December 22, 2025 • 43 mins
Jason reacts to a weird week of Houston Rockets basketball including Kevin Durant leading a win over Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets as well as some ugly losses to bad teams. He also discusses Anthony Edwards leading the Minnesota Timberwolves to a win over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Jalen Brunson taking another leap for the New York Knicks, and gives his latest NBA power rankings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, we'll go to him to night
here at the volume Heavy Monday, everybody, hope all of
you guys had an incredible weekend. Got a jam pack
(00:21):
show for you guys today. The Houston Rockets, after getting
a season defining win on Saturday in Denver against the Nuggets,
have sandwiched that with two losses to two of the
worst teams in the Western Conference, involving crunch time isshoots,
which I want to dive into. After that, the Minnesota
Timberwolves got their season defining win on Friday night against
the Oklahoma City Thunder. I want to dive into that game.
(00:42):
Jalen Brunson's leap into top tiers superstardom I want to
talk about. And then, as always on Monday, we have
our weekly power rankings. Also a little bit of a
funky schedule this week because of Christmas. As you guys
can tell, I am in Tucson. I am no longer
up in Colorado visiting for Christmas. Kind of an unusual
thing there, but I'm very I to be here to
see some family and see some friends. And our schedule
(01:03):
is a little bit tricky this week because of the holidays.
So because we have Friday being a day that we're
gonna be reacting to the Christmas Day games. We will
not have a mail bag on Friday, so we're gonna
have a mail bag coming out tomorrow. So obviously today's
episode mail Bag tomorrow. No show on Wednesday and Thursday
for the holiday, and then back on Friday to react
to the Christmas Day games. You guys are the joke
before we get started to subscribe to the Hoops in
(01:24):
out YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
our videos. Don't forget to like this video. That helps
us a lot. And then at the tail end there
drop your mail bag questions underneath this video in the
comments and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So kind of a weird week of Houston Rockets hoops.
(01:44):
They go on the road on Saturday. They get a
huge win in Denver against the Nuggets, and it was
a need they It was a win that they absolutely needed.
This was a series that they had been down two
to oh so far this season. This is a major
potential playoff matchup, probably second round that you could see
these two teams battling for a couple of weeks, and
you need to bank some sort of confidence in your
(02:07):
team that you're capable of winning a series against this
team after dropping two to oh and they got that
win much needed on Saturday. It wasn't like definitive. None
of these three games have been definitive or anything like that.
Both of these teams are going to look very different
when they face each other if they face each other
in May. Denver will obviously have a couple of starters
back in Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon. I also thought
(02:29):
Denver generally didn't shoot very well in this particularly game,
especially in like the late second quarter. I thought they
missed a lot of looks that they typically make during
that stretch that Houston won on a run. Credit Houston.
We're gonna talk about it in a minute. Showed up
in the numbers two. Houston was seven for twelve on open,
unguarded catch and shoot threes. Denver was three for thirteen.
That's obviously gonna color things a little bit. Reed Shepherd
(02:52):
straight up out play Jamal Murray. Like if that kind
of thing happens two or three times in a series,
Houston's probably gonna knock Denver out right. On the other
end of it, Houston will probably have a Tarry Easton
or a Dorian Finney Smith. Maybe they'll end up making
some sort of trade. They'll have that go to fifth
guy that they haven't really been able to find so
far this season. And I think Houston has a ton
of room to improve between now in early May when
(03:16):
a series like this could take place. So none of
these games are definitive to a potential playoff result between
these two teams, but I did think that that win
was at least proof of concept that Houston can win
a series against a team like Denver. I thought their
size was a real problem for Denver. You guys know me.
I don't like focusing on shooting variants when we talk
(03:39):
about shots going in or not going in. It's a factor,
but I think there are several elements that lead to it.
What the defense is doing, how fatigued are you, what's
the flow and rhythm of the game. Like anybody who's
ever played basketball to any extent will know when you
have an open shot and you've been comfortable all game
and you've been playing really well, you stand there and
you're like, oh, you messed up. You left me open.
(04:00):
This thing's going in. But if a dude's been in
your jersey all game and you haven't gotten any open
looks and the flow of the rhythm of the game
is really janky and clunky and it's physical and you're
not feeling confident, that open shot can feel different, right.
And I thought it specifically in that late second quarter run.
I thought Denver looked a little shell shocked by what
Houston was doing to them, which can affect your shot result.
And Houston was big and swarming, and Denver looked uncomfortable,
(04:24):
and that sort of thing can lead to misshots, and
so I want to give Houston credit there. The second
concept that I thought was interesting in this game was
Reied Shepherd's shooting, especially against Jonas Valenciunas in drop coverage.
In those bench looks, he did a ton of damage,
catching Yonas too far back on screens, just coming over
the top and knocking down shots off the dribble. Reid
(04:45):
is shooting forty one percent on pull up threes this
year off the dribble, twenty one for fifty one. That's
the kind of thing that could be a semi reliable
source of offense for Houston in a potential playoff series
against Denver. I thought it was a really ie win
for Houston and again, like I said, proof of concept
that they can win a series like this. I hope
we do get to see these two teams play in
(05:07):
the playoff series. You could tell they don't like each other.
I think it would be a ton of fun. We
got a little trash talking match between Bruce Brown and
Kevin Durant. I thought it was great. But surrounding that
big win, there were two really embarrassing losses to the
two very worst teams in the Western Conference. Both that
started with blown leads. So they blew a fourteen point
fourth quarter lead against the Kings and then they blew
(05:30):
a twenty five point lead against the Pelicans, and each
one of those games ended up kind of degrading down
into a clutch battle that Houston ended up losing in
overtime in both cases. And this is now officially becoming
a real problem for the Rockets, a problem that we
have to talk about. The Rockets are now six and
eight in clutch games this season. Now, when you see
(05:51):
a crazy result like that, a team that has as
much talent as Houston has and they drop eight games
before Christmas. In clutch situations, you can't just synthesize it
down to one thing. It's not any one player's fault.
It's not just who's the fifth guy in the lineup.
It's not just you know, can they handle four on
threes or is this a problem. It's a combination of
(06:13):
all of those things that are leading to this kind
of problem. Now it's our to the lineup. So Emai
Udoka has basically tried three different directions at the end
of these games. From a lineup perspective, obviously your core
four are Kevin Durant, Albert Shangunam and Thompson and Jabari Smith.
But then he's tried Reed Sheppard, Steven Adams and Josha
Kogi is the main fifth guys in those groups. And
(06:36):
then we saw a little bit of Tarry Easton last night,
although he ended up being the guy who made the
critical mistake late in the game overhelping on a DeMar
de Rosen drive and leaving Dennis Schroeder open on the
left wing, which ended up being the game winner. Now,
as we kind of look at all these options, the
Steven Adams attempts that we saw against New Orleans. That
was a disaster. I doubt we see that again anytime soon.
(06:59):
He was the guy that was catching the ball in
the short roll on most of those KD traps and
leading the four on three, and the advantage kept dying
because Adams was bringing a bad combination of unaggressiveness like
just catching and turning and looking immediately to pass. But
then also in that situation, he's not a great passer,
or even if he looks to be aggressive, he's not
(07:20):
a great score and so the essentially he would just
catch the ball around the top of the key, and
then New Orleans would just rotate right back out of it,
the advantage would be gone. Then essentially that trap of
KD is worth nothing, right, And then on the other
end of the floor, he was getting cooked and drop coverage,
particularly by Trey Murphy. So I don't think we're gonna
see the Steven Adams fifth man look anytime soon. With
(07:42):
Ree Shepherd and Joshakogi, it's your classic offense defense conundrum,
right Like when Joshakogi is on the floor, you're fine
defensively and you're faster afoot a theme that I think
is particularly important to Houston this year because they can
be pretty slow in their front court when you've got KD.
Shangoun and Jabari Smith out there. But he's not a
guy who's a you know, knockdown super confident. He's shooting
(08:05):
decently on he's shooting like just over forty percent on
threes this year, but he's not a guy that's being
guarded like a forty percent three point shooter. He's shooting
that on absolute completely like conceited, wide open corner threes.
And he's not a guy that's like super confident in
that sort of situation. Right, So then you try Reid,
and Reid is has been legitimately awful on defense in
(08:27):
some of these situations, and the Kings game in particular,
I thought he was brutally bad. I turned to clip
that you guys can see on my Twitter feed at
underscore JSNLT where he was picking up Demarta Rosen on
a drive on the right wing and just like Matt
adored him, just let him go right around and just
kind of like haplessly swiped at the basketball as he
was going by. That's not going to get the job done.
He gave an easy angle to Dennis Schroeder on a
(08:49):
drive he fouled, to Marta Rozen on another pull up
around the foul line. They were just relentlessly targeting him.
And you know, here's the thing with Reid, I think
he's proven that he's more than capable of being a
legitimate rotation piece, like a guy who could be her sixth, seventh,
eighth man, first serious team because of how gifted he
is as a shooter, like you can really shoot the
ball off the dribble and off the catch. But I
(09:10):
don't think he's even close to ready to being like
the fifth guy that's going to be alongside Kevin Durant
Albern Shangun in like the final five minutes of a
pivotal playoff game. Like, I don't think that's the look.
So obviously getting a better fifth guy will go a
long way to helping them, right, maybe that ends up
being Dorian Finney Smith. He's a solid defender, very good
(09:32):
catch and shoot player. My issue with Dorian Phinney Smith
is he's not particularly fast, and we saw some issues
especially in the Pelicans game, where speed was like a
problem for them. So, like, when you already have Kevin
Durant Shangun and Jabari Smith out there, and they're pretty
slow footed. You add an older Dorian Finney Smith out there,
that's a pretty bad foot speed deficit that you're going
to be operating at against most of these teams, especially
(09:55):
against some teams that have faster guards. Tarry Easton's an
interesting option. He's been shooting the absolute seams off the
basketball this series over over fifty percent from three. Although
I'd kind of argue that I'm not necessarily convinced that
he's going to just be a knockdown guy in the playoffs.
We'll see, but I have my skepticism surrounding that. But
Tari is at least like a big, fast athlete on
(10:17):
the perimeter that can add to the foot speed dynamic.
But again, Tari makes a big mistake late in the
game overhelping on a Dennis Schroeder drive gives up the
game winner. Maybe it ends up being a guy they
trade for. I don't know, But regardless of who it
ends up being as that fifth guy, there are at
least some issues we have to dive into on both
ends of the floor that will need to be dealt with.
(10:37):
Regardless of whether or not they find the perfect fifth
man or not. Now, the offensive end, I'm less worried
about than the defensive end, but they do need work there.
The big thing that kept bothering me in the King's
game last night is they seem to be surprised every
time the doubles come to Shangun on a post up
or on a kadie ISO or a trap and a
ball screen. There was one in particular, and regulation it
(11:00):
was the one that led to the runout for Russell
Westbrook's game tying three. Kevin Duran gets trapped right off
the right wing. Westbrook ends up jumping that first pass
to Alburn Shangun, who is wide open on the left wing,
and I freeze frame this and pause it. You guys
can see it on my Twitter feed in the same
thread with that clip with Reed Shephard. But you can
see a kogie, Thompson and Smith all standing down on
(11:23):
the baseline, either with their hands on their knees or
their hands on their hips. Now I get it, you're tired, whatever,
But like you know, the double team's coming and they
just jumped the first pass. As a result, they're late
to flash up. The possession completely falls apart and Shanegun
ends up jacking up a kind of like a foul
grifty type of three on the left wing that has
(11:43):
no chance of going in run out. Russell Westbrook ties
the game, and it's like Kevin Durant's been getting trapped
by everybody. The book is out now. These teams know
that Houston struggles with doubles and traps, so that's what
they're gonna see in these situations almost every single time.
Guys need to be on their toes and they need
to be ready to attack that situation. If they don't
(12:05):
jump the short roll pass, the guy who catches there
needs to turn in immediately attack. They had bad reps
in the Pells game where Adams would catch there and
not look to attack right and the advantage would die.
They had good reps in the Kings game last night
where Shanegun caught there, attacked, got into his little left
shoulder hook, attacked, got a little lob to Aman Thompson.
(12:28):
When the guy catches there and looks to attack, good
things happen if you attack. The next read is easy.
If you don't attack, then they prey on your indecisiveness
by splitting the difference, and that buys them a chance
to rotate right now, if teams jump the short roll
pass like what happened with Russell Westbrook on that play
with Shangud at the top of the key, you need
(12:48):
those other dudes to be on their toes quickly reading
where that jump is coming from, and then the next
guy needs to flash, and that ignites the exact same
sequence of events you see where that second that third
defenders run into Shangoon, that guy needs to immediately flash
up to the ball, be ready for it so that
it's quick, and then immediately turn to attack, and then
(13:11):
wait for the defense to react to that attack. These
are the kinds of things that, again, they've been seeing
every single game in these situations, They've got to be
more ready for it now. The reason that I'm less
worried about this specific end of the floor, the floor
is twofold one. They're just gonna have so many reps.
Everyone's doing it, no one's gonna stop. It's the best
(13:32):
way to guard this team at the end of a game.
So they're just gonna get between now in mid April,
a million opportunities to kind of straighten this out and
figure out how to do it better. Also, I would
argue four on three basketball is some of the easiest
basketball you'll play. I've seen a lot of talk about, oh,
the Rockets need to point guard, the Rockets need a
point guard, and like there's some validity there in the
(13:52):
sense that, like, sometimes I wish there was a steady
ball handler who'd be like, hey, let's find a way
to get this ball to KD, because there will be
these possessions where Katie does and get the basketball for
you know, two three possessions in a row, and that
can feel silly, but that, to me is really the
only advantage there, because you know, a point guard is
going to be smaller, he's going to give things up defensively,
he's not going to have as much of an athletic
(14:14):
imposition on the game. And let's say he does get
the ball to KD. What happens next a trap? So
it's like so like, to me, the point guard thing
is overstated. The entire purpose of a point guard, in
the most valuable sense of the word, is if he
can create advantage for you. And the Rockets don't need
help with that. They've got lots of dudes who can
create advantage, and they got two dudes who are consistently
(14:37):
drawing two to the ball in crunch time, So like
you've won the battle there. Once you've brought two to
the ball, you've officially broken the defense. Your job there
is to then capitalize on that. The Rockets, in my opinion,
have a lot more to gain by figuring out how
to to keep capitalizing on these four on threes than
they do by having someone who's going to do a
(14:58):
better job of getting the ball to Kevin Durant where
he's just gonna immediately draw another double team anyway, So
I'm not sitting there saying like, if you can't get
a big point guard who can also be good on
defense and also help this team, and it makes sense
in the trade market that you don't jump on something
like that. And certainly Fred van Vliet would help. He'd
probably be the perfect fifth guy because he's a good defender,
because he can hitt to catch and shoot three, because
(15:18):
he can run some action and he can actually make
sure the ball gets to KD. And you know, that'd
be great if you can find a Fred van Vliet.
But in terms of the asset that you'd have to
send out to achieve that type of player. All you're
really doing is getting a player that's gonna get the
ball to KD or he's gonna get doubled or trapped,
and you're gonna have the exact same four on three
problem that you've been having all season. Again, I'm less
worried about that because they're just gonna have so many reps.
(15:42):
This is the easiest basketball you can play. I think
they're gonna find a way to score over the course
of the season. Now on the defensive end, I think
it's a little more tricky. One of the consistent issues
they've been facing in all of these clutch losses is
getting picked on and drop coverage alprinshangon has become an
easy target for teams at the end of games in
screening action, and we've seen it in all of them.
(16:04):
In the Pelicans game, we saw it as more of
a Steven Adams issue, but it was just because Steven
was out there. If Stephen wasn't out there, they would
have attacked Shangun in the exact same way. But it's
more or less the same schematic problem. In the first
Denver game, we saw it with Yokic popping out of
ball screens. We saw it with Yokic on the roll,
hitting Spencer Jones in the right corner for threes. Shanegun
(16:26):
came up to the level and got toasted off the
dribble by Jamal Murray for a layup. In the Sacramento game.
The reason why the Kings got back in that game
is down the stretch of the fourth quarter, they kept
spamming little screening actions for Keegan Murray to go downhill
and he'd come over the top of the screen and
there's Shanegun in the super deep drop and Keegan Murray's
hitting jump shots and hitting floaters, and honestly, they got
(16:47):
a little lucky because Keegan missed two very easy ones
late in that fourth quarter curling over those screens as
Shanegun was in drop. That issue is not going away
even if you do find the perfect fifth man. So
you basically have two directions you can go there. You
can try to switch more with Shangun that shuts off
the automatic advantage that comes from putting two on the ball,
(17:10):
or by giving that easy little gap between the bracket
of the drop for the guy to look to score.
But the downside there, Shanegun's been pretty bad statistically against
ISO this year. I would like to see that a
little bit more though, because Shanegun is a decent athlete,
so maybe you can get him to like sag Off
a little bit. Contest pull up jump shots contain the ball.
It's worth at least experimenting with a little bit. But
(17:32):
the other direction you can go is the Denver Nuggets route.
Denver has been contending with this exact same issue for
years with Yokichen drop coverage, and they've been okay. They
have two main encounters to this problem. One, they do
a ton of pre switching, so you'll see Jokichen. Houston
saw this in the game, and that was when Shangun
was attacking Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones and post ups.
(17:52):
If you guys remember those are screening actions where they
were trying to target Yokic, but Jokic just stays in
the weak side corner. He waves a din defender in
this case, Cam or Spencer to go actually follow Shangoon
up into the screen and then they can switch the
ball screen or force Shangun to try to post up right. So,
like that's one thing you can do to try to
consistently protect Shangoon is keep him tucked away off the
(18:14):
ball in the corner, and if Shangun's man ever goes
up to go set a screen, you just send one
of your wings up with him so that you can
switch that action. Keep your best primary defenders on the
ball as much as possible, but inevitably teams are going
to find a way to get your man into the screen.
And one of the things the Nuggets have done over
the years is when Yokic gets into the screen, they
(18:35):
bring him aggressively up to the level to make the
ball handler give it up. And then they've gotten very
good at rotating out on the four on threes in
the back end. But Houston is going to have to
figure out some combination of counters there because again the
book is out. If Reed Shepherd's on the floor, they're
attacking him with their guards, and if he's off the floor,
(18:55):
they're attacking Shangoon in his drop coverage. Again, this one
I'm a little less optimistic about than the offensive end,
because it's just really difficult to handle. Remember when I
was talking about how four on three offense is the
easiest form of basketball to play, well, three on four
defense is some of the hardest basketball to play. And
one of the differences between Denver and Houston because guess
(19:16):
what Denver did give up buckets on the four on threes.
Jabari Smith got a wide open three in the left
corner in the Again, there was two Denver games last week,
so I'm talking about the first one there. Jabari got
a big three in the corner off of one of
those four on threes. But the difference is Denver knows
that even though they have Jokich as an entry point
into their clutch defense, they feel pretty good about their
(19:39):
ability to outscore you because they have one of the
best half court offenses in the history of the league.
I'm not sure Houston's at that level right. So again,
the good news is for Houston they have a ton
of time to figure things out between now and May.
But I don't care what they get is that fifth guy.
I don't care if it's the dream point guard they've
been looking for. I don't care if it's Dorianfinny Smith,
(20:01):
or it's Tarry Easan or some other player that they
trade for. They're gonna have to be able to figure
out how to protect Shangoon and drop coverage, and they're
gonna have to figure out how to quickly process those
four on threes because I don't care who that fifth
guy is. They're gonna keep doubling Shangoon, and they're gonna
keep doubling Kevin Durant, especially in his ball screens. Want
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia. All right, let's move
on to Minnesota. I said early in the season, as
Minnesota was struggling that I will never make the mistake
of underestimating the Minnesota Timberwolves. And I think they demonstrated
(21:50):
why in a big way on Friday Night. Again. They've
had a weird season. They're sitting at nineteen to ten.
They've won nine of their last eleven games, but they've
been awful against teams that are five hundred are better
in that span, and they've lacked like that signature win
that demonstrates their upside. We finally got that on Friday,
and it ended in a iconic moment from Anthony Edwards
(22:12):
down the stretch. It was just a demonstration for a battle.
It happened fast too. It was like a minute of
the absurd stier athleticism that Anthony Edwards has. On both
ends of the floor, he hits this nasty step back
three against Cason Wallace on the left wing, where he
gets amazing separation and lyft against one of the best
perimeter defenders in the league. Then on the other end
(22:35):
of the floor, he late peels off his man and
blocks Shay at the rim. Then he on the ensuing
kind of chaos, he gets a huge defensive rebound, a
contested rebound in the middle of the lane, just flies
over everybody and gets it. Then after knocking down the
free throws, he goes down to the other end of
the floor, picks up Shay and Iso locks him up
(22:55):
and strips him clean to seal the game. And again
it happened in like a minute. It was just an
avalanche of athletic superpower. And it was a reminder of
just how special Anthony Edwards is in a league full
of special players. And I think he's particularly important too,
(23:15):
because that was unbelievable to watch. He is must see television.
And we're in a league right now that at the top.
When you look at the stars, it lacks that must
see TV superstar. And this league has always been about
that kind of guy, whether it was Michael Jordan or
(23:35):
is Kobe Bryant, or it was Lebron and Steph in
the last era. Obviously, with MJ, Kobe and Lebron, you
have these apex athletes that do things we never had
seen before above the rim and you know, moving their
bodies in ways you just don't see. And then Steph,
I'd argue when he's on a heart When when Steph
is on a hot streak, I'd argue, he's the greatest
show in the history of sports. It's unbelievable when he's
(23:57):
on a hot streak. But right now you're top four
are Jokic, who plays a below the rim style. It's
ruthlessly effective, and you know, it can be fun to
watch for US basketball nerds, but it's it's not exactly
must see television in terms of what he's doing aesthetically
at his position. Shaye and Luca are literally both below
the rim shooting guards who rely heavily on foul grifting
(24:19):
and contested jump shots. And Giannis, I think he's a
remarkable athlete, but he does not bring that same aesthetic
flair as his athletic predecessors. Now, before you all get
pissed off at me, I'm not talking about us. I'm
not talking about the hoopeads like me or you guys,
most of the people who listen to this show, we
(24:39):
all love basketball so much that we find joy watching
the beautiful brand of basketball that Nicola Jokic plays, Like
I think the Nuggets are one of my favorite watches
in the league right now. They play a beautiful brand
of basketball for basketball nerds like us, or like when
we watch Shane Luca we appreciate the insane refufe skill
(25:01):
that leads to their massive scoring totals. Or we've watched
Giannis develop into a more polished, dominant two way player
in this league. But I'm not talking about us. I'm
talking about the masses, the millions and millions of casual
fans out there. They always seem to resonate with the
must see TV stars of years past. Go look up
(25:24):
the finals ratings. Go look up the Kobe finals in
the late two thousands. Go look up the Lebron finals
with the heat. Go look up the Lebron Steph battles
in the mid twenty tens. Hell, even of this recent
run and in these recent finals, we've seen Shay in
the finals. We've seen Luca in the finals. We've seen
yokichen the finals. We've seen Tatum in the finals, We've
seen Giannis in the finals. None of them came close
(25:46):
to the ratings that Steph put up in twenty twenty two. Like, ultimately,
this league at the top and the top tier superstars
does not have a star that is resonating with the masses.
And I think that's why the league needs Ant to pop.
Him and Wemby. Those are the next two up and
coming stars that actually bring real musty TV potential for
(26:10):
the masses that can drive the next era of NBA popularity.
Ant because of what he did on Friday Night, this
minute long stretch where you're just like just in awe
watching the screen because of his apex athleticism, or Wemby
because he's this freaky alien that does things we've never
seen before. Just after that run from Aunt against Shay,
(26:33):
I just found myself thinking about this idea after the game,
like Ants staying in there, he's yelling, he's just big
old smile on his face. He's looking at the crowd
like I'm on his ass. I'm on his ass. After
he just strips Shay in front of everybody to seal
the game, and it's like, you can't take your eyes
off the screen, And I think it's just kind of
like a again, a big I think it's a very
(26:53):
important future for this league for a guy like Ant
to achieve his potential. And again, it's on Ant. Ant's
gonna have to do the work, and he demonstrated it
in a big way against Shay in that game. And
that's just one regular season game. No one's giving you
a title, no one's sending Aylklahoma City home over one
game on a Friday night in December. But achieving his
potential I think is very important for the future of
(27:14):
this league. Well, let's dig into the basketball for just
a little bit with that game, because I thought it
was fascinating. Minnesota won several physical battles in that game
that I thought swung things in their favor. They had
eighteen offensive rebounds. Gobert kicked Chet's ass in that game
on the glass, including a big offensive rebound tap out
that led directly to the Anthony Edwards game winner. He
was killing Chet just by burying him and then reaching
(27:36):
over the top and tapping the ball out to the
perimeter where the Minnesota athletes were able to go get it.
That's a real physical advantage for Minnesota. Rudy is bigger
and stronger than Chet. I thought Minnesota did a great
job of flattening out Oklahoma City's drives in that fourth quarter.
We talked about this a lot, like when you have
a direct line drive to a layup, that thing's going
in one hundred percent of the time. But if you're
hip to hip with the guy and he's now contending
(27:58):
with you and kind of drifting sideways going up for
a layup, those percentages plummet. And there were misses for
JDub and AJ Mitchell in particular in that fourth quarter
where guys were flattening the drives and staying attached and
forcing those to be much tougher shots that ended up missing.
This is an Oklahoma City offense that I rarely see
get rushed on that end of the floor, and Oklahoma
(28:19):
City was rushing in that game. That's the sort of
thing that leads to the misses like you saw from
Dort and Crusoe down the stretch of that game. Julius
Randall had a rough box score game, but I thought
both him and nos Reid were huge in that fourth
quarter because they have size advantages. Nas had a big
post bucket against Jadub on the left block. He had
another big offensive rebound put back and one in that stretch.
(28:42):
Julius hits a three over the top of Case in Wallas.
He can shoot over Case and he's small. He had
a big drive off the right wing, a big play
late in the game where naz Reid ended up flashing
middle because Julius drew a second defender. Because he's big
and strong drive into the basket, Naz hit like a
little floater in the lane there. I have size in
physical advantages all over the floor in this matchup. Those
(29:04):
physical advantages kept the game close enough that Aunt had
a chance to go toe to toe with Shae and
win that matchup, which he was able to do on
Friday Night. There are things I don't love about this
matchup for Minnesota in the playoffs. I think that combination
of athleticism and rim protection is really tough for their
offense at times. I do not like how they always
(29:25):
pick up Shae forty feet from the basket with Jaden McDaniels,
so they can just set ball screens out there and
Shaye's just constantly getting downhill into the lane. I think
Shae obviously is a better player than it right now
and is further along in his development. That's hard. I
think you need Aunt to be better than Shaye in
a playoff series, and that's just a lot to ask
with how much more experience Shay has. But what Minnesota
(29:46):
does bring is the size and athleticism that can really
cause Oklahoma City problems on the margins. They won the
possession battle in that game, which is something you almost
never see against Oka s else. It was just a
great reminder of why I viewed Minnesota as such a
dangerous playoff team, despite the fact that they've had an
uneven start to the season. They may not reach that
(30:08):
level very often in a November, December, January, but they
have the ability to really ratchet up the size and
athleticism to a level that's capable of breaking any team
in the NBA, including Denver, including Oklahoma City. Has Jalen
Brunson taken a leap? I was watching this morning film
(30:29):
of Jalen lighting up the Miami Heat this morning from
yesterday's game in Madison Square Garden, and he's just on
an incredible run of scoring against some really high level
defensive guards like we saw on the tournament, what he
did to San Antonio's guards, what he did to Orlando's guards,
what he did to Toronto's guards. Davion Mitchell looked completely
overmatched against him yesterday. Jalen was first of all getting
(30:52):
him off balance and not being bothered by his ball
pressure at all. But he was also able to just
easily shoot over the top of him because of his
size advantage. Forty seven points and eight assists with zero
turnovers in that command of the game, the lack of mistakes,
the lack of misshots, and the lack of turnovers looks
different than it did in the past. There's a level
of comfort, a level of command with Jalen Brunson in
(31:16):
his game that seems to be above what we've seen
in recent years, and it shows pretty clearly in the numbers.
So obviously he's averaging a career high twenty nine points
per game, sixty percent true shooting. But in this recent
run in his last seven games, thirty three points and
seven assists, just one point four turnovers per game. That
(31:37):
that shake gives us Alexander level of hoops right there,
the same kind of stuff we've been seeing from Shay
and calling it one of the best two guard seasons ever.
That's what Jalen Brunson's been doing the last few weeks.
Fifty one percent from the field, forty three percent from
the line, sixty four percent true shooting, with less than
one and a half turnovers. Again, the level he's been
(31:58):
at for three weeks now is that of a top
tier superstar, not a second tier superstar. There's obviously a
level of large sample consistency that he'll have to maintain
if he wants to like really enter into that conversation.
But this just looks different to me, and it's one
of the main reasons why I'm really starting to buy
Nick stock. Like, in addition to Brunson looking like a
(32:21):
top tier superstar, the Knicks just continue to put together
these defensive runs that shut down games, like they had
one in the second quarter against Miami yesterday where they're
flying around and they shut down that offense and turn
the game around. They had one in the fourth quarter
against the Spurs. They've been consistently way better at the
end of games. They're defensive rating in clutch situations this
year is almost twelve points per one hundred possessions better
(32:45):
than it was last year. It's really that simple. Like
you want to know why the Knicks to me are
right now my favorite to win the Eastern Conference, It's
because they're a good bit better on both ends of
the floor. Jalen Brunson's better, they're better in crunch time,
and those top end opponents that they had to contend
with last year just aren't there, and so they're poised
(33:07):
for their best shot at the finals since nineteen ninety nine.
All right, let's get into our power rankings before we
call it today again. All of our lines are provided
by our partner, hard Rock Bet. Number ten, the Philadelphia
seventy six ers currently plus six thousand to win the
(33:28):
title on hard Rock Bet. They're six and two in
their last eight games, continuing to win with their defense
their fourth and defense rating in that span up to
eleventh on the season, doing a really good job of
using their speed to chase teams off the three point
line and finnel them into their bigs. And they're also
starting to turn their opponents over and get out and
transition more as a result of that than they did
to start the year. They have in their last ten games,
they're averaging nineteen points off of turnovers, which is the
(33:50):
fifth most in the NBA. Before that, in their first
seventeen games, they were getting just sixteen and a half
points off of turnovers per game, which was twenty third
in the NBA, so generating margin there. Starting to get
some real build up from their older stars, and Beat
and Paul George are both moving better and shooting the
ball better from three than they did to start the year.
Tyres Maxie is still playing like an MVP candidate. VJ.
(34:11):
Edgecomb is like stroking it from three. He's been deadly
in this six and two stretch. He's up to thirty
eight percent on the season. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers
played some really good basketball. Number nine the Boston Celtics
currently plus three thousand to win the title on hard
Rock Bet. Took a couple of tough losses to Milwaukee
without Giannis and then the Pistons game we covered that
on Tuesday last week. A brilliant closing run from Cad Cunningham,
(34:32):
and they really struggled with some of those Pistons perimeter
defenders as they couldn't generate a quality look there down
the stretch, and especially in the Milwaukee game, they showed
some of their old demons where they can just go
super cold from three and stop attacking the basket. But
a couple of really nice bounce back wins, including a
game in Toronto last night where their deep bench just
completely flipped the game. Luca Garza was like protecting the
(34:55):
rims super well, like you wouldn't expect from him. Hugo
Gonzales and Baylor shot iremen were driving closeouts and getting layups.
Anthronty Simons and Peyton Pritchrick were literally like just ripping
the cord from mid range, like not even touching the rim.
There was about a three minute stretch from the end
of the third quarter of the early fourth quarter where
the Celtics just completely flipped that game, and then they
were able to close things from there. Again, like the
NBA regular season is long and difficult, and you're gonna
(35:19):
have adversity, You're gonna have straight I mean, the thunder
are arguably the best team ever and they're one and
two in their last three games. You're gonna find adversity.
It's been how you respond as much as anything else.
I thought it was a really nice response from the
Celtics last week and a big win on the road
in Toronto. Number eighth the Houston Rockets currently plus one
thousand to win the title on Hard Rock Bet. We
(35:39):
did a full segment on them early in the show,
so I won't stay here long. They had their biggest
win of the season on Sunday or Saturday excuse me,
against the Nuggets, but surrounded that with three losses and
clutch situations, two of which were against two of the
worst teams in the West, shining a light on some
flaws that they'll absolutely have to fix if they want
to reach their goals. I still believe in the Rockets
is a real contender, that they have a lot of
work to do between now in April. Number seven, the
(36:01):
Los Angeles Lakers currently plus thirteen hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet. They still haven't lost two
games in a row this season, but they're four and
four in their last eight games, and now their depth
is starting to get tested. They finished that Clippers game
with Lebron James as their only healthy starter after Luca
left in the first half. I kind of was weirdly
happy with how they played in that game. Like their
(36:23):
early deficit, it was primarily a product of Zubats just
destroying Jackson Hayes, which again, like that's gonna be Deandrayton typically,
it's a tough matchup for Jackson. He's just giving up
so much weight there. His first shift, he just got
destroyed before Zubats turned his ankle pretty bad. And then Luca,
I that might literally be the worst stretch of basketball
I've ever seen him play in that first in that
first quarter in particular, just jacking up bad shots and
(36:46):
missing turning the ball over. Playing matador defense. From that
point forward, though, I was impressed by their fight, especially
in that second half. Like I thought, Lebron and the
Lakers bench just put an admirable fight forward, like they
continue to get good defensever turns out of that LA
Ravia Vanderbilt Jackson Hayes trio. When you have him alongside Lebron,
they just compete really hard and they stay attached to
(37:08):
their opponents. And I thought it was by far the
most explosive Lebron's looked all season, just getting dribble penetration
whenever he wanted. He generated a ton of good looks
like I actually thought the Lakers could have had a
decent chance to win that game if they were to
just shot the ball better. They generated fifteen wide open
catch and shoot threes in that game and made just
two of them. Just a brutally bad shooting performance. But
(37:29):
despite the encouraging fight I saw from the depleted Lakers
in that second half, I actually find myself getting lower
and lower on them as the weeks go by. Luca
hasn't been playing at a top five level for like
about a month now. He's putting up massive numbers because
of his high usage rate. He's at thirty seven percent usage,
which is the highest usage rate in the entire NBA,
(37:50):
but his efficiency has sorely lacked behind his peers at
the top of the league. He simply misses more shots
and turns the ball over far more than any of
those dudes at the top of the league do Shay
Giannis Oriokic, Andy's the weakest defender in that group. So,
to put it very simply, the Lakers need Luca to
be much much better or they're not winning anything this year.
(38:11):
And the team is really starting to fall apart physically.
Austin's hurt, Ruey's hurt, Luca left the last game, hurt,
Gabe is hurt, and they're about to head into a
brutal stretch of their schedule as they have Phoenix and
Houston this week. To me, they feel like the sixth
best team in the West right now. Like I think
Minnesota looks better, San Antonio looks better, Houston looks better,
Denver looks better, Oklahoma City looks better. Like I'm not
(38:34):
saying that's the end of the story, Like the Lakers
have a lot of potential to improve between now and then,
and they could certainly make a trade to kind of
anchor things and be better. But like at a stat
top six in the Western Conference, they feel like the
sixth best team to me right now, and a big
part of that is, you know, Luca has not been
able to reach the level of the top tier superstars
in the league for a solid month now. They don't
(38:57):
look very athletic. They look really bad on defense. It
just isn't looking good for me in Lakerland. I'm hoping
because I root for this team. I'm hoping that I'm
just being overly pessimistic. But we'll see how things go
over the course of the next few weeks. Number six
the Denver Nuggets currently plus seven hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet. The loss to Houston doesn't
concern me much. It's really hard to beat a team
(39:17):
three times in a row, let alone a legit championship contender,
so it is what it is. They had a miserable
shooting night too. They're down just so much of their athleticism.
Peyton Watson ended up getting like a contusion, so him,
Christian Brown, and Aaron Gordon are all out. They had
won six games in a row before that game, which
is super impressive. And then another significant bright spot once
again going plus six in that Rockets game without Jokic
(39:41):
despite a crazy hot shooting performance from Reed Shepherd against
Jonas found Schottis and drop Coverage. They are now up
continuing to tick up. They're up to negative three and
a half points negive three point five per one hundred
possessions per cleaning the glass with Jokic off the floor.
That's considerably better than it was to start the season,
and way way way better than it was in previous seasons.
They're even having success with these groups that have Jokic
(40:01):
and Murray off geared around defense. Most recently A Picket Brown,
Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, and Yonas found tunis look just
getting some really high level defense and shooting from Jalen Pickett,
and then all those guys competing defensively Yonas giving them
an offensive fulcrum to play around. Those groups are plus
two and a half points per one hundred possessions this season.
(40:21):
All the groups that have that have Jokic and Jamal
Murray off the court. Number five Minnesota Timberwolves plus three
thousand to win the title. According to hard Rock Bet.
We hit them early in the show, so I'm not
going to stay here long. They're nine to two in
their last eleven games. Got a signature win against the Thunder,
a team that I'm seriously considering moving into my top
tier contenders list. Next week we have Sam Vasini coming
(40:41):
on the show, and we're going to dig into those contenders.
We'll dive further into that concept when we get there.
Number four, the San Antonio Spurs, currently plus twenty five
hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet. Had
a relatively light schedule last week after a brutal stretch
like they just ran a Nuggets, Wolves, Magic, Calves, Lakers, Thunder, Nicks,
so like they were do a break. We got a
(41:02):
couple of games against Washington last week. They won those games,
and then they had a dominant defensive performance on the
road in Atlanta where they just completely shut them down
in the first half to take a twenty four point lead.
They have a playoff style home and home with the
Oklahoma City Thunder this week on Tuesday and Thursday, though
a potential second round preview that I'm super excited for.
Those are going to be really fun games. Looking forward
to diving into those ones with you guys when we
(41:23):
get to Friday. Number three the New York Knicks currently
plus thirteen hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet.
We hit them early in the show, so I'm not
going to stay here long, but they're just better across
the board. Josh hart og And and Obi and McHale. Bridges
are all better on both ends of the floor than
they were last year. Brunson is taking an apparent leap
into superstardom. This looks like a Knicks team on a
mission to go to the finals. Number two. The Detroit Pistons,
(41:47):
currently plus two thousand to win the title on hard
rock Bet, lost a tough game in Dallas for Cooper
Flagg just torched them with drives over and over again,
either making shots at the rim or engaging Jalen Duran there,
which opened up a lane for Anthony Davis to fill
in behind for put backs. We saw Kid get targeted
a little bit in that game and guard guard screens.
The Pistons kind of struggled with their heads and recovery.
Look they had a botched hedge that led to another drive.
(42:09):
They tried switching, and Cooper was just getting downhill on
Kids like something to keep an eye on there. We
saw Kaide get targeted a little bit. Overall a solid
week though. They beat the Celtics behind a brilliant crutch
time performance from Kid and some stifling perimeter defense. They
just bring these waves of elite perimeter defenders that can
really wear you down. They just beat the absolute crap
out of the Hornets the other night. I'm just loving
(42:31):
how physically imposing this team is at every level, and
I think they're a trade away from being a substantial
favorite in the Eastern Conference if they can pull off
that big upgrade at the power forward spot. Number one
the Oklahoma City Thunder currently even Odd's plus one hundred
to win the title on hard rock Bet. Finally, a
little adversity for the Thunder. They lost two of their
last three games. Three of their old demons popped up
(42:53):
in these losses. Turnovers they had twenty seven of them,
and the two losses, Shay's turnovers have ticked up considerably
since he started playing tougher competition. Missing threes they're just
twenty six percent from three in those two losses. And
then offensive rebounds. They allowed the Spurs and the Timberwolves
to grab thirty five percent of their own misses in
those two games. No, this guy isn't falling, but it's
(43:13):
just a nice little wake up call for a Thunder team,
and it's a reminder that winning a championship in the
NBA is never easy, no matter how talented you are.
It's gonna take a lot of work, and they have
another chance this week to send a message with a
home and home against the San Antonio Spurs again. We'll
be covering those games on Friday. All right, guys, It's
all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be
(43:34):
back tomorrow morning with a mailbag, and then on Friday
for Christmas Day reaction. I will see you guys then
The volume. All right, we'll go to him to night
here at the volume Heavy Monday, everybody, hope all of
you guys had an incredible weekend. Got a jam pack
(00:21):
show for you guys today. The Houston Rockets, after getting
a season defining win on Saturday in Denver against the Nuggets,
have sandwiched that with two losses to two of the
worst teams in the Western Conference, involving crunch time isshoots,
which I want to dive into. After that, the Minnesota
Timberwolves got their season defining win on Friday night against
the Oklahoma City Thunder. I want to dive into that game.
(00:42):
Jalen Brunson's leap into top tiers superstardom I want to
talk about. And then, as always on Monday, we have
our weekly power rankings. Also a little bit of a
funky schedule this week because of Christmas. As you guys
can tell, I am in Tucson. I am no longer
up in Colorado visiting for Christmas. Kind of an unusual
thing there, but I'm very I to be here to
see some family and see some friends. And our schedule
(01:03):
is a little bit tricky this week because of the holidays.
So because we have Friday being a day that we're
gonna be reacting to the Christmas Day games. We will
not have a mail bag on Friday, so we're gonna
have a mail bag coming out tomorrow. So obviously today's
episode mail Bag tomorrow. No show on Wednesday and Thursday
for the holiday, and then back on Friday to react
to the Christmas Day games. You guys are the joke
before we get started to subscribe to the Hoops in
(01:24):
out YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of
our videos. Don't forget to like this video. That helps
us a lot. And then at the tail end there
drop your mail bag questions underneath this video in the
comments and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So kind of a weird week of Houston Rockets hoops.
(01:44):
They go on the road on Saturday. They get a
huge win in Denver against the Nuggets, and it was
a need they It was a win that they absolutely needed.
This was a series that they had been down two
to oh so far this season. This is a major
potential playoff matchup, probably second round that you could see
these two teams battling for a couple of weeks, and
you need to bank some sort of confidence in your
(02:07):
team that you're capable of winning a series against this
team after dropping two to oh and they got that
win much needed on Saturday. It wasn't like definitive. None
of these three games have been definitive or anything like that.
Both of these teams are going to look very different
when they face each other if they face each other
in May. Denver will obviously have a couple of starters
back in Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon. I also thought
(02:29):
Denver generally didn't shoot very well in this particularly game,
especially in like the late second quarter. I thought they
missed a lot of looks that they typically make during
that stretch that Houston won on a run. Credit Houston.
We're gonna talk about it in a minute. Showed up
in the numbers two. Houston was seven for twelve on open,
unguarded catch and shoot threes. Denver was three for thirteen.
That's obviously gonna color things a little bit. Reed Shepherd
(02:52):
straight up out play Jamal Murray. Like if that kind
of thing happens two or three times in a series,
Houston's probably gonna knock Denver out right. On the other
end of it, Houston will probably have a Tarry Easton
or a Dorian Finney Smith. Maybe they'll end up making
some sort of trade. They'll have that go to fifth
guy that they haven't really been able to find so
far this season. And I think Houston has a ton
of room to improve between now in early May when
(03:16):
a series like this could take place. So none of
these games are definitive to a potential playoff result between
these two teams, but I did think that that win
was at least proof of concept that Houston can win
a series against a team like Denver. I thought their
size was a real problem for Denver. You guys know me.
I don't like focusing on shooting variants when we talk
(03:39):
about shots going in or not going in. It's a factor,
but I think there are several elements that lead to it.
What the defense is doing, how fatigued are you, what's
the flow and rhythm of the game. Like anybody who's
ever played basketball to any extent will know when you
have an open shot and you've been comfortable all game
and you've been playing really well, you stand there and
you're like, oh, you messed up. You left me open.
(04:00):
This thing's going in. But if a dude's been in
your jersey all game and you haven't gotten any open
looks and the flow of the rhythm of the game
is really janky and clunky and it's physical and you're
not feeling confident, that open shot can feel different, right.
And I thought it specifically in that late second quarter run.
I thought Denver looked a little shell shocked by what
Houston was doing to them, which can affect your shot result.
And Houston was big and swarming, and Denver looked uncomfortable,
(04:24):
and that sort of thing can lead to misshots, and
so I want to give Houston credit there. The second
concept that I thought was interesting in this game was
Reied Shepherd's shooting, especially against Jonas Valenciunas in drop coverage.
In those bench looks, he did a ton of damage,
catching Yonas too far back on screens, just coming over
the top and knocking down shots off the dribble. Reid
(04:45):
is shooting forty one percent on pull up threes this
year off the dribble, twenty one for fifty one. That's
the kind of thing that could be a semi reliable
source of offense for Houston in a potential playoff series
against Denver. I thought it was a really ie win
for Houston and again, like I said, proof of concept
that they can win a series like this. I hope
we do get to see these two teams play in
(05:07):
the playoff series. You could tell they don't like each other.
I think it would be a ton of fun. We
got a little trash talking match between Bruce Brown and
Kevin Durant. I thought it was great. But surrounding that
big win, there were two really embarrassing losses to the
two very worst teams in the Western Conference. Both that
started with blown leads. So they blew a fourteen point
fourth quarter lead against the Kings and then they blew
(05:30):
a twenty five point lead against the Pelicans, and each
one of those games ended up kind of degrading down
into a clutch battle that Houston ended up losing in
overtime in both cases. And this is now officially becoming
a real problem for the Rockets, a problem that we
have to talk about. The Rockets are now six and
eight in clutch games this season. Now, when you see
(05:51):
a crazy result like that, a team that has as
much talent as Houston has and they drop eight games
before Christmas. In clutch situations, you can't just synthesize it
down to one thing. It's not any one player's fault.
It's not just who's the fifth guy in the lineup.
It's not just you know, can they handle four on
threes or is this a problem. It's a combination of
(06:13):
all of those things that are leading to this kind
of problem. Now it's our to the lineup. So Emai
Udoka has basically tried three different directions at the end
of these games. From a lineup perspective, obviously your core
four are Kevin Durant, Albert Shangunam and Thompson and Jabari Smith.
But then he's tried Reed Sheppard, Steven Adams and Josha
Kogi is the main fifth guys in those groups. And
(06:36):
then we saw a little bit of Tarry Easton last night,
although he ended up being the guy who made the
critical mistake late in the game overhelping on a DeMar
de Rosen drive and leaving Dennis Schroeder open on the
left wing, which ended up being the game winner. Now,
as we kind of look at all these options, the
Steven Adams attempts that we saw against New Orleans. That
was a disaster. I doubt we see that again anytime soon.
(06:59):
He was the guy that was catching the ball in
the short roll on most of those KD traps and
leading the four on three, and the advantage kept dying
because Adams was bringing a bad combination of unaggressiveness like
just catching and turning and looking immediately to pass. But
then also in that situation, he's not a great passer,
or even if he looks to be aggressive, he's not
(07:20):
a great score and so the essentially he would just
catch the ball around the top of the key, and
then New Orleans would just rotate right back out of it,
the advantage would be gone. Then essentially that trap of
KD is worth nothing, right, And then on the other
end of the floor, he was getting cooked and drop coverage,
particularly by Trey Murphy. So I don't think we're gonna
see the Steven Adams fifth man look anytime soon. With
(07:42):
Ree Shepherd and Joshakogi, it's your classic offense defense conundrum,
right Like when Joshakogi is on the floor, you're fine
defensively and you're faster afoot a theme that I think
is particularly important to Houston this year because they can
be pretty slow in their front court when you've got KD.
Shangoun and Jabari Smith out there. But he's not a
guy who's a you know, knockdown super confident. He's shooting
(08:05):
decently on he's shooting like just over forty percent on
threes this year, but he's not a guy that's being
guarded like a forty percent three point shooter. He's shooting
that on absolute completely like conceited, wide open corner threes.
And he's not a guy that's like super confident in
that sort of situation. Right, So then you try Reid,
and Reid is has been legitimately awful on defense in
(08:27):
some of these situations, and the Kings game in particular,
I thought he was brutally bad. I turned to clip
that you guys can see on my Twitter feed at
underscore JSNLT where he was picking up Demarta Rosen on
a drive on the right wing and just like Matt
adored him, just let him go right around and just
kind of like haplessly swiped at the basketball as he
was going by. That's not going to get the job done.
He gave an easy angle to Dennis Schroeder on a
(08:49):
drive he fouled, to Marta Rozen on another pull up
around the foul line. They were just relentlessly targeting him.
And you know, here's the thing with Reid, I think
he's proven that he's more than capable of being a
legitimate rotation piece, like a guy who could be her sixth, seventh,
eighth man, first serious team because of how gifted he
is as a shooter, like you can really shoot the
ball off the dribble and off the catch. But I
(09:10):
don't think he's even close to ready to being like
the fifth guy that's going to be alongside Kevin Durant
Albern Shangun in like the final five minutes of a
pivotal playoff game. Like, I don't think that's the look.
So obviously getting a better fifth guy will go a
long way to helping them, right, maybe that ends up
being Dorian Finney Smith. He's a solid defender, very good
(09:32):
catch and shoot player. My issue with Dorian Phinney Smith
is he's not particularly fast, and we saw some issues
especially in the Pelicans game, where speed was like a
problem for them. So, like, when you already have Kevin
Durant Shangun and Jabari Smith out there, and they're pretty
slow footed. You add an older Dorian Finney Smith out there,
that's a pretty bad foot speed deficit that you're going
to be operating at against most of these teams, especially
(09:55):
against some teams that have faster guards. Tarry Easton's an
interesting option. He's been shooting the absolute seams off the
basketball this series over over fifty percent from three. Although
I'd kind of argue that I'm not necessarily convinced that
he's going to just be a knockdown guy in the playoffs.
We'll see, but I have my skepticism surrounding that. But
Tari is at least like a big, fast athlete on
(10:17):
the perimeter that can add to the foot speed dynamic.
But again, Tari makes a big mistake late in the
game overhelping on a Dennis Schroeder drive gives up the
game winner. Maybe it ends up being a guy they
trade for. I don't know, But regardless of who it
ends up being as that fifth guy, there are at
least some issues we have to dive into on both
ends of the floor that will need to be dealt with.
(10:37):
Regardless of whether or not they find the perfect fifth
man or not. Now, the offensive end, I'm less worried
about than the defensive end, but they do need work there.
The big thing that kept bothering me in the King's
game last night is they seem to be surprised every
time the doubles come to Shangun on a post up
or on a kadie ISO or a trap and a
ball screen. There was one in particular, and regulation it
(11:00):
was the one that led to the runout for Russell
Westbrook's game tying three. Kevin Duran gets trapped right off
the right wing. Westbrook ends up jumping that first pass
to Alburn Shangun, who is wide open on the left wing,
and I freeze frame this and pause it. You guys
can see it on my Twitter feed in the same
thread with that clip with Reed Shephard. But you can
see a kogie, Thompson and Smith all standing down on
(11:23):
the baseline, either with their hands on their knees or
their hands on their hips. Now I get it, you're tired, whatever,
But like you know, the double team's coming and they
just jumped the first pass. As a result, they're late
to flash up. The possession completely falls apart and Shanegun
ends up jacking up a kind of like a foul
grifty type of three on the left wing that has
(11:43):
no chance of going in run out. Russell Westbrook ties
the game, and it's like Kevin Durant's been getting trapped
by everybody. The book is out now. These teams know
that Houston struggles with doubles and traps, so that's what
they're gonna see in these situations almost every single time.
Guys need to be on their toes and they need
to be ready to attack that situation. If they don't
(12:05):
jump the short roll pass, the guy who catches there
needs to turn in immediately attack. They had bad reps
in the Pells game where Adams would catch there and
not look to attack right and the advantage would die.
They had good reps in the Kings game last night
where Shanegun caught there, attacked, got into his little left
shoulder hook, attacked, got a little lob to Aman Thompson.
(12:28):
When the guy catches there and looks to attack, good
things happen if you attack. The next read is easy.
If you don't attack, then they prey on your indecisiveness
by splitting the difference, and that buys them a chance
to rotate right now, if teams jump the short roll
pass like what happened with Russell Westbrook on that play
with Shangud at the top of the key, you need
(12:48):
those other dudes to be on their toes quickly reading
where that jump is coming from, and then the next
guy needs to flash, and that ignites the exact same
sequence of events you see where that second that third
defenders run into Shangoon, that guy needs to immediately flash
up to the ball, be ready for it so that
it's quick, and then immediately turn to attack, and then
(13:11):
wait for the defense to react to that attack. These
are the kinds of things that, again, they've been seeing
every single game in these situations, They've got to be
more ready for it now. The reason that I'm less
worried about this specific end of the floor, the floor
is twofold one. They're just gonna have so many reps.
Everyone's doing it, no one's gonna stop. It's the best
(13:32):
way to guard this team at the end of a game.
So they're just gonna get between now in mid April,
a million opportunities to kind of straighten this out and
figure out how to do it better. Also, I would
argue four on three basketball is some of the easiest
basketball you'll play. I've seen a lot of talk about, oh,
the Rockets need to point guard, the Rockets need a
point guard, and like there's some validity there in the
(13:52):
sense that, like, sometimes I wish there was a steady
ball handler who'd be like, hey, let's find a way
to get this ball to KD, because there will be
these possessions where Katie does and get the basketball for
you know, two three possessions in a row, and that
can feel silly, but that, to me is really the
only advantage there, because you know, a point guard is
going to be smaller, he's going to give things up defensively,
he's not going to have as much of an athletic
(14:14):
imposition on the game. And let's say he does get
the ball to KD. What happens next a trap? So
it's like so like, to me, the point guard thing
is overstated. The entire purpose of a point guard, in
the most valuable sense of the word, is if he
can create advantage for you. And the Rockets don't need
help with that. They've got lots of dudes who can
create advantage, and they got two dudes who are consistently
(14:37):
drawing two to the ball in crunch time, So like
you've won the battle there. Once you've brought two to
the ball, you've officially broken the defense. Your job there
is to then capitalize on that. The Rockets, in my opinion,
have a lot more to gain by figuring out how
to to keep capitalizing on these four on threes than
they do by having someone who's going to do a
(14:58):
better job of getting the ball to Kevin Durant where
he's just gonna immediately draw another double team anyway, So
I'm not sitting there saying like, if you can't get
a big point guard who can also be good on
defense and also help this team, and it makes sense
in the trade market that you don't jump on something
like that. And certainly Fred van Vliet would help. He'd
probably be the perfect fifth guy because he's a good defender,
because he can hitt to catch and shoot three, because
(15:18):
he can run some action and he can actually make
sure the ball gets to KD. And you know, that'd
be great if you can find a Fred van Vliet.
But in terms of the asset that you'd have to
send out to achieve that type of player. All you're
really doing is getting a player that's gonna get the
ball to KD or he's gonna get doubled or trapped,
and you're gonna have the exact same four on three
problem that you've been having all season. Again, I'm less
worried about that because they're just gonna have so many reps.
(15:42):
This is the easiest basketball you can play. I think
they're gonna find a way to score over the course
of the season. Now on the defensive end, I think
it's a little more tricky. One of the consistent issues
they've been facing in all of these clutch losses is
getting picked on and drop coverage alprinshangon has become an
easy target for teams at the end of games in
screening action, and we've seen it in all of them.
(16:04):
In the Pelicans game, we saw it as more of
a Steven Adams issue, but it was just because Steven
was out there. If Stephen wasn't out there, they would
have attacked Shangun in the exact same way. But it's
more or less the same schematic problem. In the first
Denver game, we saw it with Yokic popping out of
ball screens. We saw it with Yokic on the roll,
hitting Spencer Jones in the right corner for threes. Shanegun
(16:26):
came up to the level and got toasted off the
dribble by Jamal Murray for a layup. In the Sacramento game.
The reason why the Kings got back in that game
is down the stretch of the fourth quarter, they kept
spamming little screening actions for Keegan Murray to go downhill
and he'd come over the top of the screen and
there's Shanegun in the super deep drop and Keegan Murray's
hitting jump shots and hitting floaters, and honestly, they got
(16:47):
a little lucky because Keegan missed two very easy ones
late in that fourth quarter curling over those screens as
Shanegun was in drop. That issue is not going away
even if you do find the perfect fifth man. So
you basically have two directions you can go there. You
can try to switch more with Shangun that shuts off
the automatic advantage that comes from putting two on the ball,
(17:10):
or by giving that easy little gap between the bracket
of the drop for the guy to look to score.
But the downside there, Shanegun's been pretty bad statistically against
ISO this year. I would like to see that a
little bit more though, because Shanegun is a decent athlete,
so maybe you can get him to like sag Off
a little bit. Contest pull up jump shots contain the ball.
It's worth at least experimenting with a little bit. But
(17:32):
the other direction you can go is the Denver Nuggets route.
Denver has been contending with this exact same issue for
years with Yokichen drop coverage, and they've been okay. They
have two main encounters to this problem. One, they do
a ton of pre switching, so you'll see Jokichen. Houston
saw this in the game, and that was when Shangun
was attacking Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones and post ups.
(17:52):
If you guys remember those are screening actions where they
were trying to target Yokic, but Jokic just stays in
the weak side corner. He waves a din defender in
this case, Cam or Spencer to go actually follow Shangoon
up into the screen and then they can switch the
ball screen or force Shangun to try to post up right. So,
like that's one thing you can do to try to
consistently protect Shangoon is keep him tucked away off the
(18:14):
ball in the corner, and if Shangun's man ever goes
up to go set a screen, you just send one
of your wings up with him so that you can
switch that action. Keep your best primary defenders on the
ball as much as possible, but inevitably teams are going
to find a way to get your man into the screen.
And one of the things the Nuggets have done over
the years is when Yokic gets into the screen, they
(18:35):
bring him aggressively up to the level to make the
ball handler give it up. And then they've gotten very
good at rotating out on the four on threes in
the back end. But Houston is going to have to
figure out some combination of counters there because again the
book is out. If Reed Shepherd's on the floor, they're
attacking him with their guards, and if he's off the floor,
(18:55):
they're attacking Shangoon in his drop coverage. Again, this one
I'm a little less optimistic about than the offensive end,
because it's just really difficult to handle. Remember when I
was talking about how four on three offense is the
easiest form of basketball to play, well, three on four
defense is some of the hardest basketball to play. And
one of the differences between Denver and Houston because guess
(19:16):
what Denver did give up buckets on the four on threes.
Jabari Smith got a wide open three in the left
corner in the Again, there was two Denver games last week,
so I'm talking about the first one there. Jabari got
a big three in the corner off of one of
those four on threes. But the difference is Denver knows
that even though they have Jokich as an entry point
into their clutch defense, they feel pretty good about their
(19:39):
ability to outscore you because they have one of the
best half court offenses in the history of the league.
I'm not sure Houston's at that level right. So again,
the good news is for Houston they have a ton
of time to figure things out between now and May.
But I don't care what they get is that fifth guy.
I don't care if it's the dream point guard they've
been looking for. I don't care if it's Dorianfinny Smith,
(20:01):
or it's Tarry Easan or some other player that they
trade for. They're gonna have to be able to figure
out how to protect Shangoon and drop coverage, and they're
gonna have to figure out how to quickly process those
four on threes because I don't care who that fifth
guy is. They're gonna keep doubling Shangoon, and they're gonna
keep doubling Kevin Durant, especially in his ball screens. Want
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia. All right, let's move
on to Minnesota. I said early in the season, as
Minnesota was struggling that I will never make the mistake
of underestimating the Minnesota Timberwolves. And I think they demonstrated
(21:50):
why in a big way on Friday Night. Again. They've
had a weird season. They're sitting at nineteen to ten.
They've won nine of their last eleven games, but they've
been awful against teams that are five hundred are better
in that span, and they've lacked like that signature win
that demonstrates their upside. We finally got that on Friday,
and it ended in a iconic moment from Anthony Edwards
(22:12):
down the stretch. It was just a demonstration for a battle.
It happened fast too. It was like a minute of
the absurd stier athleticism that Anthony Edwards has. On both
ends of the floor, he hits this nasty step back
three against Cason Wallace on the left wing, where he
gets amazing separation and lyft against one of the best
perimeter defenders in the league. Then on the other end
(22:35):
of the floor, he late peels off his man and
blocks Shay at the rim. Then he on the ensuing
kind of chaos, he gets a huge defensive rebound, a
contested rebound in the middle of the lane, just flies
over everybody and gets it. Then after knocking down the
free throws, he goes down to the other end of
the floor, picks up Shay and Iso locks him up
(22:55):
and strips him clean to seal the game. And again
it happened in like a minute. It was just an
avalanche of athletic superpower. And it was a reminder of
just how special Anthony Edwards is in a league full
of special players. And I think he's particularly important too,
(23:15):
because that was unbelievable to watch. He is must see television.
And we're in a league right now that at the top.
When you look at the stars, it lacks that must
see TV superstar. And this league has always been about
that kind of guy, whether it was Michael Jordan or
(23:35):
is Kobe Bryant, or it was Lebron and Steph in
the last era. Obviously, with MJ, Kobe and Lebron, you
have these apex athletes that do things we never had
seen before above the rim and you know, moving their
bodies in ways you just don't see. And then Steph,
I'd argue when he's on a heart When when Steph
is on a hot streak, I'd argue, he's the greatest
show in the history of sports. It's unbelievable when he's
(23:57):
on a hot streak. But right now you're top four
are Jokic, who plays a below the rim style. It's
ruthlessly effective, and you know, it can be fun to
watch for US basketball nerds, but it's it's not exactly
must see television in terms of what he's doing aesthetically
at his position. Shaye and Luca are literally both below
the rim shooting guards who rely heavily on foul grifting
(24:19):
and contested jump shots. And Giannis, I think he's a
remarkable athlete, but he does not bring that same aesthetic
flair as his athletic predecessors. Now, before you all get
pissed off at me, I'm not talking about us. I'm
not talking about the hoopeads like me or you guys,
most of the people who listen to this show, we
(24:39):
all love basketball so much that we find joy watching
the beautiful brand of basketball that Nicola Jokic plays, Like
I think the Nuggets are one of my favorite watches
in the league right now. They play a beautiful brand
of basketball for basketball nerds like us, or like when
we watch Shane Luca we appreciate the insane refufe skill
(25:01):
that leads to their massive scoring totals. Or we've watched
Giannis develop into a more polished, dominant two way player
in this league. But I'm not talking about us. I'm
talking about the masses, the millions and millions of casual
fans out there. They always seem to resonate with the
must see TV stars of years past. Go look up
(25:24):
the finals ratings. Go look up the Kobe finals in
the late two thousands. Go look up the Lebron finals
with the heat. Go look up the Lebron Steph battles
in the mid twenty tens. Hell, even of this recent
run and in these recent finals, we've seen Shay in
the finals. We've seen Luca in the finals. We've seen
yokichen the finals. We've seen Tatum in the finals, We've
seen Giannis in the finals. None of them came close
(25:46):
to the ratings that Steph put up in twenty twenty two. Like, ultimately,
this league at the top and the top tier superstars
does not have a star that is resonating with the masses.
And I think that's why the league needs Ant to pop.
Him and Wemby. Those are the next two up and
coming stars that actually bring real musty TV potential for
(26:10):
the masses that can drive the next era of NBA popularity.
Ant because of what he did on Friday Night, this
minute long stretch where you're just like just in awe
watching the screen because of his apex athleticism, or Wemby
because he's this freaky alien that does things we've never
seen before. Just after that run from Aunt against Shay,
(26:33):
I just found myself thinking about this idea after the game,
like Ants staying in there, he's yelling, he's just big
old smile on his face. He's looking at the crowd
like I'm on his ass. I'm on his ass. After
he just strips Shay in front of everybody to seal
the game, and it's like, you can't take your eyes
off the screen, And I think it's just kind of
like a again, a big I think it's a very
(26:53):
important future for this league for a guy like Ant
to achieve his potential. And again, it's on Ant. Ant's
gonna have to do the work, and he demonstrated it
in a big way against Shay in that game. And
that's just one regular season game. No one's giving you
a title, no one's sending Aylklahoma City home over one
game on a Friday night in December. But achieving his
potential I think is very important for the future of
(27:14):
this league. Well, let's dig into the basketball for just
a little bit with that game, because I thought it
was fascinating. Minnesota won several physical battles in that game
that I thought swung things in their favor. They had
eighteen offensive rebounds. Gobert kicked Chet's ass in that game
on the glass, including a big offensive rebound tap out
that led directly to the Anthony Edwards game winner. He
was killing Chet just by burying him and then reaching
(27:36):
over the top and tapping the ball out to the
perimeter where the Minnesota athletes were able to go get it.
That's a real physical advantage for Minnesota. Rudy is bigger
and stronger than Chet. I thought Minnesota did a great
job of flattening out Oklahoma City's drives in that fourth quarter.
We talked about this a lot, like when you have
a direct line drive to a layup, that thing's going
in one hundred percent of the time. But if you're
hip to hip with the guy and he's now contending
(27:58):
with you and kind of drifting sideways going up for
a layup, those percentages plummet. And there were misses for
JDub and AJ Mitchell in particular in that fourth quarter
where guys were flattening the drives and staying attached and
forcing those to be much tougher shots that ended up missing.
This is an Oklahoma City offense that I rarely see
get rushed on that end of the floor, and Oklahoma
(28:19):
City was rushing in that game. That's the sort of
thing that leads to the misses like you saw from
Dort and Crusoe down the stretch of that game. Julius
Randall had a rough box score game, but I thought
both him and nos Reid were huge in that fourth
quarter because they have size advantages. Nas had a big
post bucket against Jadub on the left block. He had
another big offensive rebound put back and one in that stretch.
(28:42):
Julius hits a three over the top of Case in Wallas.
He can shoot over Case and he's small. He had
a big drive off the right wing, a big play
late in the game where naz Reid ended up flashing
middle because Julius drew a second defender. Because he's big
and strong drive into the basket, Naz hit like a
little floater in the lane there. I have size in
physical advantages all over the floor in this matchup. Those
(29:04):
physical advantages kept the game close enough that Aunt had
a chance to go toe to toe with Shae and
win that matchup, which he was able to do on
Friday Night. There are things I don't love about this
matchup for Minnesota in the playoffs. I think that combination
of athleticism and rim protection is really tough for their
offense at times. I do not like how they always
(29:25):
pick up Shae forty feet from the basket with Jaden McDaniels,
so they can just set ball screens out there and
Shaye's just constantly getting downhill into the lane. I think
Shae obviously is a better player than it right now
and is further along in his development. That's hard. I
think you need Aunt to be better than Shaye in
a playoff series, and that's just a lot to ask
with how much more experience Shay has. But what Minnesota
(29:46):
does bring is the size and athleticism that can really
cause Oklahoma City problems on the margins. They won the
possession battle in that game, which is something you almost
never see against Oka s else. It was just a
great reminder of why I viewed Minnesota as such a
dangerous playoff team, despite the fact that they've had an
uneven start to the season. They may not reach that
(30:08):
level very often in a November, December, January, but they
have the ability to really ratchet up the size and
athleticism to a level that's capable of breaking any team
in the NBA, including Denver, including Oklahoma City. Has Jalen
Brunson taken a leap? I was watching this morning film
(30:29):
of Jalen lighting up the Miami Heat this morning from
yesterday's game in Madison Square Garden, and he's just on
an incredible run of scoring against some really high level
defensive guards like we saw on the tournament, what he
did to San Antonio's guards, what he did to Orlando's guards,
what he did to Toronto's guards. Davion Mitchell looked completely
overmatched against him yesterday. Jalen was first of all getting
(30:52):
him off balance and not being bothered by his ball
pressure at all. But he was also able to just
easily shoot over the top of him because of his
size advantage. Forty seven points and eight assists with zero
turnovers in that command of the game, the lack of mistakes,
the lack of misshots, and the lack of turnovers looks
different than it did in the past. There's a level
of comfort, a level of command with Jalen Brunson in
(31:16):
his game that seems to be above what we've seen
in recent years, and it shows pretty clearly in the numbers.
So obviously he's averaging a career high twenty nine points
per game, sixty percent true shooting. But in this recent
run in his last seven games, thirty three points and
seven assists, just one point four turnovers per game. That
(31:37):
that shake gives us Alexander level of hoops right there,
the same kind of stuff we've been seeing from Shay
and calling it one of the best two guard seasons ever.
That's what Jalen Brunson's been doing the last few weeks.
Fifty one percent from the field, forty three percent from
the line, sixty four percent true shooting, with less than
one and a half turnovers. Again, the level he's been
(31:58):
at for three weeks now is that of a top
tier superstar, not a second tier superstar. There's obviously a
level of large sample consistency that he'll have to maintain
if he wants to like really enter into that conversation.
But this just looks different to me, and it's one
of the main reasons why I'm really starting to buy
Nick stock. Like, in addition to Brunson looking like a
(32:21):
top tier superstar, the Knicks just continue to put together
these defensive runs that shut down games, like they had
one in the second quarter against Miami yesterday where they're
flying around and they shut down that offense and turn
the game around. They had one in the fourth quarter
against the Spurs. They've been consistently way better at the
end of games. They're defensive rating in clutch situations this
year is almost twelve points per one hundred possessions better
(32:45):
than it was last year. It's really that simple. Like
you want to know why the Knicks to me are
right now my favorite to win the Eastern Conference, It's
because they're a good bit better on both ends of
the floor. Jalen Brunson's better, they're better in crunch time,
and those top end opponents that they had to contend
with last year just aren't there, and so they're poised
(33:07):
for their best shot at the finals since nineteen ninety nine.
All right, let's get into our power rankings before we
call it today again. All of our lines are provided
by our partner, hard Rock Bet. Number ten, the Philadelphia
seventy six ers currently plus six thousand to win the
(33:28):
title on hard Rock Bet. They're six and two in
their last eight games, continuing to win with their defense
their fourth and defense rating in that span up to
eleventh on the season, doing a really good job of
using their speed to chase teams off the three point
line and finnel them into their bigs. And they're also
starting to turn their opponents over and get out and
transition more as a result of that than they did
to start the year. They have in their last ten games,
they're averaging nineteen points off of turnovers, which is the
(33:50):
fifth most in the NBA. Before that, in their first
seventeen games, they were getting just sixteen and a half
points off of turnovers per game, which was twenty third
in the NBA, so generating margin there. Starting to get
some real build up from their older stars, and Beat
and Paul George are both moving better and shooting the
ball better from three than they did to start the year.
Tyres Maxie is still playing like an MVP candidate. VJ.
(34:11):
Edgecomb is like stroking it from three. He's been deadly
in this six and two stretch. He's up to thirty
eight percent on the season. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers
played some really good basketball. Number nine the Boston Celtics
currently plus three thousand to win the title on hard
Rock Bet. Took a couple of tough losses to Milwaukee
without Giannis and then the Pistons game we covered that
on Tuesday last week. A brilliant closing run from Cad Cunningham,
(34:32):
and they really struggled with some of those Pistons perimeter
defenders as they couldn't generate a quality look there down
the stretch, and especially in the Milwaukee game, they showed
some of their old demons where they can just go
super cold from three and stop attacking the basket. But
a couple of really nice bounce back wins, including a
game in Toronto last night where their deep bench just
completely flipped the game. Luca Garza was like protecting the
(34:55):
rims super well, like you wouldn't expect from him. Hugo
Gonzales and Baylor shot iremen were driving closeouts and getting layups.
Anthronty Simons and Peyton Pritchrick were literally like just ripping
the cord from mid range, like not even touching the rim.
There was about a three minute stretch from the end
of the third quarter of the early fourth quarter where
the Celtics just completely flipped that game, and then they
were able to close things from there. Again, like the
NBA regular season is long and difficult, and you're gonna
(35:19):
have adversity, You're gonna have straight I mean, the thunder
are arguably the best team ever and they're one and
two in their last three games. You're gonna find adversity.
It's been how you respond as much as anything else.
I thought it was a really nice response from the
Celtics last week and a big win on the road
in Toronto. Number eighth the Houston Rockets currently plus one
thousand to win the title on Hard Rock Bet. We
(35:39):
did a full segment on them early in the show,
so I won't stay here long. They had their biggest
win of the season on Sunday or Saturday excuse me,
against the Nuggets, but surrounded that with three losses and
clutch situations, two of which were against two of the
worst teams in the West, shining a light on some
flaws that they'll absolutely have to fix if they want
to reach their goals. I still believe in the Rockets
is a real contender, that they have a lot of
work to do between now in April. Number seven, the
(36:01):
Los Angeles Lakers currently plus thirteen hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet. They still haven't lost two
games in a row this season, but they're four and
four in their last eight games, and now their depth
is starting to get tested. They finished that Clippers game
with Lebron James as their only healthy starter after Luca
left in the first half. I kind of was weirdly
happy with how they played in that game. Like their
(36:23):
early deficit, it was primarily a product of Zubats just
destroying Jackson Hayes, which again, like that's gonna be Deandrayton typically,
it's a tough matchup for Jackson. He's just giving up
so much weight there. His first shift, he just got
destroyed before Zubats turned his ankle pretty bad. And then Luca,
I that might literally be the worst stretch of basketball
I've ever seen him play in that first in that
first quarter in particular, just jacking up bad shots and
(36:46):
missing turning the ball over. Playing matador defense. From that
point forward, though, I was impressed by their fight, especially
in that second half. Like I thought, Lebron and the
Lakers bench just put an admirable fight forward, like they
continue to get good defensever turns out of that LA
Ravia Vanderbilt Jackson Hayes trio. When you have him alongside Lebron,
they just compete really hard and they stay attached to
(37:08):
their opponents. And I thought it was by far the
most explosive Lebron's looked all season, just getting dribble penetration
whenever he wanted. He generated a ton of good looks
like I actually thought the Lakers could have had a
decent chance to win that game if they were to
just shot the ball better. They generated fifteen wide open
catch and shoot threes in that game and made just
two of them. Just a brutally bad shooting performance. But
(37:29):
despite the encouraging fight I saw from the depleted Lakers
in that second half, I actually find myself getting lower
and lower on them as the weeks go by. Luca
hasn't been playing at a top five level for like
about a month now. He's putting up massive numbers because
of his high usage rate. He's at thirty seven percent usage,
which is the highest usage rate in the entire NBA,
(37:50):
but his efficiency has sorely lacked behind his peers at
the top of the league. He simply misses more shots
and turns the ball over far more than any of
those dudes at the top of the league do Shay
Giannis Oriokic, Andy's the weakest defender in that group. So,
to put it very simply, the Lakers need Luca to
be much much better or they're not winning anything this year.
(38:11):
And the team is really starting to fall apart physically.
Austin's hurt, Ruey's hurt, Luca left the last game, hurt,
Gabe is hurt, and they're about to head into a
brutal stretch of their schedule as they have Phoenix and
Houston this week. To me, they feel like the sixth
best team in the West right now. Like I think
Minnesota looks better, San Antonio looks better, Houston looks better,
Denver looks better, Oklahoma City looks better. Like I'm not
(38:34):
saying that's the end of the story, Like the Lakers
have a lot of potential to improve between now and then,
and they could certainly make a trade to kind of
anchor things and be better. But like at a stat
top six in the Western Conference, they feel like the
sixth best team to me right now, and a big
part of that is, you know, Luca has not been
able to reach the level of the top tier superstars
in the league for a solid month now. They don't
(38:57):
look very athletic. They look really bad on defense. It
just isn't looking good for me in Lakerland. I'm hoping
because I root for this team. I'm hoping that I'm
just being overly pessimistic. But we'll see how things go
over the course of the next few weeks. Number six
the Denver Nuggets currently plus seven hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet. The loss to Houston doesn't
concern me much. It's really hard to beat a team
(39:17):
three times in a row, let alone a legit championship contender,
so it is what it is. They had a miserable
shooting night too. They're down just so much of their athleticism.
Peyton Watson ended up getting like a contusion, so him,
Christian Brown, and Aaron Gordon are all out. They had
won six games in a row before that game, which
is super impressive. And then another significant bright spot once
again going plus six in that Rockets game without Jokic
(39:41):
despite a crazy hot shooting performance from Reed Shepherd against
Jonas found Schottis and drop Coverage. They are now up
continuing to tick up. They're up to negative three and
a half points negive three point five per one hundred
possessions per cleaning the glass with Jokic off the floor.
That's considerably better than it was to start the season,
and way way way better than it was in previous seasons.
They're even having success with these groups that have Jokic
(40:01):
and Murray off geared around defense. Most recently A Picket Brown,
Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, and Yonas found tunis look just
getting some really high level defense and shooting from Jalen Pickett,
and then all those guys competing defensively Yonas giving them
an offensive fulcrum to play around. Those groups are plus
two and a half points per one hundred possessions this season.
(40:21):
All the groups that have that have Jokic and Jamal
Murray off the court. Number five Minnesota Timberwolves plus three
thousand to win the title. According to hard Rock Bet.
We hit them early in the show, so I'm not
going to stay here long. They're nine to two in
their last eleven games. Got a signature win against the Thunder,
a team that I'm seriously considering moving into my top
tier contenders list. Next week we have Sam Vasini coming
(40:41):
on the show, and we're going to dig into those contenders.
We'll dive further into that concept when we get there.
Number four, the San Antonio Spurs, currently plus twenty five
hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet. Had
a relatively light schedule last week after a brutal stretch
like they just ran a Nuggets, Wolves, Magic, Calves, Lakers, Thunder, Nicks,
so like they were do a break. We got a
(41:02):
couple of games against Washington last week. They won those games,
and then they had a dominant defensive performance on the
road in Atlanta where they just completely shut them down
in the first half to take a twenty four point lead.
They have a playoff style home and home with the
Oklahoma City Thunder this week on Tuesday and Thursday, though
a potential second round preview that I'm super excited for.
Those are going to be really fun games. Looking forward
to diving into those ones with you guys when we
(41:23):
get to Friday. Number three the New York Knicks currently
plus thirteen hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet.
We hit them early in the show, so I'm not
going to stay here long, but they're just better across
the board. Josh hart og And and Obi and McHale. Bridges
are all better on both ends of the floor than
they were last year. Brunson is taking an apparent leap
into superstardom. This looks like a Knicks team on a
mission to go to the finals. Number two. The Detroit Pistons,
(41:47):
currently plus two thousand to win the title on hard
rock Bet, lost a tough game in Dallas for Cooper
Flagg just torched them with drives over and over again,
either making shots at the rim or engaging Jalen Duran there,
which opened up a lane for Anthony Davis to fill
in behind for put backs. We saw Kid get targeted
a little bit in that game and guard guard screens.
The Pistons kind of struggled with their heads and recovery.
Look they had a botched hedge that led to another drive.
(42:09):
They tried switching, and Cooper was just getting downhill on
Kids like something to keep an eye on there. We
saw Kaide get targeted a little bit. Overall a solid
week though. They beat the Celtics behind a brilliant crutch
time performance from Kid and some stifling perimeter defense. They
just bring these waves of elite perimeter defenders that can
really wear you down. They just beat the absolute crap
out of the Hornets the other night. I'm just loving
(42:31):
how physically imposing this team is at every level, and
I think they're a trade away from being a substantial
favorite in the Eastern Conference if they can pull off
that big upgrade at the power forward spot. Number one
the Oklahoma City Thunder currently even Odd's plus one hundred
to win the title on hard rock Bet. Finally, a
little adversity for the Thunder. They lost two of their
last three games. Three of their old demons popped up
(42:53):
in these losses. Turnovers they had twenty seven of them,
and the two losses, Shay's turnovers have ticked up considerably
since he started playing tougher competition. Missing threes they're just
twenty six percent from three in those two losses. And
then offensive rebounds. They allowed the Spurs and the Timberwolves
to grab thirty five percent of their own misses in
those two games. No, this guy isn't falling, but it's
(43:13):
just a nice little wake up call for a Thunder team,
and it's a reminder that winning a championship in the
NBA is never easy, no matter how talented you are.
It's gonna take a lot of work, and they have
another chance this week to send a message with a
home and home against the San Antonio Spurs again. We'll
be covering those games on Friday. All right, guys, It's
all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be
(43:34):
back tomorrow morning with a mailbag, and then on Friday
for Christmas Day reaction. I will see you guys then
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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