Jason reacts to the Houston Rockets starting 0-2 and why he's still optimistic about the Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun pairing, Austin Reaves having a 51 point, near triple double for the Los Angeles Lakers in a win over the Sacramento Kings without Luka Doncic or LeBron James, and Giannis Antetokounmpo leading the Milwaukee Bucks to an impressive start to the year. Then he gives his five most impressive teams to start this NBA season including Victor Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs and more.
All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.
#Volume
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome here tonight. You're at the
Vaulume Heavy Monday. Everybody. Hope if you guys had an
incredible weekend, we have a jam pack show for you today.
(00:21):
We are hitting on eight teams. We're going to lead
off with the Houston Rockets. I'm a little bit more
bullish on them than most after their zero and two start.
I want to talk about their game against Detroit, some
of the things we learned, and some of the things
that I expect them to be able to improve upon
over time. After that, Austin reeves fifty one point near
triple double on the road in Sacramento, but comes attached
(00:45):
to some bad news as the Lakers find out they're
going to be out without Luka Doncicic for this week.
I have some opinions there. We're gonna briefly touch on
the Milwaukee Bucks and some of their early returns from them.
I caught their game against Toronto, the the game where
Scottie Barnes tried to show up Yannis, and Yannis very
much did not allow that to happen. They ended up
(01:05):
dropping a game against Cleveland earlier on Sunday. I caught
the crunch time of that game as well, we'll have
some brief thoughts on the Bucks. After that, we're going
to be covering the top five most impressive teams from
Week one of the NBA season, So jam pack show
lots of teams to get into. You guys, are the
joke before we get started. Subscribed to Hoops and I
YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter and underscore JCNLT so you guys
(01:26):
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed
wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also
super helpful if you leave a rating in a review
on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on our social
media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make sure
you guys follow us there for content throughout the rest
of the season, and the last but not least, keep
dropping questions in our YouTube comments for our weekly mail
bag so we can get to them throughout the rest
(01:47):
of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball, starting
with the Houston Rockets again off to an one and
two start. They followed up their heartbreaking loss to Oklahoma
City with an equally frustrating loss to Detroit, but I've
remained bullish on them to start the year. The Pistons.
First of all, it was interesting and revealing on several levels.
But let's credit the Pistons. They're a really good young team.
(02:11):
They're particularly good at playing in physicality. Like one of
the things that stood out to me in that game
was like alput In Shangoon really struggled like it was
one of the worst games I've seen him play in
a very long time. And part of the reason is
he's not bullying that Detroit Pistons front court. He struggled
to Jayalen Durr, and he struggled with Isaiah Stewart, he
struggled with Paul Reid, he struggled even with Tobias Harris,
(02:34):
who was meeting his physicality and attacking when he would
expose the basketball. Like those guys just met his force
with force, and they disrupted his rhythm and they forced
him into a ton of misses right around the rim.
That was a huge factor in Houston's offense in this game.
And then Kate, to Kid's credit, he was absolutely fantastic
in the second half. He had gotten off to a
(02:54):
little bit of a rough start this season, but he
beat several different Rockets coverages. In the second half of
that game, he'd he dropped single coverage down the stretch.
The Rockets were consistently blitzing him. It kind of turned
into this weird blitz off where the Rockets were blitzing
KDE and the Pistons were blitzing KD and shout out
to Detroit. They just kind of won that battle and
(03:15):
made a few more plays. Cage showed some impressive shot
making down the stretch. He has a strength and size
advantage over a men Thompson, and I thought he did
a really nice job using his body to get free
of him. He had a really interesting play late in
the game where he calls for a ball screen on
the right side and men Thompson is there, and he
goes like he's about to use the screen and does
(03:36):
a good job showing the body and the ball like
he's about to use the screen, gets a men Thompson
to take that step into the screen. Then he rejects
it and men Thompson, ridiculous athlete, obviously gonna recovers, but
Kge just fends him off because now he's got just
that tiny bit of a step right and he fends
him off and just gets to that little short twelve
footer along the lane line on the left side and
(03:58):
knocked it down. There's a big time shot against one
of the apex perimeter defenders in this league. Shout out
to the Detroit Pistons. They're a good team. They've been
playing together for a while. The Rockets are working progress
and they got beat but there's still a ton of good.
As I talked about before the season, Katie is such
a gifted scorer coming off of screens that he can
(04:20):
command a lot of aggressive coverages for himself. He can
command blitzes and at the level coverages and things along
those lines, and he did that against Detroit. He had
thirty seven points, literally forced Detroit to repeatedly blitz him
down the stretch after he hit a pullback three that
tied the game in crunch time. And honestly, that was
(04:40):
where I thought the absence of Dorian Finney Smith was
really felt. The Reed Shepherd thing has been kind of
a disaster. We'll dig into that in a little bit.
On one level, it's kind of to me just a
testament to how good this team can be when they
eventually trade for a guard. We'll talk about him in
a minute. Then, you know, when you kind of take
him out of the equation, it comes down to Tari
Easton or Steven Adams that he's looking at for that
(05:03):
fifth starter or fifth closer, I should say. And so
ima Udoka goes with a Tari Easton down the stretch.
And Tari Easton has been a big issue for them
offensively with their spacing, and it just was difficult for
them to get good shots off of those blitzes down
the stretch of the game. And like, all I could
think about when I saw that is, first of all,
(05:25):
you know, who's gonna really help Dorian Phinney Smith, a
guy who like is the perfect connective player on both
ends of the floor for them, as a guy that
is going to knock down that corner three point shot
at a high rate. Who's gonna communicate for them defensively,
which I think will be important. Their defense hasn't been
as good as it's capable of being. We'll talk more
about that in a few minutes. But like that fifth
(05:48):
that fifth closer, it's gonna be a Dorian Phinney Smith,
or it's gonna be a guard that they trade for
at some point down the line. That's gonna be something
that is is gonna make it easier for them to
make teams pay for blitzing Kevin Durant, Like, this is
a thing that because even above and beyond the fifth
player in those lineups, they're gonna find ways sequences, quick
(06:10):
passing and cutting sequences to get good shots off of
those blitzes. This is a problem. That's not even a problem.
It's this is an upside that they have not experienced
in this iteration of the team. They haven't had a
player that is going to consistently draw two defenders thirty
feet from the rim. That is a massive boost to
(06:32):
your offense once you figure out how to make teams
pay for it. I looked at that and I was like,
Katie's getting blitzed for torching a team and we're not
even two games into the season. Like, this is an upside.
They just got to figure it out. By the way,
that's starting lineup Amen Thompson, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith, Al
Burn Shangun and Steven Adams is plus eighteen net so
(06:55):
far to start the season in forty possessions. According to
cleaning the glass. And again, I think they're capable of
playing way better defensively than they have to this point.
They have frequently put out Burn Shangun in a roaming
role off of non shooters, and he's been a bit
inattentive in some situations. Against Oklahoma City, he had several
situations where he was kind of the the culprit of
(07:17):
their poor semi transition defense because it's like he's roaming,
he's supposed to be protecting the rim, but he's just
a little slow to get back into position because he's relaxing.
That happened several times down the stretch against Detroit, and
like that's something that I think they'll be able to
clean up. I think that's a role where Shanggun's gonna
be able to have some success. And like they've strangely
been bad on the defensive glass, which doesn't even make
(07:39):
sense with how big they are. One of the things
I'm seeing on film is they can be a bit
slow footed at times, and that can get them a
little bit into you know, the blender of just quicker
guards going past them for long rebounds off of missus,
like long jump shots and things along those lines. So
like there's a lot they can clean up. As I mentioned,
re Shepherd has not been good. The Rockets are. This
(08:00):
is crazy stat They're plus eight net so far through
the two games with him off the floor, and minus
eighteen net with him on the floor. He doesn't make
anything off the dribble, he doesn't make anything at the rim,
and he turns the ball over and so to me, honestly,
that was just a sign of how much better this
team will be when they inevitably make a trade for
(08:20):
a veteran guard at some point down the line. This season,
it's like such an obvious position of need where they've
been getting poor play. But even with everything that happened,
even with Reed shepherd struggles, even with Tarry Easton struggles,
even with the rebounding struggles, even with Alpa and Shangun
having just an absolute nightmare game, even with all of that,
even with them being mostly a new team trying to
(08:43):
figure out how to play a new style, they got
handed to like tough teams to start the season, and
they were disclose to winning both games. Javari Smith got
a wide open three on the left side down two
that would have given Houston the league down the stretch
of that game. And then as we know they're you know,
(09:04):
they were up six late in regulation against Oklahoma City.
They had a couple of mistakes that let Oklahoma City
back in the game, and you know, Shae misses a
tough contested step back over a men. Thompson, you're two
and zero, like so, I all I can think as
I've watched them through the first two games is they
have a million things that can clean up and be
much better. I just think they're gonna be a really
(09:25):
good team in the long run. Not too worked up
about their her and two start the Los Angeles Lakers
huge win last night in Sacramento. Today's show is brought
to you by our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet.
The NBA season is heating up, and every night is
a shot to score a major bucket on hard Rock Bet,
your home for hoops action all season long. Need it
(09:46):
will help with your first bet. Check out the streaks
heating up inside the hard Rock Bet stats hub. You
can find live odds to bet on all of the
streaks right in the hard Rock Bet at If you
haven't tried your first bet on hard rock Bet, there's
still time for you to get one hundred fIF ffty
dollars in bonus bets if you win, just place a
five dollars bet and if it hits you not only
get your winnings, but one hundred and fifty dollars in
(10:08):
extra bonus bets plus. All week on hard Rock Bet
you can get an NBA Parlay boost for the games.
There's new promos every day. Boost your same game parlay
or SGP max so your bet pays extra winnings. Download
a hard Rock Bet app today and make your first deposit.
Payble and bonus bets not a cash offer offered by
(10:28):
the Seminole Tribe of Florida in Florida, offered by Seminal
hard Rock Digital LLC. In other states. Must be twenty
one plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
three three play Wise. In Indiana, if you or someone
(10:51):
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it gambling problem called
one eight hundred Gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. Austin Reeves just casually reminded everyone that he's
one of the very best players in the NBA. He
was just one assist shy of a fifty one point
(11:14):
triple double. Zachraviddo is a really good matchup for Austin
because their bigs are incapable of switching. Austin can struggle
against really athletic teams that can switch from time to time,
but in this particular matchup where he's able to essentially
get downhill via ball screens, Austin's very, very good at
getting his man caught on the screen by setting him
(11:36):
up for the screen. And one of the things that
he's best at is he attacks with like a ton
of speed coming downhill in ball screens. A lot of
players are more methodical. Austin is not methodical. Austin is
like attack, attack, attack, and when he gets into the
teeth of the defense, he can draw fouls, he can
finish at the rim at a high clip, he can
(11:57):
stop and pop short of the rim for those little
short jump shots, and he's gotten way better over the
course of these last few years of his career at
making the kickout reads, the skip and the lob and
all those sorts of reads that he can get to
in those situations. And like, one of the things that
I've had my eye on with him is his three
point shot. What I thought was really interesting is when
(12:17):
Austin leaves the game late fourth quarter or late third quarter,
Lakers are up five if I remember correctly, and Austin
subs out to start the fourth quarter and the wheels
just completely fall off. Predictably, that Laker team, down all
three of their top shot creators, is just not super
talented on offense. Right, shout out to Marcus Smart. He
makes a little jump shot, grifts his way to the
(12:40):
Marcus has been a total grift show to start the season,
but he's found ways to generate some points. Austin comes
back in the game and like, this is the guy
who'd been attacking all game, and you could tell his
legs were tired, and he went to his pull up
three in the fourth quarter and he was able to
generate a bunch of points on these shots over the
top of the defense from this since when he got tired,
(13:01):
and at that point, the Kings had no choice but
to blitz him on ball screens, and he hit the
short roller every single time without turning the ball over,
and the Lakers role players made them pay. We'll talk
more about the Lakers role players in a minute. And
then late in the game, after the King stopped blitzing,
they stopped blitzing because they were getting beat. They went
back to chasing over the top. Austin missed a couple
(13:21):
of threes, and it kind of felt like when you
were watching the game, like he needs to get one
last bucket going towards the basket, and he did. He
summoned the strength for one last drive and hit like
an insane floater with defenders draped all over him, and
then he closed the deal to the line, just two turnovers,
despite insane usage, in a damn near fifty point triple double.
(13:43):
Just a truly remarkable performance from the Lakers' third best player.
That's the crazy thing. And so many other Lakers stepped up,
like DeAndre Ayton got a lot of shit for what
happened on Opening night. I thought he was excellent against Minnesota,
and I thought he was excellent against Sacramento at twenty
two and fifteen tonight, he got beat to the offensive
glass a few times by Sabonis, but other than that,
(14:03):
I thought he won his matchup. Like he just badly
dominated Demanda Sabonis tonight. His length at the rim was
a legit factor all night. He picked up a couple
of fouls where he's still just a little slow getting
his feet set with his hands up without committing fouls.
He'll like bump the dude with his chest and pick
up a foul, but like he was getting deflections and
causing problems at the rim. I thought he ran the
(14:25):
floor and transitioned super well all night, getting up and
down and made several plays in that context. And then
he consistently torched the Kings on the roll and on
the offensive glass, just rolling to the lane and cleaning
up misses twenty two and fifteen. And again I thought
he was excellent against the Wolves as well, as he
set good screens for Luca and ended up finishing a
lot of those blitz sequences when Lucas started. It sat
(14:47):
very similar sequence in both games. Luca drops forty nine,
Austin drops fifty one, Lucas same thing, just torching the
traditional coverage all of a sudden. Now you got a
blitz and now we're getting dunks and I open threes
out of the blitz. Now the blitz doesn't work. We
got to go back to playing one on one like
Austin and Luca just straight up broke Minnesota and Sacramento's
(15:09):
defenses over the last couple of days. Ruey Hachimura last
night hit several little iso jumpers in the middle of
the floor that felt like in super important shots, obviously
down their shot creators. He scored a few times off
of the roles when Austin was getting blitzed. Marcus Smart,
like I mentioned, manufactured offense and he was scrapping all night.
Jared Vanderbilt guarded Zach Levine and just made him work
hard for everything and it was his usual wrecking ball self.
(15:31):
And shout out to Jake Loreve. I thought he had
his first little moment as a Laker. He hit a
huge three relocating to the top of the key off
of Ruey Hachimura post up, hit an and one layup
off of a seal Jared Vanderbilt really nice pass from
the top of the key. Jac Larravea set a backscreen,
got the defender sealed on his top side, led the
kind of created a passing window over the top, and
(15:52):
he got an and one on Kean Ellis, and I
thought he made several defensive plays as well. It was
just a really impressive win for an man Lakers team.
I thought they looked terrible in their season opener, and
they certainly don't have the best roster in the NBA.
I think their roster got a little bit milgned over
the last few days, as if they didn't win fifty
games last year. And again, I don't think they're a
(16:13):
perfect basketball team. There's certainly light on defensive talent. But
I mean they hung a one to twenty eight offensive
rating in their last two games without any games from
Lebron and just two games from Luca. Through their first
three games of the season, they have the third best
offensive rating in the league. And it still feels like
they have so many things that they can figure out.
(16:34):
And again, two of the teams they played with great defenses,
So like this is going to be a great offense
all year and has the potential to be like really
really special when Lebron comes back. And again, I know
Sacramento is not that impressive of a win, but down
Luca and Lebron. I thought it was impressive. And secondly,
that Wolves game. I'm not sure how many of you
guys caught that Wolves game on Friday night, but like,
(16:54):
the Wolves tried to punk them early in that game.
They were mauling them on the glass. They were hitting
all sorts of shots and was torching them all night
and getting to the rim whenever he wanted, and the
Lakers just punched back. Luca was transcendently great. They finally
got some stops in the second half by like scrapping
and supporting their mismatches, like swarming the ball more gang
(17:16):
rebounding to keep them off the glass, and they blew
out a very good Wolves team. And so, like, you know,
as far as it goes, they still have a lot
that can get better at. Obviously, the defensive end is
still a work in progress. Obviously they need to find
a way to incorporate Lebron. These are kind of my
last two thoughts. I saw a lot of talk from
(17:37):
people after even just the Wolves game that was like, oh,
why does this Laker team need Lebron? Here's a thought.
He's a second team All NBA player when he's healthy.
He's an excellent defensive rebounder. They've sucked at rebounding. They
need help on the glass. Lebron can help with that.
(17:58):
Lebron is a mid forties catch and shoot player. That's
something they could really use. Lebron last year was literally
the best switch defender in the entire NBA. You don't
think they could use a guy like that on this team.
And there are a lot of lineups, including tonight when
Luca was out and Austin was on, it took breaks
where they looked like they did need just that little
(18:19):
extra bit of offensive pop. Like this is the ideal
situation for Lebron. You can literally use him to plug
in all of the little holes that they have at
various points on the roster. And anything you get from
him as a shot creators found money. When you've got
two guys that are playing the way Austin and Luca are, Like,
I get it that it's not the most like cooperative
(18:40):
top three in terms of like all their talent slotting
together absolutely perfectly, But I know that Lebron James would
massively help this basketball team. And I've been like legitimately
appalled by how many people I've seen say that they'd
be better off without him, Like, I'm sorry, if you
trade Lebron for a couple of role players, this team
be comes worse, they don't become better. I think that
(19:02):
that's asinine. I just couldn't believe. I saw a few
people say that over the course of the weekend. And
then lastly, I understand that I'm gonna come off like
a little bit of a man screaming on the porch
or an old man yelling on the porch kind of
thing here, but I just don't understand why Luca is
taking a full week off here, and like, maybe there's
(19:22):
more information about the injury than what we have, But
what it looked like to me was Luca jammed his
finger and got a little banged up in the Wolves game,
but that happened early, and he absolutely fried those dudes
the entire game. He made Jaden mcdae like it was
amazing because like a lot of what I anticipated surrounding
(19:45):
the Wolves matchup involved things like Jaden can't guard Luca,
which was abundantly clear in twenty twenty four, But it
turns out Jaden could guard fat Luca and then guess
what skinny Luca was back in Jayden looked completely helpless,
like absolutely completely helpless. Is Luca just fried him all
(20:05):
over the floor. And then secondly, the importance of that
four out spacing and the role man from the center position,
which was how Luca beat the Blitzes down the stretch
when Minnesota went to the Blitzes, which was not an
option when it was Jackson Hayes. And so like, in
a lot of ways, some of the like kind of
conceptual things that I felt about Luca versus the Wolves
(20:26):
in the first round last year were like on display
in this game in a way that they weren't because
Luca's a lot thinner now and the Lakers actually can
play a center now. As we know, the Wolves are
a huge problem in the postseason in terms of their physicality.
I'm not saying that that would flip the dynamic of
the series. I'm just saying those are the basketball dynamics
that I was thinking about when I was making my
pick last year. Like, whenever I've seen Skinny Luca go
(20:49):
against Jayden, Jayden looks absolutely helpless, right, but like he
looked great all game. And so what you're telling me
is that in a stretch where the Lakers have six
games nine nights, five games this week in a Western conference,
where if you drop a game or two, it could
literally be like detrimental to you in the in the
(21:11):
next phase of your uh of your season, Like you
could legitimately have to be digging out of the plan
when you get to March that you would sit out
with a jammed finger and a leg bruise. It just
all I could think of was, like, this is a
guy that I've defended to a great extent over the
course of the summer. I ranked him second in my
(21:32):
player rankings, and part of the reason why I'm like
juxtaposing him with Shae, and I'm juxtaposing him with Yannis,
and I'm juxtaposing him with Luca, with Nikola jokicch and
And all I could think is is, like, if he's
gonna sit out with bumps and bruises and miss like
chunks of five games with a jam finger and a
leg bruise, how does that not act as a demerit
(21:57):
for him? In the conversation with Shay, or in the
conversation with Giannis, or in the conversation with Nicole Jokich,
Now I was texting somelkers people, and there's some there's
some pontification that the Lakers' medical staff is behind this,
that they're just being overly cautious. But all I could
(22:18):
think is is, like, why isn't Luca going up to
these dudes and being like, we can't afford to be
two and five next week. I need to play. I'm fine, Yeah,
I'm a little banged up, but let's go get Let's
go out there and compete and see if we can
beat Portland. Let's see if we can go beat Sacramento. So, like,
all I'm saying is like I was a little disappointed
(22:40):
to find out that Luca was gonna sit out for
a week with a leg bruise and a jam finger.
It just didn't seem It was kind of like unbecoming
of a twenty six year old superstar at the peak
of his powers, that I believe is the second best
player in the league for a team that frankly desperately
needs him. Like, nice win against Sacramentos, but it's gonna
(23:01):
get tough this week. Portland is a pain in the ass.
Ask anybody who's played them yet this year. They just
beat that Golden State Warriors team that started two to
zero on a tail end of a back to back,
and they are athletic, and they pressure the rim and
they have rim protection and they like they're pain These
are not gonna be easy games to win, and it
just it just felt like a overly cautious approach and,
(23:24):
like I said, unbecoming for a player in that top
tier superstars. Alright, quick thoughts on the Bucks, and then
we're gonna get to my five most impressive teams to
start the season. So I caught their entire game against Toronto,
and I caught the end of their game against Cleveland,
and they did drop that game against Cleveland. It was
a tough game, like they Donovan Mitchell showed some really
impressive shot making in the middle of their own defense,
(23:46):
hit a couple of like super tough, like mid range
jump shots against great contests. And then Lonzo Ball hit
a big three off the left wing. He had a
big offensive rebound two down the stretch, and they botched
a coverage late and they left sam Merril wide open
and he hit a shot. And it was just like
kind of one of those things where the Bucks had
to use a ton of energy to come back from
a large deficit, and they made some mistakes down the
(24:09):
stretch in Cleveland ended up getting a win. But generally,
I've been very impressed by Milwaukee. I thought they looked
really good, especially in the Toronto game. They beat Washington
in the first game. Washington obviously one of the bottom
feeders of the NBA, but they beat Toronto, and like
Toronto was like a legit physical monster of a team
that is very good on defense, that has a lot
(24:29):
of athletes that can pack the paint, that can run
the floor and transition. They kicked the shit out of
Atlanta in their first game, if you guys remember, and
like Scotty Barnes, it was fun to watch. Scotty Barnes
like had a play where he drove through Jannis's chest
and like knocked him over and got a layup and
straight up like got down in his face and like
tried to show him up for the world to see,
(24:51):
and Janni's just like played it off and just whooped
his ass. Jianness was just absolutely phenomenal in that game.
I think he went for thirty and twenty against Toronto.
But like the mainly what I noticed from my first
kind of impressions of Milwaukee is they just make sense
on both ends. Of the floor. Now, I've talked a
(25:14):
lot before about how when you're constructing lineups, you're trying
to check all these responsibilities on the floor, right, Like,
there's a certain amount on offense, you need a guy
that can create advantages. You need an on ball advantage creator,
preferably one that can pressure the rim. And then off
of that, you like to have a screening partner, preferably multiple,
(25:37):
and then guys who can finish place finish sequences. So
guys that can knock down shots that are open, guys
that can drive close outs and make reads, guys that
can be vertical spacers. And one of the things that
you kind of see that is a treat when you
have Yannis. One of the top tier superstars in this
league is Yannis checks so many boxes both ends of
(26:00):
the floor. Obviously, he's this devastating on ball weapon, but
he's obviously he's also a great screener. He's also a
guy that can finish plays extremely well around the basket,
who can clean up stuff on the offensive glass, who
can catch and finish as a cutter. I mean, hell,
he hit two threes against Toronto, a couple big ones
(26:20):
above the break, like he can do all these things
on offense, but then you go to the defensive end
of the floor and it's the exact same thing, right Like,
he is like kind of in and of himself a
great defensive rebounding foundation. He is in and of himself
a great like rim protection foundation. And then you look
at the other pieces they have, and they kind of
layer on each other, right like when you see Miles,
(26:42):
Turner and Giannis playing together, and it just looks like
a lot for an offense to deal with. Like one
of the things I noticed, Miles had this play where
he forced Brandon Ingram into a huge miss in crunch time.
Brandon turned over his right shoulder and I can't remember
who he was going against, but it wasn't Miles. Miles
was in help, and Miles like made an impromptu like
(27:05):
lunge forward to try to contest Brandon and covered a
lot of ground and got a great contest. Brandon has
an awful miss and Miles like recovers back into the
lane and gets the rebound. And all I could think
of is like Brook Lopez towards the end, wasn't moving
like that. He didn't have the he had the verticality element.
(27:27):
He still was a decent rim protector when you could
put him by the rim, but he didn't have that
like forward back, stop start mobility that Miles Turner has now.
And so like Miles Turner like next to Giannis is
a really strong defensive foundation. They're tenth in defense to
start the year, and despite having a bunch of like
smaller guards on the perimeter, they've been a decent rebounding
(27:51):
team to start the year. And so again you kind
of look at it and it's like subbing in Ryan
Rollins as like this athletic, rim pressuring playmaker that competes
and does a lot more defensively than Damian Lillard did.
All of a sudden, like the team kind of makes
sense in a lot of ways. You've got your legitimate
(28:13):
pick and roll defender and Miles Turner that can come
up to the level, but they can also run drop
coverage that could do a little bit of switching. Giannis
is this devastating low man on the back line, and
that constant give and take with him and Miles, or
when Miles is up, Jannis is over, when Miles is back,
Giannis is on the perimeter. They've got this like natural
kind of lowman, dynamic. AJ Green is like a legitimately
(28:35):
good defender, and Ryan Rollins is like a good athlete
that competes defensively, Like Gary Trent is now your weakest
defender in your starting group as opposed to being the
second weakest defender off of Damian Lillard. It just kind
of like has more coherence on the defensive end of
the floor and then on the offensive end of the
fourth same sort of thing. They've surrounded Giannis with shooting.
(28:56):
They've been kind of trying to find this pick and
roll player that they can fit alongside Giannis, and they've
tried all these different guys, and Dame in a lot
of ways wasn't a great fit because he was just
so one speed and so pull up jump shot oriented
that he struggled to get the ball to Giannis in
the pocket right. But like we saw Kevin Porter Junior
have some success by being more of like a kind
(29:19):
of slow, methodical pick and roll ball handler with Giannis
last year a little bit, but early in the season, like,
I've really liked Ryan Rawlins alongside Giannis. I think his
give and take with him feels really natural. He's aggressive
without stepping on Giannis's toes. He's been one of their
best like assist to turnover guys because he just keeps
getting into the lane and like finishing in traffic but
(29:41):
making really high level kickout reads like he's starting the
offense for Milwaukee. Often that if the ball ends up
in Gary Trent's hands, it feels like it's got a
good chance to go in. The ball ends up in
aj Green's hands, it feels like it's got a good
chance to go in. Miles Turner obviously is spacing five.
It just makes sense. You've you've got a bunch of
guys that can screen for Giannis and score out of
(30:03):
screens for Yannis. You got a bunch of guys that
can score and spot up. You've got this guard and
Ryan Rollins that can attack when he's got the basketball. Dude,
Like even Cole Anthony has brought like this dynamic rim
pressure kickout element that has been that has been really impressive.
And Cole had a ridiculous driving layup down the stretch
(30:24):
against Toronto. Cole was just ridiculous against Toronto. Who's awesome
in that game. But like they've just done a really
nice job of finding complimentary discounted talent to surround Yannis with,
and credit to Doc Rivers. I think he's done a
really nice job of kind of like finding the right
way to put the lineups together. And it all just
(30:44):
makes sense to me. And it's not gonna be perfect,
and they're gonna lose games. They've dropped a game on
the road in Cleveland today or yesterday. It's not gonna
be perfect. But like this, when I envisioned Milwaukee as
my tenth best team in the league, as the team
that I had that was at the time of the
third tier, my case was Giannis is one of the
very best players in the league. You know, he's coming
(31:06):
out for blood this year. And this team, this team
is in an Eastern Conference where most of these teams
are pretty heavily flawed. And I've just been it's only
a snap judgment here from three games, but to me,
Milwaukee looks like the kind of team that's going to
OutKick their coverage, so to speak, and play above their
they're on paper talent, because everybody just slots together really
(31:29):
well here in the early part of the season. All right,
before we get out of here today, the five most
impressive teams from the first week of the NBA season,
starting with San Antonio Spurs three and oh start wins
against Brooklyn, New Orleans and Dallas. Dallas was obviously the
dominant performance we saw on Wednesday night that we covered.
If you guys remember, we just absolutely humiliated Anthony Davis.
(31:52):
We talked about that at the night of the game.
New Orleans is a really impressive come from behind victory.
They were down eight in the third quarter on the road,
and Dylan Harbor had like a super nice burst in
that third quarter to get him back, got to the
room a few times, ended up hitting a three, got
them back in the game. They went on to win
in overtime, and then Brooklyn kind of looked like it
was going to be a very professional victory for a
(32:13):
serious team against a bad team. But then Brooklyn punched
back and they actually took a fourth quarter lead. They
ended up getting forty from Cam Thomas in that game,
and I thought the Spurs played some excellent late game offense.
They were posting up Wemby and drawing double teams and
getting buckets out of that. There was a really impressive
sequence where they posted up Wemby on the left block
(32:35):
and Keldon Johnson like faked like he was going to
run through to the opposite side and then just quick
turn and made himself available. Wemby hit him and he
got right in the lane and finished. They ran a
bunch of two man game with both Steph Castle and
Wemby as well as Devin Vessel and Wenby, and those
guys were getting in the basket, or excuse me, Dylan
Harper and Wemby, those guys were getting in the basket.
That like dynamic, big athletic guard like Steph Castle or
(33:00):
Dylan Harper with Wemby rolling alongside of him, it's causing
problems for teams. Like they're getting to the basket and
getting really good looks out of those actions, and like
it's just unusual to see a young team to run
really good late game offense, but they just ran really
good late offense against Brooklyn and got awesome looks. Layups
(33:20):
for Steph Castle, layups for Dylan Harper, layup for Keldon
Johnson off of a Wemby post up. Just really nice
stuff to start the season from a younger group that
you wouldn't expect to see like that. Wemby in his
first three games has averaged thirty three points and thirteen
rebounds with six point seven stocks per game on sixty
four percent true shooting. Just completely outrageous. He's cut down
(33:45):
in his three point volume and as a result, he's
somehow become more efficient, which is very rare because three
point volume is the way to achieve like large sample
efficiency for a lot of these players. And it's because
he's shooting eighty percent at the rim and he's shooting
sixty percent on short twos inside of seventeen feet. That's
(34:07):
a big part of that more reliable scoring that we've
been talking about with him. And then all three of
the young guards have been fantastic. Harper has shown a
remarkable ability to get to the rim as a driver, cutter,
and crasher. Dylan Harper early on has the fourth most
total made field goals at the rim in the entire league.
Tied for fourth is fifteen layups. Already, He's just gonna
(34:32):
be so awesome. He's big, he's athletic, he's physical, he's scrappy.
I just think he projects to be an awesome two
way player in the league. Super impressive debut for Dylan Harper.
Devin Vessel Is shooting the dam seems off the basketball,
and it's been up and down for Steph Castle. He's
had some turnover issues and he's still not shooting the
ball super well from three, but he's been very dynamic
and he's been a big crunch time option for them.
(34:53):
He had a big pull up three to force overtime
against New Orleans and then he had a huge driving
layup to help close the deal against Brooklyn. Looking at
their team wide metrics, they have a one to twenty
offensive rating. That's awesome, one h five defensive rating that's awesome.
They're grabbing fifty six percent of available rebounds, that's awesome.
Although they did have a little bit of an issue
on the defensive glass late in the game against Brooklyn.
(35:15):
They got lucky that Cam Thomas missed a couple of
the wide open threes that came off of those sequences.
Thirty eight points in the paint allowed per game. That's incredible. Really,
the only thing that I can point to as a
significant negative here in the early part is they're turning
the ball over a lot and they're giving up a
lot of transition points off of those turnovers. But other
than that, just a super impressive start for the San
(35:37):
Antonio Spurs. Secondly, the Yoklahoma City Thunder also three and
zero here in the early going, wins over Houston, Indiana
and Atlanta super impressive when you consider the injuries. No
Jalen Williams. That's the second best ball handler and second
best player overall, especially important for a team that's light
on ball handling given when they're healthy. SGA's been just
completely incredible. He's averaging forty points, six rebounds, and five
(36:00):
assists in the early going. There's been a lot of
conversation about his sky high free throw attempts. I think
he had what forty free throws in his first two
games if I remember correctly, And I actually haven't had
a problem with it. Like there's been a handful of
plays in there that were a little grifty, that were
a little over the top, but like, like for the
most part, it feels like he's getting to the line
with drives in pump fakes, and again, like I've complained
(36:22):
about Shay's free throws in the past, mostly juxtaposed with
the way the team is allowed to defend on the
other end of the floor, But I've really only had
one gripe and it's non basketball plays. That's where I
have an issue, is non basketball plays. You know what
basketball play? You know what is a basketball play? Driving
to the basket and getting hacked? You know what is
a basketball play? Turning like you're gonna shoot and pump
(36:45):
faking and the guy leaving his feet and then you shooting.
That's a basketball play. Those are normal basketball moves. And
again there have been a handful of griffs mixed in there,
but for the most part, to me, SHA's just ethically
barbecuing dudes to get to the fout line. I haven't
had a problem with it. And essentially, as far as
I'm concerned, the team has desperately needed him to scale
up his offense because of how limited they've been with
(37:07):
the injuries, and all he's done is do so average
forty against very good teams and he's three and zero
MVP level stuff from Shay Chad had a rough shooting
night against Indiana, he was missing his three point shot,
but he had six threes against Atlanta. He's now at
forty two percent from three on six attempts per game
through his three games. Lou Dord has been downright destructive
(37:29):
on defense once again. As a team, they're leading the
league and points off of turnovers with twenty six per
game while only allowing sixteen the other way. It's like
they're starting every game with a ten zero lead just
in points off turnovers. Mitchell AJ Mitchell and Aaron Wiggins
have both had big moments on offense to help carry
the load at various points. They were amazing in Indiana. Really,
(37:49):
the only statistical gripe I have with them here in
the early going is their defensive rebounding, but that's been
an issue forever and they keep winning in spite of it.
They look poised to make a run at a seventy
win season. I think it's like a legitimate possibility for them.
Number three kind of a shaker here. The Philadelphia seventy
six ers two and zero with a couple wins against
Charlotte and Boston. Really impressive performances across the board. Obviously VJ.
(38:13):
Edgecombe has this brilliant Game one, but I thought he
was pretty good against Charlotte as well, Like he didn't
quite have the offensive game, but he had this insane
closeout attack off of the right corner and crunch time
he rips the closeouts to his right shoulder, he rips
middle and just elevates in traffic and goes up and
under and finishes a huge playing crunch time of that game.
(38:33):
He had four stocks in that game as well. Quintin
Grimes had twenty four ver Charlotte hit the biggest shout
of the game, beating Nail Help with the three off
of the right wing, and then Tyers Max. He's been
one of the best guards in the league here in
the early part of the season. He's just shooting the
shit out of the basketball, getting wherever he wants to
go with his speed, and I've been really impressed with
his floor game, just taking easy reads all over the floor,
(38:55):
Like the kick to Grimes that I'm talking about. Grimes
is on the right wing, his man is sinking all
the way down into the lane, and instead of forcing
it or trying to do too much, Tyres just throws
a swing pass to Quenton Grinds, and Quentin Grinmes makes
him pay. And I thought it was really interesting juxtapose
with the way that game was going, because you know,
I'm sure a lot of people saw the the debate
(39:15):
surrounding the late shot that LaMelo ball took ti game,
I can't remember. It was like a minute left and
he took a just really difficult like step back thirty
foot or off the left wing. And it always looks
a little bit more corny with LaMelo because he shoots
it kind of like off of one foot. And LaMelo is,
by the way, having a ridiculous start to the season.
(39:36):
He had like thirty seven, thirteen and thirteen tonight against
Washington just or last night. It's just a ridiculous game.
But like that game down the stretch against Philly, all
of the Charlotte guards were just taking difficult shots. Like
it wasn't just LaMelo. Lamello missed that step back, but
like Trey Trey, Trey Man missed like a couple of
(39:58):
easy or like like kind of like easy reads where
he just was taking tough shots in the middle of
the floor. Colin Sexton had an identical play to the
Quentin Grimes play Kank Nipple's on the right wing. Colin
Sexton's isoing off of the left wing. Knk Nipple's man
has dug way down into the lane and help and
instead of just I think it was Tyrese Maxey and
instead of throwing the kickout pass to wide open Conka
(40:21):
Nipple for the three. Colin just jacked up a contested
twenty footer and missed it. It's the exact same read
that on the other side of the floor Tyrese had
and made the read and Quentin Grimes knocked down the
wide open shot. And so in the early going of
the season here, Tyrese has taking really good care of
the basketball. He's racking up assists. It's just really high
(40:45):
quality floor game from him, coupled with elite shot making
and his speed just getting him wherever he wants to
get to on the floor. Andre Drummond had an absolutely
brilliant second half against Charlotte, just completely dominated the glass
on both ends. Had a huge tip dunk late like
blew the lid off the arena. Kelly Ubray was great again.
He did some great work off the bounce. He created
(41:05):
his own shot for buckets like three times in that game.
And I know it hasn't looked perfect with Embiid and
his complete inability to protect the rim is a big
part of why they can't guard when he's on the floor,
Like he's just straight up not protecting the rim. But
it was kind of cool as a fan to see
him score twenty points in twenty minutes against Charlotte and
make it look super easy, just with all of the
same high end shot making that was a staple of
(41:29):
his when he was at his peak. It's just a
really fun sixers team that is loaded with dynamic playmakers
on the perimeter, and I think they have a decent
shot to compete night to night in the East with
all those guards. And like that's with them getting nothing
from Paul George and Joel Embiid. It can only go
up from there with those two guys. So like again,
like there's there's a question to be had, Like when
(41:50):
you've got Jabari Walker, you've got these forwards that are
like flying around and grabbing rebounds and just doing work
as hustle guys. Paul George is going to be a
very different counter to that style. But like, I think
it can only go up from there, right, Like, if
you get anything from those guys, it's a bonus at
this point. Next, Golden State Warriors. They dropped a tough
(42:12):
game on the road in Portland, and the tail end
of a back to back steph looked great, but the
rest of the group looked flat. Portland has had a
lot of guys that can get to the basket here
early in the season, and that Golden State defense was
just getting shredded by drives and in transition. Something to
keep an eye on when the Warriors play some more
athletic teams down the line. But I'm not going to
overreact to a tail end of a back to back
(42:33):
kind of game like that. I that they looked super
impressive in their wins versus the Lakers and Nuggets. They
looked way better on both ends of the floor than
I expected them to. They didn't look slow and old.
They looked athletic and smart. They didn't look as Steph
dependent on offense as I expected them to, although they
were certainly happy to take sixteen straight from him at
the end of the Denver game. But Jimmy's been able
(42:55):
to provide scoring. Kamingas looked like a guy that's becoming
more comfortable in Golden State system. Draymond is also shooting
the ball extremely well to start the year. The Portland
game showed some issues that we were aware of before
the season. If you guys remember we talked about how
they were a little light on overall talent. They're specially
light on scoring talent. But I don't know how you
(43:15):
could possibly be a Warriors fan and not be more
excited about the team now than you were a month
ago when Kaminga wasn't signed and they looked like one
of the teams in that mediocre middle tier of the
Western Conference playoff put. Lastly, the Miami Heat two and
one to start the year, they'd be three and zero.
They didn't blow a late lead against Orlando, And I
(43:37):
was watching their game against New York today yesterday, I
should say, and I found them to be really fun
to watch. Not having Tyler Harrow has caused them to
not be as predictable with like their two man game
as they were last year. They're not spamming a lot
of the same thing. They're just relentlessly attacking. They're playing
at one of the most hilacious paces in the league.
(43:57):
All they're doing is every single time they have an
opportuny or either throwing a kick ahead pass, and they're
hitting gaps like they bludgeoned New York in the second
half of this game with just attacks from Jime Hakez
and Simone Fatechio and Nikola Jovich just like push the
ball off the floor while the defense is still in
semi transition and they're not set, just attack the gap
(44:20):
in play basketball off of it. They're spacing the floor
well and they're making good reads there. And then when
things slowed down in that game against New York, like
shout out to Jim Hawkez. He was cooking them. He
was doing work in the post and doing work and
pick and roll attacking the basket. Just a really nice
piece of shot creation in that second half from Jime Hakkez.
But like they're just pushing the ball with up the
(44:42):
floor of pace, attacking gaps and playing basketball off of it.
I found it really fascinating because like we learned last
year from Indiana with the Pacers, that if you move
the ball and you play fast, and you make good
reads and you have guys who can finish plays off
of those advantages, you're gonna win a lot of games.
(45:02):
That's in Indiana, tatas play on the margins, live in
transition when you can't push, push, push, push push, because
we're gonna be more efficient there. And so like, I'm
not the least bit surprised that one of the smartest
organizations in the league and the guy that I think
is the best coach in the NBA, and Eric Spolstra
has adopted a lot of that over the course of
the summer. The Miami Heat are averaging thirty nine transition
(45:25):
points per game PERCENTERGY so far, the second most in
the entire NBA behind Portland. Just a crazy stat. They're
third and net rating to start the year because they're
third in defense, and they're getting out in transition off
of those stops, and they're getting enough offense because they're
(45:46):
getting thirty nine points in transition per game. One other
stat for them too, they've been the best jump shooting
team in the league here in the early part of
the season. They're getting one point one to seven points
per shot, which is number one in the NBA. The
first WEEKIE games really really I like, of all the
teams that I've watched to start this season, the Heat
have been playing one of the more fun brands of
(46:08):
basketball that I've seen. I really enjoyed watching them today,
kind of exposed a New York team that looked really
sloppy in transition to It's another story for another day.
We'll talk to some Nix later on this week. All right, guys,
that's all I have for today. As always, to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
We'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction. I'll see
you guys then
The volume. All right, welcome here tonight. You're at the
Vaulume Heavy Monday. Everybody. Hope if you guys had an
incredible weekend, we have a jam pack show for you today.
(00:21):
We are hitting on eight teams. We're going to lead
off with the Houston Rockets. I'm a little bit more
bullish on them than most after their zero and two start.
I want to talk about their game against Detroit, some
of the things we learned, and some of the things
that I expect them to be able to improve upon
over time. After that, Austin reeves fifty one point near
triple double on the road in Sacramento, but comes attached
(00:45):
to some bad news as the Lakers find out they're
going to be out without Luka Doncicic for this week.
I have some opinions there. We're gonna briefly touch on
the Milwaukee Bucks and some of their early returns from them.
I caught their game against Toronto, the the game where
Scottie Barnes tried to show up Yannis, and Yannis very
much did not allow that to happen. They ended up
(01:05):
dropping a game against Cleveland earlier on Sunday. I caught
the crunch time of that game as well, we'll have
some brief thoughts on the Bucks. After that, we're going
to be covering the top five most impressive teams from
Week one of the NBA season, So jam pack show
lots of teams to get into. You guys, are the
joke before we get started. Subscribed to Hoops and I
YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter and underscore JCNLT so you guys
(01:26):
don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed
wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also
super helpful if you leave a rating in a review
on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on our social
media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make sure
you guys follow us there for content throughout the rest
of the season, and the last but not least, keep
dropping questions in our YouTube comments for our weekly mail
bag so we can get to them throughout the rest
(01:47):
of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball, starting
with the Houston Rockets again off to an one and
two start. They followed up their heartbreaking loss to Oklahoma
City with an equally frustrating loss to Detroit, but I've
remained bullish on them to start the year. The Pistons.
First of all, it was interesting and revealing on several levels.
But let's credit the Pistons. They're a really good young team.
(02:11):
They're particularly good at playing in physicality. Like one of
the things that stood out to me in that game
was like alput In Shangoon really struggled like it was
one of the worst games I've seen him play in
a very long time. And part of the reason is
he's not bullying that Detroit Pistons front court. He struggled
to Jayalen Durr, and he struggled with Isaiah Stewart, he
struggled with Paul Reid, he struggled even with Tobias Harris,
(02:34):
who was meeting his physicality and attacking when he would
expose the basketball. Like those guys just met his force
with force, and they disrupted his rhythm and they forced
him into a ton of misses right around the rim.
That was a huge factor in Houston's offense in this game.
And then Kate, to Kid's credit, he was absolutely fantastic
in the second half. He had gotten off to a
(02:54):
little bit of a rough start this season, but he
beat several different Rockets coverages. In the second half of
that game, he'd he dropped single coverage down the stretch.
The Rockets were consistently blitzing him. It kind of turned
into this weird blitz off where the Rockets were blitzing
KDE and the Pistons were blitzing KD and shout out
to Detroit. They just kind of won that battle and
(03:15):
made a few more plays. Cage showed some impressive shot
making down the stretch. He has a strength and size
advantage over a men Thompson, and I thought he did
a really nice job using his body to get free
of him. He had a really interesting play late in
the game where he calls for a ball screen on
the right side and men Thompson is there, and he
goes like he's about to use the screen and does
(03:36):
a good job showing the body and the ball like
he's about to use the screen, gets a men Thompson
to take that step into the screen. Then he rejects
it and men Thompson, ridiculous athlete, obviously gonna recovers, but
Kge just fends him off because now he's got just
that tiny bit of a step right and he fends
him off and just gets to that little short twelve
footer along the lane line on the left side and
(03:58):
knocked it down. There's a big time shot against one
of the apex perimeter defenders in this league. Shout out
to the Detroit Pistons. They're a good team. They've been
playing together for a while. The Rockets are working progress
and they got beat but there's still a ton of good.
As I talked about before the season, Katie is such
a gifted scorer coming off of screens that he can
(04:20):
command a lot of aggressive coverages for himself. He can
command blitzes and at the level coverages and things along
those lines, and he did that against Detroit. He had
thirty seven points, literally forced Detroit to repeatedly blitz him
down the stretch after he hit a pullback three that
tied the game in crunch time. And honestly, that was
(04:40):
where I thought the absence of Dorian Finney Smith was
really felt. The Reed Shepherd thing has been kind of
a disaster. We'll dig into that in a little bit.
On one level, it's kind of to me just a
testament to how good this team can be when they
eventually trade for a guard. We'll talk about him in
a minute. Then, you know, when you kind of take
him out of the equation, it comes down to Tari
Easton or Steven Adams that he's looking at for that
(05:03):
fifth starter or fifth closer, I should say. And so
ima Udoka goes with a Tari Easton down the stretch.
And Tari Easton has been a big issue for them
offensively with their spacing, and it just was difficult for
them to get good shots off of those blitzes down
the stretch of the game. And like, all I could
think about when I saw that is, first of all,
(05:25):
you know, who's gonna really help Dorian Phinney Smith, a
guy who like is the perfect connective player on both
ends of the floor for them, as a guy that
is going to knock down that corner three point shot
at a high rate. Who's gonna communicate for them defensively,
which I think will be important. Their defense hasn't been
as good as it's capable of being. We'll talk more
about that in a few minutes. But like that fifth
(05:48):
that fifth closer, it's gonna be a Dorian Phinney Smith,
or it's gonna be a guard that they trade for
at some point down the line. That's gonna be something
that is is gonna make it easier for them to
make teams pay for blitzing Kevin Durant, Like, this is
a thing that because even above and beyond the fifth
player in those lineups, they're gonna find ways sequences, quick
(06:10):
passing and cutting sequences to get good shots off of
those blitzes. This is a problem. That's not even a problem.
It's this is an upside that they have not experienced
in this iteration of the team. They haven't had a
player that is going to consistently draw two defenders thirty
feet from the rim. That is a massive boost to
(06:32):
your offense once you figure out how to make teams
pay for it. I looked at that and I was like,
Katie's getting blitzed for torching a team and we're not
even two games into the season. Like, this is an upside.
They just got to figure it out. By the way,
that's starting lineup Amen Thompson, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith, Al
Burn Shangun and Steven Adams is plus eighteen net so
(06:55):
far to start the season in forty possessions. According to
cleaning the glass. And again, I think they're capable of
playing way better defensively than they have to this point.
They have frequently put out Burn Shangun in a roaming
role off of non shooters, and he's been a bit
inattentive in some situations. Against Oklahoma City, he had several
situations where he was kind of the the culprit of
(07:17):
their poor semi transition defense because it's like he's roaming,
he's supposed to be protecting the rim, but he's just
a little slow to get back into position because he's relaxing.
That happened several times down the stretch against Detroit, and
like that's something that I think they'll be able to
clean up. I think that's a role where Shanggun's gonna
be able to have some success. And like they've strangely
been bad on the defensive glass, which doesn't even make
(07:39):
sense with how big they are. One of the things
I'm seeing on film is they can be a bit
slow footed at times, and that can get them a
little bit into you know, the blender of just quicker
guards going past them for long rebounds off of missus,
like long jump shots and things along those lines. So
like there's a lot they can clean up. As I mentioned,
re Shepherd has not been good. The Rockets are. This
(08:00):
is crazy stat They're plus eight net so far through
the two games with him off the floor, and minus
eighteen net with him on the floor. He doesn't make
anything off the dribble, he doesn't make anything at the rim,
and he turns the ball over and so to me, honestly,
that was just a sign of how much better this
team will be when they inevitably make a trade for
(08:20):
a veteran guard at some point down the line. This season,
it's like such an obvious position of need where they've
been getting poor play. But even with everything that happened,
even with Reed shepherd struggles, even with Tarry Easton struggles,
even with the rebounding struggles, even with Alpa and Shangun
having just an absolute nightmare game, even with all of that,
even with them being mostly a new team trying to
(08:43):
figure out how to play a new style, they got
handed to like tough teams to start the season, and
they were disclose to winning both games. Javari Smith got
a wide open three on the left side down two
that would have given Houston the league down the stretch
of that game. And then as we know they're you know,
(09:04):
they were up six late in regulation against Oklahoma City.
They had a couple of mistakes that let Oklahoma City
back in the game, and you know, Shae misses a
tough contested step back over a men. Thompson, you're two
and zero, like so, I all I can think as
I've watched them through the first two games is they
have a million things that can clean up and be
much better. I just think they're gonna be a really
(09:25):
good team in the long run. Not too worked up
about their her and two start the Los Angeles Lakers
huge win last night in Sacramento. Today's show is brought
to you by our new presenting sponsor, hard Rock Bet.
The NBA season is heating up, and every night is
a shot to score a major bucket on hard Rock Bet,
your home for hoops action all season long. Need it
(09:46):
will help with your first bet. Check out the streaks
heating up inside the hard Rock Bet stats hub. You
can find live odds to bet on all of the
streaks right in the hard Rock Bet at If you
haven't tried your first bet on hard rock Bet, there's
still time for you to get one hundred fIF ffty
dollars in bonus bets if you win, just place a
five dollars bet and if it hits you not only
get your winnings, but one hundred and fifty dollars in
(10:08):
extra bonus bets plus. All week on hard Rock Bet
you can get an NBA Parlay boost for the games.
There's new promos every day. Boost your same game parlay
or SGP max so your bet pays extra winnings. Download
a hard Rock Bet app today and make your first deposit.
Payble and bonus bets not a cash offer offered by
(10:28):
the Seminole Tribe of Florida in Florida, offered by Seminal
hard Rock Digital LLC. In other states. Must be twenty
one plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,
New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and
conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida, call one eight
three three play Wise. In Indiana, if you or someone
(10:51):
you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call
one eight hundred and nine with it gambling problem called
one eight hundred Gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. Austin Reeves just casually reminded everyone that he's
one of the very best players in the NBA. He
was just one assist shy of a fifty one point
(11:14):
triple double. Zachraviddo is a really good matchup for Austin
because their bigs are incapable of switching. Austin can struggle
against really athletic teams that can switch from time to time,
but in this particular matchup where he's able to essentially
get downhill via ball screens, Austin's very, very good at
getting his man caught on the screen by setting him
(11:36):
up for the screen. And one of the things that
he's best at is he attacks with like a ton
of speed coming downhill in ball screens. A lot of
players are more methodical. Austin is not methodical. Austin is
like attack, attack, attack, and when he gets into the
teeth of the defense, he can draw fouls, he can
finish at the rim at a high clip, he can
(11:57):
stop and pop short of the rim for those little
short jump shots, and he's gotten way better over the
course of these last few years of his career at
making the kickout reads, the skip and the lob and
all those sorts of reads that he can get to
in those situations. And like, one of the things that
I've had my eye on with him is his three
point shot. What I thought was really interesting is when
(12:17):
Austin leaves the game late fourth quarter or late third quarter,
Lakers are up five if I remember correctly, and Austin
subs out to start the fourth quarter and the wheels
just completely fall off. Predictably, that Laker team, down all
three of their top shot creators, is just not super
talented on offense. Right, shout out to Marcus Smart. He
makes a little jump shot, grifts his way to the
(12:40):
Marcus has been a total grift show to start the season,
but he's found ways to generate some points. Austin comes
back in the game and like, this is the guy
who'd been attacking all game, and you could tell his
legs were tired, and he went to his pull up
three in the fourth quarter and he was able to
generate a bunch of points on these shots over the
top of the defense from this since when he got tired,
(13:01):
and at that point, the Kings had no choice but
to blitz him on ball screens, and he hit the
short roller every single time without turning the ball over,
and the Lakers role players made them pay. We'll talk
more about the Lakers role players in a minute. And
then late in the game, after the King stopped blitzing,
they stopped blitzing because they were getting beat. They went
back to chasing over the top. Austin missed a couple
(13:21):
of threes, and it kind of felt like when you
were watching the game, like he needs to get one
last bucket going towards the basket, and he did. He
summoned the strength for one last drive and hit like
an insane floater with defenders draped all over him, and
then he closed the deal to the line, just two turnovers,
despite insane usage, in a damn near fifty point triple double.
(13:43):
Just a truly remarkable performance from the Lakers' third best player.
That's the crazy thing. And so many other Lakers stepped up,
like DeAndre Ayton got a lot of shit for what
happened on Opening night. I thought he was excellent against Minnesota,
and I thought he was excellent against Sacramento at twenty
two and fifteen tonight, he got beat to the offensive
glass a few times by Sabonis, but other than that,
(14:03):
I thought he won his matchup. Like he just badly
dominated Demanda Sabonis tonight. His length at the rim was
a legit factor all night. He picked up a couple
of fouls where he's still just a little slow getting
his feet set with his hands up without committing fouls.
He'll like bump the dude with his chest and pick
up a foul, but like he was getting deflections and
causing problems at the rim. I thought he ran the
(14:25):
floor and transitioned super well all night, getting up and
down and made several plays in that context. And then
he consistently torched the Kings on the roll and on
the offensive glass, just rolling to the lane and cleaning
up misses twenty two and fifteen. And again I thought
he was excellent against the Wolves as well, as he
set good screens for Luca and ended up finishing a
lot of those blitz sequences when Lucas started. It sat
(14:47):
very similar sequence in both games. Luca drops forty nine,
Austin drops fifty one, Lucas same thing, just torching the
traditional coverage all of a sudden. Now you got a
blitz and now we're getting dunks and I open threes
out of the blitz. Now the blitz doesn't work. We
got to go back to playing one on one like
Austin and Luca just straight up broke Minnesota and Sacramento's
(15:09):
defenses over the last couple of days. Ruey Hachimura last
night hit several little iso jumpers in the middle of
the floor that felt like in super important shots, obviously
down their shot creators. He scored a few times off
of the roles when Austin was getting blitzed. Marcus Smart,
like I mentioned, manufactured offense and he was scrapping all night.
Jared Vanderbilt guarded Zach Levine and just made him work
hard for everything and it was his usual wrecking ball self.
(15:31):
And shout out to Jake Loreve. I thought he had
his first little moment as a Laker. He hit a
huge three relocating to the top of the key off
of Ruey Hachimura post up, hit an and one layup
off of a seal Jared Vanderbilt really nice pass from
the top of the key. Jac Larravea set a backscreen,
got the defender sealed on his top side, led the
kind of created a passing window over the top, and
(15:52):
he got an and one on Kean Ellis, and I
thought he made several defensive plays as well. It was
just a really impressive win for an man Lakers team.
I thought they looked terrible in their season opener, and
they certainly don't have the best roster in the NBA.
I think their roster got a little bit milgned over
the last few days, as if they didn't win fifty
games last year. And again, I don't think they're a
(16:13):
perfect basketball team. There's certainly light on defensive talent. But
I mean they hung a one to twenty eight offensive
rating in their last two games without any games from
Lebron and just two games from Luca. Through their first
three games of the season, they have the third best
offensive rating in the league. And it still feels like
they have so many things that they can figure out.
(16:34):
And again, two of the teams they played with great defenses,
So like this is going to be a great offense
all year and has the potential to be like really
really special when Lebron comes back. And again, I know
Sacramento is not that impressive of a win, but down
Luca and Lebron. I thought it was impressive. And secondly,
that Wolves game. I'm not sure how many of you
guys caught that Wolves game on Friday night, but like,
(16:54):
the Wolves tried to punk them early in that game.
They were mauling them on the glass. They were hitting
all sorts of shots and was torching them all night
and getting to the rim whenever he wanted, and the
Lakers just punched back. Luca was transcendently great. They finally
got some stops in the second half by like scrapping
and supporting their mismatches, like swarming the ball more gang
(17:16):
rebounding to keep them off the glass, and they blew
out a very good Wolves team. And so, like, you know,
as far as it goes, they still have a lot
that can get better at. Obviously, the defensive end is
still a work in progress. Obviously they need to find
a way to incorporate Lebron. These are kind of my
last two thoughts. I saw a lot of talk from
(17:37):
people after even just the Wolves game that was like, oh,
why does this Laker team need Lebron? Here's a thought.
He's a second team All NBA player when he's healthy.
He's an excellent defensive rebounder. They've sucked at rebounding. They
need help on the glass. Lebron can help with that.
(17:58):
Lebron is a mid forties catch and shoot player. That's
something they could really use. Lebron last year was literally
the best switch defender in the entire NBA. You don't
think they could use a guy like that on this team.
And there are a lot of lineups, including tonight when
Luca was out and Austin was on, it took breaks
where they looked like they did need just that little
(18:19):
extra bit of offensive pop. Like this is the ideal
situation for Lebron. You can literally use him to plug
in all of the little holes that they have at
various points on the roster. And anything you get from
him as a shot creators found money. When you've got
two guys that are playing the way Austin and Luca are, Like,
I get it that it's not the most like cooperative
(18:40):
top three in terms of like all their talent slotting
together absolutely perfectly, But I know that Lebron James would
massively help this basketball team. And I've been like legitimately
appalled by how many people I've seen say that they'd
be better off without him, Like, I'm sorry, if you
trade Lebron for a couple of role players, this team
be comes worse, they don't become better. I think that
(19:02):
that's asinine. I just couldn't believe. I saw a few
people say that over the course of the weekend. And
then lastly, I understand that I'm gonna come off like
a little bit of a man screaming on the porch
or an old man yelling on the porch kind of
thing here, but I just don't understand why Luca is
taking a full week off here, and like, maybe there's
(19:22):
more information about the injury than what we have, But
what it looked like to me was Luca jammed his
finger and got a little banged up in the Wolves game,
but that happened early, and he absolutely fried those dudes
the entire game. He made Jaden mcdae like it was
amazing because like a lot of what I anticipated surrounding
(19:45):
the Wolves matchup involved things like Jaden can't guard Luca,
which was abundantly clear in twenty twenty four, But it
turns out Jaden could guard fat Luca and then guess
what skinny Luca was back in Jayden looked completely helpless,
like absolutely completely helpless. Is Luca just fried him all
(20:05):
over the floor. And then secondly, the importance of that
four out spacing and the role man from the center position,
which was how Luca beat the Blitzes down the stretch
when Minnesota went to the Blitzes, which was not an
option when it was Jackson Hayes. And so like, in
a lot of ways, some of the like kind of
conceptual things that I felt about Luca versus the Wolves
(20:26):
in the first round last year were like on display
in this game in a way that they weren't because
Luca's a lot thinner now and the Lakers actually can
play a center now. As we know, the Wolves are
a huge problem in the postseason in terms of their physicality.
I'm not saying that that would flip the dynamic of
the series. I'm just saying those are the basketball dynamics
that I was thinking about when I was making my
pick last year. Like, whenever I've seen Skinny Luca go
(20:49):
against Jayden, Jayden looks absolutely helpless, right, but like he
looked great all game. And so what you're telling me
is that in a stretch where the Lakers have six
games nine nights, five games this week in a Western conference,
where if you drop a game or two, it could
literally be like detrimental to you in the in the
(21:11):
next phase of your uh of your season, Like you
could legitimately have to be digging out of the plan
when you get to March that you would sit out
with a jammed finger and a leg bruise. It just
all I could think of was, like, this is a
guy that I've defended to a great extent over the
course of the summer. I ranked him second in my
(21:32):
player rankings, and part of the reason why I'm like
juxtaposing him with Shae, and I'm juxtaposing him with Yannis,
and I'm juxtaposing him with Luca, with Nikola jokicch and
And all I could think is is, like, if he's
gonna sit out with bumps and bruises and miss like
chunks of five games with a jam finger and a
leg bruise, how does that not act as a demerit
(21:57):
for him? In the conversation with Shay, or in the
conversation with Giannis, or in the conversation with Nicole Jokich,
Now I was texting somelkers people, and there's some there's
some pontification that the Lakers' medical staff is behind this,
that they're just being overly cautious. But all I could
(22:18):
think is is, like, why isn't Luca going up to
these dudes and being like, we can't afford to be
two and five next week. I need to play. I'm fine, Yeah,
I'm a little banged up, but let's go get Let's
go out there and compete and see if we can
beat Portland. Let's see if we can go beat Sacramento. So, like,
all I'm saying is like I was a little disappointed
(22:40):
to find out that Luca was gonna sit out for
a week with a leg bruise and a jam finger.
It just didn't seem It was kind of like unbecoming
of a twenty six year old superstar at the peak
of his powers, that I believe is the second best
player in the league for a team that frankly desperately
needs him. Like, nice win against Sacramentos, but it's gonna
(23:01):
get tough this week. Portland is a pain in the ass.
Ask anybody who's played them yet this year. They just
beat that Golden State Warriors team that started two to
zero on a tail end of a back to back,
and they are athletic, and they pressure the rim and
they have rim protection and they like they're pain These
are not gonna be easy games to win, and it
just it just felt like a overly cautious approach and,
(23:24):
like I said, unbecoming for a player in that top
tier superstars. Alright, quick thoughts on the Bucks, and then
we're gonna get to my five most impressive teams to
start the season. So I caught their entire game against Toronto,
and I caught the end of their game against Cleveland,
and they did drop that game against Cleveland. It was
a tough game, like they Donovan Mitchell showed some really
impressive shot making in the middle of their own defense,
(23:46):
hit a couple of like super tough, like mid range
jump shots against great contests. And then Lonzo Ball hit
a big three off the left wing. He had a
big offensive rebound two down the stretch, and they botched
a coverage late and they left sam Merril wide open
and he hit a shot. And it was just like
kind of one of those things where the Bucks had
to use a ton of energy to come back from
a large deficit, and they made some mistakes down the
(24:09):
stretch in Cleveland ended up getting a win. But generally,
I've been very impressed by Milwaukee. I thought they looked
really good, especially in the Toronto game. They beat Washington
in the first game. Washington obviously one of the bottom
feeders of the NBA, but they beat Toronto, and like
Toronto was like a legit physical monster of a team
that is very good on defense, that has a lot
(24:29):
of athletes that can pack the paint, that can run
the floor and transition. They kicked the shit out of
Atlanta in their first game, if you guys remember, and
like Scotty Barnes, it was fun to watch. Scotty Barnes
like had a play where he drove through Jannis's chest
and like knocked him over and got a layup and
straight up like got down in his face and like
tried to show him up for the world to see,
(24:51):
and Janni's just like played it off and just whooped
his ass. Jianness was just absolutely phenomenal in that game.
I think he went for thirty and twenty against Toronto.
But like the mainly what I noticed from my first
kind of impressions of Milwaukee is they just make sense
on both ends. Of the floor. Now, I've talked a
(25:14):
lot before about how when you're constructing lineups, you're trying
to check all these responsibilities on the floor, right, Like,
there's a certain amount on offense, you need a guy
that can create advantages. You need an on ball advantage creator,
preferably one that can pressure the rim. And then off
of that, you like to have a screening partner, preferably multiple,
(25:37):
and then guys who can finish place finish sequences. So
guys that can knock down shots that are open, guys
that can drive close outs and make reads, guys that
can be vertical spacers. And one of the things that
you kind of see that is a treat when you
have Yannis. One of the top tier superstars in this
league is Yannis checks so many boxes both ends of
(26:00):
the floor. Obviously, he's this devastating on ball weapon, but
he's obviously he's also a great screener. He's also a
guy that can finish plays extremely well around the basket,
who can clean up stuff on the offensive glass, who
can catch and finish as a cutter. I mean, hell,
he hit two threes against Toronto, a couple big ones
(26:20):
above the break, like he can do all these things
on offense, but then you go to the defensive end
of the floor and it's the exact same thing, right Like,
he is like kind of in and of himself a
great defensive rebounding foundation. He is in and of himself
a great like rim protection foundation. And then you look
at the other pieces they have, and they kind of
layer on each other, right like when you see Miles,
(26:42):
Turner and Giannis playing together, and it just looks like
a lot for an offense to deal with. Like one
of the things I noticed, Miles had this play where
he forced Brandon Ingram into a huge miss in crunch time.
Brandon turned over his right shoulder and I can't remember
who he was going against, but it wasn't Miles. Miles
was in help, and Miles like made an impromptu like
(27:05):
lunge forward to try to contest Brandon and covered a
lot of ground and got a great contest. Brandon has
an awful miss and Miles like recovers back into the
lane and gets the rebound. And all I could think
of is like Brook Lopez towards the end, wasn't moving
like that. He didn't have the he had the verticality element.
(27:27):
He still was a decent rim protector when you could
put him by the rim, but he didn't have that
like forward back, stop start mobility that Miles Turner has now.
And so like Miles Turner like next to Giannis is
a really strong defensive foundation. They're tenth in defense to
start the year, and despite having a bunch of like
smaller guards on the perimeter, they've been a decent rebounding
(27:51):
team to start the year. And so again you kind
of look at it and it's like subbing in Ryan
Rollins as like this athletic, rim pressuring playmaker that competes
and does a lot more defensively than Damian Lillard did.
All of a sudden, like the team kind of makes
sense in a lot of ways. You've got your legitimate
(28:13):
pick and roll defender and Miles Turner that can come
up to the level, but they can also run drop
coverage that could do a little bit of switching. Giannis
is this devastating low man on the back line, and
that constant give and take with him and Miles, or
when Miles is up, Jannis is over, when Miles is back,
Giannis is on the perimeter. They've got this like natural
kind of lowman, dynamic. AJ Green is like a legitimately
(28:35):
good defender, and Ryan Rollins is like a good athlete
that competes defensively, Like Gary Trent is now your weakest
defender in your starting group as opposed to being the
second weakest defender off of Damian Lillard. It just kind
of like has more coherence on the defensive end of
the floor and then on the offensive end of the
fourth same sort of thing. They've surrounded Giannis with shooting.
(28:56):
They've been kind of trying to find this pick and
roll player that they can fit alongside Giannis, and they've
tried all these different guys, and Dame in a lot
of ways wasn't a great fit because he was just
so one speed and so pull up jump shot oriented
that he struggled to get the ball to Giannis in
the pocket right. But like we saw Kevin Porter Junior
have some success by being more of like a kind
(29:19):
of slow, methodical pick and roll ball handler with Giannis
last year a little bit, but early in the season, like,
I've really liked Ryan Rawlins alongside Giannis. I think his
give and take with him feels really natural. He's aggressive
without stepping on Giannis's toes. He's been one of their
best like assist to turnover guys because he just keeps
getting into the lane and like finishing in traffic but
(29:41):
making really high level kickout reads like he's starting the
offense for Milwaukee. Often that if the ball ends up
in Gary Trent's hands, it feels like it's got a
good chance to go in. The ball ends up in
aj Green's hands, it feels like it's got a good
chance to go in. Miles Turner obviously is spacing five.
It just makes sense. You've you've got a bunch of
guys that can screen for Giannis and score out of
(30:03):
screens for Yannis. You got a bunch of guys that
can score and spot up. You've got this guard and
Ryan Rollins that can attack when he's got the basketball. Dude,
Like even Cole Anthony has brought like this dynamic rim
pressure kickout element that has been that has been really impressive.
And Cole had a ridiculous driving layup down the stretch
(30:24):
against Toronto. Cole was just ridiculous against Toronto. Who's awesome
in that game. But like they've just done a really
nice job of finding complimentary discounted talent to surround Yannis with,
and credit to Doc Rivers. I think he's done a
really nice job of kind of like finding the right
way to put the lineups together. And it all just
(30:44):
makes sense to me. And it's not gonna be perfect,
and they're gonna lose games. They've dropped a game on
the road in Cleveland today or yesterday. It's not gonna
be perfect. But like this, when I envisioned Milwaukee as
my tenth best team in the league, as the team
that I had that was at the time of the
third tier, my case was Giannis is one of the
very best players in the league. You know, he's coming
(31:06):
out for blood this year. And this team, this team
is in an Eastern Conference where most of these teams
are pretty heavily flawed. And I've just been it's only
a snap judgment here from three games, but to me,
Milwaukee looks like the kind of team that's going to
OutKick their coverage, so to speak, and play above their
they're on paper talent, because everybody just slots together really
(31:29):
well here in the early part of the season. All right,
before we get out of here today, the five most
impressive teams from the first week of the NBA season,
starting with San Antonio Spurs three and oh start wins
against Brooklyn, New Orleans and Dallas. Dallas was obviously the
dominant performance we saw on Wednesday night that we covered.
If you guys remember, we just absolutely humiliated Anthony Davis.
(31:52):
We talked about that at the night of the game.
New Orleans is a really impressive come from behind victory.
They were down eight in the third quarter on the road,
and Dylan Harbor had like a super nice burst in
that third quarter to get him back, got to the
room a few times, ended up hitting a three, got
them back in the game. They went on to win
in overtime, and then Brooklyn kind of looked like it
was going to be a very professional victory for a
(32:13):
serious team against a bad team. But then Brooklyn punched
back and they actually took a fourth quarter lead. They
ended up getting forty from Cam Thomas in that game,
and I thought the Spurs played some excellent late game offense.
They were posting up Wemby and drawing double teams and
getting buckets out of that. There was a really impressive
sequence where they posted up Wemby on the left block
(32:35):
and Keldon Johnson like faked like he was going to
run through to the opposite side and then just quick
turn and made himself available. Wemby hit him and he
got right in the lane and finished. They ran a
bunch of two man game with both Steph Castle and
Wemby as well as Devin Vessel and Wenby, and those
guys were getting in the basket, or excuse me, Dylan
Harper and Wemby, those guys were getting in the basket.
That like dynamic, big athletic guard like Steph Castle or
(33:00):
Dylan Harper with Wemby rolling alongside of him, it's causing
problems for teams. Like they're getting to the basket and
getting really good looks out of those actions, and like
it's just unusual to see a young team to run
really good late game offense, but they just ran really
good late offense against Brooklyn and got awesome looks. Layups
(33:20):
for Steph Castle, layups for Dylan Harper, layup for Keldon
Johnson off of a Wemby post up. Just really nice
stuff to start the season from a younger group that
you wouldn't expect to see like that. Wemby in his
first three games has averaged thirty three points and thirteen
rebounds with six point seven stocks per game on sixty
four percent true shooting. Just completely outrageous. He's cut down
(33:45):
in his three point volume and as a result, he's
somehow become more efficient, which is very rare because three
point volume is the way to achieve like large sample
efficiency for a lot of these players. And it's because
he's shooting eighty percent at the rim and he's shooting
sixty percent on short twos inside of seventeen feet. That's
(34:07):
a big part of that more reliable scoring that we've
been talking about with him. And then all three of
the young guards have been fantastic. Harper has shown a
remarkable ability to get to the rim as a driver, cutter,
and crasher. Dylan Harper early on has the fourth most
total made field goals at the rim in the entire league.
Tied for fourth is fifteen layups. Already, He's just gonna
(34:32):
be so awesome. He's big, he's athletic, he's physical, he's scrappy.
I just think he projects to be an awesome two
way player in the league. Super impressive debut for Dylan Harper.
Devin Vessel Is shooting the dam seems off the basketball,
and it's been up and down for Steph Castle. He's
had some turnover issues and he's still not shooting the
ball super well from three, but he's been very dynamic
and he's been a big crunch time option for them.
(34:53):
He had a big pull up three to force overtime
against New Orleans and then he had a huge driving
layup to help close the deal against Brooklyn. Looking at
their team wide metrics, they have a one to twenty
offensive rating. That's awesome, one h five defensive rating that's awesome.
They're grabbing fifty six percent of available rebounds, that's awesome.
Although they did have a little bit of an issue
on the defensive glass late in the game against Brooklyn.
(35:15):
They got lucky that Cam Thomas missed a couple of
the wide open threes that came off of those sequences.
Thirty eight points in the paint allowed per game. That's incredible. Really,
the only thing that I can point to as a
significant negative here in the early part is they're turning
the ball over a lot and they're giving up a
lot of transition points off of those turnovers. But other
than that, just a super impressive start for the San
(35:37):
Antonio Spurs. Secondly, the Yoklahoma City Thunder also three and
zero here in the early going, wins over Houston, Indiana
and Atlanta super impressive when you consider the injuries. No
Jalen Williams. That's the second best ball handler and second
best player overall, especially important for a team that's light
on ball handling given when they're healthy. SGA's been just
completely incredible. He's averaging forty points, six rebounds, and five
(36:00):
assists in the early going. There's been a lot of
conversation about his sky high free throw attempts. I think
he had what forty free throws in his first two
games if I remember correctly, And I actually haven't had
a problem with it. Like there's been a handful of
plays in there that were a little grifty, that were
a little over the top, but like, like for the
most part, it feels like he's getting to the line
with drives in pump fakes, and again, like I've complained
(36:22):
about Shay's free throws in the past, mostly juxtaposed with
the way the team is allowed to defend on the
other end of the floor, But I've really only had
one gripe and it's non basketball plays. That's where I
have an issue, is non basketball plays. You know what
basketball play? You know what is a basketball play? Driving
to the basket and getting hacked? You know what is
a basketball play? Turning like you're gonna shoot and pump
(36:45):
faking and the guy leaving his feet and then you shooting.
That's a basketball play. Those are normal basketball moves. And
again there have been a handful of griffs mixed in there,
but for the most part, to me, SHA's just ethically
barbecuing dudes to get to the fout line. I haven't
had a problem with it. And essentially, as far as
I'm concerned, the team has desperately needed him to scale
up his offense because of how limited they've been with
(37:07):
the injuries, and all he's done is do so average
forty against very good teams and he's three and zero
MVP level stuff from Shay Chad had a rough shooting
night against Indiana, he was missing his three point shot,
but he had six threes against Atlanta. He's now at
forty two percent from three on six attempts per game
through his three games. Lou Dord has been downright destructive
(37:29):
on defense once again. As a team, they're leading the
league and points off of turnovers with twenty six per
game while only allowing sixteen the other way. It's like
they're starting every game with a ten zero lead just
in points off turnovers. Mitchell AJ Mitchell and Aaron Wiggins
have both had big moments on offense to help carry
the load at various points. They were amazing in Indiana. Really,
(37:49):
the only statistical gripe I have with them here in
the early going is their defensive rebounding, but that's been
an issue forever and they keep winning in spite of it.
They look poised to make a run at a seventy
win season. I think it's like a legitimate possibility for them.
Number three kind of a shaker here. The Philadelphia seventy
six ers two and zero with a couple wins against
Charlotte and Boston. Really impressive performances across the board. Obviously VJ.
(38:13):
Edgecombe has this brilliant Game one, but I thought he
was pretty good against Charlotte as well, Like he didn't
quite have the offensive game, but he had this insane
closeout attack off of the right corner and crunch time
he rips the closeouts to his right shoulder, he rips
middle and just elevates in traffic and goes up and
under and finishes a huge playing crunch time of that game.
(38:33):
He had four stocks in that game as well. Quintin
Grimes had twenty four ver Charlotte hit the biggest shout
of the game, beating Nail Help with the three off
of the right wing, and then Tyers Max. He's been
one of the best guards in the league here in
the early part of the season. He's just shooting the
shit out of the basketball, getting wherever he wants to
go with his speed, and I've been really impressed with
his floor game, just taking easy reads all over the floor,
(38:55):
Like the kick to Grimes that I'm talking about. Grimes
is on the right wing, his man is sinking all
the way down into the lane, and instead of forcing
it or trying to do too much, Tyres just throws
a swing pass to Quenton Grinds, and Quentin Grinmes makes
him pay. And I thought it was really interesting juxtapose
with the way that game was going, because you know,
I'm sure a lot of people saw the the debate
(39:15):
surrounding the late shot that LaMelo ball took ti game,
I can't remember. It was like a minute left and
he took a just really difficult like step back thirty
foot or off the left wing. And it always looks
a little bit more corny with LaMelo because he shoots
it kind of like off of one foot. And LaMelo is,
by the way, having a ridiculous start to the season.
(39:36):
He had like thirty seven, thirteen and thirteen tonight against
Washington just or last night. It's just a ridiculous game.
But like that game down the stretch against Philly, all
of the Charlotte guards were just taking difficult shots. Like
it wasn't just LaMelo. Lamello missed that step back, but
like Trey Trey, Trey Man missed like a couple of
(39:58):
easy or like like kind of like easy reads where
he just was taking tough shots in the middle of
the floor. Colin Sexton had an identical play to the
Quentin Grimes play Kank Nipple's on the right wing. Colin
Sexton's isoing off of the left wing. Knk Nipple's man
has dug way down into the lane and help and
instead of just I think it was Tyrese Maxey and
instead of throwing the kickout pass to wide open Conka
(40:21):
Nipple for the three. Colin just jacked up a contested
twenty footer and missed it. It's the exact same read
that on the other side of the floor Tyrese had
and made the read and Quentin Grimes knocked down the
wide open shot. And so in the early going of
the season here, Tyrese has taking really good care of
the basketball. He's racking up assists. It's just really high
(40:45):
quality floor game from him, coupled with elite shot making
and his speed just getting him wherever he wants to
get to on the floor. Andre Drummond had an absolutely
brilliant second half against Charlotte, just completely dominated the glass
on both ends. Had a huge tip dunk late like
blew the lid off the arena. Kelly Ubray was great again.
He did some great work off the bounce. He created
(41:05):
his own shot for buckets like three times in that game.
And I know it hasn't looked perfect with Embiid and
his complete inability to protect the rim is a big
part of why they can't guard when he's on the floor,
Like he's just straight up not protecting the rim. But
it was kind of cool as a fan to see
him score twenty points in twenty minutes against Charlotte and
make it look super easy, just with all of the
same high end shot making that was a staple of
(41:29):
his when he was at his peak. It's just a
really fun sixers team that is loaded with dynamic playmakers
on the perimeter, and I think they have a decent
shot to compete night to night in the East with
all those guards. And like that's with them getting nothing
from Paul George and Joel Embiid. It can only go
up from there with those two guys. So like again,
like there's there's a question to be had, Like when
(41:50):
you've got Jabari Walker, you've got these forwards that are
like flying around and grabbing rebounds and just doing work
as hustle guys. Paul George is going to be a
very different counter to that style. But like, I think
it can only go up from there, right, Like, if
you get anything from those guys, it's a bonus at
this point. Next, Golden State Warriors. They dropped a tough
(42:12):
game on the road in Portland, and the tail end
of a back to back steph looked great, but the
rest of the group looked flat. Portland has had a
lot of guys that can get to the basket here
early in the season, and that Golden State defense was
just getting shredded by drives and in transition. Something to
keep an eye on when the Warriors play some more
athletic teams down the line. But I'm not going to
overreact to a tail end of a back to back
(42:33):
kind of game like that. I that they looked super
impressive in their wins versus the Lakers and Nuggets. They
looked way better on both ends of the floor than
I expected them to. They didn't look slow and old.
They looked athletic and smart. They didn't look as Steph
dependent on offense as I expected them to, although they
were certainly happy to take sixteen straight from him at
the end of the Denver game. But Jimmy's been able
(42:55):
to provide scoring. Kamingas looked like a guy that's becoming
more comfortable in Golden State system. Draymond is also shooting
the ball extremely well to start the year. The Portland
game showed some issues that we were aware of before
the season. If you guys remember we talked about how
they were a little light on overall talent. They're specially
light on scoring talent. But I don't know how you
(43:15):
could possibly be a Warriors fan and not be more
excited about the team now than you were a month
ago when Kaminga wasn't signed and they looked like one
of the teams in that mediocre middle tier of the
Western Conference playoff put. Lastly, the Miami Heat two and
one to start the year, they'd be three and zero.
They didn't blow a late lead against Orlando, And I
(43:37):
was watching their game against New York today yesterday, I
should say, and I found them to be really fun
to watch. Not having Tyler Harrow has caused them to
not be as predictable with like their two man game
as they were last year. They're not spamming a lot
of the same thing. They're just relentlessly attacking. They're playing
at one of the most hilacious paces in the league.
(43:57):
All they're doing is every single time they have an
opportuny or either throwing a kick ahead pass, and they're
hitting gaps like they bludgeoned New York in the second
half of this game with just attacks from Jime Hakez
and Simone Fatechio and Nikola Jovich just like push the
ball off the floor while the defense is still in
semi transition and they're not set, just attack the gap
(44:20):
in play basketball off of it. They're spacing the floor
well and they're making good reads there. And then when
things slowed down in that game against New York, like
shout out to Jim Hawkez. He was cooking them. He
was doing work in the post and doing work and
pick and roll attacking the basket. Just a really nice
piece of shot creation in that second half from Jime Hakkez.
But like they're just pushing the ball with up the
(44:42):
floor of pace, attacking gaps and playing basketball off of it.
I found it really fascinating because like we learned last
year from Indiana with the Pacers, that if you move
the ball and you play fast, and you make good
reads and you have guys who can finish plays off
of those advantages, you're gonna win a lot of games.
(45:02):
That's in Indiana, tatas play on the margins, live in
transition when you can't push, push, push, push push, because
we're gonna be more efficient there. And so like, I'm
not the least bit surprised that one of the smartest
organizations in the league and the guy that I think
is the best coach in the NBA, and Eric Spolstra
has adopted a lot of that over the course of
the summer. The Miami Heat are averaging thirty nine transition
(45:25):
points per game PERCENTERGY so far, the second most in
the entire NBA behind Portland. Just a crazy stat. They're
third and net rating to start the year because they're
third in defense, and they're getting out in transition off
of those stops, and they're getting enough offense because they're
(45:46):
getting thirty nine points in transition per game. One other
stat for them too, they've been the best jump shooting
team in the league here in the early part of
the season. They're getting one point one to seven points
per shot, which is number one in the NBA. The
first WEEKIE games really really I like, of all the
teams that I've watched to start this season, the Heat
have been playing one of the more fun brands of
(46:08):
basketball that I've seen. I really enjoyed watching them today,
kind of exposed a New York team that looked really
sloppy in transition to It's another story for another day.
We'll talk to some Nix later on this week. All right, guys,
that's all I have for today. As always, to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
We'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction. I'll see
you guys then
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!