from here? We can get more
into it in the mailbag. I'd imagine we're going to
talk a lot of like big picture Lakers stuff here
and on playback here in a little bit. But like
I thought, there were obvious athleticism deficits. You know, if
there's one thing that I just didn't listen to my own,
like I let my heart get in front of my head,
so to speak. I watched every single minute of the
(21:03):
Minnesota Timberwolves kicking the shit out of the Denver Nuggets
last year. I watched every single minute of the Minnesota
Timberwolves kicking the shit out of the Phoenix Suns last year.
I watched probably like the better part of forty forty
five Minnesota Timberwolves games. This year, like I watched them,
and I repeatedly came on the show and said, Man,
the upside with the Wolves is they can just maul
(21:25):
everybody when they get into the playoffs and the ref
swall of the whistles and it just turns into a
blood bath and everyone just kind of seems powerless under
those waves of size and athleticism. I knew it, and
I didn't properly factor it in. It was just foolishness
on my part. And it's a lesson learned, a valuable
lesson learned. But I do think there's some reality with
(21:46):
the Lakers roster build and their lack of athleticism, and this,
to me is something to keep in mind with the
build moving forward. I think there was a lot of
talk coming out of this series, even when things were
going poorly and even before the series. Now the Lakers
just need a center. How Austin Reeves is the perfect
kind of co star to have alongside Luka Doncic. He
kind of fits the mold of the Jalen Brunson Kyrie
(22:07):
Irving idea of having like a shot creating guard next
to Luka. And you know, Lebron James is this guy
that can operate as like a defensive folk rum and
a small screen folk rum slash secondary ball handler, whatever
you need. I look at it now and I go,
I don't know that you can be athletic enough with
Austin Reeves and Luka Doncic as core players. And so
(22:28):
I think the Lakers, when you look at their kind
of like their coffers going into this offseason. You have,
if I'm not mistaken, at least one first round pick,
because I think they gave up the other one in
the ad traits. You have one first round pick. You've
got I think at least one pick swap. You've got
the Dalton connect piece, which I think is a young
player that some teams would value. And then Austin Reeves
(22:49):
is one of the best assets in the league because
of his salary and what he makes right. So I
think that the Lakers have to start seriously considering the
reality that if they play Austin next to Luca in
the big picture, there is an athleticism deficit, and if
you're not freaky athletic at the other three spots, it
(23:09):
might not be tenable. And so, and by the way,
that doesn't mean that Austin. I'm a big believer in Austin,
and I absolutely think that Austin can have success in
a championship context. I think Austin got humbled a little
bit in the series. I think that Austin was revealed
to have two major shortcomings. One his ability to handle physicality.
I think he'll spend a good amount of the summer
(23:30):
in the weight room. I think also Austin was exposed
as a poor catch and shoot player, and I think
he's gonna have to spend a lot of time this
summer if he's gonna stay alongside Luca operating as a
catch and shoot player. But beyond that, it's about the matchup, right.
So the Wolves kick your ass in large part because
they just have all these bodies, right and so, like
(23:51):
Edwards had, Austin reeves in jail in this series, And
so Austin has to find a way to be impactful
even when he's not able to score or the basketball effectively,
not turning the basketball over by not struggling against that physicality,
by adding strength and working on ball handling through physicality,
and then two becoming a better catch and shoot player
(24:14):
so that you can be at least an asset off
the ball offensively. There were guys, there were in each
of these last two games what at least like eight
or nine clean catch and shoot looks that Austin missed
that literally could have changed both games. If Austin shot
the ball better from three tonight, they very easily could
have won tonight. If Austin shot the ball better from
(24:35):
three in Game four, they very easily could have won
Game four. That is a piece of low hanging fruit
for Austin that he can improve on. He needs to
become a better catch and shoot player. But regardless, in
the big picture, I tend to look at it as
though you're putting yourself in a bind building around Luca
with Austin being as unathletic as he is. And so
(24:56):
there's a version of this where like if you put
Austin on the Orlando Magic, he'd be incredible there because
he would be anchored by big, strong athletes all over
the floor, and his specific trait his skill set, which
revolves around like high level skill on ball offensively becomes
very valuable in the context of that team.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So, like, I think what we've noticed here is, Yeah,
because guys, you don't want to overreact to the Timberwolves matchup.
But at the same time, you're gonna run into a
big athletic team if you're gonna win the title. It's
like it's a prerequisite. You're gonna have to overcome a
team that's probably bigger and more athletic than you, Right,
And so with that being the case, I think with
(25:38):
the Lakers moving forward, they have to at least explore
the idea of flipping Austin for a bona fide two
way athletic starter of some kind to anchor alongside Luca
the obvious need for a vertical spacer. I think that,
you know, I think Luca. I think Luca had a
really bad offensive series. I thought he was exposed as
a poorly conditioned athlete can consistently faded towards the end
(26:01):
of games. He missed back to back games where he
had bad misses right at the rim that directly led
to run out layups or run out transition threes. That
hurt the team. He obviously has a lot that he
can get better at. But at the same time, there's
some clear stuff that you can do to make his
life easier, and one of those is get him a
legitimate screen and roll threat. Get him somebody that you
(26:23):
can sit in the dunker spot and that can create
that vertical spacing window right now, that is not I
saw a lot of talks surrounding that in this series
that I don't necessarily agree with. There was a lot
of talk about, like play Jackson Hayes. The TNT broadcast
was being ridiculous, constantly panning to Jackson Hayes every single
time Rudy Goberg got an offensive rebound. Does anybody remember
(26:45):
what it looked like when Jackson Hayes was on the
floor in this series. He's awful. He can't do anything
on either end of the floor. That was not going
to be an answer after what we saw off of
the early parts of the series. But going back to
the Boston series last year, there will inevitably be a
team that can switch that action, and so like the
five out spacing look would have been a counter against
(27:06):
Boston in a way that the vertical spacing piece wasn't
because of Tatum and Jalen Brown's ability to switch the
Doncage lively and the doncicge Gafford pick and rolls right,
and so like, yeah, you want to get him a center,
But most of this still comes down to in order
for Luca to be able to carry a team through
(27:27):
four playoff rounds, he has to become a more better
conditioned athlete. Luca got blown by or gave up a
bucket on five possessions before the first team before the
first TV timeout tonight in the fourth quarter, it was
just give the ball to aunt or Julius against Luca,
(27:47):
and they were going right around him for the bucket.
He's got to find a way to be better than
he has been on that end of the floor. He's
got to find a way to be better in the
fourth quarters offensively against these bigger athletic teams. And the
only way he's going to get there is if he
does the work that Steph Curry and so many other
of the lesser athletes and NBA history have done, which
(28:09):
is work obsessively on conditioning so that you can hold
up as that situation gets more complicated later in these
postseason series. We'll talk a lot more about Lakers throughout
the mailbag and in the excuse me in the playback segment,
But that's my initial impression right now as we go
to this summer is they're a little bit further away
(28:30):
than I realized, and we're gonna be talking a lot
about that. It's a very important summer for Rob Polinka
in the Lakers. So before we talk Warriors Rockets for
a few minutes, I just wanted to remind everybody we
are starting our first ever watch playback after show tonight.
So when we are done here on YouTube Live, we
are going to head right over to playback. We're going
to take questions from the audience. We're gonna let you
(28:52):
guys come on stage to share your opinions. We're going
to do some film towards the tail end of that segment.
We're going to do a bunch of stuff. It's going
to be less formal, it's gonna be a lot more interactive.
We're gonna be hanging out on playback for a solid
forty five minutes or so after the YouTube Live show,
So make sure you guys take the time to hit
the link in the subscription below this video right when
we get done, and I'll see you guys over on
(29:14):
playback when we are finished here. All right, let's talk
Warriors rocket. So as wrong as I was about the
Lakers series, I've been somewhat on top of this one.
I predicted before the series that I that the Warriors
would win in six games and that they would probably
get blown out in Game five. This is a somewhat
typical series flow for the better team playing without home
(29:36):
court advantage. I saw a stat today actually that home
teams down three to one who are favored in game five,
when they were thirty and ten in the last forty
games since two thousand and three. So it was kind
of cool to see us stat that kind of matches
up with something that I've always kind of felt about
this kind of game, which is just a really tough
(29:57):
game to win, especially when you're the more athletic team.
Like that was the big difference between the Minnesota Lakers
game tonight, is like, you know, when you have a
home team feeding off their home crowd who's the supremely
athletic team, they can be overwhelming, Whereas like what we
saw with Minnesota La tonight, Minnesota's athleticism travels and it
(30:18):
became something that the Lakers were unable to overcome. But again,
that's basically what happens in these series that I see.
When you have a road team that you pick to win,
you steal a game on the road between games one
and two, you take home court advantage, You come home
and you win games three and four, you punt game
five because it's a really tough game to win, and
then you end up closing things out in game game six.
(30:39):
And Houston came out tonight and just kicked Golden State's
ass at every phase of the game. They forced the
Warriors into nining turnovers in the first half and Men
Thompson's ball pressure on Steph was amazing. Steph did a
poor job of handling it. You got picked clean a
bunch of times around half court. The Rockets shot the
ball super well. They got one point sixty seven points
per jump shot in the first half. That's outrageous. They
shot super well on contested Dylan Brooks and Fred Van
(31:02):
Vliet both made like running crazy contested threes right before
the half as the Warriors were making their run. Brooks's
three banked in and it was ridiculous, right, They ran
nine possessions of zone and held the Warriors to just
six points on those possessions. Fred van Vliet kept up
his hot shooting from Game four. I mean, Thompson goes
for twenty five points, He's really starting to showcase his upside.
(31:23):
Dylan Brooks had twenty four. Everything went right for the Rockets. Now,
there was an obvious lack of intensity from the Warriors
that you know we talked about even leading up into
the game, right, So how much of this is translatable
for the Rockets to Game six back in Golden State. Now,
before I talk any further again, I do not think
this will happen. I think the Warriors will take care
(31:43):
of business. I think they'll come out and probably win
Game six relatively comfortably against Houston. I think that when
they really engage themselves defensively, they can strangle this Houston offense.
And I think that they have the ability to just
hit the Jets right out the gates, change the tone
and tenor of the game, build a little bit of buffer,
and I think they'll be able to stiff arm the
(32:04):
Rockets for Game six. But the Warriors haven't exactly scored
well in this series. They're averaging less than one hundred
and three points in their three wins. The reason why
they're up three to one is they haven't the Rockets
haven't been able to score. So the case in if
you're going to try to draw a line between what
the Rockets have shown over the course of the series
(32:26):
and a potential win in Game six back in Golden
State and a win in game seven, what you would
try to focus on is that the Rockets have found
some success in the half court offensively with the Shanegun
Fred van Vliet two man game, particularly inverted when Shane
Gun's on the ball, but it at least puts the
Warriors in a predicament where they have to switch and
(32:48):
then Shanguon can get some favorable matchups there. Now, in theory,
if you defend as well as you defend it through
the rest of this series, and you keep things low
scoring enough Fred and Alprin Shangoon generate enough offense, they
absolutely can win that game Game six and take it
home for a Game seven against Golden State. But I
(33:10):
don't think they will. I think this was a textbook
example of just a really tough, close out game to
win on the road against a young super athletic team.
Just tip the cap for the Rockets to the tip
a cap. Tip the cap to the Rockets for throwing
a great punch. But I expect the Warriors to show
that veteran resolve when they get home on Friday night.
(33:31):
We were gonna have two games on Friday, but now
we're gonna end up only having one game. So just
as a teaser before we head over to playback, Jackson's
gonna come on and we're gonna take one question. After
that we will head over to playback.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yes, sir, indeed, this was This is a question that's,
you know, partially it's asked in jest, but the sentiment
of it is certainly serious. And the question is that
we got a lot of this. Was Nico right? And
maybe Nico is not right? But the question about sort
of Luca's defensive condition that you definitely alluded to, You
definitely talked a lot about how big of a problem
(34:04):
is that obviously was a problem this series, How big
of a problem is it sort of long term?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So Nico is not right, and I think people are
just using that as the obvious talking point for guarding
Lucas struggles in this series. In order for Nico to
be right, you have to equate whatever the diminished version
of Luca's value that you see, you have to equate
that down to one first round pick and Max Christi,
(34:34):
who has the potential to be a good two way
starter in this league but isn't there yet. And Anthony Davis,
who is an awesome player, but at this phase in
his career is a lot slower than he used to be.
He finally had a couple healthy seasons in a row
and then he broke down this year. Like for any
concerns you have about conditioning, Anthony Davis famously came into
(34:55):
Lakers camp out of shape multiple times in the Lebron
James era. It was something that Lebron himself was frustrated with.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
So like the the Nico piece is ridiculous because even
if you just try to, like I saw Zachlosay in
his pod, like, oh, there are corners of the NBA
a smart NBA world that.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Say, oh you can see getting off of Luca as
being smart. I still think that's stupid. I don't agree.
But even if you, even if you accept that, the
actual nuts and bolts of the trade make no sense
now from there, Luca was out of shape when he
got hurt, allegedly from the reporting. Part of what triggered
the need or the desire for them to take this
(35:34):
action was Luca shortly before the trade, about a month
before the trade, showing up to the facility bad as shit.
So like there's a certain amount of like like this
was never gonna be the season where Luca would prove
everyone wrong. He was out of shape when he came back.
He played his way into shape. He never really looked
(35:57):
at any point into peak shape. He just looked at
some points like Luka downschips that we've known over the
course of the last couple of years at times. And
so I think for Nico to be right, it would
need to be we're here again next year and Luca
looks fat, out of shape, banged up and can't play
any defense. If we're here again at that point, then
it's a totally different conversation. But even within that context,
(36:19):
the trade doesn't make any sense. But Nico's lack of
belief in Luca, I think would have to be predicated
on multiple additional years of him not living up to
his potential.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, this is the first time we've ever seen Luca
have a subpar for his standards.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Playoff run.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, ever, yeah he's been they've lost, you know, they
haven't won the championship before, but he's been outstanding and
every other playoffs until this year. Not every superstar is
great in every single playoff run. It doesn't necessarily mean
it's the most recent one, so you know, fair to
take a close look at it. But it doesn't necessarily
mean this is going to be the consistent thing that
happens for Luca throughout the rest of his career.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
No, I totally agree. It's it's I'm curious to see.
I'm curious to see what Luca does this summer. I'm
curious to see if Lebron takes a pay cut. I'm
curious to see what kind of moves they look to make.
I want to see what the roster looks like when
we get to August or to October. Excuse me, it's
gonna be interesting. I will freely admit as having rooted
(37:14):
for Luca, that I was very disappointed in him in
this series. But at the same time, I also know
that if there was some sort of you know, what
do you want to call it? Like a transformation of character,
or like some sort of leap that he takes as
a competitor. It's gonna happen next season, not this season.
All right, guys, we're gonna head over to playback. Make
sure you guys meet us over there again. The link
(37:35):
is here in the description. We'll be starting up there
just in the next couple of minutes. We'll see you
guys over there shortly. What's up, guys. As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
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 really
appreciated
Speaker 1 (37:56):
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see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to
(02:34):
hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Wensday, everybody, O
ball of you guys are having a great week. On
a jampackshow for you guys. Tonight, we had the Minnesota
Timberwolves deliver the final nail into the confident of the
Los Angeles Lakers, the first iteration of the luka doncic
Los Angeles Lakers. We're going to start with that game,
breaking it down from every single angle. After that, the
Houston Rockets beat up on the Golden State Warriors tonight,
(02:57):
and now come that I kind of sort of sawcoming
that we'll talk about both why I'm not overly concerned
for the Warriors, but also some reality in terms of
the puncher's chance that Houston has moving forward in the
series that we'll talk about, and then we'll take some
questions at the tail end of the show. You guys
are the jope. Before we get started subscribe to the
Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jsonltc.
You guysn't miss you Announcementsn't forget about a podcast feed
(03:19):
where you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's
also super helpful if you leave a rating and a
review on that front. Don't forget about our social media
feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's doing incredible
work throughout this postseason. Make sure you guys follow us
there and the last but not at least keep dropping
mail bag questions so we can get to them throughout
the remainder of the postseason. And then also, don't forget
we are doing our first playback after show tonight. We'll
talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes,
(03:40):
but after the show tonight, we're going to be heading
over to playback. I'm probably going to go through the
whole fourth quarter of that Wolves Lakers game because I
thought that was super fascinating. We'll watch some film, we'll
take some questions. You guys are going to be able
to come up on stage and talk be a lot
of fun on playback after the show. So let's talk
Lakers Wolves. I thought the Timberwolves sent a message tonight.
There was a certain dynamic after the first four games
(04:02):
of this series where it was clear that the Wolves
had won the key swing stretches of the series, but
it was also clear that the Lakers had some advantages
and there were extended stretch of the series. Is where
of the series or they had success right like through
the first three quarters of Game four, for instance, or
in Game three up until the point where it was
tied one o three, one oh three with a few
(04:22):
minutes left, or all of Game two when they were
in control. Right like the first two games they trade
blowouts and then you have these two knockdown, drag out
fights in Minnesota that come down to the final few possessions,
and in both games the Wolves did look better. But
you could at least talk yourself into the Lakers having
a chance, right, Well, Luca was very sick in Game
three of the series. There were a couple of calls
(04:45):
that went against the Lakers late in Game four, right,
you could at least talk yourself into the Lakers having
underachieved and potentially being capable of regaining control of the series.
Tonight was the game or the Wolves sent the clear
message that they're just the best, better basketball team. They
jumped tom early throughout the game, it was abundantly clear
that the Wolves were able to generate offense easier. The
(05:07):
only reason the Timberwolves didn't win this game by twenty
five something points is how many wide open threes they
ended up missing. You want to know a big part
of how Rudy go Bare ended up with nine rebounds,
it's because all these wide open threes were clanging off
the rim as the Lakers were in transition. That could
have gotten way uglier than it looked on the scoreboard.
Their defense seemed to clearly win. I was talking about
that battle, like which unit is going to make the
(05:30):
opposing unit more uncomfortable? I thought the defense for the
Timberwolves clearly did a better job of making the Lakers
uncomfortable than vice versa. The giveaway was tonight, there were
these possessions where Austin, Lebron, and Luca would all be
on the floor together, two of them would be on
the floor and the Wolves would be switching, and every
defender on the floor would be a good defender, and
(05:50):
it looked like the Lakers didn't have a guy who
was like, give me the fucking ball, I'm gonna go
to work here. All of them were kind of hot
potatoing the ball around because none of them really felt
comfortable attack any of the matchups. Any ground that the
Lakers seemed to gain as a half court offense was
lost in this game. I thought the Wolves clearly demonstrated
that they were the better team tonight and removed any
(06:11):
doubt as to any of the weird factors that might
have had any effect shifting the early games of the series.
Rudy Gobert was amazing tonight as an offensive rebounder and
as a vertical spacer. The Lakers tried to do a
lot more doubling against Anthony Edwards tonight. That led to
a lot of weak side disadvantages, meaning like guards trying
to box out Rudy or in many cases, nobody trying
(06:33):
to box out Rudy. I thought Lebron had one of
his worst games of this series, probably his worst game
of the series in terms of his defensive activity and
his work on the defensive glass. And when the problem
is is when Lebron's not really engaged on the defensive glass,
this team just can't rebound. They just don't have the
size on that back line, and Rudy Gobert just bullied
them over and over and over again. Twenty seven points
(06:55):
and twenty four rebounds. That's an unbelievable stat line for
Rudy go beher in in a closeout game, and a
big moment for him, especially after what happened between him
and Luca last year in the postseason. Had to have
been feeling good for Rudy Gobert there heading back to
the locker room after closing that deal. I thought Julius
Randall was awesome the entire series. I thought he was
(07:16):
awesome on defense. I thought, with exception of a handful
of bad shots here or there, I thought he was
effective as a score I thought that he keeked late
in games, was great creating advantages out of the post
and high post. In the fourth quarter of tonight's game.
He did work on the offensive glass in Game four. Julius,
this is one of the few things with Minnesota that
(07:37):
I had a good read on coming into the series.
I believed in Julius Randall. I thought that he was
a victim of circumstance in most cases, previously in his
playoff career, and I thought that he demonstrated that he's
capable of being a very impactful playoff player in this series,
specifically because of his size and physicality and how that
translates into these uber physical environments. And you know, one
(07:57):
of the things we talked about after the Julius Randall
tray was the idea that, you know, Carl Anthony Towns
is a better basketball player than Julius Randall in a vacuum, right,
And there are certain things that he does that were
helpful to Minnesota, specifically his ability to space the floor right.
But with Julius Randall from the day the trade was made,
(08:17):
one of the things I talked about was he is
a better high post, low post shot creator than Karl
Anthony Towns. He's better at that specific gift, right. And
in the fourth quarter tonight, they went to him repeatedly
there in that spot against Lebron, against Luca, against Austin Reeves,
and he repeatedly got to his spot in the middle
(08:38):
of the floor for shots or right at the front
of the rim. He was dominant tonight, and I thought
I thought he cleanly, clearly demonstrated that he's capable of
being an impactful playoff player when he's healthy and in rhythm,
and there was no advantage attacking Julius. There was nothing
that Lebron was getting on Julius on one on one.
There was nothing that Luca was getting on Julius one
on one. It's a good matchup for him and it'll
(09:01):
be interesting to see, let's say, if he faces a
Golden State in the next round, a team that more
attacks his focus and discipline defensively, because it's going to
be so much more about navigating the blender of the
Golden State offense and having to chase down to chase
around smaller, quicker players. But in this kind of matchup
where it's like a team led by two bully ball forwards,
(09:23):
Julius proved to be a very impactful defensive player because
of his ability to hold up on an island in
those situations. Jada McDaniels Jada McDaniels got his ass kicked
by Luka Doncics last year in the postseason. I thought
he just did a way better job this year with
this physicality shrinking that space as Luca was trying to
get into a step back in the mid range. There
was none of that dynamic we saw last year, or
(09:45):
it looked like Luca was constantly dislodging Jaden McDaniels off
of his base and just getting wherever he wanted to
on the floor. I thought he did a much better
job on Luca in this series than he did last year.
He also showed the pop as a week side scoring forward.
We've talked so much about this as like a very
important player archetype this year, and look, look there were
games where he wasn't as effective. He wasn't very good
(10:06):
in Game two offensively, He wasn't very good tonight offensively.
But there were games in this series, specifically Game one
and Games three and four at stretches, where he was
profoundly impactful offensively because of the ability to be that
weak side scoring forward. And it wasn't even knocking down threes.
It was catching and ripping on closeouts and just repeatedly
(10:27):
getting to the rim doing damage on the offensive glass.
He had two more offensive rebounds tonight, Like Jada, McDaniels
was better in this series than he was last year.
Nas Reed, I thought the story of his series was
late game shot making. They probably don't win Game three
or Game four if not for nas Reed being able
to come in and provide the scoring off of the
(10:47):
bench in that situation, the way he was able to
providing Anthony Edwards with a clean kickout Reid on the
left wing in Game three, him scoring out of action
in Game four coming off of a Horns action or
in transition in Game four attacking Austin Reeves in a
post up and getting to his right shoulder hook and
finishing in the lane. Nas Reed was a huge part
(11:08):
of their ability to score down the stretch in this series.
Dante DiVincenzo his ball pressure throughout the series, especially on
Austin Reeves. There were stretches of this series like tonight
for example, where he looked more impactful than Austin in
this series, like there was just down the line, so
many great contributions from a Minnesota team. And look, here's
the deal. If you're going to win a series in
(11:28):
five when you were an underdog going into the series,
it's going to require a bunch of guys down the
roster winning their matchups. And there were just so many
examples of that in this series. And so before we
talk a little bit more about the sport the Superstar matchup.
I want to get into our Course Correction segment with
Microsoft with respect to Anthony Edwards. Welcome to Course Correction,
(11:49):
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, you have
your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we will
(12:11):
highlight the player every week that has risen to the
occasion when his team needed him. Whatever challenge you're facing,
Microsoft empowers you with expertise to say bring it on.
This week's player of the Week is Anthony Edwards and
his dominance in the Lakers Timberwolve series. I thought ant
was fantastic tonight in a way that won't show up
in the box score. Five for nineteen Right didn't have
(12:33):
a single turnover and eight assists, the third game in
the series where it was high playmaking totals with low turnovers.
He throughout this game, specifically in the second quarter when
the Lakers started bringing a lot of double teams, and
it was fantastic in that second quarter stretch, and then
like multiple times in the fourth quarter tonight, just making
simple reads like that simple driving kickout read off of
Luca to Mike Conley in the right corner. There were
(12:55):
so many examples where you remember in Game two when
Ant had zero assist how I talked about how he
didn't make the strong side corner pass a single time,
and how it was there and he just wasn't making
it there. In that second quarter, he was making it,
just thrusting Nikhil Alexander Walker there in the right corner,
even after he just airballed a shot from the same spot.
You know how mature it is for him in that
(13:15):
situation to go, I'm not going to force the issue here.
I'm just gonna dump it right back to the strong
side corner because it's open, and ni Kiel's gonna confidently
step into the shot and knock it down. I thought
he was so mature as a half court surgeon in
this series. And then in the big moments in Game three,
in Game four, down the stretch, Game three tie, game
(13:36):
late step back three boom, step back three, boom, driving
kick to nas Reed on the left wing, boom. He
was fantastic down the stretch. Game four starts the fourth
quarter down double digits, hits, three ridiculous off the dribble
jump shots that immediately changed the tone and tenor of
the game. Had another driving kick to Dante DiVincenzo on
(13:57):
the left wing, who drove it for an and one.
Every time series was hanging in the balance one way
or the other, Anthony Edwards grabbed the reins resoundingly and
just took control of the series. He has solidified himself,
in my opinion, as a top five player in this league.
I saw some comments on Twitter earlier today talking about
(14:19):
how the Lakers lack of rim protection was allowing people
to get fooled by Anthony Edwards again, and don't get
me wrong, there's no doubt that rim protection combined with
a better perimeter athlete will present a different problem for
Anthony Edwards right like Derek Jones Junior and Daniel Gafford
and Derek Lively, different type of challenge defensively than what
(14:40):
the Lakers presented. I'd even argue the Warriors with their
ability to put a guy like Moses Moody on the ball,
who's just a bigger, better athlete than the Lakers have
on the perimeter, and Draymond Green on the back line
is going to be a bigger challenge. And I think
Steve Kerr is a better coach than JJ Reddick. I
think the Warriors are overall a better, smarter team than
the Lakers. I think that I think that the Warriors defense,
(15:00):
as I've consistently said this year, is just another level
above what the Lakers are defensively. So Ant's going to
have another challenge in the next round. It's not going
to be the same, But I think I think trying
to minimize Ant's success in this series to just the
Lakers lacking rim protection is missing the point. He was
below fifty percent in the restricted area before tonight's game.
(15:23):
I haven't seen the numbers from tonight, but I would
imagine he is below fifty percent in the restricted area. Again,
he did not win this series getting to the rim.
He won this series making quality decisions as a point
guard and with his over the top shot making, and
those were the things last year that failed him in
the Dallas series. And so yeah, like there's more challenges ahead.
(15:46):
This Lakers team, I think has been pretty clearly revealed
in this first round series as a team that was
not as good as I thought they were. We're going
to talk a little bit about that in a few minutes.
But with ant moving forward, I did think that this
was a positive step in his development. The next lefe
that he had to pass. There's more levels ahead. He's
got a long way to go, but I think he's
clearly in the top five. I think he's clearly a
(16:08):
top tier superstar in this league. He was fantastic defensively
all series long. In this matchup, I thought Ant was
just amazing. That's it for this week's course correction. Remember
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(16:29):
new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more.
So where did I go wrong picking this series? There's
two main areas. The big one is is like I
thought that Anthony Edwards just cleanly and clearly outplayed Luka
Doncic in this series. I just thought he was the
better basketball player on both ends of the floor. And
(16:51):
you know, when I came into the series, I just
thought that that was a matchup that Luca would win.
And I thought like Ant would be closer to where
Lebron was. Is like a guy that looked like somewhere
in the five to tenth best player in the league,
but you know, not being able to be the same
kind of commanding presence that Luca is as an offensive
force in the series, and just was able to flip
(17:12):
that dynamic. And you know, for all of the talk
I've seen a lot of talk. I saw Carson Breber
when my friend from Nerd Sash do a video yesterday
talking about depth and how important depth is in the NBA,
and I don't disagree. I think depth is super important.
It'd be really nice if you could have a depth
piece that you can go to. Everyone was bitching at
a JJ Redick for not playing any of his bench
(17:33):
guys in Game four. How did Jared Vanderbilt look down
the strutch to night guys like there wasn't exactly a
guy that JJ trusted to put out there in those situations? Right.
The reality is, though, is that in these sorts of situations,
it comes down to when you're in the half court,
your superstar has a superpower and that superpower is what
(17:58):
overcomes surrounding circumstances and like that, that's the reality. Like
the Lakers couldn't score in this series. They had shooting
on the floor, they had play finishing on the floor,
and when they generated fantastic looks, they went in. But
it came down to ultimately, Luca could not create that
(18:21):
initial advantage. He could not beat his one on one
defender profoundly enough to dictate that second defender that could
get the defense in rotation and allow the Lakers to
generate wide open shots. He wasn't able to do it
effectively enough. On the other end of the floor, Anthony Edwards,
and what he does was dictating two sometimes three defenders
(18:44):
every single time down the floor, and so his team
was able to repeatedly generate fantastic looks. And so here's
the thing. Do I think the Lakers roster has issues? Yeah,
they need to get a legitimate, bona fide center. We're
going to talk about some of the other kind of
like deficits that they have and where the Lakers should
go from here. I didn't think JJ Reddick had a
good series, but ultimately I thought it came down to
(19:09):
Luke out played Aunt, Julius Randall out played Lebron. It's
really difficult to overcome that, no matter how good your
coach is, no matter how deep you are, no matter
what other you know, kind of cards you can pull
out of the deck, so to speak, if your stars
get beat, it's gonna be really hard to win. And
like when I saw that, you know that message from
(19:32):
from Carson, Like, I think it's valuable in terms of
like just how athletic the game is now, with how
fast everyone plays. To have seven or eight guys that
you really trust is a huge asset. But I look
at the Denver series and I think that they're winning
because Jokich is the best player and he's dominating the
star matchup and Jamal Murray is kicking James Harden's butt.
(19:55):
And I look at this series and I think Anthony
Edwards and Julius Randall outplayed Luke and Lebron. And I
look at the Celtics Magic series and I'm watching game four,
you know, Pivotal Game four down on the road in
Orlando and Jason Tatum is surgical on one end of
the floor and Pala Bancaro looks like he doesn't know
what he wants to do on the other end of
the floor. It even looking at the Pacers series, how
(20:19):
did the Pacers pull that out down the stretch? Tyrese
Haliburton just backpacked the team in crunch time. And ultimately,
I still think having the best player in a series
really does matter, even though depth also matters. I think
that this was a good example, and there were several
examples in this first round of the Star matchup playing
and big role in how these series go. So where
(20:39):
do the Lakers go from here? We can get more
into it in the mailbag. I'd imagine we're going to
talk a lot of like big picture Lakers stuff here
and on playback here in a little bit. But like
I thought, there were obvious athleticism deficits. You know, if
there's one thing that I just didn't listen to my own,
like I let my heart get in front of my head,
so to speak. I watched every single minute of the
(21:03):
Minnesota Timberwolves kicking the shit out of the Denver Nuggets
last year. I watched every single minute of the Minnesota
Timberwolves kicking the shit out of the Phoenix Suns last year.
I watched probably like the better part of forty forty
five Minnesota Timberwolves games. This year, like I watched them,
and I repeatedly came on the show and said, Man,
the upside with the Wolves is they can just maul
(21:25):
everybody when they get into the playoffs and the ref
swall of the whistles and it just turns into a
blood bath and everyone just kind of seems powerless under
those waves of size and athleticism. I knew it, and
I didn't properly factor it in. It was just foolishness
on my part. And it's a lesson learned, a valuable
lesson learned. But I do think there's some reality with
(21:46):
the Lakers roster build and their lack of athleticism, and this,
to me is something to keep in mind with the
build moving forward. I think there was a lot of
talk coming out of this series, even when things were
going poorly and even before the series. Now the Lakers
just need a center. How Austin Reeves is the perfect
kind of co star to have alongside Luka Doncic. He
kind of fits the mold of the Jalen Brunson Kyrie
(22:07):
Irving idea of having like a shot creating guard next
to Luka. And you know, Lebron James is this guy
that can operate as like a defensive folk rum and
a small screen folk rum slash secondary ball handler, whatever
you need. I look at it now and I go,
I don't know that you can be athletic enough with
Austin Reeves and Luka Doncic as core players. And so
(22:28):
I think the Lakers, when you look at their kind
of like their coffers going into this offseason. You have,
if I'm not mistaken, at least one first round pick,
because I think they gave up the other one in
the ad traits. You have one first round pick. You've
got I think at least one pick swap. You've got
the Dalton connect piece, which I think is a young
player that some teams would value. And then Austin Reeves
(22:49):
is one of the best assets in the league because
of his salary and what he makes right. So I
think that the Lakers have to start seriously considering the
reality that if they play Austin next to Luca in
the big picture, there is an athleticism deficit, and if
you're not freaky athletic at the other three spots, it
(23:09):
might not be tenable. And so, and by the way,
that doesn't mean that Austin. I'm a big believer in Austin,
and I absolutely think that Austin can have success in
a championship context. I think Austin got humbled a little
bit in the series. I think that Austin was revealed
to have two major shortcomings. One his ability to handle physicality.
I think he'll spend a good amount of the summer
(23:30):
in the weight room. I think also Austin was exposed
as a poor catch and shoot player, and I think
he's gonna have to spend a lot of time this
summer if he's gonna stay alongside Luca operating as a
catch and shoot player. But beyond that, it's about the matchup, right.
So the Wolves kick your ass in large part because
they just have all these bodies, right and so, like
(23:51):
Edwards had, Austin reeves in jail in this series, And
so Austin has to find a way to be impactful
even when he's not able to score or the basketball effectively,
not turning the basketball over by not struggling against that physicality,
by adding strength and working on ball handling through physicality,
and then two becoming a better catch and shoot player
(24:14):
so that you can be at least an asset off
the ball offensively. There were guys, there were in each
of these last two games what at least like eight
or nine clean catch and shoot looks that Austin missed
that literally could have changed both games. If Austin shot
the ball better from three tonight, they very easily could
have won tonight. If Austin shot the ball better from
(24:35):
three in Game four, they very easily could have won
Game four. That is a piece of low hanging fruit
for Austin that he can improve on. He needs to
become a better catch and shoot player. But regardless, in
the big picture, I tend to look at it as
though you're putting yourself in a bind building around Luca
with Austin being as unathletic as he is. And so
(24:56):
there's a version of this where like if you put
Austin on the Orlando Magic, he'd be incredible there because
he would be anchored by big, strong athletes all over
the floor, and his specific trait his skill set, which
revolves around like high level skill on ball offensively becomes
very valuable in the context of that team.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So, like, I think what we've noticed here is, Yeah,
because guys, you don't want to overreact to the Timberwolves matchup.
But at the same time, you're gonna run into a
big athletic team if you're gonna win the title. It's
like it's a prerequisite. You're gonna have to overcome a
team that's probably bigger and more athletic than you, Right,
And so with that being the case, I think with
(25:38):
the Lakers moving forward, they have to at least explore
the idea of flipping Austin for a bona fide two
way athletic starter of some kind to anchor alongside Luca
the obvious need for a vertical spacer. I think that,
you know, I think Luca. I think Luca had a
really bad offensive series. I thought he was exposed as
a poorly conditioned athlete can consistently faded towards the end
(26:01):
of games. He missed back to back games where he
had bad misses right at the rim that directly led
to run out layups or run out transition threes. That
hurt the team. He obviously has a lot that he
can get better at. But at the same time, there's
some clear stuff that you can do to make his
life easier, and one of those is get him a
legitimate screen and roll threat. Get him somebody that you
(26:23):
can sit in the dunker spot and that can create
that vertical spacing window right now, that is not I
saw a lot of talks surrounding that in this series
that I don't necessarily agree with. There was a lot
of talk about, like play Jackson Hayes. The TNT broadcast
was being ridiculous, constantly panning to Jackson Hayes every single
time Rudy Goberg got an offensive rebound. Does anybody remember
(26:45):
what it looked like when Jackson Hayes was on the
floor in this series. He's awful. He can't do anything
on either end of the floor. That was not going
to be an answer after what we saw off of
the early parts of the series. But going back to
the Boston series last year, there will inevitably be a
team that can switch that action, and so like the
five out spacing look would have been a counter against
(27:06):
Boston in a way that the vertical spacing piece wasn't
because of Tatum and Jalen Brown's ability to switch the
Doncage lively and the doncicge Gafford pick and rolls right,
and so like, yeah, you want to get him a center,
But most of this still comes down to in order
for Luca to be able to carry a team through
(27:27):
four playoff rounds, he has to become a more better
conditioned athlete. Luca got blown by or gave up a
bucket on five possessions before the first team before the
first TV timeout tonight in the fourth quarter, it was
just give the ball to aunt or Julius against Luca,
(27:47):
and they were going right around him for the bucket.
He's got to find a way to be better than
he has been on that end of the floor. He's
got to find a way to be better in the
fourth quarters offensively against these bigger athletic teams. And the
only way he's going to get there is if he
does the work that Steph Curry and so many other
of the lesser athletes and NBA history have done, which
(28:09):
is work obsessively on conditioning so that you can hold
up as that situation gets more complicated later in these
postseason series. We'll talk a lot more about Lakers throughout
the mailbag and in the excuse me in the playback segment,
But that's my initial impression right now as we go
to this summer is they're a little bit further away
(28:30):
than I realized, and we're gonna be talking a lot
about that. It's a very important summer for Rob Polinka
in the Lakers. So before we talk Warriors Rockets for
a few minutes, I just wanted to remind everybody we
are starting our first ever watch playback after show tonight.
So when we are done here on YouTube Live, we
are going to head right over to playback. We're going
to take questions from the audience. We're gonna let you
(28:52):
guys come on stage to share your opinions. We're going
to do some film towards the tail end of that segment.
We're going to do a bunch of stuff. It's going
to be less formal, it's gonna be a lot more interactive.
We're gonna be hanging out on playback for a solid
forty five minutes or so after the YouTube Live show,
So make sure you guys take the time to hit
the link in the subscription below this video right when
we get done, and I'll see you guys over on
(29:14):
playback when we are finished here. All right, let's talk
Warriors rocket. So as wrong as I was about the
Lakers series, I've been somewhat on top of this one.
I predicted before the series that I that the Warriors
would win in six games and that they would probably
get blown out in Game five. This is a somewhat
typical series flow for the better team playing without home
(29:36):
court advantage. I saw a stat today actually that home
teams down three to one who are favored in game five,
when they were thirty and ten in the last forty
games since two thousand and three. So it was kind
of cool to see us stat that kind of matches
up with something that I've always kind of felt about
this kind of game, which is just a really tough
(29:57):
game to win, especially when you're the more athletic team.
Like that was the big difference between the Minnesota Lakers
game tonight, is like, you know, when you have a
home team feeding off their home crowd who's the supremely
athletic team, they can be overwhelming, Whereas like what we
saw with Minnesota La tonight, Minnesota's athleticism travels and it
(30:18):
became something that the Lakers were unable to overcome. But again,
that's basically what happens in these series that I see.
When you have a road team that you pick to win,
you steal a game on the road between games one
and two, you take home court advantage, You come home
and you win games three and four, you punt game
five because it's a really tough game to win, and
then you end up closing things out in game game six.
(30:39):
And Houston came out tonight and just kicked Golden State's
ass at every phase of the game. They forced the
Warriors into nining turnovers in the first half and Men
Thompson's ball pressure on Steph was amazing. Steph did a
poor job of handling it. You got picked clean a
bunch of times around half court. The Rockets shot the
ball super well. They got one point sixty seven points
per jump shot in the first half. That's outrageous. They
shot super well on contested Dylan Brooks and Fred Van
(31:02):
Vliet both made like running crazy contested threes right before
the half as the Warriors were making their run. Brooks's
three banked in and it was ridiculous, right, They ran
nine possessions of zone and held the Warriors to just
six points on those possessions. Fred van Vliet kept up
his hot shooting from Game four. I mean, Thompson goes
for twenty five points, He's really starting to showcase his upside.
(31:23):
Dylan Brooks had twenty four. Everything went right for the Rockets. Now,
there was an obvious lack of intensity from the Warriors
that you know we talked about even leading up into
the game, right, So how much of this is translatable
for the Rockets to Game six back in Golden State. Now,
before I talk any further again, I do not think
this will happen. I think the Warriors will take care
(31:43):
of business. I think they'll come out and probably win
Game six relatively comfortably against Houston. I think that when
they really engage themselves defensively, they can strangle this Houston offense.
And I think that they have the ability to just
hit the Jets right out the gates, change the tone
and tenor of the game, build a little bit of buffer,
and I think they'll be able to stiff arm the
(32:04):
Rockets for Game six. But the Warriors haven't exactly scored
well in this series. They're averaging less than one hundred
and three points in their three wins. The reason why
they're up three to one is they haven't the Rockets
haven't been able to score. So the case in if
you're going to try to draw a line between what
the Rockets have shown over the course of the series
(32:26):
and a potential win in Game six back in Golden
State and a win in game seven, what you would
try to focus on is that the Rockets have found
some success in the half court offensively with the Shanegun
Fred van Vliet two man game, particularly inverted when Shane
Gun's on the ball, but it at least puts the
Warriors in a predicament where they have to switch and
(32:48):
then Shanguon can get some favorable matchups there. Now, in theory,
if you defend as well as you defend it through
the rest of this series, and you keep things low
scoring enough Fred and Alprin Shangoon generate enough offense, they
absolutely can win that game Game six and take it
home for a Game seven against Golden State. But I
(33:10):
don't think they will. I think this was a textbook
example of just a really tough, close out game to
win on the road against a young super athletic team.
Just tip the cap for the Rockets to the tip
a cap. Tip the cap to the Rockets for throwing
a great punch. But I expect the Warriors to show
that veteran resolve when they get home on Friday night.
(33:31):
We were gonna have two games on Friday, but now
we're gonna end up only having one game. So just
as a teaser before we head over to playback, Jackson's
gonna come on and we're gonna take one question. After
that we will head over to playback.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yes, sir, indeed, this was This is a question that's,
you know, partially it's asked in jest, but the sentiment
of it is certainly serious. And the question is that
we got a lot of this. Was Nico right? And
maybe Nico is not right? But the question about sort
of Luca's defensive condition that you definitely alluded to, You
definitely talked a lot about how big of a problem
(34:04):
is that obviously was a problem this series, How big
of a problem is it sort of long term?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So Nico is not right, and I think people are
just using that as the obvious talking point for guarding
Lucas struggles in this series. In order for Nico to
be right, you have to equate whatever the diminished version
of Luca's value that you see, you have to equate
that down to one first round pick and Max Christi,
(34:34):
who has the potential to be a good two way
starter in this league but isn't there yet. And Anthony Davis,
who is an awesome player, but at this phase in
his career is a lot slower than he used to be.
He finally had a couple healthy seasons in a row
and then he broke down this year. Like for any
concerns you have about conditioning, Anthony Davis famously came into
(34:55):
Lakers camp out of shape multiple times in the Lebron
James era. It was something that Lebron himself was frustrated with.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
So like the the Nico piece is ridiculous because even
if you just try to, like I saw Zachlosay in
his pod, like, oh, there are corners of the NBA
a smart NBA world that.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Say, oh you can see getting off of Luca as
being smart. I still think that's stupid. I don't agree.
But even if you, even if you accept that, the
actual nuts and bolts of the trade make no sense
now from there, Luca was out of shape when he
got hurt, allegedly from the reporting. Part of what triggered
the need or the desire for them to take this
(35:34):
action was Luca shortly before the trade, about a month
before the trade, showing up to the facility bad as shit.
So like there's a certain amount of like like this
was never gonna be the season where Luca would prove
everyone wrong. He was out of shape when he came back.
He played his way into shape. He never really looked
(35:57):
at any point into peak shape. He just looked at
some points like Luka downschips that we've known over the
course of the last couple of years at times. And
so I think for Nico to be right, it would
need to be we're here again next year and Luca
looks fat, out of shape, banged up and can't play
any defense. If we're here again at that point, then
it's a totally different conversation. But even within that context,
(36:19):
the trade doesn't make any sense. But Nico's lack of
belief in Luca, I think would have to be predicated
on multiple additional years of him not living up to
his potential.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, this is the first time we've ever seen Luca
have a subpar for his standards.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Playoff run.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, ever, yeah he's been they've lost, you know, they
haven't won the championship before, but he's been outstanding and
every other playoffs until this year. Not every superstar is
great in every single playoff run. It doesn't necessarily mean
it's the most recent one, so you know, fair to
take a close look at it. But it doesn't necessarily
mean this is going to be the consistent thing that
happens for Luca throughout the rest of his career.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
No, I totally agree. It's it's I'm curious to see.
I'm curious to see what Luca does this summer. I'm
curious to see if Lebron takes a pay cut. I'm
curious to see what kind of moves they look to make.
I want to see what the roster looks like when
we get to August or to October. Excuse me, it's
gonna be interesting. I will freely admit as having rooted
(37:14):
for Luca, that I was very disappointed in him in
this series. But at the same time, I also know
that if there was some sort of you know, what
do you want to call it? Like a transformation of character,
or like some sort of leap that he takes as
a competitor. It's gonna happen next season, not this season.
All right, guys, we're gonna head over to playback. Make
sure you guys meet us over there again. The link
(37:35):
is here in the description. We'll be starting up there
just in the next couple of minutes. We'll see you
guys over there shortly. What's up, guys. As always, I
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
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 really
appreciated
Speaker 1 (37:56):
The volume.
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