Jason reacts to two games from Wednesday night's slate (Denver Nuggets beating the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors beating the Milwaukee Bucks) before answering mailbag questions on topics including how the Los Angeles Lakers offense looks with LeBron James vs. Luka Doncic, vulnerabilities of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder, and trades teams can make to make them contenders.
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, we'll go to him tonight here
at the volume Heavy Friday, everybody hope. Well, if you
guys have had an incredible week, it is mailbag Day.
(00:21):
We've got a lot of good stuff to get into
from around the league, and as promised, we're recording this
on Thursday. I wanted to give some quick thoughts on
the Nugget Celtics game and the Bucks Warriors games from
Wednesday night as well. We'll lead with that. Then we
got about ten mailbag questions from throughout the week. Very
excited to get into it with you guys. You guys
know the job before we get started. To subscribe to
our YouTube channels. You don't miss any any more of
(00:42):
our videos like this video. That helps us a lot.
And if you want to get questions into our future
mail bags in our full episodes on YouTube inn YouTube
comments right mail bag with the colon, write your question,
we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again,
as promised, quick thoughts on those couple other games from Wednesday.
One of the things important about our recording cadence, It's
(01:03):
very important to me that we get our videos out
early in the day. With our daily kind of cadence,
you know, if you release a video in the afternoon
like we used to do a few years ago, you know,
there's games that are tipping off at four o'clock Pacific time,
and it's just the cadence of the league is so fast.
It's very important that I get our reaction videos out
early in the morning. And it just is tough when
(01:24):
you've got a night like Wednesday night, where there's quite
literally a half dozen awesome games and I can't get
to all of them. But I wanted to get to
a couple more of these, So I figure to push
him into our mailbag show for Friday, especially with how
week the Thursday night slate was so Nuggets Celtics. We
had talked about after the right after the Okach injury happened,
that there was going to be a formula for the
(01:44):
Nuggets to lean on if they wanted to win without Jokic,
and I said it would be leaning heavily into defense
and then Jamal Murray essentially trying to bring you home
in crunch time as long as you can keep games close.
And so I expected David Adelman to lean heavily or
on more of his athletes to go smaller and to
heavily emphasize in terms of his accountability the defensive end
(02:04):
of the floor, because that's something they can control during
this stretch without Nicola, and again once you get games close,
Jamal Murray is an All Star, maybe even an All
NBA candidate. He's the kind of guy who can pull
you home in those sorts of instances. And we saw
a very good example of that in the win in
Toronto and then another one on Wednesday night in Boston
against a red hot Boston Celtics offense. I cannot say
(02:29):
enough about how good Zeke Nausey has been in these
couple of wins. He was one of the heroes in
that big win in Philly when even Jamal Murray was out.
He was a hero again last night. He gave them
the ability to stay kind of, you know, big and
physically imposing in their small ball looks, but also keeping
their switch ability, and that was really the story of
the game against Boston. The Nuggets did a wonderful job
(02:51):
of communicating and switching through Boston's actions, which prevented the
easy catch and shoot threes that can come out of
those screening actions allow guys to work easily downhill. In
ball screens, you're gonna have to help. That's gonna create
easy kickouts. If you don't switch guard guard screens and
three man action out at the top of the key,
guys are gonna slip out and get wide open threes.
(03:13):
And especially in that fourth quarter run, I thought they
just did an amazing job taking away any of the
easy catch and shoot looks that Boston can generate in
their offense, and then a lot of really high quality
one on one possessions against Jalen Brown Jamal Murray held
up a few times, you got like Peyton Watson stripping
him on a steal, Zeke Naji coming over and blocking
(03:33):
him at the rim. The Celtics did not get many
quality looks in that fourth quarter. Again, that's a red
hot Celtics offense. They had an offensive rating north of
one twenty five over the last few weeks, and the
Nuggets pretty much kept them under control, especially down the
stretch of that game, and then late in the game
on offense, just surgical shot creation from John Murray Jamal Murray,
(03:54):
who again like he deserves consideration for all NBA. With
the level that he's been playing at this season, he's
just been completely amazing. They kept running him off of
these like double wide pin downs out of the right corner,
and essentially he was dragging Boston's bigs out to the
perimeter as he was kind of coming off of that action.
And so essentially if the big ended up meeting him
(04:16):
on a switch on the other side of the screen,
he would, you know, like Luca Garza would show and
Jamal Murray would just hit a quick little step back
jumper on him, or if they brought two to the ball,
so they're chasing and they have Luca up there. He
was just hitting Zeke nausey over and over again rolling
to the basket, and Zeke did a wonderful job throughout
this game of finishing around the rim or drawing fouls
(04:37):
on those rolls off of Jamal Murray. And then a
couple of big plays late where Boston naturally, what's the
progression there? If you're going to show on Jamal Murray
at the level and you're going to tag the roller,
what's the next progression? It's the kickouts to the three
point line and a couple of big shots Jalen Pickett
hits a little wonderable pull up off of one of
those sequences, and then Jamal makes a beautiful skip pass
(04:57):
to the left corner where Peyton Watson hit three that
pushes the lead up to thirteen and essentially closes the
deal from there. Just a really, really impressive win for
the Nuggets. Now three wins without Nikola Jokics. The Warriors game,
massive game for the Warriors half court offense. They posted
a one to seventeen offensive rating and the half court
according to Cleaning the Glass in that in that win
(05:19):
against Milwaukee, I thought Steph did an awesome job of
working the mid range in this game, especially with the
way Milwaukee was kind of chasing him aggressively over the
top of screens and essentially funneling him into the middle
of the floor. They were spamming this play in the
third quarter where they were basically running him off of
a wide pin down out of the right corner, and
he just kept curling right into that kind of right
elbow extended area, and he'd hit a little float or
(05:40):
bank shot, he'd did a little jump shot, he'd you know,
draw foul in that space. Did a ton of damage there,
a couple of their shooters are starting to get going.
Moses Moody and d Anthony Melton in particular, both got
hot from three in this game. I also thought the
offensive glass was a massive factor. They only got eight
offensive rebounds, but they scored on damn near every single
one of them. There were twenty two to four second
(06:01):
chance points advantage for Golden State. Little things like Steph
missing a three off the top of the key, kind
of coming off of a ball screen, and then offensive
rebound kick out there it is another look from the
left wing. He knocks it down, just turning misses into
makes with their offensive rebounding. And then lastly, I thought
Draymond got several key stops on an island against Giannis
in the middle of the paint during that third quarter run.
(06:22):
Draymond has been very good since his blow up with
Steve Kerr where he left the court. I think that's
the kind of thing where confrontation can be good because
it's how you hold people accountable. And I think Draymond
need a little bit of a wake up call, especially
just with how sloppy he had been. And I think
that blow up with Steve Kerr actually helped get him
back on track. He's been very good as of Lake.
I think the Warriors are gaining some real momentum. Al
Horford looked great again in the Wednesday night game. If
(06:43):
they can just stop losing games in the final seconds
and horrifying fashion, I think they have real opportunity here
to make a run in the second half of the season.
All right, let's get into our mail bag. First question,
This was an interesting one that I got the other day,
and I think it's worth diving into. Jason, longtime fan
of the show. Before the season, you said the Hawks
would be a case study for your basketball philosophy and
(07:05):
what their performance this year would either validate or invalidate
your perspective. So my question is, at has Atlanta season
so far changed your mind in anyway. This's a two
part question, and I'm going to get to the first
part first. So this is complicated because Atlanta season is
really strange, because my belief in Atlanta stem from the
(07:26):
idea that you would have this combination of rim protection
with chrisps porzingis a depth of athletes around Chris Soops
that would make it so Christops didn't have to come
out to the perimeter, but that he could stay back
and you'd have you know, Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander
Walker and Jalen Johnson and Zachary Rissasche and all these
athletes and around him basically doing all the dirty works
(07:49):
so that Trey Young can focus on setting the table
as an advantage creator and chrisps Porzingis could function as
like a switch beater slash rim protector. And there, frankly,
have been a lot of things that have gone wrong.
I think that you dig into the Porzingis piece. He
hasn't been healthy. That fundamentally makes it so that you
can't make as many mistakes on the perimeter because you
(08:10):
don't have the level of rim protection that you have
when chrisops Porzingis is sitting back like that. Right two,
I don't think the Wings have been as good defensively
as they've needed to be, particularly Zachary rissashean Jalen Johnson.
I think the two of them have been actually pretty
disappointing on defense this year. And so when you have
a less effective group of perimeter defenders and the lack
(08:30):
of rimp protection, that's been kind of doomed for their defense.
They've had games like, especially without Trey Young, where they
get up into the ball and they force a lot
of turnovers and then they're just devastating in transition and
they're doing a lot of work on the margins like that,
and I think some of that has been some proof
of concept, like the fact that they're above five hundred
without Trey Young and with chrisops Porzingis being out as
(08:53):
much as they've had as they've been is certainly something.
It's not like super impressive, but it's something. And then
the last piece of it, whenever Trey Young was available,
they just as a team didn't defend, and Trey deserves
some blame for that, but as a team, they didn't defend.
And so you know, it's it's tricky because I would
argue that my basketball philosophy, what you're referencing, specifically, the
(09:15):
idea of having a bunch of athletes that can dribble,
shoot and pass, that can get up into the ball,
that can switch onto multiple multiple positions, that can run
the floor and transition and generate advantages before you get
into half court situations. All those things I still believe in.
I just think the Atlanta Hawks have been have had
several things go against them. Chris Hops being hurt, that's
(09:38):
a huge factor. Jalen Johnson and Zachary Ussachet not being
very good on defense. That's a big factor, right, And
Trey Young being a combination of unhealthy and then one
he has been healthy, the team not playing well. It's
just been an unfortunate mix of events. So, like, I
think where I would to your point, to your question,
where I would have to, like more seriously consider the
(10:00):
basketball basketball philosophy piece would be if Trey Young and
krisops Porzingis had played in most of the games and
the team was still below five hundred. I think that's
where I'd have to take a bigger look at it.
I'm so excited to tell you guys about our new
partnership with Viory. Those of you guys who are familiar
with VIORI have noticed that I wear it on the
show almost every day and have done so for years.
(10:20):
It's become a major workhorse for me, and there's two
reasons for that. I gotta started with Yori because of
their durability. I used to wear these clothes on the
show that I'd washed a few times and they'd degrade
into something that wasn't anywhere near as nice as what
I had originally bought. I have items from Viory that
I've watched like fifty times that still look every bit
as nice as when I bought them years ago. That's
(10:42):
the type of quality you're getting with Viory. And then
there's incredible versatility. These are items that I can wear
on the show, I can wear on a date night
with my wife. I can wear running errands on a Saturday.
I can wear when I'm going to play pick up basketball,
whether it's the Sunday Performance short or the Strato Tech
tank top that I can wear when I'm hooping. They
have an item for any sort of situation. Viory is
(11:04):
an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they're offering
twenty percent off your first purchase. Get yourself some of
the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at
viory dot com slash hoops. That's vuo Rii dot com
slash hoops. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms
and conditions. Not only will you receive twenty percent off
(11:26):
your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US
orders over seventy five dollars in free returns. Go to
viory dot com slash hoops and discover the versatility of
Yori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms
and conditions Part two. When I've disagreed with you over
(11:46):
the years, it usually comes down to the idea that
I think you put too much value on the marginal
advantage players have in surgical half court execution, and that
you do so at the expense of general two way
versatility and impact. So the second question is do you
think there's any credence to the idea that you and
or the general hoop community have undervalued two way versatility
and impact. I have not changed my opinion on this
(12:07):
at all. I think Nikola Jokic has clearly been head
and shoulders better than the rest of the league, and
he's your textbook half court surgeon type of dude who
has defensive limitations, but that finds a way to compete
defensively within a scheme alongside other smart, high IQ defenders.
I think that for all of the talk we want
to talk about with Luca and whether or not he
(12:29):
can succeed at the highest highest levels of the NBA,
that's all fair. You know what happened to him in
the twenty twenty four finals against Boston. That's a completely
fair criticism of Luka Doncicic. But the bottom line is
they wake up today with the damn good record and
at like what the fifth best record in the NBA,
and a big part of that is because of how
good their half court offense has been, especially in crunch time,
(12:52):
and Luka Doncic has been the driving force behind that.
And so I think the bigger point that you're making
about the half court execution piece and set it aside,
do we value general two way versatility and impact enough?
I think that's a good question. I think that really
comes down to more of the team concept, though, I
think that if the ultimate not to be too reductive here,
(13:16):
but the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to
score more points than your opponent, right, and so on
our very basic level, like if you're built the way
Oklahoma City is and you're gonna get a shit ton
of stops, I think you can have a team that's
built less around refined offensive skill. If you have a
team like the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets who's built
(13:36):
around refined offensive skill, I think you can get away
with a little bit less in terms of defensive personnel. Ultimately,
you're building a checklist. Like if you think of what
happens on both ends of the floor as like a
bunch of boxes you have to check, right, and the
more boxes you check on both ends of the floor,
the better team you are, right, And so if you
have a player that can check a ton of boxes,
(13:58):
that's certainly valuable. Right. So's take a guy like Anthony
Davis for example, Like he can check the rim protection
box and the defensive rebounding box, and then if you
go to the offensive end of the four, you can
check an offensive rebounding box. He can check a ball
screen threat box where he has the ability to do
damage in the short roll and as a vertical spacer.
There's things he can check like that. But there's one
(14:19):
giant box that he can't check, and that's like breaking
down elite defense. When there's an elite defense in front
of him, Anthony Davis ain't gonna be the guy that
breaks down that defense. That's a pretty gaping flaw for
a team that's trying to win a championship. When I'm
building a roster and I have that guy. I have
a guy that like this dude can break down elite
(14:39):
defense at the highest level. Obviously, I feel like I
can go around and find a guy that can get
defensive rebounds. I can find a guy that can dunk
a lob as he's rolling hard down the lane. I
can find a guy that can protect the rim a
little bit. I can find guys who can defend on
the permitive. Those are easier to find than the dude
who can break the defense down. Now, the last kind
(15:01):
of thing I would say is to a guy like
Jason Tatum. So coming into the season, I would have
ranked him as the fifth best player in the NBA
if not for his injury. Ideally, if you have a
player that can anchor a defense the way that Jason
Tatum can, that can anchor defensive glass the way that
Jason Tatum can, that also brings some ability to break
(15:21):
the defense down as an offensive player on the other
end of the floor. There's a ton of value there,
and I think that's a big part of why like
Jason Tatum, despite not necessarily being the most efficient half
court surgeon type of guy in the league, I was
viewing him as a legitimate top tier superstar in this
league before his injury because of his all around versatility.
(15:42):
In short, it's all an aggregate combination of all of
these abilities. I just still think fundamentally the hardest trait
to find in the NBA is can you break down
elite defense? And that's why I look at that as
such a valuable trait. As Oklahoma City leaves corner shooters open,
sometimes they get rich, the teams get really hot. I
know it's their identity, but I feel like, when Jordan
(16:03):
Goodwin makes eight corner threes, maybe it's time to change
it up. It's happened multiple times this season, and Diagnault
sticks with the same scheme, so with Oklahoma City. And
this is an important detail. When you're looking at margin hunting.
For the most part, it's not just that specific margin
in a vacuum that you're looking at. You're looking at
how all of these things are intricate, intricately connected. So
(16:26):
for example, if you are let's just take offensive rebounding
for example, it used to be that the interpretation was
if you crash the offensive glass, you make yourself vulnerable
and transition defense. But then as teams started to look
at it in a more refined way. They're like, well,
(16:47):
if we crash the offensive glass from the corners and
we just have them run to the elbows, just classic
corner crash. When they run to the elbows, the long
rebound is going to come up off from a miss
three and they have a high opportunity to get it.
If they don't get it, two things happen. One, those
guys out of the corners are always already running, so
(17:09):
they can take that momentum, oh we didn't get the ball,
wheel back into transition defense. And two, if I crash
to the elbow and I don't get the ball and
on the primary point of attack defender, I can quick
turn and pick up the basketball. Meaning like, let's say
the other team's big gets the ball on a long
rebound up around the elbow, and he dumps it to
the point guard right around the block, and you're right
(17:31):
there at the elbow. Didn't get the rebound, but you're
right there to pick up the guard full court. And
if you can pick up the guard and make him
turn twice or make him pick up his dribble or
something like that, or make him throw another backcourt pass,
that slows the team down enough that it doesn't hurt
you in transition. And so what teams have essentially realized is, yeah,
if you offensive rebound, there are going to be times
(17:51):
where you know, a very unfortunate rebound comes off and
your floor balance is bad and a team gets a
layup in transition. But like much of the time, you're
either going to get the offensive rebound or you're already
going to be in it kind of like inflicts a
certain amount of like injects a certain amount of verve
already in your team to where they're running, so they're
kind of getting back better anyway. And three, we can
(18:12):
apply ball pressure right away. So teams have basically figured
out that the tradeoff of attacking the offensive glass is
actually worth whatever small downside there is to transition defense. Similarly,
Oklahoma City has trade offs in the way that they
play defense. So again, think of it like on a
really basic level from the standpoint of the negative. Okay,
(18:34):
so the negative is the when they pick up with
a ton of ball pressure and they play super physical
and they attack the basketball, they commit a lot of fouls. Right,
That's one of the things that they're going to do
that's going to cause issues relative to most teams, they're
going to foul. The second piece. They're better at that
this year than they have been in recent years, but
(18:55):
in other years they've had issues with fouling on the perimeter.
The second piece of it is the the open corner threes. Right,
So like if you're picking up the ball and you
are attacking with ball pressure, and anytime a guy gets
beat off the dribble, you're sending aggressive help, and every
time they try to post up, you're sending double teams.
And it's just this very forward, aggressive attack, attack, attack defense.
(19:19):
You're gonna commit some fouls and you're gonna give up
some corner threes. But the flip side of that is
you're also going to get a good amount of opportunities
to force turnovers. You're gonna get a good amount of
opportunities to get out and transition off of those turnovers.
The Oklahoma City Thunder generate twenty five points every single
game off of turnovers. That's the most in the entire
(19:42):
NBA by pretty wide margin. So the way they look
at it is like, yeah, we're gonna give up some
open threes. Yeah we're gonna commit some fouls, but in
the aggregate, it unlocks this transition part of our offense,
which takes me to the the specific dynamic with Oklahoma
City offensively. We've seen Oklahoma City at various points over
(20:06):
the course of the last few years and especially recently,
but even in the playoffs last year, especially in the
playoffs in two thousand and twenty four, if you guys remember,
we have seen Oklahoma City go very cold in the
half court on offense. So they want to drive as
much of that transition avalanche type of attack as they can,
(20:28):
and so it's all part of that trade off. They
could give up fewer corner threes, they could commit fewer fouls,
but then they wouldn't get out and transition as much,
and they'd have to play more in the half court,
which is not how they want to play offensively, and
so that's essentially the trade off for them. Now to
the point you're making about the Jordan Goodwin game, I
think it just comes down to in a playoff series,
(20:49):
if there is a clear advance, So like let's say
that let's say they run into a team like Denver,
and Denver just takes really good care of the basketball,
never turns it over for whatever reason, and they're just
moving it methodically through your defense and hitting corner three
corner three corner three corner three, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon,
(21:11):
Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, over and over and over again.
Then yeah, you might have to tweak it and be like,
we need to see Nicole Jokic score one on one
against Isaiah Hartenstein a few more times. We need to
see Jamal Murray score one on one against a big
or against one of our smaller guards more times. They
might have to make an adjustment in a series if
it gets to that point, but in the large sample
(21:31):
of the regular season, I think they want to lean
on getting out in transition as much as possible. We'd
love to hear your thoughts on what trade the Celtics
should look for. Zubots is apparently not an asset the
Clippers are willing to give up, and I've heard mixed
things about the availability of Gafford Claxton. I think all
these guys could be a great fit, but obviously not
sure with the package the other teams would be looking
for in return. Anforty Simons definitely carries some value and
(21:52):
he could definitely be packaged with picks and some bench
guys a Kowser or Shireman. Ideally in any of these trades,
I would like to see the Seas keep Hugo Gonzalez
and Jordan Wall, but not sure how realistic that is.
What are your thoughts? So, I actually because I'm about
to record here in about twenty minutes with a group
of Lakers guys, and we're going to be talking about
the specific dynamic of the center position because Deandreyton got
(22:13):
his ass kicked by Victor women Yama in the game
on Wednesday night, and so I've seen him just too
often get his butt kicked by the higher level centers
around the league, and I just don't think he's the
guy for Luke a long term. So I've been looking
around at the centers, and so I was like, who
are the guys that could like realistically start at center
around the league that are also somewhat realistically available for trade.
(22:35):
And the list that I came up with was Demona Sabonis,
Walker Kessler, Nikola Vusovich, Nick Claxton, Daniel Gafford, and Robert Williams. Now,
where it gets tricky for the Celtics is you got
to think about the salaries with Tatum on a MAX
with Jalen Brown on a Max, and you're gonna have
to pay, you know, like like you want to keep
Derek White in the situation. You know, he makes a
(22:55):
lot of money. You got a lot of money tied
up in your perimeter guys. So ideally you want to
try to find a center that gives you a useful look,
but that also is a guy that you could theoretically
have for a couple of years without spending too much money.
And that's where it gets interesting because like you look
at a guy like Walker Kessler, you trade for him,
you're gonna have to extend him. That could provide a
(23:18):
money crunch for a team like the Celtics, right, Like
Nick Claxton is a guy that financially is not gonna
be cheaper, not gonna be cheap to keep around long term.
That's where I start to look at like, Okay, what
about a Daniel Gafford, what about a Nikola Vucevich? Right
Like you've seen how Luca Garza is given some you know,
kind of a unique look to the Celtics at the
(23:39):
center position. As a guy who can space the floor
a little bit. You know you already have Nimi Kita
and Kate is actually pretty good. But Kate is a
little one dimensional. He's more of like a drop coverage
big a guy who does some ceiling inside and finishing,
vertical spacing, that kind of that kind of stuff. So
what if you had two different looks. You had this
(24:00):
me Kada drop coverage, vertical spacing, rim protection look, and
then you traded for a guy like Vucevich and you
kept him around at a discounted deal, Like you go
to vuc and you go, hey, dude, you've made a
good amount of money in your career getting pretty old.
What if you stick around with us for you know,
two years on this like really heavily discounted deal and
(24:21):
it's like Kada Vucevich, the two different looks that the
Celtics go with that center. And one of the things
with vouch is he gives you like a legitimate post
up threat, like he can pick and pop and hit
pick and pop threes and space the floor as a center.
But he's also like a big physical dude download that
could do some rebounding and can do a bunch of
damage in the post. And so I think he'd be
an interesting kind of way to look Robert Williams. It's
(24:42):
the health issue. Daniel Gafford, there's a little bit of
a money issue with him too, where I think he's,
you know, potentially gonna want a longer term deal where
he's making you ten to fifteen million a year. There's
something to be said about finding somebody that gives you
the best combination of production relative to the sound dollary
under the situation that the Celtics are in. And that's
why I was thinking the guy like Vusovich would be
(25:04):
just kind of an interesting option for them to consider
as a kind of like a two different looks alongside
Nimi Keda. Today's show is brought to you by presenting
sponsor hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the
Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. When it's cold outside,
that's when you know the hardwood is heating up. Between
the NBA and college there's basketball on every night, and
(25:26):
every night is a shot to build the same game,
parlay and score a major bucket on hard Rock Bet,
your home for hoops action all season long, and if
you ever miss tip off of that big game, don't worry.
Hard Rock Bet lets you live bet all game long
from the first bucket to the final buzzer, so you're
never too late to find a winner or grab a
player pop that you had circled. If you haven't tried
your first bet on hard Rock Bet, there's still time
(25:47):
for you to get one hundred and fifty dollars in
bonus bets if you win. Just place a five dollars
bet and if it hits, you get not only your winnings,
but also an extra one hundred and fifty dollars in
bonus bets. Plus. The hard Rock Bet offers new promos
every single day, so whenever you're listening, just open the
app and check out what you've got any day of
the week. Download the hard Rock Bet app and make
your first deposit today. PayPal and bonus bets not a
(26:10):
cash off or offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida
and Florida offered by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC. In
all other states. Must be twenty one plus and physically
present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about
gambling in Florida, Call one eight three to three play
wise in Indiana. If you were someone you know has
(26:31):
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, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. How much of good defense is physical gifts?
How much of it is effort? How much of it
is knowledge? Could someone with very limited physical gifts become
(26:53):
a good defender if he has good knowledge and hustle.
Appreciate your show. You and your team clearly work your
butts offt to create such polished content. Thank you, Thank
you so much for the kind words, and thanks for
shouting out the team. Jackson's literally just amazing. I just
think he's the best in the world at what he does.
So we talked about this concept within the idea of
a team, but I would argue that the largest chunk
(27:14):
of defense is the execution piece, meaning like always being
in the right spot, having good instincts like There have
been a lot of guys over the years that have
been good perimeter defenders relative to their actual talent because
they're good at anticipating. They can look at a guy
and they can like kind of identify where his center
of gravity is and they can kind of see where
(27:35):
his body's shifting, or like they could pick up on
physical cues, or maybe they watch a lot of film
and they're just good at scouting like little tips on,
you know, the way that a perimeter player kind of
tips off what he's gonna do. And then it's just anticipation, right,
Like it's all about angle. So like if if I'm
defending a player who's faster than me, but if I
take the right angle and I anticipate which way he's going,
I can beat him to a spot, right, So like
(27:58):
there is a very much an anticipatory position element to defense. Now,
I would argue that you can't be terrible at either.
So like if you're incredibly slow or if you're incredibly small,
it's really difficult to overcome that no matter how disciplined
you are. But let's say you're a mediocre athlete, like
a mediocre size and speed guard, a mediocre size and
(28:20):
speed forward, or a mediocre size and speed center. Let
me just take like Jake la Ravia, for example, a
guy that I root for on the Lakers. He's not
exceptionally big for a forward. You know, he's like six seven, right,
and he's strong, but he's not like jacked or anything.
And like he's mobile, but he's not like super fast
or anything. Like he's a little too small to be
(28:41):
like a traditional power forward and a little too slow
to be like a traditional small forward in terms of
just his athletic profile. Right. But he's been one of
the most useful defenders for the Lakers this year. Why
because he has the kind of like bare minimum set
of physical gifts you need, Like he's got enough size
and mobility to be at least somewhat useful in terms
(29:02):
of the trades he's working with. He's a high effort guy.
That's the third piece of this that we haven't even
talked about yet, Like you gotta be someone as motor
you got to play really hard on that end of
the floor. And then the third piece of it is
he's got the positioning and anticipation elements down, and so
he's just very good at kind of being in the
right spot, following the defensive game plan, scouting the guy
that he's guarding, and anticipating which direction he's going he's
(29:24):
been especially good this year guarding some of the bigger
forwards that look to attack off the dribble. But yeah,
it's definitely a combination of all of those things. But
physical you kind of have to have all three. Like
if you have great physical gifts and you've got the
anticipation in positioning, but you got a shit motor and
you don't play hard, that's a problem, right, Like that's
some of the issue that we've seen with Lebron over
(29:45):
the last few years, and it's just because he doesn't
want to play hard for an eighty two game regular season, right,
But like he certainly can, he certainly understands the game plan,
and he can anticipate like crazy, and he's got still
at his age, some pretty good physical gifts. But it's
just like when Lebron's effort drops off, he dropped. But
when the efforts there, you know, we saw Lebron look
like an all defense guy in the middle of the
season last year, right, Or like, if you have the
(30:06):
motor and you have the anticipation in the in the
game plan piece, but you're just super tiny or you're
super slow, that's going to be a problem. And then
you know, We've seen it with guys like Karl Anthony Towns. Like,
I don't think Carl Anthony Towns is necessarily lazy. He's
got decent physical gifts. He's like, he's a competitive dude.
He just the anticipation and positioning piece of it is
(30:27):
like absolute garbage with him, and it's a huge problem.
So you can't be dreadfully weak in any area, but
you don't necessarily have to be strong in all three areas. Hi, Jason,
big fan of your form of content and your wisdom
around the NBA. You suggested a mega trade of Michael
Porter Junior and Nick Claxton to help catapult the Warriors
to becoming more competitive. Within this suggestion, are you saying
that Claxton would help the Warriors more than Draymond? Especially
(30:51):
the mega trade you mentioned is swapping Claxton for Draymond.
Can the Warriors still be title contenders if they just
traded for MPJ and kept Draymond with a starting five
of Curry, Mountain Butler, Michael Porter Junior, and Green be
a title contender? Thank you love your content. So it's
a couple of things. So one the reason why I
kind of like talked about structuring it that way is
Michael Porter Junior just has a really large salary, and
so by having Draymond in there, it just kind of
(31:12):
makes it easier to feasibly piece the rest of it together.
That said, like getting just MPJA would still be a
huge win for the Warriors. The reason why I was
looking at Claxton specifically is I find him to be
both a good fit defensively within the Warrior's scheme, because
the Warriors do a bunch of different schemes defensively and
they do do a decent amount of switching with their bigs.
(31:33):
And then the second piece of it is I've seen
as a matchup thing teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City,
the two top teams in the Western Conference. I've seen
both of them struggle with rim protection at times, and
so it's one of those things where even though Draymond's
a very good defensive player, what he doesn't necessarily provide
is that vertical rim protection. And so I just thought
Nick Clackson would provide an element to the Warriors defense
(31:53):
that they basically haven't haven't had since, like Andrew Boguet
was healthy. So I just thought it was worth considering
as an option. But to your point, if they just
got Michael Porter Junior, I'd still view that as a
huge boost for the Warriors. Three more, I was on
Twitter and someone suggested that the Lakers offense is smoother
when Lebron is running it as he looks to create
then score, as opposed to Luca as more heliocentric in approach.
(32:16):
What are your thoughts on this and which approach do
you think is better for the Lakers offense. So this
is a general idea that I just disagree with, the
idea that like you have to play one way to win,
or that multiple ball handlers can't play together well. Like
I don't think that lebron Is style. I don't think
Lebron's style is better than Luca's necessarily based on what
(32:39):
happened in the last few weeks, I just thought Luca
wasn't playing well. Like Luca's been every bit as heliocentric
in that game against the Spurs, or the second half
against the Pelicans, or the second half against Grizzlies on Sunday.
He's been every bit as heliocentric as he was in
all the other games. He just wanted to turn the
ball over the I want to cut Lucas slack for
the turnovers and myss threes, specifically against the Spurs, because
without Luca, or without Lebron and aust And available, he
(33:01):
basically had no choice but to bump his usage way up,
and that means he had to say yes a lot
more to situations that he might otherwise say no, meaning like, oh,
high risk pass. When Lebron and Austin are healthy, you
move it around and let one of them attack, But
when no one else can do shit with the basketball, like,
he almost has to take that high risk pass. Similarly,
bad threes when when Lebron and Austin are out there,
(33:24):
don't take the bad three, move the ball around if
you get cut off off the dribble, but when Lebron
and Austin are out, he kind of has to take
the bad three, right. So, like, I'm not too critical
of the turnovers and the misshots in that particular Spurs game,
but overall, I thought Luca's shot creation was ridiculous in
that Spurs game, and in the second half of the
Pelicans game, and in the second half of the Grizzlies game,
even though he was heliocentric and so I don't think
(33:46):
Luca needs to play more like Lebron. I just think
Luca needs to play like the best version of Luca,
and Lebron needs to keep playing like the best version
of Lebron. I actually had a little bit of a
debate with my buddy Demon. He pitched this idea that
when Austin comes back, maybe Luca or Lebron should stay
kind of as the second option. That kind of clashes
with my core basketball believe I generally believe you can
(34:10):
have three guys all kind of working in unison as
long as they're all trusting each other, and I think
all three of them can put up massive point totals.
I don't think you're confined toabbing two ball handlers, especially
when you've got guys like Lebron and Austin who can
run action together and they can both be involved, even
though maybe Austin has the ball for five minutes or
Lebron has the ball for five minutes. Hey, Jason, I've
(34:31):
always been a huge Jokich fan and still think he's
clearly the best player in the league. But does a
performance like the win over Philly missing four or five starters,
plus what we're seeing from MPG this year off the
Nuggets make you ever so slightly think that maybe we
are marginally overrating Yokic's impact and have been underplaying his teammates.
I don't necessarily think so, but I'm interested to hear
your thoughts. It's as simple as diminishing returns thing why
(34:52):
a player like MPJA has been broken out since leaving.
So the MPJA thing is complicated to me. I never
thought MPJ was a bad player. I just thought MPJ
a four, and the Nuggets already had a starting four,
and as the league had tilted in recent seasons to
more speed on the perimeter, I don't think you can
play at Michael Porter Junior Aaron Gordon nicolea Jokic frontline
against a team like Oklahoma City. I think you're too slow.
(35:13):
So I think shifting from Michael Porter Junior to Cam
was more just trading a starting four for a starting three.
It was a roster balancing, starting lineup balancing type of
move for them. I thoroughly expected Michael Porter Junior to
go into Brooklyn and put up scoring numbers this year.
Maybe not quite to this extent, but I'd always thought
that he was a guy that could go get buckets.
I generally hate this specific idea that like, in order
(35:37):
for a player to be recognized as successful, the team
has to suck without him. You'll notice when I would
talk about Jokiic as the best player in the world,
or when I would talk about Jokich is the best
offensive player ever, I never mentioned his on off. That's
not really the angle I go with. Basketball is a
team sport. No one wins a championship unless they have
(35:57):
excellent supporting talent, whether it's a great head coach or
a great secondary star or an awesome depth of role
player talent. Like and we've seen it every which way
over the course of the years, different constructs of teams.
But this idea that SuperStar's going to win titles by
their own is just flat out stupid. It's just never
how it works. Jokic was the best player in the
world last year, he was overwhelmed by Oklahoma City in
(36:17):
the second round. Lebron was the best player in the
world by a mile. In twenty eighteen. He didn't even
stand a chance in the finals against Golden State, Like
there is, This is a team sport. Ultimately, now, the
Nuggets having success without NICOLEA Jokic this year. I think
it comes down to fundamentally, this team being on a
fucking mission, like this Nuggets team wants to win the title,
(36:39):
and there is a level of commitment from the top
down of the roster from day one of training camp
that has allowed this team to sustain success in various
different looks, whether it's when they were healthy at the
beginning of the year, to Gordon and Christian Brown being
out to now Jokic being out, they have just found
a way over and over again. There have been a
lot of key guys that have stepped up. Jalen Pickett
has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Peyton Watson
(37:01):
has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Look at
Zeke Nagi these last couple of games. So like, I
just think it's a testament to the type of team
this Denver Nuggets team is and it should be a
big part of why people believe in them as a
threat to win the championship this year. All right, lastly,
Timberwolves fan here, I'm curious what you think about Julius
Randall's bullyball and the sustainability of it come playoff time.
I'm obviously interested in whether or not this team, as
(37:22):
presently constructed can win a championship. I tend to lean
towards now a factor that I think doesn't really get
talked about as much as the way Randall scores. I
know he did his thing against the old Man Lakers
with no centers and the Steph Lest Warriors last year,
but it seems like once the t Wolves inevitably meet
a team that can match their physicality, Randall's scoring is
bound to fall apart. So I actually think Julius Randall's
(37:42):
ability as a big forward to attack size mismatches and
do a good mix of scoring and playmaking is a
huge playoff asset. My main concern with Randall is more
like what happened in the Bad Game. So if you
look at the Oklahoma City games, he had a couple
of games where he put up numbers, but then he
had a couple of games where it almost looked like
he quit. It almost looked like when things weren't going
as way, he like completely disengaged. Stop being aggressive, Stop
(38:02):
focusing on the details. My issues with Randal are not
necessarily his style, it's just his mentality. I would like
to see Julius Randall, like on the nights where maybe
he has a couple of turnovers early, or he misses
a couple of shots early, or he finds himself in
the middle of the second quarter with doing everything and
he's two for nine, you know, with six points. Like
(38:23):
I'd prefer to see those nights and in him doing
everything in his power to try to find a way
to win the damn game rather than pouting and standing
around at the three point line and shooting catch and
shoot threes two or three times the rest of the night.
He had a couple of these games against Oka see
where I felt like he kind of like mentally gave
in to the circumstances. That's really the main thing that
I'd like to see him work on. I'm actually really
(38:45):
high on the timber Wolves. I think Anthony Edwards is
the best version of himself that he's ever been. I
think the supporting offensive talent with the rise of Julius Randall,
excuse me, the rise of Jaden McDaniels, Rudigobert being a
better offensive player than he's been in recent years, and
they have shown the defensive ceiling, especially in these last
few weeks. I am if the Timberwolves can keep this
(39:06):
up over the next over the next you know, three
weeks or so, I'm going to put them in my
top tier of contenders in our next Contender rankings. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend,
and I'll see you guys on Money.
The volume. All right, we'll go to him tonight here
at the volume Heavy Friday, everybody hope. Well, if you
guys have had an incredible week, it is mailbag Day.
(00:21):
We've got a lot of good stuff to get into
from around the league, and as promised, we're recording this
on Thursday. I wanted to give some quick thoughts on
the Nugget Celtics game and the Bucks Warriors games from
Wednesday night as well. We'll lead with that. Then we
got about ten mailbag questions from throughout the week. Very
excited to get into it with you guys. You guys
know the job before we get started. To subscribe to
our YouTube channels. You don't miss any any more of
(00:42):
our videos like this video. That helps us a lot.
And if you want to get questions into our future
mail bags in our full episodes on YouTube inn YouTube
comments right mail bag with the colon, write your question,
we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again,
as promised, quick thoughts on those couple other games from Wednesday.
One of the things important about our recording cadence, It's
(01:03):
very important to me that we get our videos out
early in the day. With our daily kind of cadence,
you know, if you release a video in the afternoon
like we used to do a few years ago, you know,
there's games that are tipping off at four o'clock Pacific time,
and it's just the cadence of the league is so fast.
It's very important that I get our reaction videos out
early in the morning. And it just is tough when
(01:24):
you've got a night like Wednesday night, where there's quite
literally a half dozen awesome games and I can't get
to all of them. But I wanted to get to
a couple more of these, So I figure to push
him into our mailbag show for Friday, especially with how
week the Thursday night slate was so Nuggets Celtics. We
had talked about after the right after the Okach injury happened,
that there was going to be a formula for the
(01:44):
Nuggets to lean on if they wanted to win without Jokic,
and I said it would be leaning heavily into defense
and then Jamal Murray essentially trying to bring you home
in crunch time as long as you can keep games close.
And so I expected David Adelman to lean heavily or
on more of his athletes to go smaller and to
heavily emphasize in terms of his accountability the defensive end
(02:04):
of the floor, because that's something they can control during
this stretch without Nicola, and again once you get games close,
Jamal Murray is an All Star, maybe even an All
NBA candidate. He's the kind of guy who can pull
you home in those sorts of instances. And we saw
a very good example of that in the win in
Toronto and then another one on Wednesday night in Boston
against a red hot Boston Celtics offense. I cannot say
(02:29):
enough about how good Zeke Nausey has been in these
couple of wins. He was one of the heroes in
that big win in Philly when even Jamal Murray was out.
He was a hero again last night. He gave them
the ability to stay kind of, you know, big and
physically imposing in their small ball looks, but also keeping
their switch ability, and that was really the story of
the game against Boston. The Nuggets did a wonderful job
(02:51):
of communicating and switching through Boston's actions, which prevented the
easy catch and shoot threes that can come out of
those screening actions allow guys to work easily downhill. In
ball screens, you're gonna have to help. That's gonna create
easy kickouts. If you don't switch guard guard screens and
three man action out at the top of the key,
guys are gonna slip out and get wide open threes.
(03:13):
And especially in that fourth quarter run, I thought they
just did an amazing job taking away any of the
easy catch and shoot looks that Boston can generate in
their offense, and then a lot of really high quality
one on one possessions against Jalen Brown Jamal Murray held
up a few times, you got like Peyton Watson stripping
him on a steal, Zeke Naji coming over and blocking
(03:33):
him at the rim. The Celtics did not get many
quality looks in that fourth quarter. Again, that's a red
hot Celtics offense. They had an offensive rating north of
one twenty five over the last few weeks, and the
Nuggets pretty much kept them under control, especially down the
stretch of that game, and then late in the game
on offense, just surgical shot creation from John Murray Jamal Murray,
(03:54):
who again like he deserves consideration for all NBA. With
the level that he's been playing at this season, he's
just been completely amazing. They kept running him off of
these like double wide pin downs out of the right corner,
and essentially he was dragging Boston's bigs out to the
perimeter as he was kind of coming off of that action.
And so essentially if the big ended up meeting him
(04:16):
on a switch on the other side of the screen,
he would, you know, like Luca Garza would show and
Jamal Murray would just hit a quick little step back
jumper on him, or if they brought two to the ball,
so they're chasing and they have Luca up there. He
was just hitting Zeke nausey over and over again rolling
to the basket, and Zeke did a wonderful job throughout
this game of finishing around the rim or drawing fouls
(04:37):
on those rolls off of Jamal Murray. And then a
couple of big plays late where Boston naturally, what's the
progression there? If you're going to show on Jamal Murray
at the level and you're going to tag the roller,
what's the next progression? It's the kickouts to the three
point line and a couple of big shots Jalen Pickett
hits a little wonderable pull up off of one of
those sequences, and then Jamal makes a beautiful skip pass
(04:57):
to the left corner where Peyton Watson hit three that
pushes the lead up to thirteen and essentially closes the
deal from there. Just a really, really impressive win for
the Nuggets. Now three wins without Nikola Jokics. The Warriors game,
massive game for the Warriors half court offense. They posted
a one to seventeen offensive rating and the half court
according to Cleaning the Glass in that in that win
(05:19):
against Milwaukee, I thought Steph did an awesome job of
working the mid range in this game, especially with the
way Milwaukee was kind of chasing him aggressively over the
top of screens and essentially funneling him into the middle
of the floor. They were spamming this play in the
third quarter where they were basically running him off of
a wide pin down out of the right corner, and
he just kept curling right into that kind of right
elbow extended area, and he'd hit a little float or
(05:40):
bank shot, he'd did a little jump shot, he'd you know,
draw foul in that space. Did a ton of damage there,
a couple of their shooters are starting to get going.
Moses Moody and d Anthony Melton in particular, both got
hot from three in this game. I also thought the
offensive glass was a massive factor. They only got eight
offensive rebounds, but they scored on damn near every single
one of them. There were twenty two to four second
(06:01):
chance points advantage for Golden State. Little things like Steph
missing a three off the top of the key, kind
of coming off of a ball screen, and then offensive
rebound kick out there it is another look from the
left wing. He knocks it down, just turning misses into
makes with their offensive rebounding. And then lastly, I thought
Draymond got several key stops on an island against Giannis
in the middle of the paint during that third quarter run.
(06:22):
Draymond has been very good since his blow up with
Steve Kerr where he left the court. I think that's
the kind of thing where confrontation can be good because
it's how you hold people accountable. And I think Draymond
need a little bit of a wake up call, especially
just with how sloppy he had been. And I think
that blow up with Steve Kerr actually helped get him
back on track. He's been very good as of Lake.
I think the Warriors are gaining some real momentum. Al
Horford looked great again in the Wednesday night game. If
(06:43):
they can just stop losing games in the final seconds
and horrifying fashion, I think they have real opportunity here
to make a run in the second half of the season.
All right, let's get into our mail bag. First question,
This was an interesting one that I got the other day,
and I think it's worth diving into. Jason, longtime fan
of the show. Before the season, you said the Hawks
would be a case study for your basketball philosophy and
(07:05):
what their performance this year would either validate or invalidate
your perspective. So my question is, at has Atlanta season
so far changed your mind in anyway. This's a two
part question, and I'm going to get to the first
part first. So this is complicated because Atlanta season is
really strange, because my belief in Atlanta stem from the
(07:26):
idea that you would have this combination of rim protection
with chrisps porzingis a depth of athletes around Chris Soops
that would make it so Christops didn't have to come
out to the perimeter, but that he could stay back
and you'd have you know, Dyson Daniels and Nikhil Alexander
Walker and Jalen Johnson and Zachary Rissasche and all these
athletes and around him basically doing all the dirty works
(07:49):
so that Trey Young can focus on setting the table
as an advantage creator and chrisps Porzingis could function as
like a switch beater slash rim protector. And there, frankly,
have been a lot of things that have gone wrong.
I think that you dig into the Porzingis piece. He
hasn't been healthy. That fundamentally makes it so that you
can't make as many mistakes on the perimeter because you
(08:10):
don't have the level of rim protection that you have
when chrisops Porzingis is sitting back like that. Right two,
I don't think the Wings have been as good defensively
as they've needed to be, particularly Zachary rissashean Jalen Johnson.
I think the two of them have been actually pretty
disappointing on defense this year. And so when you have
a less effective group of perimeter defenders and the lack
(08:30):
of rimp protection, that's been kind of doomed for their defense.
They've had games like, especially without Trey Young, where they
get up into the ball and they force a lot
of turnovers and then they're just devastating in transition and
they're doing a lot of work on the margins like that,
and I think some of that has been some proof
of concept, like the fact that they're above five hundred
without Trey Young and with chrisops Porzingis being out as
(08:53):
much as they've had as they've been is certainly something.
It's not like super impressive, but it's something. And then
the last piece of it, whenever Trey Young was available,
they just as a team didn't defend, and Trey deserves
some blame for that, but as a team, they didn't defend.
And so you know, it's it's tricky because I would
argue that my basketball philosophy, what you're referencing, specifically, the
(09:15):
idea of having a bunch of athletes that can dribble,
shoot and pass, that can get up into the ball,
that can switch onto multiple multiple positions, that can run
the floor and transition and generate advantages before you get
into half court situations. All those things I still believe in.
I just think the Atlanta Hawks have been have had
several things go against them. Chris Hops being hurt, that's
(09:38):
a huge factor. Jalen Johnson and Zachary Ussachet not being
very good on defense. That's a big factor, right, And
Trey Young being a combination of unhealthy and then one
he has been healthy, the team not playing well. It's
just been an unfortunate mix of events. So, like, I
think where I would to your point, to your question,
where I would have to, like more seriously consider the
(10:00):
basketball basketball philosophy piece would be if Trey Young and
krisops Porzingis had played in most of the games and
the team was still below five hundred. I think that's
where I'd have to take a bigger look at it.
I'm so excited to tell you guys about our new
partnership with Viory. Those of you guys who are familiar
with VIORI have noticed that I wear it on the
show almost every day and have done so for years.
(10:20):
It's become a major workhorse for me, and there's two
reasons for that. I gotta started with Yori because of
their durability. I used to wear these clothes on the
show that I'd washed a few times and they'd degrade
into something that wasn't anywhere near as nice as what
I had originally bought. I have items from Viory that
I've watched like fifty times that still look every bit
as nice as when I bought them years ago. That's
(10:42):
the type of quality you're getting with Viory. And then
there's incredible versatility. These are items that I can wear
on the show, I can wear on a date night
with my wife. I can wear running errands on a Saturday.
I can wear when I'm going to play pick up basketball,
whether it's the Sunday Performance short or the Strato Tech
tank top that I can wear when I'm hooping. They
have an item for any sort of situation. Viory is
(11:04):
an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they're offering
twenty percent off your first purchase. Get yourself some of
the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at
viory dot com slash hoops. That's vuo Rii dot com
slash hoops. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms
and conditions. Not only will you receive twenty percent off
(11:26):
your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US
orders over seventy five dollars in free returns. Go to
viory dot com slash hoops and discover the versatility of
Yori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms
and conditions Part two. When I've disagreed with you over
(11:46):
the years, it usually comes down to the idea that
I think you put too much value on the marginal
advantage players have in surgical half court execution, and that
you do so at the expense of general two way
versatility and impact. So the second question is do you
think there's any credence to the idea that you and
or the general hoop community have undervalued two way versatility
and impact. I have not changed my opinion on this
(12:07):
at all. I think Nikola Jokic has clearly been head
and shoulders better than the rest of the league, and
he's your textbook half court surgeon type of dude who
has defensive limitations, but that finds a way to compete
defensively within a scheme alongside other smart, high IQ defenders.
I think that for all of the talk we want
to talk about with Luca and whether or not he
(12:29):
can succeed at the highest highest levels of the NBA,
that's all fair. You know what happened to him in
the twenty twenty four finals against Boston. That's a completely
fair criticism of Luka Doncicic. But the bottom line is
they wake up today with the damn good record and
at like what the fifth best record in the NBA,
and a big part of that is because of how
good their half court offense has been, especially in crunch time,
(12:52):
and Luka Doncic has been the driving force behind that.
And so I think the bigger point that you're making
about the half court execution piece and set it aside,
do we value general two way versatility and impact enough?
I think that's a good question. I think that really
comes down to more of the team concept, though, I
think that if the ultimate not to be too reductive here,
(13:16):
but the ultimate goal of a basketball team is to
score more points than your opponent, right, and so on
our very basic level, like if you're built the way
Oklahoma City is and you're gonna get a shit ton
of stops, I think you can have a team that's
built less around refined offensive skill. If you have a
team like the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets who's built
(13:36):
around refined offensive skill, I think you can get away
with a little bit less in terms of defensive personnel. Ultimately,
you're building a checklist. Like if you think of what
happens on both ends of the floor as like a
bunch of boxes you have to check, right, and the
more boxes you check on both ends of the floor,
the better team you are, right, And so if you
have a player that can check a ton of boxes,
(13:58):
that's certainly valuable. Right. So's take a guy like Anthony
Davis for example, Like he can check the rim protection
box and the defensive rebounding box, and then if you
go to the offensive end of the four, you can
check an offensive rebounding box. He can check a ball
screen threat box where he has the ability to do
damage in the short roll and as a vertical spacer.
There's things he can check like that. But there's one
(14:19):
giant box that he can't check, and that's like breaking
down elite defense. When there's an elite defense in front
of him, Anthony Davis ain't gonna be the guy that
breaks down that defense. That's a pretty gaping flaw for
a team that's trying to win a championship. When I'm
building a roster and I have that guy. I have
a guy that like this dude can break down elite
(14:39):
defense at the highest level. Obviously, I feel like I
can go around and find a guy that can get
defensive rebounds. I can find a guy that can dunk
a lob as he's rolling hard down the lane. I
can find a guy that can protect the rim a
little bit. I can find guys who can defend on
the permitive. Those are easier to find than the dude
who can break the defense down. Now, the last kind
(15:01):
of thing I would say is to a guy like
Jason Tatum. So coming into the season, I would have
ranked him as the fifth best player in the NBA
if not for his injury. Ideally, if you have a
player that can anchor a defense the way that Jason
Tatum can, that can anchor defensive glass the way that
Jason Tatum can, that also brings some ability to break
(15:21):
the defense down as an offensive player on the other
end of the floor. There's a ton of value there,
and I think that's a big part of why like
Jason Tatum, despite not necessarily being the most efficient half
court surgeon type of guy in the league, I was
viewing him as a legitimate top tier superstar in this
league before his injury because of his all around versatility.
(15:42):
In short, it's all an aggregate combination of all of
these abilities. I just still think fundamentally the hardest trait
to find in the NBA is can you break down
elite defense? And that's why I look at that as
such a valuable trait. As Oklahoma City leaves corner shooters open,
sometimes they get rich, the teams get really hot. I
know it's their identity, but I feel like, when Jordan
(16:03):
Goodwin makes eight corner threes, maybe it's time to change
it up. It's happened multiple times this season, and Diagnault
sticks with the same scheme, so with Oklahoma City. And
this is an important detail. When you're looking at margin hunting.
For the most part, it's not just that specific margin
in a vacuum that you're looking at. You're looking at
how all of these things are intricate, intricately connected. So
(16:26):
for example, if you are let's just take offensive rebounding
for example, it used to be that the interpretation was
if you crash the offensive glass, you make yourself vulnerable
and transition defense. But then as teams started to look
at it in a more refined way. They're like, well,
(16:47):
if we crash the offensive glass from the corners and
we just have them run to the elbows, just classic
corner crash. When they run to the elbows, the long
rebound is going to come up off from a miss
three and they have a high opportunity to get it.
If they don't get it, two things happen. One, those
guys out of the corners are always already running, so
(17:09):
they can take that momentum, oh we didn't get the ball,
wheel back into transition defense. And two, if I crash
to the elbow and I don't get the ball and
on the primary point of attack defender, I can quick
turn and pick up the basketball. Meaning like, let's say
the other team's big gets the ball on a long
rebound up around the elbow, and he dumps it to
the point guard right around the block, and you're right
(17:31):
there at the elbow. Didn't get the rebound, but you're
right there to pick up the guard full court. And
if you can pick up the guard and make him
turn twice or make him pick up his dribble or
something like that, or make him throw another backcourt pass,
that slows the team down enough that it doesn't hurt
you in transition. And so what teams have essentially realized is, yeah,
if you offensive rebound, there are going to be times
(17:51):
where you know, a very unfortunate rebound comes off and
your floor balance is bad and a team gets a
layup in transition. But like much of the time, you're
either going to get the offensive rebound or you're already
going to be in it kind of like inflicts a
certain amount of like injects a certain amount of verve
already in your team to where they're running, so they're
kind of getting back better anyway. And three, we can
(18:12):
apply ball pressure right away. So teams have basically figured
out that the tradeoff of attacking the offensive glass is
actually worth whatever small downside there is to transition defense. Similarly,
Oklahoma City has trade offs in the way that they
play defense. So again, think of it like on a
really basic level from the standpoint of the negative. Okay,
(18:34):
so the negative is the when they pick up with
a ton of ball pressure and they play super physical
and they attack the basketball, they commit a lot of fouls. Right,
That's one of the things that they're going to do
that's going to cause issues relative to most teams, they're
going to foul. The second piece. They're better at that
this year than they have been in recent years, but
(18:55):
in other years they've had issues with fouling on the perimeter.
The second piece of it is the the open corner threes. Right,
So like if you're picking up the ball and you
are attacking with ball pressure, and anytime a guy gets
beat off the dribble, you're sending aggressive help, and every
time they try to post up, you're sending double teams.
And it's just this very forward, aggressive attack, attack, attack defense.
(19:19):
You're gonna commit some fouls and you're gonna give up
some corner threes. But the flip side of that is
you're also going to get a good amount of opportunities
to force turnovers. You're gonna get a good amount of
opportunities to get out and transition off of those turnovers.
The Oklahoma City Thunder generate twenty five points every single
game off of turnovers. That's the most in the entire
(19:42):
NBA by pretty wide margin. So the way they look
at it is like, yeah, we're gonna give up some
open threes. Yeah we're gonna commit some fouls, but in
the aggregate, it unlocks this transition part of our offense,
which takes me to the the specific dynamic with Oklahoma
City offensively. We've seen Oklahoma City at various points over
(20:06):
the course of the last few years and especially recently,
but even in the playoffs last year, especially in the
playoffs in two thousand and twenty four, if you guys remember,
we have seen Oklahoma City go very cold in the
half court on offense. So they want to drive as
much of that transition avalanche type of attack as they can,
(20:28):
and so it's all part of that trade off. They
could give up fewer corner threes, they could commit fewer fouls,
but then they wouldn't get out and transition as much,
and they'd have to play more in the half court,
which is not how they want to play offensively, and
so that's essentially the trade off for them. Now to
the point you're making about the Jordan Goodwin game, I
think it just comes down to in a playoff series,
(20:49):
if there is a clear advance, So like let's say
that let's say they run into a team like Denver,
and Denver just takes really good care of the basketball,
never turns it over for whatever reason, and they're just
moving it methodically through your defense and hitting corner three
corner three corner three corner three, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon,
(21:11):
Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, over and over and over again.
Then yeah, you might have to tweak it and be like,
we need to see Nicole Jokic score one on one
against Isaiah Hartenstein a few more times. We need to
see Jamal Murray score one on one against a big
or against one of our smaller guards more times. They
might have to make an adjustment in a series if
it gets to that point, but in the large sample
(21:31):
of the regular season, I think they want to lean
on getting out in transition as much as possible. We'd
love to hear your thoughts on what trade the Celtics
should look for. Zubots is apparently not an asset the
Clippers are willing to give up, and I've heard mixed
things about the availability of Gafford Claxton. I think all
these guys could be a great fit, but obviously not
sure with the package the other teams would be looking
for in return. Anforty Simons definitely carries some value and
(21:52):
he could definitely be packaged with picks and some bench
guys a Kowser or Shireman. Ideally in any of these trades,
I would like to see the Seas keep Hugo Gonzalez
and Jordan Wall, but not sure how realistic that is.
What are your thoughts? So, I actually because I'm about
to record here in about twenty minutes with a group
of Lakers guys, and we're going to be talking about
the specific dynamic of the center position because Deandreyton got
(22:13):
his ass kicked by Victor women Yama in the game
on Wednesday night, and so I've seen him just too
often get his butt kicked by the higher level centers
around the league, and I just don't think he's the
guy for Luke a long term. So I've been looking
around at the centers, and so I was like, who
are the guys that could like realistically start at center
around the league that are also somewhat realistically available for trade.
(22:35):
And the list that I came up with was Demona Sabonis,
Walker Kessler, Nikola Vusovich, Nick Claxton, Daniel Gafford, and Robert Williams. Now,
where it gets tricky for the Celtics is you got
to think about the salaries with Tatum on a MAX
with Jalen Brown on a Max, and you're gonna have
to pay, you know, like like you want to keep
Derek White in the situation. You know, he makes a
(22:55):
lot of money. You got a lot of money tied
up in your perimeter guys. So ideally you want to
try to find a center that gives you a useful look,
but that also is a guy that you could theoretically
have for a couple of years without spending too much money.
And that's where it gets interesting because like you look
at a guy like Walker Kessler, you trade for him,
you're gonna have to extend him. That could provide a
(23:18):
money crunch for a team like the Celtics, right, Like
Nick Claxton is a guy that financially is not gonna
be cheaper, not gonna be cheap to keep around long term.
That's where I start to look at like, Okay, what
about a Daniel Gafford, what about a Nikola Vucevich? Right
Like you've seen how Luca Garza is given some you know,
kind of a unique look to the Celtics at the
(23:39):
center position. As a guy who can space the floor
a little bit. You know you already have Nimi Kita
and Kate is actually pretty good. But Kate is a
little one dimensional. He's more of like a drop coverage
big a guy who does some ceiling inside and finishing,
vertical spacing, that kind of that kind of stuff. So
what if you had two different looks. You had this
(24:00):
me Kada drop coverage, vertical spacing, rim protection look, and
then you traded for a guy like Vucevich and you
kept him around at a discounted deal, Like you go
to vuc and you go, hey, dude, you've made a
good amount of money in your career getting pretty old.
What if you stick around with us for you know,
two years on this like really heavily discounted deal and
(24:21):
it's like Kada Vucevich, the two different looks that the
Celtics go with that center. And one of the things
with vouch is he gives you like a legitimate post
up threat, like he can pick and pop and hit
pick and pop threes and space the floor as a center.
But he's also like a big physical dude download that
could do some rebounding and can do a bunch of
damage in the post. And so I think he'd be
an interesting kind of way to look Robert Williams. It's
(24:42):
the health issue. Daniel Gafford, there's a little bit of
a money issue with him too, where I think he's,
you know, potentially gonna want a longer term deal where
he's making you ten to fifteen million a year. There's
something to be said about finding somebody that gives you
the best combination of production relative to the sound dollary
under the situation that the Celtics are in. And that's
why I was thinking the guy like Vusovich would be
(25:04):
just kind of an interesting option for them to consider
as a kind of like a two different looks alongside
Nimi Keda. Today's show is brought to you by presenting
sponsor hard Rock Bet, the official sportsbook partner of the
Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. When it's cold outside,
that's when you know the hardwood is heating up. Between
the NBA and college there's basketball on every night, and
(25:26):
every night is a shot to build the same game,
parlay and score a major bucket on hard Rock Bet,
your home for hoops action all season long, and if
you ever miss tip off of that big game, don't worry.
Hard Rock Bet lets you live bet all game long
from the first bucket to the final buzzer, so you're
never too late to find a winner or grab a
player pop that you had circled. If you haven't tried
your first bet on hard Rock Bet, there's still time
(25:47):
for you to get one hundred and fifty dollars in
bonus bets if you win. Just place a five dollars
bet and if it hits, you get not only your winnings,
but also an extra one hundred and fifty dollars in
bonus bets. Plus. The hard Rock Bet offers new promos
every single day, so whenever you're listening, just open the
app and check out what you've got any day of
the week. Download the hard Rock Bet app and make
your first deposit today. PayPal and bonus bets not a
(26:10):
cash off or offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida
and Florida offered by Seminal hard Rock Digital, LLC. In
all other states. Must be twenty one plus and physically
present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about
gambling in Florida, Call one eight three to three play
wise in Indiana. If you were someone you know has
(26:31):
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, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia. How much of good defense is physical gifts?
How much of it is effort? How much of it
is knowledge? Could someone with very limited physical gifts become
(26:53):
a good defender if he has good knowledge and hustle.
Appreciate your show. You and your team clearly work your
butts offt to create such polished content. Thank you, Thank
you so much for the kind words, and thanks for
shouting out the team. Jackson's literally just amazing. I just
think he's the best in the world at what he does.
So we talked about this concept within the idea of
a team, but I would argue that the largest chunk
(27:14):
of defense is the execution piece, meaning like always being
in the right spot, having good instincts like There have
been a lot of guys over the years that have
been good perimeter defenders relative to their actual talent because
they're good at anticipating. They can look at a guy
and they can like kind of identify where his center
of gravity is and they can kind of see where
(27:35):
his body's shifting, or like they could pick up on
physical cues, or maybe they watch a lot of film
and they're just good at scouting like little tips on,
you know, the way that a perimeter player kind of
tips off what he's gonna do. And then it's just anticipation, right,
Like it's all about angle. So like if if I'm
defending a player who's faster than me, but if I
take the right angle and I anticipate which way he's going,
I can beat him to a spot, right, So like
(27:58):
there is a very much an anticipatory position element to defense. Now,
I would argue that you can't be terrible at either.
So like if you're incredibly slow or if you're incredibly small,
it's really difficult to overcome that no matter how disciplined
you are. But let's say you're a mediocre athlete, like
a mediocre size and speed guard, a mediocre size and
(28:20):
speed forward, or a mediocre size and speed center. Let
me just take like Jake la Ravia, for example, a
guy that I root for on the Lakers. He's not
exceptionally big for a forward. You know, he's like six seven, right,
and he's strong, but he's not like jacked or anything.
And like he's mobile, but he's not like super fast
or anything. Like he's a little too small to be
(28:41):
like a traditional power forward and a little too slow
to be like a traditional small forward in terms of
just his athletic profile. Right. But he's been one of
the most useful defenders for the Lakers this year. Why
because he has the kind of like bare minimum set
of physical gifts you need, Like he's got enough size
and mobility to be at least somewhat useful in terms
(29:02):
of the trades he's working with. He's a high effort guy.
That's the third piece of this that we haven't even
talked about yet, Like you gotta be someone as motor
you got to play really hard on that end of
the floor. And then the third piece of it is
he's got the positioning and anticipation elements down, and so
he's just very good at kind of being in the
right spot, following the defensive game plan, scouting the guy
that he's guarding, and anticipating which direction he's going he's
(29:24):
been especially good this year guarding some of the bigger
forwards that look to attack off the dribble. But yeah,
it's definitely a combination of all of those things. But
physical you kind of have to have all three. Like
if you have great physical gifts and you've got the
anticipation in positioning, but you got a shit motor and
you don't play hard, that's a problem, right, Like that's
some of the issue that we've seen with Lebron over
(29:45):
the last few years, and it's just because he doesn't
want to play hard for an eighty two game regular season, right,
But like he certainly can, he certainly understands the game plan,
and he can anticipate like crazy, and he's got still
at his age, some pretty good physical gifts. But it's
just like when Lebron's effort drops off, he dropped. But
when the efforts there, you know, we saw Lebron look
like an all defense guy in the middle of the
season last year, right, Or like, if you have the
(30:06):
motor and you have the anticipation in the in the
game plan piece, but you're just super tiny or you're
super slow, that's going to be a problem. And then
you know, We've seen it with guys like Karl Anthony Towns. Like,
I don't think Carl Anthony Towns is necessarily lazy. He's
got decent physical gifts. He's like, he's a competitive dude.
He just the anticipation and positioning piece of it is
(30:27):
like absolute garbage with him, and it's a huge problem.
So you can't be dreadfully weak in any area, but
you don't necessarily have to be strong in all three areas. Hi, Jason,
big fan of your form of content and your wisdom
around the NBA. You suggested a mega trade of Michael
Porter Junior and Nick Claxton to help catapult the Warriors
to becoming more competitive. Within this suggestion, are you saying
that Claxton would help the Warriors more than Draymond? Especially
(30:51):
the mega trade you mentioned is swapping Claxton for Draymond.
Can the Warriors still be title contenders if they just
traded for MPJ and kept Draymond with a starting five
of Curry, Mountain Butler, Michael Porter Junior, and Green be
a title contender? Thank you love your content. So it's
a couple of things. So one the reason why I
kind of like talked about structuring it that way is
Michael Porter Junior just has a really large salary, and
so by having Draymond in there, it just kind of
(31:12):
makes it easier to feasibly piece the rest of it together.
That said, like getting just MPJA would still be a
huge win for the Warriors. The reason why I was
looking at Claxton specifically is I find him to be
both a good fit defensively within the Warrior's scheme, because
the Warriors do a bunch of different schemes defensively and
they do do a decent amount of switching with their bigs.
(31:33):
And then the second piece of it is I've seen
as a matchup thing teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City,
the two top teams in the Western Conference. I've seen
both of them struggle with rim protection at times, and
so it's one of those things where even though Draymond's
a very good defensive player, what he doesn't necessarily provide
is that vertical rim protection. And so I just thought
Nick Clackson would provide an element to the Warriors defense
(31:53):
that they basically haven't haven't had since, like Andrew Boguet
was healthy. So I just thought it was worth considering
as an option. But to your point, if they just
got Michael Porter Junior, I'd still view that as a
huge boost for the Warriors. Three more, I was on
Twitter and someone suggested that the Lakers offense is smoother
when Lebron is running it as he looks to create
then score, as opposed to Luca as more heliocentric in approach.
(32:16):
What are your thoughts on this and which approach do
you think is better for the Lakers offense. So this
is a general idea that I just disagree with, the
idea that like you have to play one way to win,
or that multiple ball handlers can't play together well. Like
I don't think that lebron Is style. I don't think
Lebron's style is better than Luca's necessarily based on what
(32:39):
happened in the last few weeks, I just thought Luca
wasn't playing well. Like Luca's been every bit as heliocentric
in that game against the Spurs, or the second half
against the Pelicans, or the second half against Grizzlies on Sunday.
He's been every bit as heliocentric as he was in
all the other games. He just wanted to turn the
ball over the I want to cut Lucas slack for
the turnovers and myss threes, specifically against the Spurs, because
without Luca, or without Lebron and aust And available, he
(33:01):
basically had no choice but to bump his usage way up,
and that means he had to say yes a lot
more to situations that he might otherwise say no, meaning like, oh,
high risk pass. When Lebron and Austin are healthy, you
move it around and let one of them attack, But
when no one else can do shit with the basketball, like,
he almost has to take that high risk pass. Similarly,
bad threes when when Lebron and Austin are out there,
(33:24):
don't take the bad three, move the ball around if
you get cut off off the dribble, but when Lebron
and Austin are out, he kind of has to take
the bad three, right. So, like, I'm not too critical
of the turnovers and the misshots in that particular Spurs game,
but overall, I thought Luca's shot creation was ridiculous in
that Spurs game, and in the second half of the
Pelicans game, and in the second half of the Grizzlies game,
even though he was heliocentric and so I don't think
(33:46):
Luca needs to play more like Lebron. I just think
Luca needs to play like the best version of Luca,
and Lebron needs to keep playing like the best version
of Lebron. I actually had a little bit of a
debate with my buddy Demon. He pitched this idea that
when Austin comes back, maybe Luca or Lebron should stay
kind of as the second option. That kind of clashes
with my core basketball believe I generally believe you can
(34:10):
have three guys all kind of working in unison as
long as they're all trusting each other, and I think
all three of them can put up massive point totals.
I don't think you're confined toabbing two ball handlers, especially
when you've got guys like Lebron and Austin who can
run action together and they can both be involved, even
though maybe Austin has the ball for five minutes or
Lebron has the ball for five minutes. Hey, Jason, I've
(34:31):
always been a huge Jokich fan and still think he's
clearly the best player in the league. But does a
performance like the win over Philly missing four or five starters,
plus what we're seeing from MPG this year off the
Nuggets make you ever so slightly think that maybe we
are marginally overrating Yokic's impact and have been underplaying his teammates.
I don't necessarily think so, but I'm interested to hear
your thoughts. It's as simple as diminishing returns thing why
(34:52):
a player like MPJA has been broken out since leaving.
So the MPJA thing is complicated to me. I never
thought MPJ was a bad player. I just thought MPJ
a four, and the Nuggets already had a starting four,
and as the league had tilted in recent seasons to
more speed on the perimeter, I don't think you can
play at Michael Porter Junior Aaron Gordon nicolea Jokic frontline
against a team like Oklahoma City. I think you're too slow.
(35:13):
So I think shifting from Michael Porter Junior to Cam
was more just trading a starting four for a starting three.
It was a roster balancing, starting lineup balancing type of
move for them. I thoroughly expected Michael Porter Junior to
go into Brooklyn and put up scoring numbers this year.
Maybe not quite to this extent, but I'd always thought
that he was a guy that could go get buckets.
I generally hate this specific idea that like, in order
(35:37):
for a player to be recognized as successful, the team
has to suck without him. You'll notice when I would
talk about Jokiic as the best player in the world,
or when I would talk about Jokich is the best
offensive player ever, I never mentioned his on off. That's
not really the angle I go with. Basketball is a
team sport. No one wins a championship unless they have
(35:57):
excellent supporting talent, whether it's a great head coach or
a great secondary star or an awesome depth of role
player talent. Like and we've seen it every which way
over the course of the years, different constructs of teams.
But this idea that SuperStar's going to win titles by
their own is just flat out stupid. It's just never
how it works. Jokic was the best player in the
world last year, he was overwhelmed by Oklahoma City in
(36:17):
the second round. Lebron was the best player in the
world by a mile. In twenty eighteen. He didn't even
stand a chance in the finals against Golden State, Like
there is, This is a team sport. Ultimately, now, the
Nuggets having success without NICOLEA Jokic this year. I think
it comes down to fundamentally, this team being on a
fucking mission, like this Nuggets team wants to win the title,
(36:39):
and there is a level of commitment from the top
down of the roster from day one of training camp
that has allowed this team to sustain success in various
different looks, whether it's when they were healthy at the
beginning of the year, to Gordon and Christian Brown being
out to now Jokic being out, they have just found
a way over and over again. There have been a
lot of key guys that have stepped up. Jalen Pickett
has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Peyton Watson
(37:01):
has been awesome stepping up with the injuries. Look at
Zeke Nagi these last couple of games. So like, I
just think it's a testament to the type of team
this Denver Nuggets team is and it should be a
big part of why people believe in them as a
threat to win the championship this year. All right, lastly,
Timberwolves fan here, I'm curious what you think about Julius
Randall's bullyball and the sustainability of it come playoff time.
I'm obviously interested in whether or not this team, as
(37:22):
presently constructed can win a championship. I tend to lean
towards now a factor that I think doesn't really get
talked about as much as the way Randall scores. I
know he did his thing against the old Man Lakers
with no centers and the Steph Lest Warriors last year,
but it seems like once the t Wolves inevitably meet
a team that can match their physicality, Randall's scoring is
bound to fall apart. So I actually think Julius Randall's
(37:42):
ability as a big forward to attack size mismatches and
do a good mix of scoring and playmaking is a
huge playoff asset. My main concern with Randall is more
like what happened in the Bad Game. So if you
look at the Oklahoma City games, he had a couple
of games where he put up numbers, but then he
had a couple of games where it almost looked like
he quit. It almost looked like when things weren't going
as way, he like completely disengaged. Stop being aggressive, Stop
(38:02):
focusing on the details. My issues with Randal are not
necessarily his style, it's just his mentality. I would like
to see Julius Randall, like on the nights where maybe
he has a couple of turnovers early, or he misses
a couple of shots early, or he finds himself in
the middle of the second quarter with doing everything and
he's two for nine, you know, with six points. Like
(38:23):
I'd prefer to see those nights and in him doing
everything in his power to try to find a way
to win the damn game rather than pouting and standing
around at the three point line and shooting catch and
shoot threes two or three times the rest of the night.
He had a couple of these games against Oka see
where I felt like he kind of like mentally gave
in to the circumstances. That's really the main thing that
I'd like to see him work on. I'm actually really
(38:45):
high on the timber Wolves. I think Anthony Edwards is
the best version of himself that he's ever been. I
think the supporting offensive talent with the rise of Julius Randall,
excuse me, the rise of Jaden McDaniels, Rudigobert being a
better offensive player than he's been in recent years, and
they have shown the defensive ceiling, especially in these last
few weeks. I am if the Timberwolves can keep this
(39:06):
up over the next over the next you know, three
weeks or so, I'm going to put them in my
top tier of contenders in our next Contender rankings. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always to sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.
I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend,
and I'll see you guys on Money.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.