May 7, 2023 • 22 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers' 127-97 Game 3 win over Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors in their second round matchup of the NBA Playoffs. What adjustments did Los Angeles make to rebound from their Game 2 disaster? And is it time to panic in Golden State? #volume #herd
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Volume.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight Here at the Volume,
Happy Saturday, one last time everybody. Round two coverage of
the NBA Playoffs. Here, Hoops Tonight is brought to you
by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well,
feels like I just watched a complete repeat mirror image
of Game two of this series. The Warriors come out
dominate early, just like the Lakers did early in Game two,
(00:37):
and then the avalanche comes from the more desperate team.
Bunch of things I want to dive in here, specifically
surrounding the way that Anthony Davis slowed down that Warriors offense,
and just look at some adjustments that I expect moving
forward in the series. You guys know the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't
(00:59):
miss any show now. And if, for whatever reason, you
guys miss one of these shows and you can't get
back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you find
them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, all right,
let's talk some basketball. So series continues to follow a
familiar trend. The Lakers actually won a little bit more
convincingly than I thought they would, just like the Warriors
won a little bit more convincingly than I thought they
(01:20):
would in Game two. You can tell that both teams
have a specific way that they can win the series.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So for the Lakers on the defensive end, it's Anthony
Davis just being an absolute superhero, and we're going to
dive into that concept and how he did that tonight
here in just a minute. On the offensive end, it's
unbelievably important for them to play with downhill force, and
that mainly comes down to D'Angelo, Russell, Lebron, James, Anthony Davis,
(01:47):
in a little bit of Austin Reeves foul grifting, and
if the four of them can get downhill and get
to the spots that they like to get aggressively towards
the basket, they're going to get to the foul line.
Why because the Lakers are great at drawing fouls and
the Warriors are a team that has consistently throughout the
series fouled too much. And we're going to talk about,
I say, throughout the series, throughout the season, they foiled
(02:08):
too much. We're gonna talk a little bit about officiating
here in a few minutes. I don't want to hit
on that right now, but let's focus on just how
they're winning. Right So, the Lakers Lebron James, Anthony Davis,
Dennis Roeder are playing with downhill force, getting to the
foul line a lot, dominating the points in the paint battle,
and then Anthony Davis just being an absolute superhero on
the offensive end of the floor. How are the Warriors
gonna win this series? Very simple? Steph Curry, best player
(02:30):
in the world, consistently warping the Lakers defense, spacing them
out with a ton of shooting, taking advantage of their
lack of foot speed, their guards being somewhat limited defensively,
and their struggles in transition. And so you could see
them defensively when they pack the paint and they bait
the Lakers into their worst tendencies, which is to settle
for jump shots and lean too heavily on their guards.
They push the ball out in transition and they either
(02:52):
get easy buckets in transition or they space you out
and Steph draws multiple defenders and then they pick you
apart with all their offensive skills. So in the game
that the Warriors win, that's what that's gonna look like.
In the game that the Lakers win, that's what that's
gonna look like. And it's a tug of war on
both sides over the course of the rest of this series.
And again, like if I talked about before the series,
if you guys remember when I was with Colin Coward,
(03:13):
I simply said, like, if Lebron, James and Anthony Davis
consistently play great, they're going to win the series. Anthony
Davis was incredible in Game one, and I thought Lebron
was good. They won, and Steph was only okay. Game two,
Lebron and Ad were Lebron was pretty good but not great.
Anthony Davis was atrocious. Steph Curry was incredible. The Warriors
(03:35):
win move into Game three. Lebron actually had a really
nice end of the third quarter run there that I
thought was monumentally important. That Anthony Davis completely dominated the
game on the defensive end of the floor. Steph Curry good,
not great. I think he had twenty three points on
twenty one shots, which is relatively similar to what he
did in Game one on a points per shot type
of basis, so as you can see this tug of
(03:57):
war between the superstars in this sheer force of wins, well,
it's gonna look different like with Steph it's shot making
and all the things he does to warp the defense.
With Anthony Davis, it's everything he does defensively, and Lebron
James just as a Swiss army knife trying to find
ways to impact the game. Those two sides are pulling,
and one side is going to eventually let go of
the rope, and that's gonna be the team that ends
up losing the series. And I'm really curious to see
(04:19):
how that goes. Game four, in particular, I think, just
like I said after Game two, is the game that
this this series is entirely gonna come down to. I
figured I predicted the Lakers would win convincingly tonight. Game four,
it's going to be a totally different effort from Golden State.
You're gonna see a little bit more desperation from Golden State,
a little bit less desperation from the Lakers. It's gonna
(04:39):
be a really close game, in my opinion, and it's
gonna come down to that exact same tug of war
I'm talking about. Can Steph outplay Lebron and ad in
the Crypto dot com arena? All right, let's get into
some of the nitty gritty of how this actually went down.
So the adjustment that Darvinham made to start this game,
which is something that I really didn't expect and ended
up not playing as big of a role in the game,
(04:59):
just simp because of the fact that Draymond Green got
into foul trouble and ended up spending a lot of
the game on the bench. But Darbnham did something that
I didn't necessarily agree with. He put Jared Vanderbilt on
Draymond Green, and Austin Reeves onto Steph Curry, D'Angelo Russell
over on to Klay Thompson. Now, the idea there is,
we are only scared of Draymond Green in the short role.
We're not scared of Jamichael Green in the short role.
(05:20):
We're not scared of Kevon Looney in the short role. Right,
So we put Jared Vanderbuilt on Draymond Green. He can
just switch the step the Steph Draymond pick and roll.
Now Austin Reeves is on Draymond. That can be a
little bit of a sized mismatch, but Draymond's not a
guy that's gonna beat you in a switch, right, So
now Jared Vanderbilt is back on Steph Curry, and we're
(05:40):
kind of where we were before this game, right, So
that was the big adjustment that they made there, and
then it allowed Anthony Davis to be more aggressive in
his hedges on the other players that he was guarding,
simply because of the fact that Draymond Green is just
such a better role man. And I'm really curious to
see how that specific adjustment it plays out in game four,
(06:01):
because we didn't really get to see much of an
example of how it would work tonight simply because of
the foul trouble to Draymond Green. So in game four,
I wouldn't be surprised if Darvin Hamlet with a similar
type of setup, and we'll get to learn a little
bit more about that coverage and whether or not it works.
But everything you know there are we talk so much
about offensive superpowers, right, Like Steph Curry in game two,
(06:24):
late in the game, comes off of like a dribble
handoff on the right wing and jumps up and has
like two dudes run up underneath him and he splays
his legs out and he falls over and he makes
the shot, and it's like, you played perfect defense and
you just lose because he's unbelievable and he can make
all these ridiculous shots, right, Like, that's what Steph Curry does.
That's a superpower that overpowers anything that the defense is
(06:45):
capable of. And we've seen this throughout NBA history. We
focus so much on the ability of offensive superstars to
transcend everything we understand about defense and what works right well.
Anthony Davis has a similar impact on the game from
the defensive end of the floor. I talked a lot
about in the last show about how dangerous it is
to hedge or to come way out above the level
(07:07):
of the screen. And again, you can call it whatever
you want. Sometimes it's like a soft trap, it's like
a hedge. It's it's it's sort of it depends on
It's kind of like a blitz two of a eighty
gets really aggressive out on Steph.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm not really interested in the semantics. To me, it's
the yo yo of how high Anthony Davis comes up
to the level of the screen. And what I was
talking about was like you can't do that against Steph
and Draymond because Draymond Green is just gonna kill you
in the short role. But like the reality is is,
Anthony Davis is such a freak of nature defensively that
(07:37):
he just put in a lot more effort into being
active with his hands when he came up high that
suddenly it worked. And that's what's crazy, because I genuinely
believe that's the one coverage you should never use against
the Warriors that bring your big way out above the
level of the screen, because that's what gives up all
those pocket passes where Golden State is at their best.
I think I usually think you're better off in drop
(07:58):
coverage asking your guards to chase over the top or
switching right. But Anthony Davis is so unbelievably good, by
far the best defensive player in the league in my opinion,
when he is right, that he is uniquely capable of
making a super dangerous coverage functional because of how good
he is with his hands, how high is iq is,
how good his anticipation is, and how he can bother
(08:20):
those pocket passes. The Lakers forced a ton of turnovers
and got out in transition all game long. And it
was because Anthony Davis just did a better job. Like
we talk a lot about this on the show. Like
you can focus on a schematic, you can focus on
an adjustment. But nine times out of ten, any specific
strategy can work as long as somebody does well enough.
A drop coverage can work as long as your guards
chase over the top really well and your big man
(08:42):
can stay behind the roll man and mess everything up right.
A switch can work as long as your guys can
defend on the perimeter and you're a good help and
recover team on the back line. And even a hedge
against Steph Curry can work as long as you've got
Anthony freakin Davis, who's so incredibly gifted with his hands
to cause problems at the level of the screen. You know,
we talk a lot about you, guys have heard those
(09:05):
of you who listened to the show for a while,
you've heard me talk about how if you double team
the post, or if you blitz a pick and roll
by using active hands, you force the pass to be
much more difficult. It usually has to be looping, or
it gets tipped or something along those lines, and that
little delay will buy you time for your defense. To
rotate on the back line, Whereas if it's a clean
(09:26):
pocket pass through the gap and it hits the role
man in stride, now your defense is completely screwed because
that roleman is going full steam towards the rim and
your defense is a step slow to rotate. And so again, like,
I don't think anybody can do it other than Anthony Davis.
I think he's uniquely equipped. But like that was a
kind of an interesting example of a very dangerous coverage
(09:48):
for the Lakers working because of Anthony Davis's greatness. I thought,
you know, here's the bottom line, Anthony Davis. I thought,
because that was a really rough start to that game.
I think the Lakers gave up forty points in their
first sixteen minutes of the game, and they were really
struggling out on the perimeter. They were getting picked apart.
(10:10):
And then they turned up the intensity and they only
allowed twenty eight points over the following twenty minutes. And
that was kind of where the game turned there in
the end of the second quarter and over the course
of the third quarter.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That is what Anthony Davis is capable of.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I tweeted out a link or jiff of Spider Man
and him standing in front of the train and the
trains going full speed and he's just digging his feet
into the rivets and he holds up the train. That's
what it reminded me of. That was a runaway, freight
trained Golden State offense that was continuing the rhythm that
they had from Game one. At one point or Game
two at one point, Stephan Clay had made fifteen of
(10:46):
their last twenty three threes. That's sixty five percent. Do
you understand how insane that is? This Warriors offense was
clicking at some of the highest level that they have
in this particular season, and Anthony Davis stopped it somehow
an unbelievable defensive performance. The bottom line is he's gonna
have to do that two more times at a minimum
(11:06):
to win this series. And like we saw in Game
one and then Game two, we're gonna find out in
Game four whether or not Anthony Davis is capable of
revving up his engine enough to do that in back
to back games, because again, if you lose that game
and you go back to Golden State's too too, I
think Golden State wins the series at that point. I
think this game is the game the Lakers have to win.
They have to win Game four. Game five is gonna
(11:28):
be a tough one. Then you can close out the
series in game six. So shout out to Anthony Davis.
This is two out of the three games in this
series where I thought he was the best player on
the floor. That's a very very That's the swing factor
of the series right there. Shout out to Lebron. His
engagement level is so important to this team. Defensively, there
was a I thought Lebron had one of his worst
games of the postseason through two and a half quarters,
(11:50):
and then there was a bad sequence. Lakers are up
I think seventeen, and Lebron is just kind of messing
around on a defensive rebound, and Andrew wig is crashing
in and instead of boxing out Andrew Wiggins, he just
stands there, and Andrew Wiggins comes over the top and
tips the ball out. It goes right to Steph Curry.
Steph Curry makes the three. Now it's a fourteen point game.
(12:11):
Then the next possession, I think it was the next possession,
but Lebron ends up getting a defensive rebound in his
hands and he just fumbles it out of bounds and
In the ensuing sequence, Anthony Davis gets another block, but
the loose ball just kind of lands at Kevon Looney's
feet under the rim. Kevon Looney lays it up. You
call time out. You're only you're only up twelve. And
I remember sitting there thinking like man, like, they need
to get something out of Lebron James. These leads are
(12:32):
not safe. And from the from that time out, from
when the Warriors got it to twelve to the end
of the third quarter, Lebron James was a freaking freight
train on both ends of the floor, attacking the basket
on offense, getting out in transition, and flying around on defense,
both on the glass and blocking shots. Had a beautiful
block of Jordan Poole on a baseline cut. He had
(12:53):
a offensive rebound put back on a on a D'Angelo
Russell pull up three in transition. Just big play, a big,
big stretch there from Lebron to help put that game away.
Let's talk about the officiating for a second. So here's
the thing, Warriors fans, I am certain that you feel
like you probably got the short end of the stick
in officiating in this game. And I would argue and
(13:16):
the spectrum of the way officiating is gonna go over
the course of the series. There's no question that was
a great whistle for the Lakers. But here's the thing.
What happened in Game two. In Game two, then the
Lakers going to the entire first half without shooting a
free throw or something crazy like that, Like the Warriors
were able to be super physically aggressive in Game two,
fouled a lot, got away with it. They got a
(13:38):
much better whistle in Game two. That's going to happen.
And guess what, I promise you guys, because I follow
like one hundred Laker fans on Twitter, they all felt
the exact same way that you guys felt tonight. The
way you felt tonight, that's the way Lakers, Lakers fans
felt in Game two. You will notice I did not
talk about officiating in Game two because to me, that's
just a natural ebb and flow of the series. Well,
(13:58):
I feel like we've all watched enough NBA playoff series
over the years to know that the whistle oscillates back
and forth. And no, it's not the refs trying to
swing things one way or another. I think it comes
down to two factors. Okay, First, of all, like we
talked about in one of the earlier shows today, I
believe it was. I think it was when we were
talking Heat Nicks. I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
But the team that plays with Forrest gets the whistle.
End of story.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
If you play super physically aggressive on both ends of
the floor, you get the whistle. The Warriors were the
more aggressive team in Game two, they got the whistle.
The Lakers were the more aggressive team in Game three.
They got the whistle.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's how it works. And then there's like a little
bit of.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Like a home court thing where refs always get a
little swept up in the emotion of the arena. That's
human nature, right so to me, Like, and the Warriors
know that, by the way. And I'm not gonna be
over the critical of the Warriors, because the Lakers also
lost their cool with the refs in Game two. They
Lebron and ad were talking to the refs act like
you could tell they were both voicing their opinion to
(14:59):
the refs that I thought the game was clearly being
favorably officiated for the Warriors all game long. Today, the
Warriors were doing the same thing to the refs, and like, honestly,
I thought the Warriors let it get into their heads
a little bit, and like the thing too is like
a lot of them they're fowls. Like Draymon's fifth foul.
(15:20):
Didn't like the call. Anthony Davis ripped through to his left.
Draymond slid, took the contact in his chest and fell over.
To me, that's a no call, right, you know, cause
like you're not. Maybe you don't reward Draymond for falling,
but you don't reward Anthony Davis for running him over. Right,
that was a bad call. Here's the thing. You're gonna
get back calls. There's gonna be six or seven bad
calls in every single game. The two before that, the
(15:41):
two players were Draymond Green fell over. He was out
of position. Both of them were rollman possessions, or one
of them was a rollman possession, the other was a
rip through on the rollman possession. Draymond was just a
step slow and he hopped in front of Anthony Davis
and fell over. You can't you have to be there.
You can't like Anthony' already be coming and you'd be
a step slow and then get in front of him
(16:02):
and fall over. You're gonna get that call every single time,
they went to the booth and reviewed it and they
upheld the call. The other one where Anthony Davis ripped
through and he went towards the towards the middle, that
was the one I want to say, that was the
one where Anthony Davis landed on his ribcage. Like Draymond
was out a position, he got beat to the right,
and instead of sliding and being super physical where he
(16:23):
might have gotten away with it, he tried to fall
down and he didn't get the call. And one of
the hard things that happens is when you fall, you
put the onus on the official to blow the whistle.
And that's the thing, whereas if you just play physical
NBA playoff defense, there's a chance that they just end
up holding that whistle right. And there's like Klay Thompson
was getting like, I'm sorry, but every single level of basketball,
(16:45):
if you're standing in a triple threat and you have
your arm on the dude's left arm and he rips
through to the left, it's an automatic foul. And yeah,
they don't send you to the foul line anymore unless
you're in the penalty, but they call that every single time.
So Guess what, when you're guarding Austin Reeves, you can't
put your arm out on him. You have to put
your arm in the shooting pocket. Right the play where
Austin Reeves took that little turnaround fade away and Clay
(17:05):
ran into him, Make Austin Reeves make a turnaround fade away.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Make him make it.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If I'm a Warriors fan, I love that Austin Reeves
is taking turnaround fadeaways. Klay Thompson on the pump fake
entered his airspace. It's a foul.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, some nights it won't get called. There will be
games in the series light Game two where that doesn't
get called. But there are also gonna be more games
than this series. Don't be surprised if Game six in
LA if you see the Lakers get a similar whistle,
because they're gonna play desperate and with a ton of force,
and they're gonna get a lot of calls. So part
of it is just again we talked about this in
(17:43):
Game one. You're gonna see a free throw disparity in
almost every game of this series. Why the Lakers are
the best free throw shooting, a free throw generating team
in the league. And they're one of the very best
teams at not fouling, and the Warriors stuck at both.
So guess what, There's going to be a free throw
disparity some nights worse than others. You gotta keep you cool,
you gotta play through it. They picked up a lot
of techs. They started to get into it with the
(18:03):
officials instead of saying focus on the game. I think
that's a big area for improvement in Game four, is
just letting the officials and also just play with more force.
If you are the team that plays with more force,
you will get a better whistle like those flops. I
genuinely believe if Draymond just holds his ground and literally
fouls Anthony Davis like hits him and pushes him, it
probably won't get called because they're letting everything go around
(18:25):
the rim. Right. It's when you start falling down and
body start hitting the floor that it starts to get
a little bit more convoluted. Shout out to the Laker guards.
I thought they all played better. D'angela Russell was amazing
in that first quarter. Austin reeves much better defensive performance
in this game. I think it helped to put him
on Steph Curry because Klay Thompson had such a huge
strength advantage on him. And then Dennis Schroeder, I thought,
had a really good offensive third quarter during that run
(18:48):
and play some good ball pressure defense on Steph Curry
as well. So a couple of adjustments that I expect
moving forward for the Warriors. And you kind of saw
this where when Steph. When Steph identified that Anthony Davis
was bothering those sequences in the hedge with his hands,
you might have noticed that Steph kind of stopped going
to ball screens with Anthony Davis and he just started
(19:11):
to hunt isolations. And that I think is going to
be a really really interesting counter for Steph is to
start match up hunting away from Anthony Davis. So call
for guard to guard screens, to pick on, try to
get someone that you think you can get past, someone
like D'Angelo Russell or Austin reeves on you. If Austin's
guarding you full court space the floor, just attack Austin,
(19:32):
Like Austin can't guard you. You're Steph Curry like, just
don't worry about bringing Anthony Davis up into the screen.
Go cook Austin, Go attack D'Angelo Russell. If Ruey Hatchamura
is on the floor, get a guard to guard screen
to get Ruey Hatchimura switched on to him. They even
had some success in like hedge and recover situations getting
some good looks for guys like Dante DiVincenzo just by
(19:53):
running a guard to guard screen and drawing multiple defenders.
So I think that's the next counter for the Warriors
is straight ISO for Steph against Austin Reeves when he's
guarding him, and then start to hunt individual Laker defenders
and guard to guards screens. Next, stay out of out trouble,
like just be a step be quicker with your reactions,
stay in position, play.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
With more force. You'll get a better whistle.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And if you do so, then Draymond Green can stay
on the floor for longer and have a bigger impact
on the game. And then the other thing I'd like
to see. The last thing for the on the Warriors front,
I want to see Andrew Wiggins look to be more
aggressive as a score. Lebron James really struggles with his
foot speed on the perimeter and he beat him off
the dribble a bunch tonight. Hit some jumpers in his face.
That's another guy too that you can run some guard
(20:38):
to guard screens. Lebron is kind of notorious for switching
screens with no effort, right, So call Austin Reeve, can
have have Wiggans run a ball screen with Steph setting it,
and then you'll probably get switched with Wiggins onto Austin Reeves.
And then Wiggins can go to work on Austin Reeves
like you're gonna be able to find good matchups there.
And I think I think the Warriors need to start
(20:59):
hunting opportunities where Anthony Davis is just on the back
line and then from there you can drive and kick
them a couple times and hopefully pull Anthony Davis away
from the paint. But if Anthony Davis is going to
be that good defensively on those hedges, I'm just not
sure they're going to be able to score.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
On the Lakers front.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I like the hedge and recover as long as Anthony
Davis plays that active. If he doesn't, it could be
a problem. So again, that coverage is super dangerous. It
requires other worldly effort from Anthony Davis. I'd like to
see Lebron James in the post war they did it
a little bit tonight, more than they have in previous
games in the series, but I think they can go
there even more. Maintain defensive effort. Biggest weakness for this team.
Will not be surprised if the Warriors kind of got
(21:38):
up to an early lead and kind of stiff armed
the Lakers throughout Game four, because they have a tendency
to be inconsistent with their defensive effort and then keep
playing with downhill force on offense to try to attack
the Warriors' bigs and get them in foul trouble again,
which obviously was a big pathway to their success tonight. Wow,
what a series this has been so far. I know
the blowouts can give you a little boring sometimes, but
(21:59):
you know, for you know, just from a basketball chess
mats perspective, it's been super interesting and it's been interesting
to watch the up and down nature of the play
of the stars. All Right, guys, that is all we
have for today. I believe we're coming back tomorrow to
do a chase three point segment. I'll probably just do
a film study on three of the series, but if not,
we'll be back on Monday night. I think we're going
every night basically for the next three weeks, so keep
(22:21):
an eye on the Twitter feed for show announcements and
show links and things along those lines. I appreciate you, guys,
and I'll see you today.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
The volume
The Volume.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight Here at the Volume,
Happy Saturday, one last time everybody. Round two coverage of
the NBA Playoffs. Here, Hoops Tonight is brought to you
by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well,
feels like I just watched a complete repeat mirror image
of Game two of this series. The Warriors come out
dominate early, just like the Lakers did early in Game two,
(00:37):
and then the avalanche comes from the more desperate team.
Bunch of things I want to dive in here, specifically
surrounding the way that Anthony Davis slowed down that Warriors offense,
and just look at some adjustments that I expect moving
forward in the series. You guys know the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't
(00:59):
miss any show now. And if, for whatever reason, you
guys miss one of these shows and you can't get
back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you find
them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, all right,
let's talk some basketball. So series continues to follow a
familiar trend. The Lakers actually won a little bit more
convincingly than I thought they would, just like the Warriors
won a little bit more convincingly than I thought they
(01:20):
would in Game two. You can tell that both teams
have a specific way that they can win the series.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So for the Lakers on the defensive end, it's Anthony
Davis just being an absolute superhero, and we're going to
dive into that concept and how he did that tonight
here in just a minute. On the offensive end, it's
unbelievably important for them to play with downhill force, and
that mainly comes down to D'Angelo, Russell, Lebron, James, Anthony Davis,
(01:47):
in a little bit of Austin Reeves foul grifting, and
if the four of them can get downhill and get
to the spots that they like to get aggressively towards
the basket, they're going to get to the foul line.
Why because the Lakers are great at drawing fouls and
the Warriors are a team that has consistently throughout the
series fouled too much. And we're going to talk about,
I say, throughout the series, throughout the season, they foiled
(02:08):
too much. We're gonna talk a little bit about officiating
here in a few minutes. I don't want to hit
on that right now, but let's focus on just how
they're winning. Right So, the Lakers Lebron James, Anthony Davis,
Dennis Roeder are playing with downhill force, getting to the
foul line a lot, dominating the points in the paint battle,
and then Anthony Davis just being an absolute superhero on
the offensive end of the floor. How are the Warriors
gonna win this series? Very simple? Steph Curry, best player
(02:30):
in the world, consistently warping the Lakers defense, spacing them
out with a ton of shooting, taking advantage of their
lack of foot speed, their guards being somewhat limited defensively,
and their struggles in transition. And so you could see
them defensively when they pack the paint and they bait
the Lakers into their worst tendencies, which is to settle
for jump shots and lean too heavily on their guards.
They push the ball out in transition and they either
(02:52):
get easy buckets in transition or they space you out
and Steph draws multiple defenders and then they pick you
apart with all their offensive skills. So in the game
that the Warriors win, that's what that's gonna look like.
In the game that the Lakers win, that's what that's
gonna look like. And it's a tug of war on
both sides over the course of the rest of this series.
And again, like if I talked about before the series,
if you guys remember when I was with Colin Coward,
(03:13):
I simply said, like, if Lebron, James and Anthony Davis
consistently play great, they're going to win the series. Anthony
Davis was incredible in Game one, and I thought Lebron
was good. They won, and Steph was only okay. Game two,
Lebron and Ad were Lebron was pretty good but not great.
Anthony Davis was atrocious. Steph Curry was incredible. The Warriors
(03:35):
win move into Game three. Lebron actually had a really
nice end of the third quarter run there that I
thought was monumentally important. That Anthony Davis completely dominated the
game on the defensive end of the floor. Steph Curry good,
not great. I think he had twenty three points on
twenty one shots, which is relatively similar to what he
did in Game one on a points per shot type
of basis, so as you can see this tug of
(03:57):
war between the superstars in this sheer force of wins, well,
it's gonna look different like with Steph it's shot making
and all the things he does to warp the defense.
With Anthony Davis, it's everything he does defensively, and Lebron
James just as a Swiss army knife trying to find
ways to impact the game. Those two sides are pulling,
and one side is going to eventually let go of
the rope, and that's gonna be the team that ends
up losing the series. And I'm really curious to see
(04:19):
how that goes. Game four, in particular, I think, just
like I said after Game two, is the game that
this this series is entirely gonna come down to. I
figured I predicted the Lakers would win convincingly tonight. Game four,
it's going to be a totally different effort from Golden State.
You're gonna see a little bit more desperation from Golden State,
a little bit less desperation from the Lakers. It's gonna
(04:39):
be a really close game, in my opinion, and it's
gonna come down to that exact same tug of war
I'm talking about. Can Steph outplay Lebron and ad in
the Crypto dot com arena? All right, let's get into
some of the nitty gritty of how this actually went down.
So the adjustment that Darvinham made to start this game,
which is something that I really didn't expect and ended
up not playing as big of a role in the game,
(04:59):
just simp because of the fact that Draymond Green got
into foul trouble and ended up spending a lot of
the game on the bench. But Darbnham did something that
I didn't necessarily agree with. He put Jared Vanderbilt on
Draymond Green, and Austin Reeves onto Steph Curry, D'Angelo Russell
over on to Klay Thompson. Now, the idea there is,
we are only scared of Draymond Green in the short role.
We're not scared of Jamichael Green in the short role.
(05:20):
We're not scared of Kevon Looney in the short role. Right,
So we put Jared Vanderbuilt on Draymond Green. He can
just switch the step the Steph Draymond pick and roll.
Now Austin Reeves is on Draymond. That can be a
little bit of a sized mismatch, but Draymond's not a
guy that's gonna beat you in a switch, right, So
now Jared Vanderbilt is back on Steph Curry, and we're
(05:40):
kind of where we were before this game, right, So
that was the big adjustment that they made there, and
then it allowed Anthony Davis to be more aggressive in
his hedges on the other players that he was guarding,
simply because of the fact that Draymond Green is just
such a better role man. And I'm really curious to
see how that specific adjustment it plays out in game four,
(06:01):
because we didn't really get to see much of an
example of how it would work tonight simply because of
the foul trouble to Draymond Green. So in game four,
I wouldn't be surprised if Darvin Hamlet with a similar
type of setup, and we'll get to learn a little
bit more about that coverage and whether or not it works.
But everything you know there are we talk so much
about offensive superpowers, right, Like Steph Curry in game two,
(06:24):
late in the game, comes off of like a dribble
handoff on the right wing and jumps up and has
like two dudes run up underneath him and he splays
his legs out and he falls over and he makes
the shot, and it's like, you played perfect defense and
you just lose because he's unbelievable and he can make
all these ridiculous shots, right, Like, that's what Steph Curry does.
That's a superpower that overpowers anything that the defense is
(06:45):
capable of. And we've seen this throughout NBA history. We
focus so much on the ability of offensive superstars to
transcend everything we understand about defense and what works right well.
Anthony Davis has a similar impact on the game from
the defensive end of the floor. I talked a lot
about in the last show about how dangerous it is
to hedge or to come way out above the level
(07:07):
of the screen. And again, you can call it whatever
you want. Sometimes it's like a soft trap, it's like
a hedge. It's it's it's sort of it depends on
It's kind of like a blitz two of a eighty
gets really aggressive out on Steph.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm not really interested in the semantics. To me, it's
the yo yo of how high Anthony Davis comes up
to the level of the screen. And what I was
talking about was like you can't do that against Steph
and Draymond because Draymond Green is just gonna kill you
in the short role. But like the reality is is,
Anthony Davis is such a freak of nature defensively that
(07:37):
he just put in a lot more effort into being
active with his hands when he came up high that
suddenly it worked. And that's what's crazy, because I genuinely
believe that's the one coverage you should never use against
the Warriors that bring your big way out above the
level of the screen, because that's what gives up all
those pocket passes where Golden State is at their best.
I think I usually think you're better off in drop
(07:58):
coverage asking your guards to chase over the top or
switching right. But Anthony Davis is so unbelievably good, by
far the best defensive player in the league in my opinion,
when he is right, that he is uniquely capable of
making a super dangerous coverage functional because of how good
he is with his hands, how high is iq is,
how good his anticipation is, and how he can bother
(08:20):
those pocket passes. The Lakers forced a ton of turnovers
and got out in transition all game long. And it
was because Anthony Davis just did a better job. Like
we talk a lot about this on the show. Like
you can focus on a schematic, you can focus on
an adjustment. But nine times out of ten, any specific
strategy can work as long as somebody does well enough.
A drop coverage can work as long as your guards
chase over the top really well and your big man
(08:42):
can stay behind the roll man and mess everything up right.
A switch can work as long as your guys can
defend on the perimeter and you're a good help and
recover team on the back line. And even a hedge
against Steph Curry can work as long as you've got
Anthony freakin Davis, who's so incredibly gifted with his hands
to cause problems at the level of the screen. You know,
we talk a lot about you, guys have heard those
(09:05):
of you who listened to the show for a while,
you've heard me talk about how if you double team
the post, or if you blitz a pick and roll
by using active hands, you force the pass to be
much more difficult. It usually has to be looping, or
it gets tipped or something along those lines, and that
little delay will buy you time for your defense. To
rotate on the back line, Whereas if it's a clean
(09:26):
pocket pass through the gap and it hits the role
man in stride, now your defense is completely screwed because
that roleman is going full steam towards the rim and
your defense is a step slow to rotate. And so again, like,
I don't think anybody can do it other than Anthony Davis.
I think he's uniquely equipped. But like that was a
kind of an interesting example of a very dangerous coverage
(09:48):
for the Lakers working because of Anthony Davis's greatness. I thought,
you know, here's the bottom line, Anthony Davis. I thought,
because that was a really rough start to that game.
I think the Lakers gave up forty points in their
first sixteen minutes of the game, and they were really
struggling out on the perimeter. They were getting picked apart.
(10:10):
And then they turned up the intensity and they only
allowed twenty eight points over the following twenty minutes. And
that was kind of where the game turned there in
the end of the second quarter and over the course
of the third quarter.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
That is what Anthony Davis is capable of.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I tweeted out a link or jiff of Spider Man
and him standing in front of the train and the
trains going full speed and he's just digging his feet
into the rivets and he holds up the train. That's
what it reminded me of. That was a runaway, freight
trained Golden State offense that was continuing the rhythm that
they had from Game one. At one point or Game
two at one point, Stephan Clay had made fifteen of
(10:46):
their last twenty three threes. That's sixty five percent. Do
you understand how insane that is? This Warriors offense was
clicking at some of the highest level that they have
in this particular season, and Anthony Davis stopped it somehow
an unbelievable defensive performance. The bottom line is he's gonna
have to do that two more times at a minimum
(11:06):
to win this series. And like we saw in Game
one and then Game two, we're gonna find out in
Game four whether or not Anthony Davis is capable of
revving up his engine enough to do that in back
to back games, because again, if you lose that game
and you go back to Golden State's too too, I
think Golden State wins the series at that point. I
think this game is the game the Lakers have to win.
They have to win Game four. Game five is gonna
(11:28):
be a tough one. Then you can close out the
series in game six. So shout out to Anthony Davis.
This is two out of the three games in this
series where I thought he was the best player on
the floor. That's a very very That's the swing factor
of the series right there. Shout out to Lebron. His
engagement level is so important to this team. Defensively, there
was a I thought Lebron had one of his worst
games of the postseason through two and a half quarters,
(11:50):
and then there was a bad sequence. Lakers are up
I think seventeen, and Lebron is just kind of messing
around on a defensive rebound, and Andrew wig is crashing
in and instead of boxing out Andrew Wiggins, he just
stands there, and Andrew Wiggins comes over the top and
tips the ball out. It goes right to Steph Curry.
Steph Curry makes the three. Now it's a fourteen point game.
(12:11):
Then the next possession, I think it was the next possession,
but Lebron ends up getting a defensive rebound in his
hands and he just fumbles it out of bounds and
In the ensuing sequence, Anthony Davis gets another block, but
the loose ball just kind of lands at Kevon Looney's
feet under the rim. Kevon Looney lays it up. You
call time out. You're only you're only up twelve. And
I remember sitting there thinking like man, like, they need
to get something out of Lebron James. These leads are
(12:32):
not safe. And from the from that time out, from
when the Warriors got it to twelve to the end
of the third quarter, Lebron James was a freaking freight
train on both ends of the floor, attacking the basket
on offense, getting out in transition, and flying around on defense,
both on the glass and blocking shots. Had a beautiful
block of Jordan Poole on a baseline cut. He had
(12:53):
a offensive rebound put back on a on a D'Angelo
Russell pull up three in transition. Just big play, a big,
big stretch there from Lebron to help put that game away.
Let's talk about the officiating for a second. So here's
the thing, Warriors fans, I am certain that you feel
like you probably got the short end of the stick
in officiating in this game. And I would argue and
(13:16):
the spectrum of the way officiating is gonna go over
the course of the series. There's no question that was
a great whistle for the Lakers. But here's the thing.
What happened in Game two. In Game two, then the
Lakers going to the entire first half without shooting a
free throw or something crazy like that, Like the Warriors
were able to be super physically aggressive in Game two,
fouled a lot, got away with it. They got a
(13:38):
much better whistle in Game two. That's going to happen.
And guess what, I promise you guys, because I follow
like one hundred Laker fans on Twitter, they all felt
the exact same way that you guys felt tonight. The
way you felt tonight, that's the way Lakers, Lakers fans
felt in Game two. You will notice I did not
talk about officiating in Game two because to me, that's
just a natural ebb and flow of the series. Well,
(13:58):
I feel like we've all watched enough NBA playoff series
over the years to know that the whistle oscillates back
and forth. And no, it's not the refs trying to
swing things one way or another. I think it comes
down to two factors. Okay, First, of all, like we
talked about in one of the earlier shows today, I
believe it was. I think it was when we were
talking Heat Nicks. I can't remember.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
But the team that plays with Forrest gets the whistle.
End of story.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
If you play super physically aggressive on both ends of
the floor, you get the whistle. The Warriors were the
more aggressive team in Game two, they got the whistle.
The Lakers were the more aggressive team in Game three.
They got the whistle.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
That's how it works. And then there's like a little
bit of.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Like a home court thing where refs always get a
little swept up in the emotion of the arena. That's
human nature, right so to me, Like, and the Warriors
know that, by the way. And I'm not gonna be
over the critical of the Warriors, because the Lakers also
lost their cool with the refs in Game two. They
Lebron and ad were talking to the refs act like
you could tell they were both voicing their opinion to
(14:59):
the refs that I thought the game was clearly being
favorably officiated for the Warriors all game long. Today, the
Warriors were doing the same thing to the refs, and like, honestly,
I thought the Warriors let it get into their heads
a little bit, and like the thing too is like
a lot of them they're fowls. Like Draymon's fifth foul.
(15:20):
Didn't like the call. Anthony Davis ripped through to his left.
Draymond slid, took the contact in his chest and fell over.
To me, that's a no call, right, you know, cause
like you're not. Maybe you don't reward Draymond for falling,
but you don't reward Anthony Davis for running him over. Right,
that was a bad call. Here's the thing. You're gonna
get back calls. There's gonna be six or seven bad
calls in every single game. The two before that, the
(15:41):
two players were Draymond Green fell over. He was out
of position. Both of them were rollman possessions, or one
of them was a rollman possession, the other was a
rip through on the rollman possession. Draymond was just a
step slow and he hopped in front of Anthony Davis
and fell over. You can't you have to be there.
You can't like Anthony' already be coming and you'd be
a step slow and then get in front of him
(16:02):
and fall over. You're gonna get that call every single time,
they went to the booth and reviewed it and they
upheld the call. The other one where Anthony Davis ripped
through and he went towards the towards the middle, that
was the one I want to say, that was the
one where Anthony Davis landed on his ribcage. Like Draymond
was out a position, he got beat to the right,
and instead of sliding and being super physical where he
(16:23):
might have gotten away with it, he tried to fall
down and he didn't get the call. And one of
the hard things that happens is when you fall, you
put the onus on the official to blow the whistle.
And that's the thing, whereas if you just play physical
NBA playoff defense, there's a chance that they just end
up holding that whistle right. And there's like Klay Thompson
was getting like, I'm sorry, but every single level of basketball,
(16:45):
if you're standing in a triple threat and you have
your arm on the dude's left arm and he rips
through to the left, it's an automatic foul. And yeah,
they don't send you to the foul line anymore unless
you're in the penalty, but they call that every single time.
So Guess what, when you're guarding Austin Reeves, you can't
put your arm out on him. You have to put
your arm in the shooting pocket. Right the play where
Austin Reeves took that little turnaround fade away and Clay
(17:05):
ran into him, Make Austin Reeves make a turnaround fade away.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Make him make it.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
If I'm a Warriors fan, I love that Austin Reeves
is taking turnaround fadeaways. Klay Thompson on the pump fake
entered his airspace. It's a foul.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, some nights it won't get called. There will be
games in the series light Game two where that doesn't
get called. But there are also gonna be more games
than this series. Don't be surprised if Game six in
LA if you see the Lakers get a similar whistle,
because they're gonna play desperate and with a ton of force,
and they're gonna get a lot of calls. So part
of it is just again we talked about this in
(17:43):
Game one. You're gonna see a free throw disparity in
almost every game of this series. Why the Lakers are
the best free throw shooting, a free throw generating team
in the league. And they're one of the very best
teams at not fouling, and the Warriors stuck at both.
So guess what, There's going to be a free throw
disparity some nights worse than others. You gotta keep you cool,
you gotta play through it. They picked up a lot
of techs. They started to get into it with the
(18:03):
officials instead of saying focus on the game. I think
that's a big area for improvement in Game four, is
just letting the officials and also just play with more force.
If you are the team that plays with more force,
you will get a better whistle like those flops. I
genuinely believe if Draymond just holds his ground and literally
fouls Anthony Davis like hits him and pushes him, it
probably won't get called because they're letting everything go around
(18:25):
the rim. Right. It's when you start falling down and
body start hitting the floor that it starts to get
a little bit more convoluted. Shout out to the Laker guards.
I thought they all played better. D'angela Russell was amazing
in that first quarter. Austin reeves much better defensive performance
in this game. I think it helped to put him
on Steph Curry because Klay Thompson had such a huge
strength advantage on him. And then Dennis Schroeder, I thought,
had a really good offensive third quarter during that run
(18:48):
and play some good ball pressure defense on Steph Curry
as well. So a couple of adjustments that I expect
moving forward for the Warriors. And you kind of saw
this where when Steph. When Steph identified that Anthony Davis
was bothering those sequences in the hedge with his hands,
you might have noticed that Steph kind of stopped going
to ball screens with Anthony Davis and he just started
(19:11):
to hunt isolations. And that I think is going to
be a really really interesting counter for Steph is to
start match up hunting away from Anthony Davis. So call
for guard to guard screens, to pick on, try to
get someone that you think you can get past, someone
like D'Angelo Russell or Austin reeves on you. If Austin's
guarding you full court space the floor, just attack Austin,
(19:32):
Like Austin can't guard you. You're Steph Curry like, just
don't worry about bringing Anthony Davis up into the screen.
Go cook Austin, Go attack D'Angelo Russell. If Ruey Hatchamura
is on the floor, get a guard to guard screen
to get Ruey Hatchimura switched on to him. They even
had some success in like hedge and recover situations getting
some good looks for guys like Dante DiVincenzo just by
(19:53):
running a guard to guard screen and drawing multiple defenders.
So I think that's the next counter for the Warriors
is straight ISO for Steph against Austin Reeves when he's
guarding him, and then start to hunt individual Laker defenders
and guard to guards screens. Next, stay out of out trouble,
like just be a step be quicker with your reactions,
stay in position, play.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
With more force. You'll get a better whistle.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And if you do so, then Draymond Green can stay
on the floor for longer and have a bigger impact
on the game. And then the other thing I'd like
to see. The last thing for the on the Warriors front,
I want to see Andrew Wiggins look to be more
aggressive as a score. Lebron James really struggles with his
foot speed on the perimeter and he beat him off
the dribble a bunch tonight. Hit some jumpers in his face.
That's another guy too that you can run some guard
(20:38):
to guard screens. Lebron is kind of notorious for switching
screens with no effort, right, So call Austin Reeve, can
have have Wiggans run a ball screen with Steph setting it,
and then you'll probably get switched with Wiggins onto Austin Reeves.
And then Wiggins can go to work on Austin Reeves
like you're gonna be able to find good matchups there.
And I think I think the Warriors need to start
(20:59):
hunting opportunities where Anthony Davis is just on the back
line and then from there you can drive and kick
them a couple times and hopefully pull Anthony Davis away
from the paint. But if Anthony Davis is going to
be that good defensively on those hedges, I'm just not
sure they're going to be able to score.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
On the Lakers front.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I like the hedge and recover as long as Anthony
Davis plays that active. If he doesn't, it could be
a problem. So again, that coverage is super dangerous. It
requires other worldly effort from Anthony Davis. I'd like to
see Lebron James in the post war they did it
a little bit tonight, more than they have in previous
games in the series, but I think they can go
there even more. Maintain defensive effort. Biggest weakness for this team.
Will not be surprised if the Warriors kind of got
(21:38):
up to an early lead and kind of stiff armed
the Lakers throughout Game four, because they have a tendency
to be inconsistent with their defensive effort and then keep
playing with downhill force on offense to try to attack
the Warriors' bigs and get them in foul trouble again,
which obviously was a big pathway to their success tonight. Wow,
what a series this has been so far. I know
the blowouts can give you a little boring sometimes, but
(21:59):
you know, for you know, just from a basketball chess
mats perspective, it's been super interesting and it's been interesting
to watch the up and down nature of the play
of the stars. All Right, guys, that is all we
have for today. I believe we're coming back tomorrow to
do a chase three point segment. I'll probably just do
a film study on three of the series, but if not,
we'll be back on Monday night. I think we're going
every night basically for the next three weeks, so keep
(22:21):
an eye on the Twitter feed for show announcements and
show links and things along those lines. I appreciate you, guys,
and I'll see you today.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com