February 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Jason Timpf breaks down the Los Angeles Lakers’ “sloppy” loss to the Charlotte Hornets including Luka Doncic having another subpar performance, LeBron James almost bringing them back, and LaMelo Ball leading the way to a win. He also discusses Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP case for the Oklahoma City Thunder and how impressive it’s been considering Chet Holmgren missing time and Jalen Williams’s shooting slump.
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Timeline
4:00 - Start
5:00 - Sloppy Lakers/Hornets game
16:30 - Lamelo is polarizing
30:00 - Lakers defense
34:45 - SGA’s MVP case
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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b ball. All right, welcome to tonight here at the Volume.
(01:40):
Happy Thursday, everybody, Hope all of you guys are having
a great week. Got a jampack show for you today.
We got back to some NBA basketball last night as
the Lakers put up a stinker against the Charlotte Hornets.
Some brilliant basketball from Labelo Ball and Miles Bridges down
the stretch.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
They steal that game.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of
both teams. Then at the tail end of the show,
got a little bit about Shake gilds Us Alexander and
his current MVP case. You guys know the drip before
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(02:16):
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We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
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And last not at least keep dropping mailbag question so
we can get to them in our Friday mailbags throughout
the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So I honestly thought this was a really sloppy game
(02:37):
from both teams outside of a few short stretches, like
the Lakers controlled the first two and a half quarters,
but I didn't think they were playing particularly well, really sloppy,
especially on the offensive ends. Still a lot of guys
feeling each other out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
When you trade Anthony Davis, who's one of the very
best defensive players in the history of the sport, for
a player who is an MVP level offensive player, and
you get poor play on the offensive end from that player,
you're gonna see some talent discrepancies start to show. And
we're gonna talk about it later. But there are also
some issues that the Lakers are having with their small
(03:12):
ball groups and spacing as they kind of try to
figure out how to play a different brand of basketball
than they've been playing the rest of this season. We'll
get to that in a little bit, But just a
lot of sloppiness right yet, somehow they're in control for
the first two and a half quarters despite not playing well,
and it's because despite everything I just said, the Hornets
were playing even worse. JJ Reddick talked after the game
(03:34):
about some of the realities of teams he's been on
post All Star break and how they can run into
just a little bit of funk because you're just not
used to playing basketball is very much a rhythm sport,
and like he's been on teams where they've come out
of the break and they've looked great, and he's been
on teams where they've come out of the break and
looked terrible. It's kind of just part of the sport,
right So they're playing some sloppy basketball. The Hornets come
(03:55):
out in the late third quarter finally start playing what
I thought was the first stretch of good basketball that
either team played last night, and they promptly won and
went on a twenty three to one run that really
changed the dynamic of that game, and Charlie got going
on offense in that stretch. I thought Nurkic was really
the catalyst of this portion of the game getting a
(04:18):
You know, Nurkic is a guy that got a bad
rap for a lot of things in Phoenix, and he's
a really flawed player. And I'm not trying to sit
here and pretend like he's some sort of a savior
for the Charlotte Hornets or anything like that. But Nurkic
has some skills and he can play like I was
impressed in years past in Phoenix at some of his
drop coverage defense. He got a couple of big drop
coverage stops, one on Lebron James where he stonewalled in
(04:41):
the play where Austin Reeves got ejected. He stripped him
down low and may or may not have been a foul,
but like a lot of times, contact right around the basketball,
refs are going to let that sort of thing go.
It's kind of like a fifty to fifty call, and
he got a good strip there that led to that ejection.
The free throw is also a stop. Like I've been,
you know, generally keyed in on a couple of things
(05:03):
that Nurkic can do well, and he did those things well.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
During this run.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
He facilitated a backcut to Miles bridges On like a
spurs cut, which is where the post player has the
ball right around the elbow and the offensive player just
cuts off his shoulder and Nurkis will pivot into his
space and drop it over the top. Now, all of
a sudden, you got dribble penetration. JJ Redick and the
Lakers were double teaming use of Nurkic in the post
against this centerless Lakers group, which, by the way, Nurkic
(05:28):
had zero points last night, so I would have probably
like made him score once or twice before I started
reacting the way that they did. But he made really
nice passes out of the double team, got a wide
open three for Miles Bridges on the left wing that
he knocked down. Got another wide open three to one
pass away for Seth Curry on the right wing that
he knocked down. I thought Nurkic was definitely the catalyst
(05:50):
of that run, at least the initial part of the
run as the Hornets took their initial lead. Shout out
to Seth Curry too. He had a couple of huge
plays in that strike, which kept two possessions alive. To
stripped Jared Vanderbilt after a defensive rebound right underneath the basket.
He beat Lebron to a loose ball that generated an
extra offensive rebound. They go on this run. They take
(06:12):
a three point lead going into the early part of
the fourth quarter. Then LaMelo comes into the game and
immediately hits two threes and suddenly they're up by nine.
It was kind of like this fancy screen and rescreen
action with Seth Curry where LaMelo ball like screens down
for Seth Curry who comes off the screen and then
immediately turns around and screens for LaMelo again. It's just
designed to confuse switching and Gabe Vincent and Dalton connect
(06:36):
for the two players involved, and Gabe was kind of
waiting for whoever went in towards the paint, and Dalton
should have been waiting forever who came for whoever came out,
But Dalton wasn't paying attention. LaMelo just flashed to the top,
caught the ball, knocked down a three point shot, and
then the other three he hit was just simple drop
covered shot. Alex Lenz on the floor, he's sitting back
in a drop just get that ball screen, gets a
(06:56):
little bit of separation at the top of the key
and knocks it down. Suddenly the Lakers are down by nine.
That was how quickly things turned around. That whole run,
That whole twenty three to one run took place in
just a little bit over five minutes of game time.
So that was like the first stretch of real serious
basketball that either team played.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Leads to an avalanche.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Suddenly we got ourselves kind of like a Laker's back
against the wall type of fourth quarter, and then we
get this just completely absurd run from Lebron, who I
think was really the only Laker who played well last night.
Just an absolute freight train to the rim, a driving
spinning floater against Seth Curry, a driving layup against the
Jane Salon, and a driving layup through LaMelo Ball in transition,
(07:40):
then a post up double of Luca. Lebron drives the
close out instead of taking a three and throws down
what I think was the dunk of the year against
Mark Williams, just completely absurd. It actually reminded me of
the dunk that he had back in twenty eighteen against Nurkic.
Different dunk is on that dunk, Lebron is going down
the left lane line and kind of dunked off to
his right side, whereas this he's dunking over his body
(08:01):
to the left. But it reminded me in the sense
that he kind of went around the center and then
just extended, Like Lebron is a very underrated wingspan, he
just kind of extended over the top and finished just.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
A completely ridiculous dunk.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
If there's any sort of like encouragement or optimism that
you want to take from the early returns of the
Luka Doncic experience with the Lakers, it's that Lebron looks
absolutely fantastic, and if Lebron's going to play at this level,
and you eventually get MVP level Luca into this mix.
It's just a lot of top end talent for teams
(08:34):
to contend with. But he follows right up after the
dunk on Mark Williams with a three against Mark Williams
on a switch. He had another nice play later in
the game in clutch time where he drove Mark Williams
on a switch and got a foul hit the three
that gave them a shot late in the game, although
he ended up missing the shot that could have tied
the game, but just an unbelievable run from Lebron James
kind of reinstigates some control for the Lakers as it
(08:56):
turns into a clutch battle. But then down the stretch
Miles Bredge, Miles Ridges, and LaMelo Ball they just outdueled
Lebron and Luca, in large part because the Lakers again
not getting anything from Luca on the offensive end of
the floor, at least by Luca's standards. Like Luca had
a bunch of really nice plays and pick and roll
and out of the post regenerated advantages. You know, that's
the thing with players of his talent level, like we
(09:18):
all think he played like garbage and here's the thing
he did by his standards, but like he still did
a lot, They still won his minutes. But there's a
certain level of there's a certain level of pop that
you're gonna get from Luca offensively that you just haven't
seen yet in.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
A Lakers jersey.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
A simple way to put it is their offensive rating
right now as a unit in three games is like one.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Hundred and eleven and change.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Like That's that's obviously just a tiny fraction of the
type of offensive impact that you should get from that
group in the big picture. But on the other end
of the floor, LaMelo was picking on Luca and switches
something that we need to get used to seeing as
we watch the Lakers. That's definitely going to be a
huge part of the way teams attack, and the Lakers
were just struggling on the back to handle that. He
(10:00):
got downhill and drew a foul against Jackson Hayes. Another
one where he dropped it off to Mark Williams for
an easy two under the rim. Miles Bridges hit a
bunch of big stretch of shots in this stretch. I
always talked about the idea Derek White is the best
in the league at this in my opinion, but the
idea of like switch interchange and the gap that takes
place there. So like basically, if if Miles Bridges is
dribbling against one player and a hornet comes up and
(10:24):
sets a screen, and that player is going to be
the guy who's guarding the screener is going to be
switching out to Miles Bridges. But there's like an interchange, right,
There's a gap as the on ball defender disengages and
the new switching defender engages. Now, really good switching defense there.
You're usually closing out in those situations and switching with aggression.
You're switching with ball pressure to close that interchange gap
(10:48):
as quickly as you can.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
But the Lakers were really sloppy on that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
By the way, some of this stuff like I want
to cut the Lakers some slack on in terms of
the game plan because like LaMelo ball, a jump shot
for LaMelo Ball has been worth less and a point
this year. A jump shot for Miles Bridges has been
worth less than a point this year. So like some
of this is like I can imagine the game plan
was close out a bit shorter on some of these
types of shots, but it doesn't matter in the moment
(11:14):
when LaMelo is hitting and has been hitting all night,
and Miles Bridges is hitting and has been hitting all night, like,
you kind of have to make that adjustment. And there
were three times in the second half where Miles Bridges
hit threes against those switch interchanges, particularly Jared Vanderbilt and
Jackson Hayes on those switches were slow to get out
(11:35):
to the perimeter and knock those shots down. Those were
all huge shots for Miles Bridges that really kind of
helped Charlotte maintain control of the game. Then the two
biggest plays of the game, so again Lebron draws a
foul against Mark Williams and then Luca gets an offensive
rebound put back. Suddenly the Lakers are up by one
in the final minute just because of a couple of
(11:55):
plays made by Lebron and Luca. But the Lakers just
couldn't contain LaMelo. Two times in a row, he generates
a bucket. The first one gets Luca on a switch,
Dorian Finney Smith doubles. When Dorian Phinney Smith doubles, he
waves Luca out of the switch. Now when he waves
Luca out of the double, Luca's got to rotate.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Everyone's got to rotate.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So on this particular possession, Lebron is hugged up to
Miles Bridges in the left corner. You've got Gabe Vincent
on Mark Williams right underneath the basket, and you've got
Ruy Hachimura on Josh Green on the left wing, and
Nick Smith Junior is wide open in the left corner.
So when Dorian Phinney Smith waves Luca out, if everyone's
(12:37):
on a string and they're connected, it's an easy rotation.
Luca drops to Miles Bridges, Lebron drops to Mark Williams,
Gabe drops to the corner to Nick Smith, and if
they're on I call him windshield wiper rotations. When they're connected,
when guys are rotating at the same time, those openings
close up immediately.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
But when there's a.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Delay, that's when things fall apart. Both Lebron and Gabe
just seems completely aloof and weren't paying attention. They stayed
hugged up. Gabe had this crazy like twenty foot close
out to the left corner, and Nick Smith made the shot.
You made them pay for that defensive breakdown again, and
we'll talk about that in a minute. But the Lakers
are gonna have to have a plan for how to
(13:15):
handle these Luca situations and they're gonna have to execute better.
And then the second one, you put Vanderbilt in as
a defense offense sub so that you can get a stop,
and Vando just gets cooked by LaMelo. It just gets
completely cooked. On a little left to right crossover. The
Lakers were offering a lot of nail help where they
were like digging down from the wing, but guys were
(13:35):
just swiping instead of actually like containing the drive.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Ruy and Gabe had really bad examples of this.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
In crunch time, and LaMelo just cut right through the
lane and just shot that little scoop shot and that
put the Lakers in a bind. And yeah, Lebron hit
a three that gave them a chance late, but that
ended up more or less being the play that did
them in. And I just thought LaMelo and Miles made
more place then Lebron and Luca did down the stretch
and it was enough to get a win on the road.
My only thought on the Hornets that I wanted to
(14:02):
share after this one. LaMelo is such a polarizing player
for me when I watch him, because he does a
lot of things that drive me crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Dribbles the air out of the basketball.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
He kind of has like a I just did, like
a general air of honey like unseriousness, Like he's just
kind of he's just kind of floating around. There's a
lot of like unorthodox footwork, there's a lot of like
it kind of just seems like he's playing around a
lot of the times. But the talent level is completely absurd.
Just has a ridiculous handle. He might sit there and
(14:32):
make thirty five fakes before he actually tries to drive
past you, but he's probably gonna drive past you once
he gets past you. He's just such a great finisher.
He's such a great playmaker, and if you sit back
and contain the drive. Again, he hasn't been shooting super well,
but when he has this jump shot going, he can
make you pay for sitting back off of him. Right,
and last night he was hitting and he consistently made
the Lakers pay. Just a really tantalizing prospect strictly from
(14:56):
a talent perspective, even if he can drive me crazy
sometimes Lakers front, I'm gonna say the same thing I
said after the Utah loss. The loss itself doesn't mean anything. Like,
we all know that the Lakers could easily dispatch of
the Charlotte Hornets if they were in a more urgent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Type of situation.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
The Lakers traded for Anthony, traded Anthony Davis for Luca,
and they haven't really gotten Luca yet.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I'm not worried about it at all.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I see a lot of people trying to bury Luca
after these first couple of games. I think that would
be a huge mistake. Like he's just going to play
much better in the big picture. And honestly, aside from
a couple of small things that we'll get into involving
spacing and some stuff with Jared Vanderbilt, I'm actually super
encouraged by what I've seen from this group on offense
so far. You know, this just it all makes sense
(15:43):
to me in terms of the advantage creation, the play finishing.
Other than Jared Vanderbilt, it seems like everyone is kind
of like a perfect fit on the offensive end of
the floor.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So like, I'm not worried about that at all.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
But again, like I said after the Utah game, I
do think there's value in looking at how you lost
the game and what in that mix you can take
away as like a legitimate area of opportunity for you
to improve as a basketball team. Jared Vanderbilt is the
guy that's sticking out like a sore thumb so far
in the Luca era. In the three games that he's
(16:15):
played so far with Luca, they have a minus twenty
one point four net rating with him on the floor,
one zero three offensive rating, a one twenty four defensive rating.
And that's the main thing I want to highlight right away,
Like he's been really bad on defense, which is so
unusual for it right Like a lot of dumb stuff
last night, Like he had a play where he in
(16:37):
the third quarter where he hard closed out on Dikwan
Jefferies on the left wing, and it's like Dikwon Jefferies
can't shoot. He's like thirty percent on catch and shoot
jump shots this year, hard close out ends up giving
up a drive and dikwe hits a little scoop shot
over the top of him, or like on that final
possession losing LaMelo Ball on a straight line drive. Or
he several times over the first couple of games where
(16:59):
he's got defensive rebounds, but he hasn't had good awareness
of what's happening around him, and he gets stripped from
behind or.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Fumbles the ball away.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
A good chunk of Jared Vanderbilt's impact can be improved
by him just doing what he gets paid to do,
which is be one of the best defensive players in
the league, which is what he hasn't been over the
course of these few games.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But on offense, it's pretty simple. The teams are putting
their centers on him, parking that center under the rim,
and this is a real problem that isn't going away
with these centreless groups. It's been so interesting thinking about
the center position as much as we have over the
course of the last couple of weeks since the Luca trade,
because the centers have looked good with exception of Alex
lenn in that Utah game. Like the Lakers were plus
(17:41):
twelve last night with Jackson Hayes on the floor, they
were plus eight with Alex lenn on the floor. So
they were plus twenty with their centers on the floor.
That's how bad their small ball groups got butchered. And
this team has a lot of good small ball personnel.
JJ believes in small ball it wouldn't matter if you
had Mark Williams or if you had a better center.
JJ's going to play a lot of small ball with
this group and they're gonna have to figure that part out.
(18:03):
There's a couple of different things I want to look
at there, first of all, like Vando's got to find
his space within this fit on the floor without a
center on the offensive end of the floor. This extends
beyond Vando, by the way, because there were small ball
groups that have struggled even without Vando over the course
of this stretch. One of the things that changes when
you shift to this style of offense, which is again
(18:24):
I've talked about this a lot on the show, but
like in when you're running a motion and you at
the ball constantly flowing from side to side, and you
have your big operating as a screener, dribble handoff fulkrim
at the top of the key, which was the right
way to play with Austin, Dillo and Lebron and that's
why it worked so well last year under Darvin Ham.
When you have that five out motion concept, your dunker spot,
(18:46):
your rollman type of stuff around the basket, it's always
vacant until someone cuts into that space or rolls into
that space. Once you start playing more like this style
where it's like a lot more of like Lebron Louke
spread the floor, ball screens, post ups, where it's more
brute force, it becomes easier to space the floor in
(19:07):
more of a four out one in context, meaning like
if Lebron's going to be attacking a matchup like a
one on one matchup on the left wing, if everyone
standing around the three point line, the gaps get pretty shrunken,
right and then suddenly people are helping in driving lanes
and it gets.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Pretty difficult to play.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So you want to take one of those guys that's
at the three point line and you want to tuck
him underneath the basket right now. A way that a
lot of small ball teams will confront this is instead
of putting a big man down there, they'll put a
guard down there. And it's a very simple reason why.
If you have a guard in the dunker spot, the
guy guarding him is probably a guard. So if you
beat your man off the dribble and get into the paint,
(19:48):
the first line of defense you're going to run into
is most likely a smaller player. And so one of
the things the Lakers are having issues with is Jared
Vanderbilt in many cases isn't even in the dunker spot,
like he's kind of floating around, not even as screener
is kind of floating around. So part of it is
like getting Vando into the dunker spot, or get Vando
out of the dunker spot, have him operate out of
the corner as a crasher, as an off ball screener,
(20:09):
and try to have more situations where you have a
guard right underneath the basket where you can quickly catch
and finish. Have a Ruiyacha Murrow who's been drawing smaller
defenders and did a lot of damage in the post
last night. Have they gave Vincent down there in that spot?
But Vando's going to be the issue. There will be
a lot of sequences where Vando is in the dunker spot,
but he has a center on him, and that center
(20:32):
feels comfortable splitting the difference between helping and contesting Vando
at the rim. So what do you do in that
situation when Vando is your issue underneath the basket. That
is where having Luca at MVP level makes such a
huge difference. Luca is one of the very best shot
makers in this league, Luca can be impervious to spacing
(20:53):
at times because of his ability to score in the
short to mid range right and so again, just by
having and play much better on defense and by having
Luca play much better on offense, these lineups can work
a lot better than they have. However, I do think
it's important to at least factor in that Vando could
(21:13):
be an issue there. It's something that against the best
teams in the league that have elite rim protection. It's
a problem that the Lakers might have to face and
that they might have to deal with. And again, what
you can do there is if vand do's off the floor,
you can try to make up for that by having
guards in the dunker spot to create spacing, like we
talked about earlier, That's what the Celtics do so incredibly well.
(21:35):
But again, just having Luca play better, having Jared Vanderbilt
play better on defense will go a long way. Austin too,
Like I talked about this after the Utah game, like
Austin's one of the most reliable big game players in
the NBA. I trust that dude so much when it's
an important game against a good team. But he can
throw out some stinkers against some bad teams, and like
I thought, Austin was really bad last night, and then
(21:57):
he compounded it by complaining about a foul call, which,
by the way, like I talked about earlier, was a
fifty to fifty call. It wasn't like a rake on
the arms. It was a rake kind of right around
the wrist ball area. And when it's a bang bang
sequence in a basketball game, that's a call that refs
will miss. Like I talked about earlier, I view that
as like a fifty to fifty call. Sometimes you're going
to get it. Sometimes it's going to be called a strip,
(22:17):
and for you to lose control, run up on the
ref say whatever you said he said, He said it
three times. He bumped him on the elbow, Like you
made it so that you had to get ejected. And
now all of a sudden you're in a situation where
you have less talent on the floor down the stretch
of the game.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So like again, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I'm not worried about Austin. Austin's always going to be
there as a fox hole guy when the shit's hitting
the fan against a good team. But Austin didn't do
his team any favors last night by getting himself kicked
out of that game. I want to move to the
(22:59):
defensive end of the foor for just a second, though,
because this is gonna be something.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
That is a big talking point for the Lakers moving forward.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not worried about the Lakers
offense at all. I just they're gonna work, They're gonna
figure it out. They have a one to eleven point
five offensive ratings so far. That's gonna be turned around
at some point over the course of the next couple
of weeks. But on the defensive end of the four,
the idea of teams attacking Luka Doncic in space is
going to be a problem that they're gonna have to address.
(23:25):
So first of all, before we get into any like
schematic stuff, you just have to do better, Like you
just have to do a better job of containing the ball.
And this goes deeper than just Luca. This goes down
the roster to a bunch of different guys like Ruey
got back cut a bunch of times last night, Like
that's a way of giving up dribble penetration just by
not paying attention, right, Like you're one of your top
(23:46):
tier defenders, and Jared Vanderbilt gives up a.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Key drive late in the game.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
But even Luca himself by virtue of getting into better shape,
by virtue of just competing more on the ball, if
he can flatten out some of those drives. Again, like
think of it on the very basic level, a straight
line drive is gonna be very difficult to react to
as a helper. But if you can flatten out the
drive so that it's more of a banana route out
to the side, that's what delays that enough for you
(24:12):
to have easier rotations on the backside. But when you're
giving up dribble penetration, you have to be prepared. There
were large portions of this game where I thought they
looked great in this regard.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
The Lakers were throwing a lot of lowman help.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And again in the lowman all that means is when
the ball screen defender is stepping up, the guy who's
guarding the weakside corner slides up underneath the basket to
help guard that action. Three on two, the guy on
the wing for the Lakers was doing a good job
dropping down and guarding the corner to cover for the lowman.
They were missing some of that extra rotation though, the
rotation to the man up the wing. They were missing
(24:46):
some of those extra rotations. And then simple stuff like
that double team or Dorian Finney Smith waved Luca out.
If you're gonna scram Luca out of switches, and that's
basically what that is. So like if Luca gets picked
on on a switch and you just run a team
over and get Luca out of there, you're scramming him
out of a mismatch. You need to be prepared for
that scram and in crunch time they had a sequence
(25:09):
where they just weren't ready for it. And so again
different team. You're not used to having a guy like
Luke on the floor that you have to cover for,
but now you do. So you just got to figure
out the back end of that. And so that's the thing,
like when we talk about the Lakers, they're not gonna
be some world beating.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Top five defense. It's just they don't have the personnel
for it.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Even before this when they were defending extremely well, like
a lot of it was playing really hard in the
month of January and February, right, So, like I want
to be clear, like I never thought this team was elite,
but they should be better defensively than they have been,
and again, that's all they have to do. They have
so much margin for error on the offensive end of
the floor. They just need to get to the point
(25:50):
where they get enough stops or they get enough defensive
rebounds to allow their offense to push them over the top.
And a lot of that will come down to everyone
competing better on the ball well, getting actual high level
defensive impact out of your high level defensive players, and
having a plan for Luca. Got to have a plan
for how to react to those situations when they start
(26:11):
picking on picking on Luca in space. The one last
thing that stood out to me the much of this
team and their potential success this year will come down
to the play of younger players like Ruy Hachimura. Ruy's
played great for the most part as of late, but
he's a young player and he can make a lot
of mistakes. I talked about him losing laur Markinen as
a shooter a lot in the game right before the
(26:31):
All Star break. He was lost a lot in this game.
There's a play with Nurkic where he was on the
right wing close entry to Nurkic and his man just
cuts right off of him, and he's just like he's
not double teaming, he's not guarding any anybody. All of
a sudden, his man catches the ball in the back cut,
it gets sprayed out to Miles Bridges. Then he just
throws this crazy, reckless close out Miles and Miles Bridges,
who just kind of shows the ball, Ruby goes flying
(26:53):
by and then Miles hits the three. A lot of
possessions like that where Rui's just kind of like all
over the place on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
He's such a good offensive player that usually he can
start to minimize that by adding margin for error, right,
but he goes one for eight from three, misses a
couple of important free throws in the final minute that
could have tied the game. That like shines the light
on all that other stuff, and so another potential weakness
we need to keep an eye on for the Lakers.
And the big picture is just simply that ruy Hachamura
(27:20):
is a young player. There's some guys in this rotation
that are young players, and you know how I feel
about young players. When you get to the postseason. It's
something that could be an issue, but again, this team
will demonstrate a much larger margin for error once they
figure out things on offense. And again I expect them
to be a team that when I wouldn't be surprised
if from now through the end of the season they
(27:42):
were well north of a one to twenty offensive rating
once they actually kind of get their sea legs underneath them.
And I think it's only a matter of time, all right,
before we get out of here tonight. Welcome to Course Correction,
brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the star players
and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today are
under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise
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(28:04):
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(28:26):
favorite Shay Gilders Alexander. Two things happen this year that
made life substantially tougher on Shae Gilders, Alexander and the Thunder. First,
Jalen Williams really talented young player, He's been embroiled in
a season long shooting slump. His true shooting percentage is
a full six percent lower than it was last year,
which is not entirely uncommon for a young player. Young
(28:47):
players go through going pains. This team has a lot
of young players on board. That's been a issue for
the Thunder this year. Secondly, Shay loses his second or
his most talented co star in Chet Holmgren broken hit.
This is a huge chunk of the season, but it
hasn't mattered at all. I saw this crazy stat that
my friend Carson Breber from Nerd Sesh tweeted out yesterday.
(29:10):
When shakeyil does Alexander is on the floor this year,
when no Chet and no Jalen Williams. So just imagine
shake yoes Alexander and a bunch of really young role players,
good young role players, but young role players that have
flaws that have offensive limitations. One thousand two hundred and
fifty eight possessions, a massive sample size, a plus twenty
(29:34):
nine net rating, one thirty three offensive rating, a one
to oh four defensive rating. Just unbelievable work from.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Shay this season.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
His half court shot creation metrics have been off the charts.
A pick and roll from Shay including passes has been
worth one point one to two points per possession. That's
in the ninetieth percentile. And ISO for Shay including passes
has been worth one point zero eight points per possession.
That's eight seven percentile. A post up for Shae including
passes one point one to three points per possession including
(30:06):
passes seventy fourth percentile. Just picking teams apart is shooting
forty four percent on all pull up jumpers, fifty one
percent on pull up jumpers if you wait them for threes,
forty eight percent on floaters, sixty three percent on layups,
which is insane for a guard. Some of the best
athletic wings in the league hover in the high fifties
at the rim on layups. Over a block and a
(30:29):
steal per game. He's right around three stocks per game
Right now. He's minus five hundred to win MVP on
DraftKings and I think he absolutely deserves it for overcoming
adversity this season to lead the most dominant team in
the league this regular season. That's it for this week's
course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take
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(30:51):
help drive your business forward. Microsoft as your trusted partner,
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and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com slash challengers
to learn more. All right, guys, that's all I have
for tonight. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow
with some breakdowns from another slate of NBA games and
(31:13):
a mailbag.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Then the volume.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
What's up guys?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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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b ball. All right, welcome to tonight here at the Volume.
(01:40):
Happy Thursday, everybody, Hope all of you guys are having
a great week. Got a jampack show for you today.
We got back to some NBA basketball last night as
the Lakers put up a stinker against the Charlotte Hornets.
Some brilliant basketball from Labelo Ball and Miles Bridges down
the stretch.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
They steal that game.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of
both teams. Then at the tail end of the show,
got a little bit about Shake gilds Us Alexander and
his current MVP case. You guys know the drip before
we get started. Subscribed to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you
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(02:16):
guys leave a rating and a review on that front.
We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
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you can get more content throughout the rest of the season.
And last not at least keep dropping mailbag question so
we can get to them in our Friday mailbags throughout
the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So I honestly thought this was a really sloppy game
(02:37):
from both teams outside of a few short stretches, like
the Lakers controlled the first two and a half quarters,
but I didn't think they were playing particularly well, really sloppy,
especially on the offensive ends. Still a lot of guys
feeling each other out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
When you trade Anthony Davis, who's one of the very
best defensive players in the history of the sport, for
a player who is an MVP level offensive player, and
you get poor play on the offensive end from that player,
you're gonna see some talent discrepancies start to show. And
we're gonna talk about it later. But there are also
some issues that the Lakers are having with their small
(03:12):
ball groups and spacing as they kind of try to
figure out how to play a different brand of basketball
than they've been playing the rest of this season. We'll
get to that in a little bit, But just a
lot of sloppiness right yet, somehow they're in control for
the first two and a half quarters despite not playing well,
and it's because despite everything I just said, the Hornets
were playing even worse. JJ Reddick talked after the game
(03:34):
about some of the realities of teams he's been on
post All Star break and how they can run into
just a little bit of funk because you're just not
used to playing basketball is very much a rhythm sport,
and like he's been on teams where they've come out
of the break and they've looked great, and he's been
on teams where they've come out of the break and
looked terrible. It's kind of just part of the sport,
right So they're playing some sloppy basketball. The Hornets come
(03:55):
out in the late third quarter finally start playing what
I thought was the first stretch of good basketball that
either team played last night, and they promptly won and
went on a twenty three to one run that really
changed the dynamic of that game, and Charlie got going
on offense in that stretch. I thought Nurkic was really
the catalyst of this portion of the game getting a
(04:18):
You know, Nurkic is a guy that got a bad
rap for a lot of things in Phoenix, and he's
a really flawed player. And I'm not trying to sit
here and pretend like he's some sort of a savior
for the Charlotte Hornets or anything like that. But Nurkic
has some skills and he can play like I was
impressed in years past in Phoenix at some of his
drop coverage defense. He got a couple of big drop
coverage stops, one on Lebron James where he stonewalled in
(04:41):
the play where Austin Reeves got ejected. He stripped him
down low and may or may not have been a foul,
but like a lot of times, contact right around the basketball,
refs are going to let that sort of thing go.
It's kind of like a fifty to fifty call, and
he got a good strip there that led to that ejection.
The free throw is also a stop. Like I've been,
you know, generally keyed in on a couple of things
(05:03):
that Nurkic can do well, and he did those things well.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
During this run.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
He facilitated a backcut to Miles bridges On like a
spurs cut, which is where the post player has the
ball right around the elbow and the offensive player just
cuts off his shoulder and Nurkis will pivot into his
space and drop it over the top. Now, all of
a sudden, you got dribble penetration. JJ Redick and the
Lakers were double teaming use of Nurkic in the post
against this centerless Lakers group, which, by the way, Nurkic
(05:28):
had zero points last night, so I would have probably
like made him score once or twice before I started
reacting the way that they did. But he made really
nice passes out of the double team, got a wide
open three for Miles Bridges on the left wing that
he knocked down. Got another wide open three to one
pass away for Seth Curry on the right wing that
he knocked down. I thought Nurkic was definitely the catalyst
(05:50):
of that run, at least the initial part of the
run as the Hornets took their initial lead. Shout out
to Seth Curry too. He had a couple of huge
plays in that strike, which kept two possessions alive. To
stripped Jared Vanderbilt after a defensive rebound right underneath the basket.
He beat Lebron to a loose ball that generated an
extra offensive rebound. They go on this run. They take
(06:12):
a three point lead going into the early part of
the fourth quarter. Then LaMelo comes into the game and
immediately hits two threes and suddenly they're up by nine.
It was kind of like this fancy screen and rescreen
action with Seth Curry where LaMelo ball like screens down
for Seth Curry who comes off the screen and then
immediately turns around and screens for LaMelo again. It's just
designed to confuse switching and Gabe Vincent and Dalton connect
(06:36):
for the two players involved, and Gabe was kind of
waiting for whoever went in towards the paint, and Dalton
should have been waiting forever who came for whoever came out,
But Dalton wasn't paying attention. LaMelo just flashed to the top,
caught the ball, knocked down a three point shot, and
then the other three he hit was just simple drop
covered shot. Alex Lenz on the floor, he's sitting back
in a drop just get that ball screen, gets a
(06:56):
little bit of separation at the top of the key
and knocks it down. Suddenly the Lakers are down by nine.
That was how quickly things turned around. That whole run,
That whole twenty three to one run took place in
just a little bit over five minutes of game time.
So that was like the first stretch of real serious
basketball that either team played.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Leads to an avalanche.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Suddenly we got ourselves kind of like a Laker's back
against the wall type of fourth quarter, and then we
get this just completely absurd run from Lebron, who I
think was really the only Laker who played well last night.
Just an absolute freight train to the rim, a driving
spinning floater against Seth Curry, a driving layup against the
Jane Salon, and a driving layup through LaMelo Ball in transition,
(07:40):
then a post up double of Luca. Lebron drives the
close out instead of taking a three and throws down
what I think was the dunk of the year against
Mark Williams, just completely absurd. It actually reminded me of
the dunk that he had back in twenty eighteen against Nurkic.
Different dunk is on that dunk, Lebron is going down
the left lane line and kind of dunked off to
his right side, whereas this he's dunking over his body
(08:01):
to the left. But it reminded me in the sense
that he kind of went around the center and then
just extended, Like Lebron is a very underrated wingspan, he
just kind of extended over the top and finished just.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
A completely ridiculous dunk.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
If there's any sort of like encouragement or optimism that
you want to take from the early returns of the
Luka Doncic experience with the Lakers, it's that Lebron looks
absolutely fantastic, and if Lebron's going to play at this level,
and you eventually get MVP level Luca into this mix.
It's just a lot of top end talent for teams
(08:34):
to contend with. But he follows right up after the
dunk on Mark Williams with a three against Mark Williams
on a switch. He had another nice play later in
the game in clutch time where he drove Mark Williams
on a switch and got a foul hit the three
that gave them a shot late in the game, although
he ended up missing the shot that could have tied
the game, but just an unbelievable run from Lebron James
kind of reinstigates some control for the Lakers as it
(08:56):
turns into a clutch battle. But then down the stretch
Miles Bredge, Miles Ridges, and LaMelo Ball they just outdueled
Lebron and Luca, in large part because the Lakers again
not getting anything from Luca on the offensive end of
the floor, at least by Luca's standards. Like Luca had
a bunch of really nice plays and pick and roll
and out of the post regenerated advantages. You know, that's
the thing with players of his talent level, like we
(09:18):
all think he played like garbage and here's the thing
he did by his standards, but like he still did
a lot, They still won his minutes. But there's a
certain level of there's a certain level of pop that
you're gonna get from Luca offensively that you just haven't
seen yet in.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
A Lakers jersey.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
A simple way to put it is their offensive rating
right now as a unit in three games is like one.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Hundred and eleven and change.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Like That's that's obviously just a tiny fraction of the
type of offensive impact that you should get from that
group in the big picture. But on the other end
of the floor, LaMelo was picking on Luca and switches
something that we need to get used to seeing as
we watch the Lakers. That's definitely going to be a
huge part of the way teams attack, and the Lakers
were just struggling on the back to handle that. He
(10:00):
got downhill and drew a foul against Jackson Hayes. Another
one where he dropped it off to Mark Williams for
an easy two under the rim. Miles Bridges hit a
bunch of big stretch of shots in this stretch. I
always talked about the idea Derek White is the best
in the league at this in my opinion, but the
idea of like switch interchange and the gap that takes
place there. So like basically, if if Miles Bridges is
dribbling against one player and a hornet comes up and
(10:24):
sets a screen, and that player is going to be
the guy who's guarding the screener is going to be
switching out to Miles Bridges. But there's like an interchange, right,
There's a gap as the on ball defender disengages and
the new switching defender engages. Now, really good switching defense there.
You're usually closing out in those situations and switching with aggression.
You're switching with ball pressure to close that interchange gap
(10:48):
as quickly as you can.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
But the Lakers were really sloppy on that.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
By the way, some of this stuff like I want
to cut the Lakers some slack on in terms of
the game plan because like LaMelo ball, a jump shot
for LaMelo Ball has been worth less and a point
this year. A jump shot for Miles Bridges has been
worth less than a point this year. So like some
of this is like I can imagine the game plan
was close out a bit shorter on some of these
types of shots, but it doesn't matter in the moment
(11:14):
when LaMelo is hitting and has been hitting all night,
and Miles Bridges is hitting and has been hitting all night, like,
you kind of have to make that adjustment. And there
were three times in the second half where Miles Bridges
hit threes against those switch interchanges, particularly Jared Vanderbilt and
Jackson Hayes on those switches were slow to get out
(11:35):
to the perimeter and knock those shots down. Those were
all huge shots for Miles Bridges that really kind of
helped Charlotte maintain control of the game. Then the two
biggest plays of the game, so again Lebron draws a
foul against Mark Williams and then Luca gets an offensive
rebound put back. Suddenly the Lakers are up by one
in the final minute just because of a couple of
(11:55):
plays made by Lebron and Luca. But the Lakers just
couldn't contain LaMelo. Two times in a row, he generates
a bucket. The first one gets Luca on a switch,
Dorian Finney Smith doubles. When Dorian Phinney Smith doubles, he
waves Luca out of the switch. Now when he waves
Luca out of the double, Luca's got to rotate.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Everyone's got to rotate.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So on this particular possession, Lebron is hugged up to
Miles Bridges in the left corner. You've got Gabe Vincent
on Mark Williams right underneath the basket, and you've got
Ruy Hachimura on Josh Green on the left wing, and
Nick Smith Junior is wide open in the left corner.
So when Dorian Phinney Smith waves Luca out, if everyone's
(12:37):
on a string and they're connected, it's an easy rotation.
Luca drops to Miles Bridges, Lebron drops to Mark Williams,
Gabe drops to the corner to Nick Smith, and if
they're on I call him windshield wiper rotations. When they're connected,
when guys are rotating at the same time, those openings
close up immediately.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
But when there's a.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Delay, that's when things fall apart. Both Lebron and Gabe
just seems completely aloof and weren't paying attention. They stayed
hugged up. Gabe had this crazy like twenty foot close
out to the left corner, and Nick Smith made the shot.
You made them pay for that defensive breakdown again, and
we'll talk about that in a minute. But the Lakers
are gonna have to have a plan for how to
(13:15):
handle these Luca situations and they're gonna have to execute better.
And then the second one, you put Vanderbilt in as
a defense offense sub so that you can get a stop,
and Vando just gets cooked by LaMelo. It just gets
completely cooked. On a little left to right crossover. The
Lakers were offering a lot of nail help where they
were like digging down from the wing, but guys were
(13:35):
just swiping instead of actually like containing the drive.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Ruy and Gabe had really bad examples of this.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
In crunch time, and LaMelo just cut right through the
lane and just shot that little scoop shot and that
put the Lakers in a bind. And yeah, Lebron hit
a three that gave them a chance late, but that
ended up more or less being the play that did
them in. And I just thought LaMelo and Miles made
more place then Lebron and Luca did down the stretch
and it was enough to get a win on the road.
My only thought on the Hornets that I wanted to
(14:02):
share after this one. LaMelo is such a polarizing player
for me when I watch him, because he does a
lot of things that drive me crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Dribbles the air out of the basketball.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
He kind of has like a I just did, like
a general air of honey like unseriousness, Like he's just
kind of he's just kind of floating around. There's a
lot of like unorthodox footwork, there's a lot of like
it kind of just seems like he's playing around a
lot of the times. But the talent level is completely absurd.
Just has a ridiculous handle. He might sit there and
(14:32):
make thirty five fakes before he actually tries to drive
past you, but he's probably gonna drive past you once
he gets past you. He's just such a great finisher.
He's such a great playmaker, and if you sit back
and contain the drive. Again, he hasn't been shooting super well,
but when he has this jump shot going, he can
make you pay for sitting back off of him. Right,
and last night he was hitting and he consistently made
the Lakers pay. Just a really tantalizing prospect strictly from
(14:56):
a talent perspective, even if he can drive me crazy
sometimes Lakers front, I'm gonna say the same thing I
said after the Utah loss. The loss itself doesn't mean anything. Like,
we all know that the Lakers could easily dispatch of
the Charlotte Hornets if they were in a more urgent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Type of situation.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
The Lakers traded for Anthony, traded Anthony Davis for Luca,
and they haven't really gotten Luca yet.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I'm not worried about it at all.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I see a lot of people trying to bury Luca
after these first couple of games. I think that would
be a huge mistake. Like he's just going to play
much better in the big picture. And honestly, aside from
a couple of small things that we'll get into involving
spacing and some stuff with Jared Vanderbilt, I'm actually super
encouraged by what I've seen from this group on offense
so far. You know, this just it all makes sense
(15:43):
to me in terms of the advantage creation, the play finishing.
Other than Jared Vanderbilt, it seems like everyone is kind
of like a perfect fit on the offensive end of
the floor.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
So like, I'm not worried about that at all.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
But again, like I said after the Utah game, I
do think there's value in looking at how you lost
the game and what in that mix you can take
away as like a legitimate area of opportunity for you
to improve as a basketball team. Jared Vanderbilt is the
guy that's sticking out like a sore thumb so far
in the Luca era. In the three games that he's
(16:15):
played so far with Luca, they have a minus twenty
one point four net rating with him on the floor,
one zero three offensive rating, a one twenty four defensive rating.
And that's the main thing I want to highlight right away,
Like he's been really bad on defense, which is so
unusual for it right Like a lot of dumb stuff
last night, Like he had a play where he in
(16:37):
the third quarter where he hard closed out on Dikwan
Jefferies on the left wing, and it's like Dikwon Jefferies
can't shoot. He's like thirty percent on catch and shoot
jump shots this year, hard close out ends up giving
up a drive and dikwe hits a little scoop shot
over the top of him, or like on that final
possession losing LaMelo Ball on a straight line drive. Or
he several times over the first couple of games where
(16:59):
he's got defensive rebounds, but he hasn't had good awareness
of what's happening around him, and he gets stripped from
behind or.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Fumbles the ball away.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
A good chunk of Jared Vanderbilt's impact can be improved
by him just doing what he gets paid to do,
which is be one of the best defensive players in
the league, which is what he hasn't been over the
course of these few games.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
But on offense, it's pretty simple. The teams are putting
their centers on him, parking that center under the rim,
and this is a real problem that isn't going away
with these centreless groups. It's been so interesting thinking about
the center position as much as we have over the
course of the last couple of weeks since the Luca trade,
because the centers have looked good with exception of Alex
lenn in that Utah game. Like the Lakers were plus
(17:41):
twelve last night with Jackson Hayes on the floor, they
were plus eight with Alex lenn on the floor. So
they were plus twenty with their centers on the floor.
That's how bad their small ball groups got butchered. And
this team has a lot of good small ball personnel.
JJ believes in small ball it wouldn't matter if you
had Mark Williams or if you had a better center.
JJ's going to play a lot of small ball with
this group and they're gonna have to figure that part out.
(18:03):
There's a couple of different things I want to look
at there, first of all, like Vando's got to find
his space within this fit on the floor without a
center on the offensive end of the floor. This extends
beyond Vando, by the way, because there were small ball
groups that have struggled even without Vando over the course
of this stretch. One of the things that changes when
you shift to this style of offense, which is again
(18:24):
I've talked about this a lot on the show, but
like in when you're running a motion and you at
the ball constantly flowing from side to side, and you
have your big operating as a screener, dribble handoff fulkrim
at the top of the key, which was the right
way to play with Austin, Dillo and Lebron and that's
why it worked so well last year under Darvin Ham.
When you have that five out motion concept, your dunker spot,
(18:46):
your rollman type of stuff around the basket, it's always
vacant until someone cuts into that space or rolls into
that space. Once you start playing more like this style
where it's like a lot more of like Lebron Louke
spread the floor, ball screens, post ups, where it's more
brute force, it becomes easier to space the floor in
(19:07):
more of a four out one in context, meaning like
if Lebron's going to be attacking a matchup like a
one on one matchup on the left wing, if everyone
standing around the three point line, the gaps get pretty shrunken,
right and then suddenly people are helping in driving lanes
and it gets.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Pretty difficult to play.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So you want to take one of those guys that's
at the three point line and you want to tuck
him underneath the basket right now. A way that a
lot of small ball teams will confront this is instead
of putting a big man down there, they'll put a
guard down there. And it's a very simple reason why.
If you have a guard in the dunker spot, the
guy guarding him is probably a guard. So if you
beat your man off the dribble and get into the paint,
(19:48):
the first line of defense you're going to run into
is most likely a smaller player. And so one of
the things the Lakers are having issues with is Jared
Vanderbilt in many cases isn't even in the dunker spot,
like he's kind of floating around, not even as screener
is kind of floating around. So part of it is
like getting Vando into the dunker spot, or get Vando
out of the dunker spot, have him operate out of
the corner as a crasher, as an off ball screener,
(20:09):
and try to have more situations where you have a
guard right underneath the basket where you can quickly catch
and finish. Have a Ruiyacha Murrow who's been drawing smaller
defenders and did a lot of damage in the post
last night. Have they gave Vincent down there in that spot?
But Vando's going to be the issue. There will be
a lot of sequences where Vando is in the dunker spot,
but he has a center on him, and that center
(20:32):
feels comfortable splitting the difference between helping and contesting Vando
at the rim. So what do you do in that
situation when Vando is your issue underneath the basket. That
is where having Luca at MVP level makes such a
huge difference. Luca is one of the very best shot
makers in this league, Luca can be impervious to spacing
(20:53):
at times because of his ability to score in the
short to mid range right and so again, just by
having and play much better on defense and by having
Luca play much better on offense, these lineups can work
a lot better than they have. However, I do think
it's important to at least factor in that Vando could
(21:13):
be an issue there. It's something that against the best
teams in the league that have elite rim protection. It's
a problem that the Lakers might have to face and
that they might have to deal with. And again, what
you can do there is if vand do's off the floor,
you can try to make up for that by having
guards in the dunker spot to create spacing, like we
talked about earlier, That's what the Celtics do so incredibly well.
(21:35):
But again, just having Luca play better, having Jared Vanderbilt
play better on defense will go a long way. Austin too,
Like I talked about this after the Utah game, like
Austin's one of the most reliable big game players in
the NBA. I trust that dude so much when it's
an important game against a good team. But he can
throw out some stinkers against some bad teams, and like
I thought, Austin was really bad last night, and then
(21:57):
he compounded it by complaining about a foul call, which,
by the way, like I talked about earlier, was a
fifty to fifty call. It wasn't like a rake on
the arms. It was a rake kind of right around
the wrist ball area. And when it's a bang bang
sequence in a basketball game, that's a call that refs
will miss. Like I talked about earlier, I view that
as like a fifty to fifty call. Sometimes you're going
to get it. Sometimes it's going to be called a strip,
(22:17):
and for you to lose control, run up on the
ref say whatever you said he said, He said it
three times. He bumped him on the elbow, Like you
made it so that you had to get ejected. And
now all of a sudden you're in a situation where
you have less talent on the floor down the stretch
of the game.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So like again, it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I'm not worried about Austin. Austin's always going to be
there as a fox hole guy when the shit's hitting
the fan against a good team. But Austin didn't do
his team any favors last night by getting himself kicked
out of that game. I want to move to the
(22:59):
defensive end of the foor for just a second, though,
because this is gonna be something.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
That is a big talking point for the Lakers moving forward.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not worried about the Lakers
offense at all. I just they're gonna work, They're gonna
figure it out. They have a one to eleven point
five offensive ratings so far. That's gonna be turned around
at some point over the course of the next couple
of weeks. But on the defensive end of the four,
the idea of teams attacking Luka Doncic in space is
going to be a problem that they're gonna have to address.
(23:25):
So first of all, before we get into any like
schematic stuff, you just have to do better, Like you
just have to do a better job of containing the ball.
And this goes deeper than just Luca. This goes down
the roster to a bunch of different guys like Ruey
got back cut a bunch of times last night, Like
that's a way of giving up dribble penetration just by
not paying attention, right, Like you're one of your top
(23:46):
tier defenders, and Jared Vanderbilt gives up a.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Key drive late in the game.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
But even Luca himself by virtue of getting into better shape,
by virtue of just competing more on the ball, if
he can flatten out some of those drives. Again, like
think of it on the very basic level, a straight
line drive is gonna be very difficult to react to
as a helper. But if you can flatten out the
drive so that it's more of a banana route out
to the side, that's what delays that enough for you
(24:12):
to have easier rotations on the backside. But when you're
giving up dribble penetration, you have to be prepared. There
were large portions of this game where I thought they
looked great in this regard.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
The Lakers were throwing a lot of lowman help.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
And again in the lowman all that means is when
the ball screen defender is stepping up, the guy who's
guarding the weakside corner slides up underneath the basket to
help guard that action. Three on two, the guy on
the wing for the Lakers was doing a good job
dropping down and guarding the corner to cover for the lowman.
They were missing some of that extra rotation though, the
rotation to the man up the wing. They were missing
(24:46):
some of those extra rotations. And then simple stuff like
that double team or Dorian Finney Smith waved Luca out.
If you're gonna scram Luca out of switches, and that's
basically what that is. So like if Luca gets picked
on on a switch and you just run a team
over and get Luca out of there, you're scramming him
out of a mismatch. You need to be prepared for
that scram and in crunch time they had a sequence
(25:09):
where they just weren't ready for it. And so again
different team. You're not used to having a guy like
Luke on the floor that you have to cover for,
but now you do. So you just got to figure
out the back end of that. And so that's the thing,
like when we talk about the Lakers, they're not gonna
be some world beating.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Top five defense. It's just they don't have the personnel
for it.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Even before this when they were defending extremely well, like
a lot of it was playing really hard in the
month of January and February, right, So, like I want
to be clear, like I never thought this team was elite,
but they should be better defensively than they have been,
and again, that's all they have to do. They have
so much margin for error on the offensive end of
the floor. They just need to get to the point
(25:50):
where they get enough stops or they get enough defensive
rebounds to allow their offense to push them over the top.
And a lot of that will come down to everyone
competing better on the ball well, getting actual high level
defensive impact out of your high level defensive players, and
having a plan for Luca. Got to have a plan
for how to react to those situations when they start
(26:11):
picking on picking on Luca in space. The one last
thing that stood out to me the much of this
team and their potential success this year will come down
to the play of younger players like Ruy Hachimura. Ruy's
played great for the most part as of late, but
he's a young player and he can make a lot
of mistakes. I talked about him losing laur Markinen as
a shooter a lot in the game right before the
(26:31):
All Star break. He was lost a lot in this game.
There's a play with Nurkic where he was on the
right wing close entry to Nurkic and his man just
cuts right off of him, and he's just like he's
not double teaming, he's not guarding any anybody. All of
a sudden, his man catches the ball in the back cut,
it gets sprayed out to Miles Bridges. Then he just
throws this crazy, reckless close out Miles and Miles Bridges,
who just kind of shows the ball, Ruby goes flying
(26:53):
by and then Miles hits the three. A lot of
possessions like that where Rui's just kind of like all
over the place on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
He's such a good offensive player that usually he can
start to minimize that by adding margin for error, right,
but he goes one for eight from three, misses a
couple of important free throws in the final minute that
could have tied the game. That like shines the light
on all that other stuff, and so another potential weakness
we need to keep an eye on for the Lakers.
And the big picture is just simply that ruy Hachamura
(27:20):
is a young player. There's some guys in this rotation
that are young players, and you know how I feel
about young players. When you get to the postseason. It's
something that could be an issue, but again, this team
will demonstrate a much larger margin for error once they
figure out things on offense. And again I expect them
to be a team that when I wouldn't be surprised
if from now through the end of the season they
(27:42):
were well north of a one to twenty offensive rating
once they actually kind of get their sea legs underneath them.
And I think it's only a matter of time, all right,
before we get out of here tonight. Welcome to Course Correction,
brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the 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
(28:04):
visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management and
trustworthy responsible AI. When you're in the NBA, you have
your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we explore
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 the challenge faced by current MVP
(28:26):
favorite Shay Gilders Alexander. Two things happen this year that
made life substantially tougher on Shae Gilders, Alexander and the Thunder. First,
Jalen Williams really talented young player, He's been embroiled in
a season long shooting slump. His true shooting percentage is
a full six percent lower than it was last year,
which is not entirely uncommon for a young player. Young
(28:47):
players go through going pains. This team has a lot
of young players on board. That's been a issue for
the Thunder this year. Secondly, Shay loses his second or
his most talented co star in Chet Holmgren broken hit.
This is a huge chunk of the season, but it
hasn't mattered at all. I saw this crazy stat that
my friend Carson Breber from Nerd Sesh tweeted out yesterday.
(29:10):
When shakeyil does Alexander is on the floor this year,
when no Chet and no Jalen Williams. So just imagine
shake yoes Alexander and a bunch of really young role players,
good young role players, but young role players that have
flaws that have offensive limitations. One thousand two hundred and
fifty eight possessions, a massive sample size, a plus twenty
(29:34):
nine net rating, one thirty three offensive rating, a one
to oh four defensive rating. Just unbelievable work from.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Shay this season.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
His half court shot creation metrics have been off the charts.
A pick and roll from Shay including passes has been
worth one point one to two points per possession. That's
in the ninetieth percentile. And ISO for Shay including passes
has been worth one point zero eight points per possession.
That's eight seven percentile. A post up for Shae including
passes one point one to three points per possession including
(30:06):
passes seventy fourth percentile. Just picking teams apart is shooting
forty four percent on all pull up jumpers, fifty one
percent on pull up jumpers if you wait them for threes,
forty eight percent on floaters, sixty three percent on layups,
which is insane for a guard. Some of the best
athletic wings in the league hover in the high fifties
at the rim on layups. Over a block and a
(30:29):
steal per game. He's right around three stocks per game
Right now. He's minus five hundred to win MVP on
DraftKings and I think he absolutely deserves it for overcoming
adversity this season to lead the most dominant team in
the league this regular season. 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
(30:51):
help drive your business forward. 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
to learn more. All right, guys, that's all I have
for tonight. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow
with some breakdowns from another slate of NBA games and
(31:13):
a mailbag.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Then the volume.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
What's up guys?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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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