March 28, 2022 • 35 mins
After the Lakers blew a 23-point lead in a dominant LeBron game, Jason weighs in on their dysfunction, breaks down the marquee games of the night and gives his take on the race for the top seed out East.
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dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Lakers Tonight,
(02:07):
presented by Fan Duel here at the Volume. I am
Jason Tim Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope you all had
a great weekend. Lots of really interesting basketball to get
to today. We're gonna break down the Lakers game in
its entirety. After that, we're going to get into that
crazy intense game between Phoenix and Philly that got a
little out of hand late but had some interesting stuff
(02:27):
going on. James Harden had another really really bad night.
We're going to dive into that a little bit. And
then for those of you guys who stick around for
the end, we're gonna talk about the Timberwolves getting get
enough another opportunity to try to prove to us that
they are the real deal, and struggling against the Boston Celtics.
And then at the end, I want to talk a
little bit about the standings. We have some couple of
really really interesting standing situations at the top of the
(02:49):
Eastern Conference and at the bottom of the Western Conference
that will be extremely important to watch over the course
of the next couple of weeks. But let's start with
the Lakers. I understand that it there's a desire to
to paint one picture about this game. You know, blown
twenty point lead at halftime, and while on the surface
(03:13):
that looks really ugly, and I do get that, I
don't want to undersell that at all by any stretch
of the imagination. I think that people have to understand
that these types of games are almost always a war
that's not about one battle. There's ups and downs, and
they're usually swings in momentum one way or another. And
(03:33):
the New Orleans Pelicans have a lot of advantages over
the Los Angeles Lakers because of the injuries to Anthony Davis,
because of things like Dwight Howard. Suddenly you know this
is he whatever he was in he's not that anymore.
He used to be a guy that the Lakers could
depend on every single night to be a pretty darned
(03:55):
dominant backup center. Not that guy anymore. Even when he
has days off like this, he just looks really slow.
There was a hilarious play in the first half where
I believe when you actually wasn't the second half when
you Gabriel through a push ahead pass to Dwight Howard
and you see Dwight like try to hit the jets
to try to catch up to the ball, and you're like,
oh man, he just looks like he's one season too
(04:16):
long in the NBA. When you look at down the
roster some of the personnel shortcomings of the Lakers, it's
inevitable that they're gonna have long extended stretches where things
go poorly. And today was exacerbated by the fact that
Russell Westbrook, even though he had a good first half,
started to struggle in the second half, and then a
lot of those athleticism advantages started to wear the Lakers down.
(04:39):
In the first half, Lebron comes out game busters. We're
gonna talk about him in a second. Another good, not
even good, amazing Lebron game. That is something that we
should take as a positive with this team moving forward.
But the Lakers also battled and a lot of the
physicality areas of the game. To start, the Lakers out
rebounded the Pelicans in the first half. They that was
(05:01):
an example of effort that's coming in with a feel
of intensity and an understanding that uh uh, there was
in the beginning of the game when everything was going
in the lakers favor. You saw the Pelicans didn't shoot
the three ball particularly great to start the game. Lebron's
making thirty footers contested off the catch. There's a lot
going on in the early parts of that game that
(05:23):
was advantageous to what the Lakers were doing, and so
you knew over the course of the game there was
gonna be a point where that turned on them a
little bit. And in the second half, all of a sudden,
a lot of those rebounding issues went towards the Pelicans way.
And when you look at the roster down the line,
there's an athleticism advantage there that's kind of insane. You've
got like, especially towards the end of the game. You
notice this. This is something I talked about a lot
(05:44):
with the Boston Celtics. So when the Celtics are running
out their lineup with Marcus Smart, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown,
Al Horford, Robert Williams or or or whoever it is
that they have out there, there's not really a weak
point for you to attack. Everyone's tall, everyone's fastone's athletic.
You have to have something that you can go to. Uh,
you have to have somebody that you can attack, and
(06:06):
there's just it's just hard to find an option. And
you saw with the Lakers tonight at the end of
that game, brandon Ingram had great options. He's like, let
me attack Austin Reeves here along the left wing on
a big possession and I'm gonna just shoot over the top. Okay,
next possession down, I got Molik Monk on a switch.
I'm eyeballing him at the free throw line. I'm facing up.
(06:26):
I like my chances in that scenario if I'm brandon Ingram.
But on the other end of the floor, the athleticism
advantages that the Lakers are going to aren't as great.
They're running out there with the lineup with Brandon Ingram
and Herb Jones and Trey Murphy all on the floor
at the same time. When you've got three dudes that
are between six eight and six ten was super long
(06:48):
arms that run really fast, and they've got Valanciunists underneath
the basket doing so well as like a back line defender.
It's just tough. And there's again they have somebody you
an attack, right, it's C Jim McCollum. You've got this
guy and C Jim McCollum that you can attack. But
that's the one guy in the lineup, and the overall
(07:08):
lineup has so much length that it's too hard for
them to It's too hard for them to find easy opportunities.
You know. That's why I was talking about the difference
between Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant matchup and how for
Jason Tatum, he's attacking easy matchups, but Kevin Durant's coming
down and he's attacking difficult matchups. Even though Tatum is
not as good as Kevin Durant, that matchup advantage is
(07:31):
something that will manifest in that head to head matchup.
Same for night with lebron In Brandon Ingram. Lebron James
didn't even have a chance. D uh. Lebron James didn't
even have a chance at the end of the game
to attack matchups because they threw a ton of length
at him and at the end of the game ended
up being a lot of the Leak Monk and a
lot of Russell Westbrook. That was the example of that
(07:52):
defense and the their ability to make the Lakers do
something they didn't want to do, while on the other
end of the floor, the Lakers were giving good matchups
to the Pelicans to attack. That would That's always an
interesting phenomenon in these games. It's not it's not just
did your star make shots and did their star make shots?
A lot of it's who are they attacking? Are they
getting one on one opportunity? So you'll notice on those
(08:14):
late possessions with brandon Ingram and Malik Monk or brandon
Ingram on the Leak Monk, or brandon Ingram and Austin Reeves,
the Lakers did not send help. The Lakers did not
dig in and double team and try to force someone
else to beat them. They let a very good offensive
player operate on an island against shorter defensive players, and
no matter how hard they try, it's gonna be an issue.
(08:35):
I was a little concerned with that at the end
of the game. I would have preferred to see the
Lakers at least do something to try to get Lebron
on CJ mccollumn. I know it's hard because if you
run ball screens sometimes they'll trap. But there are other
ways to work around that. You can set off ball
screens to try to get a switch. You can move
the ball in transition to try to get the ball
quickly so that you're not walking into a set defense.
(08:56):
There are a couple of different things that I wish
I would have seen the Lakers do better. But in
that second half, you saw all those advantages that New
Orleans had kind of come to roost, and a lot
of the disadvantages from the Lakers come to roost. Right
Like the Lakers are not a very athletic team, that
started to hurt them. Russell Westbrook has been playing well.
I had him in my notes as a major positive
(09:17):
after that first half because of that little flurry he
went on in the second quarter. That's just like vintage
Russ And but as we know this season, you are
what the whole season says you are not what just
one little short stretch of basketball is. And in a
little short stretch of basketball, Russ was really good. But
for the vast majority of the season he's been bad,
(09:38):
and he wasn't very good in that uh, in that
second half. I can't look at that as some sort
of outlier performance. That's kind of what you're getting with
Russ this season. So if if the old Lakers manifest,
meaning you know, it's all Lebron on offense, Malik Monk
and Taylor Horton, Tucker, Yeah they can make plays, but
they're also volatile and they're gonna do silly things like
(09:58):
steak takes, stupid show spots, and and make mistakes and
things along those lines. I get I totally. I totally
understand why things went the way they did. So I'm
not gonna be as much of a doomsday sayer in
this case. Now when we're looking at the standings and
we're gonna talk about this, uh with the Eastern Conference
as well. But as we get down the stretch here,
(10:19):
the Pelicans, the Spurs, and the Lakers are all kind
of buying within there. This could go either way here
down the stretch, and so there's a lot at stake here.
So for starters, the Spurs are only a half game
back of the Lakers now. So if the Spurs are
a half game back of the Lakers, with the Lakers
upcoming schedule, they gotta play Denver, they gotta play Phoenix.
(10:42):
There there there's a bunch of tough games just in
this next week. There's a chance before Anthony Davis gets back,
that the Lakers actually slip out of the playoff picture entirely.
And that's tricky. I don't know what to make of that.
That's gonna be That's gonna be something where you're gonna
have a lot of pressure down the stretch. If Anthony
Davis comes back and the Lakers have like five games
(11:02):
left and they have to go four and one or
three and two or whatever to get into the postseason,
that adds a whole other element there. So obviously today hurts.
But there's one gigantic footnote. The Pelicans announced the other
day that Zion Williamson is out for the season. Zion
Williamson is not coming back. There are no reinforcements there.
What you see with the Pelicans is what you get,
(11:24):
and They're gonna be tough to beat at home, which
is why this stretch in the standings is so important.
This game was important because any chance the Lakers have
to get to nine instead of ten is the difference
between making those young athletes from New Orleans come two
Staples or to the Crypto dot Com Arena and win
a huge road, single elimination playoff game. That's a different
(11:48):
deal than you going to New Orleans where young players
especially feed off the crowd, or athletes especially feed off
the crowd, and that becomes a really dangerous environment in
a game that you can very much lose. So that
that that's what makes this so important down the stretch.
But again, the Pels are not adding anybody, and the
Lakers are adding Anthony Davis to this. That's a huge reinforcement. Now,
(12:12):
we were talking about how over the course of that game,
advantages for the Pelicans took over right and it ended
up swinging the game massively. Russ declined at the same
time as a lot of the Lakers athletes declined, and
Brandon Ingram started making shots and c. J. McCollum started
making shots. Next thing you know, you blow a twenty
point lead. That happens. But how does that same progressive fatigue,
(12:36):
how does that same wearing down, How do those advantages
materialize if Anthony freaking Davis is on the court. For instance,
the Pelicans, until the last few minutes of the game,
when they were getting the ball out of Lebron's hands,
they couldn't do anything with Lebron James. There was a
lot of talk this week about herb Jones and his athleticism,
whether or not to be able to bother Lebron. We
(12:58):
have an answer, no, it does not. On at thirty
nine again and it was seemingly getting to whatever shot
he wanted. Okay, so we're not worried about any specific
athleticism matchup with Lebron Anthony Davis. It's gonna be the
exact same thing Anthony Davis has taking taken these traditional
plotting centers, guys like Jonas Valentunas. He's eating guys like
(13:19):
that for lunch for years. Okay. So that's another example
of where when this matchup, they play the Pelicans again
later this week, I believe on Friday, and let's say
they play him again in the plane that the next
time these teams face each other, there's gonna be a
whole different physical dynamic. And this is where that dying,
that that concept of slotting becomes so important. As soon
(13:41):
as Anthony Davis gets plugged into the Dwight Howard role
where Dwight Howard was playing tonight, especially in a bigger quantity,
because he's gonna play like thirty five minutes. Right as
soon as you slide Anthony Davis there, that takes Dwight
and either kicks him out of the rotation or puts
him in a very tiny backup center role. So now
you took a ad player who is actively hurting, who's
(14:04):
actively hurting the situation. You're taking that guy and getting
him out of the lineup. That's a huge plus. Now
I'm now taking Lebron out of having to play center
for massive minutes over the course of the game, and
I'm getting him into a role where he's playing center
in small mint you know, maybe in fifteen minutes, and
(14:25):
to where when he's in that situation, he can really
devote his energy to the defensive end of the floor
because he doesn't have to stress out about having to
do it for thirty minutes. And then he'll still have
those opportunities in the open floor to do everything that
he's been doing so successfully offensively. Now you take when
you in Gabriel instead of when you in Gabriel having
to basically be your athleticism on the back line. Now
(14:46):
he's alongside Anthony Davis. Now that Anthony that that athleticism
instead of him trying to jump over Jonas Valentunas, Anthony
Davis is eating up Jonas Salentunas. And when you Gabriel
is now trying to jump over forwards and other players
that are not way bigger and way stronger than him.
That's what the concept of slotting is, and that's what's
so important about it. You have to have people that
(15:07):
are in their proper roles. And right now, with Anthony
Davis out, everyone's batting outside of their outside of what
they're capable of, and it's causing it's causing a slotting
issue for them. Right now, Anthony Davis is coming back.
It'll make that matchup more interesting for those of you
who are just joining us. This is Lakers Tonight, presented
by FanDuel. Here. At the volume, we were just talking
(15:31):
about the uh um. We were just talking about the
Lakers situation in the standings. I wanted to talk about
Lebron for a second because this is getting absolutely crazy.
So we talked about this right after he decided to
sit out the Filly game, about how he needed ammunition
for a stretch run, how he needed to recharge the
(15:51):
tank to recharge the batteries refuel for this stretch run.
He got a nice little six day stretch here to
get his legs ready this, like I talked about, these
are wars like this game tonight, there's up and down,
long forty eight minute battle. Well, it's gonna get even
crazier here down the stretch with even tougher opponents and
with even higher stakes first fighting and jockeying for position
(16:13):
in the standings and then potentially a playing game. But
what is exciting is he looks physically ready for it.
There were several stretches in this game where when things
were teetering, when Lebron was able to hit the gas
physically to start to get stuff around the basket. He
was one of the big advantages. Like I talked about
the the Pelicans have an awesome athletic front court of wings. Right,
(16:36):
you have herd Jones, her Jones, you have Trey Murphy,
you have Brandon Ingram, all these lanky six eight to
six ten guys that are athletes, but none of them
are strong. There's there's a huge difference between the wing
and the NBA that's like a Jay Crowder p J.
Tucker hold their own with like a really low center
of gravity and a ton of strength to fight you
(16:57):
off of positions. Those kind of guys can wear guy
like Lebron out over the course of a series with physicality.
It's gonna be the opposite as he's going against these
thin wings, He's going to have the advantage to shove
them around and when it gets to a big pivotal moment,
even if it'll be completely exhausting in a playing game
against New Orleans, Lebron is going to be able to
(17:18):
bully his way to whatever he wants, which is a
huge weapon that they can go to it like a
you know, you know, push this button in case of
emergency type of offensive option for the Lakers to be
able to manufacture offense in those really really uh like
high stakes, a single elimination type of environment. The rusting
(17:38):
is what in Bonus site played well for a little bit.
All you have to do there was this one kind
of sketchy little making. He was making over half his
threes in that stretch. I think he shot total from
three over the course of that three game span from
(17:59):
jump shot the course that three game span, and actually
it was the vast majority of his field goals made.
I think he had like four field goals made in
a three game stretch. Of them were jumps. Russ is
not at shooter, just wasn't making shots to make things tough.
It was the reality of that situation was he was
making shots he doesn't usually make, that was spreading things
(18:21):
out for him and making things easier for him. Inevitably
he was going to aggress. Well, here you go. He
made some jump shots in the first half, but they're
in the second half. He was struggling, and over confidence
got the best when he took the really dumb, bad
three out of a trip threat on the right wing
that didn't make any sense. That's the thing that scares
me with Russ is the when you when we consider
(18:43):
the good stretches of Russ text to be these games
where he makes jump shots and we all look at
each other, even in that locker room, and go, hey,
this is what we need this is what Russ is doing. Well,
this is what we've got to defeat into. Let Russ cook.
This is the way he's gonna play. Okay, well, that
actually doesn't work really well in the long run. And
a large sample size and a large sample size, he's
(19:07):
not going to make those jump shots. And a large
sample size, he's gonna fade in and out of games defensively.
In a large sample size, he's gonna struggle to finish
over length and athleticism around the basket. And so that's
where I get concerned. And then guess what Anthony Davis
is coming back, probably this week. Russ is gonna get
shrunk back down into a smaller role again offensively, and
we'll see how that affects his rhythm. You know. That's
(19:28):
why you know, there was a lot of Russ optimism
over the course of this last week. Let's not get
ahead of ourselves. A lot of that was made jump shots.
A lot of that was Anthony Davis being out, a
lot of that was him having an easier offensive role,
more space to operate. Things along those lines. I'm still concerned,
but at the end of the day, and it it is
the last thing I'll say about the Lakers. This is
a process. I told you guys when they had this
(19:50):
good stretch last week. The only way that this works
out is if they treat this next three weeks like
a training camp. They have to steadily get better. Frank
Vogel just said in the postgame pressure a press or,
time is running out for us, and he's correct. This
team does not have a ton of time to get
(20:10):
from where they're at to where they need to be
with their habits and all of the details of their identity.
By the time the season starts, they're running out of time.
They just have to continue make incremental to continuing continue
to make incremental improvements, because this thing doesn't happen overnight.
If I took your men's league team and we were like, hey,
(20:32):
we're gonna learn a five on five defense, and I
was gonna have you guys do these rotations and these
double teams and things like that, there's no chance in hell,
even if you study the playbook inside and out, that
you would be able to do it tomorrow. You have
to build habits. You have to. If you are a
bad defensive team in the n b A and you
want to establish a solid defensive identity. It can take
games and games and games and practices and practices and
(20:55):
practices to establish all of that. That's what they have
to do. They looked a little better for ended stretches tonight.
Their defense in the first half was excellent. That's a
longer stretch of good defense than they've had in a
long time, so that's a positive. But they have to
continue to build on that over the course of the
next couple of weeks. All right, let's move on to
the Sixers and the Suns. So this is a game
(21:16):
that I'm really really excited to dive into the film tomorrow.
Every time I see these straight up like battles of
Titans in the NBA and the regular season, there's always
all these little details that you can get into when
you dive into the film the next day. Like I'm
really excited to look closer at the embed eight and matchup.
I'm really excited to look closer at how the Sun's
attacked James Harden on the defensive end of the floor,
(21:38):
specifically Chris Paul and pick and roll. Those are little details.
Will probably have a video coming out about that tomorrow.
But one of the most interesting things to me about
this game has to do with a glaring flaw in
Philly struggling at this point in his career to be
the same James Harden that he was in two thousand
(21:59):
eighteen with Hugh Houston. He's two for eleven again tonight
he had fourteen and seven and nine, which as a
stat line doesn't seem horrible, right, only two turnovers, you're
getting nine assists. Like, technically he's in a playmaking role.
But guys, when we're talking about the top of the East,
when we're comparing Philly to Milwaukee with Janice and all
(22:20):
the defending champion pedigree, when we're talking about Brooklyn and
everything that they've got cooking. They destroyed Miami yesterday. That's
a game that we're not gonna get to tonight, that
I'll get to later this week. That's the Brooklyn's got
something cooking right now. Okay, and then Miami's in a
down slump right now, but they're not gonna be an
easy out. Boston looks freaking incredible. So in order for
(22:42):
Philly to have a chance, James Harden has to be
a superstar. James Harden has to be the James Harden
from Houston in two thousand and eighteen. That's how good
he has to be, and he simply has not been.
I've talked about a lot on this show. What is
so important with James Harden is his ability to beat
people off the dribble and get all the way to
(23:04):
the basket. Everything else in his game depends on it.
If he has you off balance getting to the basket,
that's what allows him to get sufficient separation on his
step back so that he can go straight up and down,
have good balance and knock that shot down him. Getting
straight line drives to the basket is what opens up
all of his high end playmaking game. That's how he
gets his fifteen sixteen assists nights when he's living in
(23:26):
the paint. That's what gets him to the foul line.
That's how he ends up with those thirty thirty five
point point totals is getting to the foul line, getting
to the basket. Everything is predicated on that. But for
whatever reason, and again, Phoenix is a very good defensive
team with a lot of length, but they have some
guys you can attack. They have guys like Lander Shaman
and Devin Booker and Campaign and even Chris Paul with
(23:47):
the size advantage. There are guys on that team that
you can attack and James Harden just is not capable
of breaking them down. That's an issue. That's something that
scares me for that team for a playoffs here, Like
I always say, when you're talking about the next level,
the top tier teams, which are the guys you're gonna
play in the second round of the playoffs on and
(24:09):
if you struggle in the regular season, you might face
them early see see the Lakers. But when you're facing
those high end defensive teams, you have to have somebody
who can warp the defense. If you let five good
defensive players stay home and you play one on one
all game long, you're gonna get your butt kicked. That's
like what's going on with the Celtics. You have to
(24:30):
have somebody who can get that first defensive rotation, that
first team, that help side, because the only way you're
gonna succeed against those types of defenses is by getting
them in rotation. And if James Harden can't beat people
at the point of attack, if James Harden can't do
his thing up on the top of the key to
(24:52):
break down the defense, they are going to struggle to
score against Milwaukee. They're going to struggle to score against Brooklyn,
They're gonna struggle to score gainst Miami, and they're say,
sure as hell, are going to struggle to score against Boston.
That's a huge issue. If it's a hamstring issue, then
maybe it gets better over the course of the next
couple of weeks and he can get into a peak
physical condition and restore this by the postseason. If not,
(25:16):
if this is a decline, if this is what the
new James Harden is, then Philly can't win this thing.
They simply don't have enough perimeter talent. The irony is
Chris Paul still looks amazing. Nineteen points and fourteen assists
against tonight, only one turnover, nine for fifteen from the field.
It's wild because after the Houston Rockets experience, I bet
(25:36):
you if you gave a bunch of truth serum to
James Harden, he would have telled you so long, Chris Paul,
get rust in here. He's the younger, better version of you.
You can go right off into the sunset with the
Oklahoma City thunder. Fast forward a couple of years. Here
we are in two Chris Paul's arguably the better player.
(25:57):
He's taken way better care of his body ever since
a hamstring injury in two thousand eighteen. Allegedly, Chris Paul's
gone vegan. That's been a huge part of his recent
physical kind of renaissance. Chris Paul is a testament to
maximizing this phase of his career, while James Harden is
a testament to minimizing this phase of his career, and
as a result, a significantly better player in James Harden
(26:20):
is arguably below Chris Paul is a basketball player right now,
which is absolutely insane. One last note on the Phoenix Suns.
Devin Booker talked about him a lot over the course
of the m v P rais. I don't think he's
the m v P. I don't think Booker, Morant or
Tatum can be the MVP because how good their teams
are overall, they're just better players, having better seasons, having
(26:41):
nearly as much success with less talent around them at
the top. That's why I don't think they're in the running.
That said, Devin Booker is playing unbelievable basketball right now.
He's starting to look like a bona fide top ten
ish player in the NBA. He's putting himself with Moran
and Tatum in that conversation for being right around the
ninth tenth best player in the league. In his last
(27:02):
twelve games, he's averaging thirty one points per game on
sixty five point four true shooting. Just unbelievable stuff from
Devin Booker. A huge part of this is him developing
as a three point shooter. That was always one of
his weakness is relative to the rest of his games. Obviously,
a dominant mid range score has all sorts of crafty
(27:24):
finishes around the basket, but he's become so dynamic from
the three point line that he's getting comfortable shots everywhere
on the floor. Devin Booker is amazing again. I still
think the Phoenix Suns are the favorite to win the
title at this point, all right, moving on to the
Wolves and the Celtics. So once again, the Minnesota timber
Wolves lose to a team that's at full strength, that
(27:45):
did this a video about this yesterday. In their previous
twenty six games since January, the Timberwolves were nineteen and seven.
That was the third best win percentage in the entire
NBA over that span. They were third in offense sixth
in defense. A huge part of that was what they
were doing in transition. They lead the league in pace
over that span, their second in the league and fast
(28:05):
break points per games per games. So they're getting stops
and they're getting out in transition and running and they
finally got a signature win. They beat all these good teams,
but there was always one of the best players on
the other team sitting out for whatever reason. Well, they
finally got a chance to beat a team at full
strength in the Dallas Mavericks the other day, and they
did so. They controlled the game throughout and they gotta win.
Problem is, Dallas is a good team. Boston is a
(28:27):
great team, and they absolutely utterly dominated them. What have
I been telling you, guys is my biggest fear with
the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's their guard play well. Any Anthony
Edwards played well tonight. Kudos to him. He showed up
athletically against the very athletic team. He rose to that occasion.
D'Angelo Russell four points on six shots tonight. It's just
(28:47):
they're not gonna be able to get enough out of
their back court, in my opinion, to consistently break out,
breakdown these top tier defenses. I wanted to talk about
just how dominant the Boston Celtics had been in March,
so they completely they uh the month of March. March
starts with them dominating the Hawks at home. Then they
play the Grizzlies at home, beat him by thirteen, dominant win.
(29:10):
Then they play the Celtics at home and win. That's
the game where Tatum out plays Kevin Durant. Then they
go into the into Charlotte and dominate the Hornets. Then
they come home and blow out the Pistons. Then they
lose that really close game to the Dallas Mavericks at home. OK,
did a video breakdown of the game, really really close game.
At the end, they were double teaming Jayson Tatum all
(29:32):
over the floor. Tatum, Uh, their teammates just missed some shots.
Tatum actually got a couple of decent looks and he
missed those as well. Whatever, they lost a close game
to the Mavericks. Then they go right back to beating
the crap out of everybody. They beat the Warriors by two,
Then they beat the Kings on the road by twenty nine.
Then they went into Denver blew out the Nuggets by twenty.
Then they gotta win on the road in Oklahoma City
(29:54):
against the thunder Then they utterly demolished the Utah Jazz
by twenty eight the other night on national television. And
then today they take that Timberwolves team that again has
been the third best winning percentage in the entire NBA
over the course of the last two months and beat
the ship out of him and beat him by twenty two.
I keep telling talking to you guys about how they
were winning all these games. When I did our first
(30:16):
power rankings and I had the Celtics that close to
the top, I told you guys that Jalen Brown and
Jayson Tatum weren't even shooting well. And in the time
from that power rankings to the next one, Jayson Tatum
got hot and they were bowling everybody out. Well, guess what,
Jalen Brown last five games twenty eight point four points
per game from the field from three from the line
(30:37):
on five point four three point attempts per game. So
now Jalen Brown's cooking too, and they're kicking everybody's ass.
This is gonna it's gonna be really really interesting to
see what happens here in this post season because there's
this other element here too that I think people look over.
This team has a ship ton of playoff experience. Jason
(30:57):
Tatum has gone toe to toe with Lebron James in
Game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals and was making
big plays in the fourth quarter. Jalen Brown has been
in a million playoff games over the course of this span.
Al Horford has been in a bunch of big playoff games.
Marcus Smart has been in a bunch of big playoff games.
This team has a ton of of of of pedigree
(31:19):
in that department, and everything that's telling everything that this
season is telling us, is that they should very well
could be the favorite. Now. I don't think they have
nearly as much offensive talent as a team like Phoenix does.
So I have to go with the team like Phoenix
when I'm picking the NBA champion, because I think they're
a little bit more versatile. I think they have a
(31:39):
few more punches, a couple a couple more directions they
can go. So I'm leaning towards Phoenix as my favorite,
But every single day Boston just inches a little bit closer,
and I'm there's this question I keep having, is there
a chance that We're going to look back at this
thing in the middle of June and go like, man,
how do we not know the Celtics. We're just gonna
run over everybody. They have the best defense in the league.
(32:01):
Nobody can score on them in the half court when
they get set, and then on offense, they've got these
two big versall forwards that can attack mismatches all game long.
Look at that down the stretch of that game you
saw you saw, or in the first half of that game,
especially late second quarter, you saw Jalen Brown just picking
on these small Minnesota guards. That's the advantage that they have.
(32:21):
They have these their offensive players are big and can
rely on physicality in those environments as well. Boston looks
incredibly good really quickly. Before we get out of here tonight,
I just wanted to, uh, just talk about that race
at the top of the East because I think it's
important over the next couple of weeks for on a
couple of different fronts. So as you can see Boston
as the one seed at this exact moment in time,
Miami's right there, Milwaukee's right there, Philadelphia is right there.
(32:44):
They're all within half game of each other. So it's
it's essentially could go either way here down the stretch.
Boston has the third toughest remaining scheduled by opponent winning percentage.
The Bucks have the seventh toughest remaining schedule, my Amy
has the nineteenth toughest remaining schedule, and Philly has the
second easiest remaining schedule. Now for Boston, that just doesn't
(33:07):
seem to matter. They're beating anybody anyway, everybody anyway. So
Boston I would probably make the favorite to get the
one seed. But keep an eye on Philly because I
talked about in my video that I did on Saturday
that are on on Friday, that the m v P
was kind of up for grabs there for Johannice. If
the Bucks could get the one seed. But the Bucks
have a tough schedule remaining, and they lost again yesterday.
(33:29):
They are struggling to to uh a Drew Holiday was
out for that game, of course, but which has been
an issue this entire season. But the Bucks have a chance,
but they have a tough schedule. Look at Philly if
they if they have an easy schedule here down the
stretch and they just clean house on those games, you
could see Philly get the one seed, which is important
for a couple of different reasons. The same case I
(33:51):
made for Janice for m v P getting the one
seed also applies for Joel Embiid. So if the Sixers
can eat out enough wins over this easy schedule down
the stretch and they get the one seed, I could
see a very strong case for Joel MVP Joe Joel
Embiid for m v P. And then home court advantage.
I talked all the time about how these playoffs series
is are decided by the smallest of margins, and one
(34:14):
mismatch here, one guy gets hurt, here, one role player
goes down there, one pivotal game on a home floor
versus on the road could be the difference between one
team advancing and another team advancing. And obviously this is
second round home court advantage on on at stake here.
If Philly finishes first, they get home court in the
(34:36):
second round and in the conference finals. If they finished fourth,
which is where they're currently sitting now, they have to
go on the road to Boston in the second round.
Now they have to play potentially the Milwaukee Bucks. With
Milwaukee having Game five and seven at home. That gets
a lot tougher, so just keep an eye on that
down the stretch. Could go either way, and I think
(34:58):
it's really relevant for both the end VP race and
for home court advantage over the playoff run. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. I sincerely apologize
for the technical difficulties there at the beginning. We'll get
it all sorted out and edited for you guys later today.
We will be back on Tuesday for the next Laker game.
We'll be going right after the final buzzer then. As always,
I sincerely appreciate your guys support, and we'll see you
(35:19):
guys in a couple of days. Volume
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dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Lakers Tonight,
(02:07):
presented by Fan Duel here at the Volume. I am
Jason Tim Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope you all had
a great weekend. Lots of really interesting basketball to get
to today. We're gonna break down the Lakers game in
its entirety. After that, we're going to get into that
crazy intense game between Phoenix and Philly that got a
little out of hand late but had some interesting stuff
(02:27):
going on. James Harden had another really really bad night.
We're going to dive into that a little bit. And
then for those of you guys who stick around for
the end, we're gonna talk about the Timberwolves getting get
enough another opportunity to try to prove to us that
they are the real deal, and struggling against the Boston Celtics.
And then at the end, I want to talk a
little bit about the standings. We have some couple of
really really interesting standing situations at the top of the
(02:49):
Eastern Conference and at the bottom of the Western Conference
that will be extremely important to watch over the course
of the next couple of weeks. But let's start with
the Lakers. I understand that it there's a desire to
to paint one picture about this game. You know, blown
twenty point lead at halftime, and while on the surface
(03:13):
that looks really ugly, and I do get that, I
don't want to undersell that at all by any stretch
of the imagination. I think that people have to understand
that these types of games are almost always a war
that's not about one battle. There's ups and downs, and
they're usually swings in momentum one way or another. And
(03:33):
the New Orleans Pelicans have a lot of advantages over
the Los Angeles Lakers because of the injuries to Anthony Davis,
because of things like Dwight Howard. Suddenly you know this
is he whatever he was in he's not that anymore.
He used to be a guy that the Lakers could
depend on every single night to be a pretty darned
(03:55):
dominant backup center. Not that guy anymore. Even when he
has days off like this, he just looks really slow.
There was a hilarious play in the first half where
I believe when you actually wasn't the second half when
you Gabriel through a push ahead pass to Dwight Howard
and you see Dwight like try to hit the jets
to try to catch up to the ball, and you're like,
oh man, he just looks like he's one season too
(04:16):
long in the NBA. When you look at down the
roster some of the personnel shortcomings of the Lakers, it's
inevitable that they're gonna have long extended stretches where things
go poorly. And today was exacerbated by the fact that
Russell Westbrook, even though he had a good first half,
started to struggle in the second half, and then a
lot of those athleticism advantages started to wear the Lakers down.
(04:39):
In the first half, Lebron comes out game busters. We're
gonna talk about him in a second. Another good, not
even good, amazing Lebron game. That is something that we
should take as a positive with this team moving forward.
But the Lakers also battled and a lot of the
physicality areas of the game. To start, the Lakers out
rebounded the Pelicans in the first half. They that was
(05:01):
an example of effort that's coming in with a feel
of intensity and an understanding that uh uh, there was
in the beginning of the game when everything was going
in the lakers favor. You saw the Pelicans didn't shoot
the three ball particularly great to start the game. Lebron's
making thirty footers contested off the catch. There's a lot
going on in the early parts of that game that
(05:23):
was advantageous to what the Lakers were doing, and so
you knew over the course of the game there was
gonna be a point where that turned on them a
little bit. And in the second half, all of a sudden,
a lot of those rebounding issues went towards the Pelicans way.
And when you look at the roster down the line,
there's an athleticism advantage there that's kind of insane. You've
got like, especially towards the end of the game. You
notice this. This is something I talked about a lot
(05:44):
with the Boston Celtics. So when the Celtics are running
out their lineup with Marcus Smart, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown,
Al Horford, Robert Williams or or or whoever it is
that they have out there, there's not really a weak
point for you to attack. Everyone's tall, everyone's fastone's athletic.
You have to have something that you can go to. Uh,
you have to have somebody that you can attack, and
(06:06):
there's just it's just hard to find an option. And
you saw with the Lakers tonight at the end of
that game, brandon Ingram had great options. He's like, let
me attack Austin Reeves here along the left wing on
a big possession and I'm gonna just shoot over the top. Okay,
next possession down, I got Molik Monk on a switch.
I'm eyeballing him at the free throw line. I'm facing up.
(06:26):
I like my chances in that scenario if I'm brandon Ingram.
But on the other end of the floor, the athleticism
advantages that the Lakers are going to aren't as great.
They're running out there with the lineup with Brandon Ingram
and Herb Jones and Trey Murphy all on the floor
at the same time. When you've got three dudes that
are between six eight and six ten was super long
(06:48):
arms that run really fast, and they've got Valanciunists underneath
the basket doing so well as like a back line defender.
It's just tough. And there's again they have somebody you
an attack, right, it's C Jim McCollum. You've got this
guy and C Jim McCollum that you can attack. But
that's the one guy in the lineup, and the overall
(07:08):
lineup has so much length that it's too hard for
them to It's too hard for them to find easy opportunities.
You know. That's why I was talking about the difference
between Jason Tatum and Kevin Durant matchup and how for
Jason Tatum, he's attacking easy matchups, but Kevin Durant's coming
down and he's attacking difficult matchups. Even though Tatum is
not as good as Kevin Durant, that matchup advantage is
(07:31):
something that will manifest in that head to head matchup.
Same for night with lebron In Brandon Ingram. Lebron James
didn't even have a chance. D uh. Lebron James didn't
even have a chance at the end of the game
to attack matchups because they threw a ton of length
at him and at the end of the game ended
up being a lot of the Leak Monk and a
lot of Russell Westbrook. That was the example of that
(07:52):
defense and the their ability to make the Lakers do
something they didn't want to do, while on the other
end of the floor, the Lakers were giving good matchups
to the Pelicans to attack. That would That's always an
interesting phenomenon in these games. It's not it's not just
did your star make shots and did their star make shots?
A lot of it's who are they attacking? Are they
getting one on one opportunity? So you'll notice on those
(08:14):
late possessions with brandon Ingram and Malik Monk or brandon
Ingram on the Leak Monk, or brandon Ingram and Austin Reeves,
the Lakers did not send help. The Lakers did not
dig in and double team and try to force someone
else to beat them. They let a very good offensive
player operate on an island against shorter defensive players, and
no matter how hard they try, it's gonna be an issue.
(08:35):
I was a little concerned with that at the end
of the game. I would have preferred to see the
Lakers at least do something to try to get Lebron
on CJ mccollumn. I know it's hard because if you
run ball screens sometimes they'll trap. But there are other
ways to work around that. You can set off ball
screens to try to get a switch. You can move
the ball in transition to try to get the ball
quickly so that you're not walking into a set defense.
(08:56):
There are a couple of different things that I wish
I would have seen the Lakers do better. But in
that second half, you saw all those advantages that New
Orleans had kind of come to roost, and a lot
of the disadvantages from the Lakers come to roost. Right
Like the Lakers are not a very athletic team, that
started to hurt them. Russell Westbrook has been playing well.
I had him in my notes as a major positive
(09:17):
after that first half because of that little flurry he
went on in the second quarter. That's just like vintage
Russ And but as we know this season, you are
what the whole season says you are not what just
one little short stretch of basketball is. And in a
little short stretch of basketball, Russ was really good. But
for the vast majority of the season he's been bad,
(09:38):
and he wasn't very good in that uh, in that
second half. I can't look at that as some sort
of outlier performance. That's kind of what you're getting with
Russ this season. So if if the old Lakers manifest,
meaning you know, it's all Lebron on offense, Malik Monk
and Taylor Horton, Tucker, Yeah they can make plays, but
they're also volatile and they're gonna do silly things like
(09:58):
steak takes, stupid show spots, and and make mistakes and
things along those lines. I get I totally. I totally
understand why things went the way they did. So I'm
not gonna be as much of a doomsday sayer in
this case. Now when we're looking at the standings and
we're gonna talk about this, uh with the Eastern Conference
as well. But as we get down the stretch here,
(10:19):
the Pelicans, the Spurs, and the Lakers are all kind
of buying within there. This could go either way here
down the stretch, and so there's a lot at stake here.
So for starters, the Spurs are only a half game
back of the Lakers now. So if the Spurs are
a half game back of the Lakers, with the Lakers
upcoming schedule, they gotta play Denver, they gotta play Phoenix.
(10:42):
There there there's a bunch of tough games just in
this next week. There's a chance before Anthony Davis gets back,
that the Lakers actually slip out of the playoff picture entirely.
And that's tricky. I don't know what to make of that.
That's gonna be That's gonna be something where you're gonna
have a lot of pressure down the stretch. If Anthony
Davis comes back and the Lakers have like five games
(11:02):
left and they have to go four and one or
three and two or whatever to get into the postseason,
that adds a whole other element there. So obviously today hurts.
But there's one gigantic footnote. The Pelicans announced the other
day that Zion Williamson is out for the season. Zion
Williamson is not coming back. There are no reinforcements there.
What you see with the Pelicans is what you get,
(11:24):
and They're gonna be tough to beat at home, which
is why this stretch in the standings is so important.
This game was important because any chance the Lakers have
to get to nine instead of ten is the difference
between making those young athletes from New Orleans come two
Staples or to the Crypto dot Com Arena and win
a huge road, single elimination playoff game. That's a different
(11:48):
deal than you going to New Orleans where young players
especially feed off the crowd, or athletes especially feed off
the crowd, and that becomes a really dangerous environment in
a game that you can very much lose. So that
that that's what makes this so important down the stretch.
But again, the Pels are not adding anybody, and the
Lakers are adding Anthony Davis to this. That's a huge reinforcement. Now,
(12:12):
we were talking about how over the course of that game,
advantages for the Pelicans took over right and it ended
up swinging the game massively. Russ declined at the same
time as a lot of the Lakers athletes declined, and
Brandon Ingram started making shots and c. J. McCollum started
making shots. Next thing you know, you blow a twenty
point lead. That happens. But how does that same progressive fatigue,
(12:36):
how does that same wearing down, How do those advantages
materialize if Anthony freaking Davis is on the court. For instance,
the Pelicans, until the last few minutes of the game,
when they were getting the ball out of Lebron's hands,
they couldn't do anything with Lebron James. There was a
lot of talk this week about herb Jones and his athleticism,
whether or not to be able to bother Lebron. We
(12:58):
have an answer, no, it does not. On at thirty
nine again and it was seemingly getting to whatever shot
he wanted. Okay, so we're not worried about any specific
athleticism matchup with Lebron Anthony Davis. It's gonna be the
exact same thing Anthony Davis has taking taken these traditional
plotting centers, guys like Jonas Valentunas. He's eating guys like
(13:19):
that for lunch for years. Okay. So that's another example
of where when this matchup, they play the Pelicans again
later this week, I believe on Friday, and let's say
they play him again in the plane that the next
time these teams face each other, there's gonna be a
whole different physical dynamic. And this is where that dying,
that that concept of slotting becomes so important. As soon
(13:41):
as Anthony Davis gets plugged into the Dwight Howard role
where Dwight Howard was playing tonight, especially in a bigger quantity,
because he's gonna play like thirty five minutes. Right as
soon as you slide Anthony Davis there, that takes Dwight
and either kicks him out of the rotation or puts
him in a very tiny backup center role. So now
you took a ad player who is actively hurting, who's
(14:04):
actively hurting the situation. You're taking that guy and getting
him out of the lineup. That's a huge plus. Now
I'm now taking Lebron out of having to play center
for massive minutes over the course of the game, and
I'm getting him into a role where he's playing center
in small mint you know, maybe in fifteen minutes, and
(14:25):
to where when he's in that situation, he can really
devote his energy to the defensive end of the floor
because he doesn't have to stress out about having to
do it for thirty minutes. And then he'll still have
those opportunities in the open floor to do everything that
he's been doing so successfully offensively. Now you take when
you in Gabriel instead of when you in Gabriel having
to basically be your athleticism on the back line. Now
(14:46):
he's alongside Anthony Davis. Now that Anthony that that athleticism
instead of him trying to jump over Jonas Valentunas, Anthony
Davis is eating up Jonas Salentunas. And when you Gabriel
is now trying to jump over forwards and other players
that are not way bigger and way stronger than him.
That's what the concept of slotting is, and that's what's
so important about it. You have to have people that
(15:07):
are in their proper roles. And right now, with Anthony
Davis out, everyone's batting outside of their outside of what
they're capable of, and it's causing it's causing a slotting
issue for them. Right now, Anthony Davis is coming back.
It'll make that matchup more interesting for those of you
who are just joining us. This is Lakers Tonight, presented
by FanDuel. Here. At the volume, we were just talking
(15:31):
about the uh um. We were just talking about the
Lakers situation in the standings. I wanted to talk about
Lebron for a second because this is getting absolutely crazy.
So we talked about this right after he decided to
sit out the Filly game, about how he needed ammunition
for a stretch run, how he needed to recharge the
(15:51):
tank to recharge the batteries refuel for this stretch run.
He got a nice little six day stretch here to
get his legs ready this, like I talked about, these
are wars like this game tonight, there's up and down,
long forty eight minute battle. Well, it's gonna get even
crazier here down the stretch with even tougher opponents and
with even higher stakes first fighting and jockeying for position
(16:13):
in the standings and then potentially a playing game. But
what is exciting is he looks physically ready for it.
There were several stretches in this game where when things
were teetering, when Lebron was able to hit the gas
physically to start to get stuff around the basket. He
was one of the big advantages. Like I talked about
the the Pelicans have an awesome athletic front court of wings. Right,
(16:36):
you have herd Jones, her Jones, you have Trey Murphy,
you have Brandon Ingram, all these lanky six eight to
six ten guys that are athletes, but none of them
are strong. There's there's a huge difference between the wing
and the NBA that's like a Jay Crowder p J.
Tucker hold their own with like a really low center
of gravity and a ton of strength to fight you
(16:57):
off of positions. Those kind of guys can wear guy
like Lebron out over the course of a series with physicality.
It's gonna be the opposite as he's going against these
thin wings, He's going to have the advantage to shove
them around and when it gets to a big pivotal moment,
even if it'll be completely exhausting in a playing game
against New Orleans, Lebron is going to be able to
(17:18):
bully his way to whatever he wants, which is a
huge weapon that they can go to it like a
you know, you know, push this button in case of
emergency type of offensive option for the Lakers to be
able to manufacture offense in those really really uh like
high stakes, a single elimination type of environment. The rusting
(17:38):
is what in Bonus site played well for a little bit.
All you have to do there was this one kind
of sketchy little making. He was making over half his
threes in that stretch. I think he shot total from
three over the course of that three game span from
(17:59):
jump shot the course that three game span, and actually
it was the vast majority of his field goals made.
I think he had like four field goals made in
a three game stretch. Of them were jumps. Russ is
not at shooter, just wasn't making shots to make things tough.
It was the reality of that situation was he was
making shots he doesn't usually make, that was spreading things
(18:21):
out for him and making things easier for him. Inevitably
he was going to aggress. Well, here you go. He
made some jump shots in the first half, but they're
in the second half. He was struggling, and over confidence
got the best when he took the really dumb, bad
three out of a trip threat on the right wing
that didn't make any sense. That's the thing that scares
me with Russ is the when you when we consider
(18:43):
the good stretches of Russ text to be these games
where he makes jump shots and we all look at
each other, even in that locker room, and go, hey,
this is what we need this is what Russ is doing. Well,
this is what we've got to defeat into. Let Russ cook.
This is the way he's gonna play. Okay, well, that
actually doesn't work really well in the long run. And
a large sample size and a large sample size, he's
(19:07):
not going to make those jump shots. And a large
sample size, he's gonna fade in and out of games defensively.
In a large sample size, he's gonna struggle to finish
over length and athleticism around the basket. And so that's
where I get concerned. And then guess what Anthony Davis
is coming back, probably this week. Russ is gonna get
shrunk back down into a smaller role again offensively, and
we'll see how that affects his rhythm. You know. That's
(19:28):
why you know, there was a lot of Russ optimism
over the course of this last week. Let's not get
ahead of ourselves. A lot of that was made jump shots.
A lot of that was Anthony Davis being out, a
lot of that was him having an easier offensive role,
more space to operate. Things along those lines. I'm still concerned,
but at the end of the day, and it it is
the last thing I'll say about the Lakers. This is
a process. I told you guys when they had this
(19:50):
good stretch last week. The only way that this works
out is if they treat this next three weeks like
a training camp. They have to steadily get better. Frank
Vogel just said in the postgame pressure a press or,
time is running out for us, and he's correct. This
team does not have a ton of time to get
(20:10):
from where they're at to where they need to be
with their habits and all of the details of their identity.
By the time the season starts, they're running out of time.
They just have to continue make incremental to continuing continue
to make incremental improvements, because this thing doesn't happen overnight.
If I took your men's league team and we were like, hey,
(20:32):
we're gonna learn a five on five defense, and I
was gonna have you guys do these rotations and these
double teams and things like that, there's no chance in hell,
even if you study the playbook inside and out, that
you would be able to do it tomorrow. You have
to build habits. You have to. If you are a
bad defensive team in the n b A and you
want to establish a solid defensive identity. It can take
games and games and games and practices and practices and
(20:55):
practices to establish all of that. That's what they have
to do. They looked a little better for ended stretches tonight.
Their defense in the first half was excellent. That's a
longer stretch of good defense than they've had in a
long time, so that's a positive. But they have to
continue to build on that over the course of the
next couple of weeks. All right, let's move on to
the Sixers and the Suns. So this is a game
(21:16):
that I'm really really excited to dive into the film tomorrow.
Every time I see these straight up like battles of
Titans in the NBA and the regular season, there's always
all these little details that you can get into when
you dive into the film the next day. Like I'm
really excited to look closer at the embed eight and matchup.
I'm really excited to look closer at how the Sun's
attacked James Harden on the defensive end of the floor,
(21:38):
specifically Chris Paul and pick and roll. Those are little details.
Will probably have a video coming out about that tomorrow.
But one of the most interesting things to me about
this game has to do with a glaring flaw in
Philly struggling at this point in his career to be
the same James Harden that he was in two thousand
(21:59):
eighteen with Hugh Houston. He's two for eleven again tonight
he had fourteen and seven and nine, which as a
stat line doesn't seem horrible, right, only two turnovers, you're
getting nine assists. Like, technically he's in a playmaking role.
But guys, when we're talking about the top of the East,
when we're comparing Philly to Milwaukee with Janice and all
(22:20):
the defending champion pedigree, when we're talking about Brooklyn and
everything that they've got cooking. They destroyed Miami yesterday. That's
a game that we're not gonna get to tonight, that
I'll get to later this week. That's the Brooklyn's got
something cooking right now. Okay, and then Miami's in a
down slump right now, but they're not gonna be an
easy out. Boston looks freaking incredible. So in order for
(22:42):
Philly to have a chance, James Harden has to be
a superstar. James Harden has to be the James Harden
from Houston in two thousand and eighteen. That's how good
he has to be, and he simply has not been.
I've talked about a lot on this show. What is
so important with James Harden is his ability to beat
people off the dribble and get all the way to
(23:04):
the basket. Everything else in his game depends on it.
If he has you off balance getting to the basket,
that's what allows him to get sufficient separation on his
step back so that he can go straight up and down,
have good balance and knock that shot down him. Getting
straight line drives to the basket is what opens up
all of his high end playmaking game. That's how he
gets his fifteen sixteen assists nights when he's living in
(23:26):
the paint. That's what gets him to the foul line.
That's how he ends up with those thirty thirty five
point point totals is getting to the foul line, getting
to the basket. Everything is predicated on that. But for
whatever reason, and again, Phoenix is a very good defensive
team with a lot of length, but they have some
guys you can attack. They have guys like Lander Shaman
and Devin Booker and Campaign and even Chris Paul with
(23:47):
the size advantage. There are guys on that team that
you can attack and James Harden just is not capable
of breaking them down. That's an issue. That's something that
scares me for that team for a playoffs here, Like
I always say, when you're talking about the next level,
the top tier teams, which are the guys you're gonna
play in the second round of the playoffs on and
(24:09):
if you struggle in the regular season, you might face
them early see see the Lakers. But when you're facing
those high end defensive teams, you have to have somebody
who can warp the defense. If you let five good
defensive players stay home and you play one on one
all game long, you're gonna get your butt kicked. That's
like what's going on with the Celtics. You have to
(24:30):
have somebody who can get that first defensive rotation, that
first team, that help side, because the only way you're
gonna succeed against those types of defenses is by getting
them in rotation. And if James Harden can't beat people
at the point of attack, if James Harden can't do
his thing up on the top of the key to
(24:52):
break down the defense, they are going to struggle to
score against Milwaukee. They're going to struggle to score against Brooklyn,
They're gonna struggle to score gainst Miami, and they're say,
sure as hell, are going to struggle to score against Boston.
That's a huge issue. If it's a hamstring issue, then
maybe it gets better over the course of the next
couple of weeks and he can get into a peak
physical condition and restore this by the postseason. If not,
(25:16):
if this is a decline, if this is what the
new James Harden is, then Philly can't win this thing.
They simply don't have enough perimeter talent. The irony is
Chris Paul still looks amazing. Nineteen points and fourteen assists
against tonight, only one turnover, nine for fifteen from the field.
It's wild because after the Houston Rockets experience, I bet
(25:36):
you if you gave a bunch of truth serum to
James Harden, he would have telled you so long, Chris Paul,
get rust in here. He's the younger, better version of you.
You can go right off into the sunset with the
Oklahoma City thunder. Fast forward a couple of years. Here
we are in two Chris Paul's arguably the better player.
(25:57):
He's taken way better care of his body ever since
a hamstring injury in two thousand eighteen. Allegedly, Chris Paul's
gone vegan. That's been a huge part of his recent
physical kind of renaissance. Chris Paul is a testament to
maximizing this phase of his career, while James Harden is
a testament to minimizing this phase of his career, and
as a result, a significantly better player in James Harden
(26:20):
is arguably below Chris Paul is a basketball player right now,
which is absolutely insane. One last note on the Phoenix Suns.
Devin Booker talked about him a lot over the course
of the m v P rais. I don't think he's
the m v P. I don't think Booker, Morant or
Tatum can be the MVP because how good their teams
are overall, they're just better players, having better seasons, having
(26:41):
nearly as much success with less talent around them at
the top. That's why I don't think they're in the running.
That said, Devin Booker is playing unbelievable basketball right now.
He's starting to look like a bona fide top ten
ish player in the NBA. He's putting himself with Moran
and Tatum in that conversation for being right around the
ninth tenth best player in the league. In his last
(27:02):
twelve games, he's averaging thirty one points per game on
sixty five point four true shooting. Just unbelievable stuff from
Devin Booker. A huge part of this is him developing
as a three point shooter. That was always one of
his weakness is relative to the rest of his games. Obviously,
a dominant mid range score has all sorts of crafty
(27:24):
finishes around the basket, but he's become so dynamic from
the three point line that he's getting comfortable shots everywhere
on the floor. Devin Booker is amazing again. I still
think the Phoenix Suns are the favorite to win the
title at this point, all right, moving on to the
Wolves and the Celtics. So once again, the Minnesota timber
Wolves lose to a team that's at full strength, that
(27:45):
did this a video about this yesterday. In their previous
twenty six games since January, the Timberwolves were nineteen and seven.
That was the third best win percentage in the entire
NBA over that span. They were third in offense sixth
in defense. A huge part of that was what they
were doing in transition. They lead the league in pace
over that span, their second in the league and fast
(28:05):
break points per games per games. So they're getting stops
and they're getting out in transition and running and they
finally got a signature win. They beat all these good teams,
but there was always one of the best players on
the other team sitting out for whatever reason. Well, they
finally got a chance to beat a team at full
strength in the Dallas Mavericks the other day, and they
did so. They controlled the game throughout and they gotta win.
Problem is, Dallas is a good team. Boston is a
(28:27):
great team, and they absolutely utterly dominated them. What have
I been telling you, guys is my biggest fear with
the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's their guard play well. Any Anthony
Edwards played well tonight. Kudos to him. He showed up
athletically against the very athletic team. He rose to that occasion.
D'Angelo Russell four points on six shots tonight. It's just
(28:47):
they're not gonna be able to get enough out of
their back court, in my opinion, to consistently break out,
breakdown these top tier defenses. I wanted to talk about
just how dominant the Boston Celtics had been in March,
so they completely they uh the month of March. March
starts with them dominating the Hawks at home. Then they
play the Grizzlies at home, beat him by thirteen, dominant win.
(29:10):
Then they play the Celtics at home and win. That's
the game where Tatum out plays Kevin Durant. Then they
go into the into Charlotte and dominate the Hornets. Then
they come home and blow out the Pistons. Then they
lose that really close game to the Dallas Mavericks at home. OK,
did a video breakdown of the game, really really close game.
At the end, they were double teaming Jayson Tatum all
(29:32):
over the floor. Tatum, Uh, their teammates just missed some shots.
Tatum actually got a couple of decent looks and he
missed those as well. Whatever, they lost a close game
to the Mavericks. Then they go right back to beating
the crap out of everybody. They beat the Warriors by two,
Then they beat the Kings on the road by twenty nine.
Then they went into Denver blew out the Nuggets by twenty.
Then they gotta win on the road in Oklahoma City
(29:54):
against the thunder Then they utterly demolished the Utah Jazz
by twenty eight the other night on national television. And
then today they take that Timberwolves team that again has
been the third best winning percentage in the entire NBA
over the course of the last two months and beat
the ship out of him and beat him by twenty two.
I keep telling talking to you guys about how they
were winning all these games. When I did our first
(30:16):
power rankings and I had the Celtics that close to
the top, I told you guys that Jalen Brown and
Jayson Tatum weren't even shooting well. And in the time
from that power rankings to the next one, Jayson Tatum
got hot and they were bowling everybody out. Well, guess what,
Jalen Brown last five games twenty eight point four points
per game from the field from three from the line
(30:37):
on five point four three point attempts per game. So
now Jalen Brown's cooking too, and they're kicking everybody's ass.
This is gonna it's gonna be really really interesting to
see what happens here in this post season because there's
this other element here too that I think people look over.
This team has a ship ton of playoff experience. Jason
(30:57):
Tatum has gone toe to toe with Lebron James in
Game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals and was making
big plays in the fourth quarter. Jalen Brown has been
in a million playoff games over the course of this span.
Al Horford has been in a bunch of big playoff games.
Marcus Smart has been in a bunch of big playoff games.
This team has a ton of of of of pedigree
(31:19):
in that department, and everything that's telling everything that this
season is telling us, is that they should very well
could be the favorite. Now. I don't think they have
nearly as much offensive talent as a team like Phoenix does.
So I have to go with the team like Phoenix
when I'm picking the NBA champion, because I think they're
a little bit more versatile. I think they have a
(31:39):
few more punches, a couple a couple more directions they
can go. So I'm leaning towards Phoenix as my favorite,
But every single day Boston just inches a little bit closer,
and I'm there's this question I keep having, is there
a chance that We're going to look back at this
thing in the middle of June and go like, man,
how do we not know the Celtics. We're just gonna
run over everybody. They have the best defense in the league.
(32:01):
Nobody can score on them in the half court when
they get set, and then on offense, they've got these
two big versall forwards that can attack mismatches all game long.
Look at that down the stretch of that game you
saw you saw, or in the first half of that game,
especially late second quarter, you saw Jalen Brown just picking
on these small Minnesota guards. That's the advantage that they have.
(32:21):
They have these their offensive players are big and can
rely on physicality in those environments as well. Boston looks
incredibly good really quickly. Before we get out of here tonight,
I just wanted to, uh, just talk about that race
at the top of the East because I think it's
important over the next couple of weeks for on a
couple of different fronts. So as you can see Boston
as the one seed at this exact moment in time,
Miami's right there, Milwaukee's right there, Philadelphia is right there.
(32:44):
They're all within half game of each other. So it's
it's essentially could go either way here down the stretch.
Boston has the third toughest remaining scheduled by opponent winning percentage.
The Bucks have the seventh toughest remaining schedule, my Amy
has the nineteenth toughest remaining schedule, and Philly has the
second easiest remaining schedule. Now for Boston, that just doesn't
(33:07):
seem to matter. They're beating anybody anyway, everybody anyway. So
Boston I would probably make the favorite to get the
one seed. But keep an eye on Philly because I
talked about in my video that I did on Saturday
that are on on Friday, that the m v P
was kind of up for grabs there for Johannice. If
the Bucks could get the one seed. But the Bucks
have a tough schedule remaining, and they lost again yesterday.
(33:29):
They are struggling to to uh a Drew Holiday was
out for that game, of course, but which has been
an issue this entire season. But the Bucks have a chance,
but they have a tough schedule. Look at Philly if
they if they have an easy schedule here down the
stretch and they just clean house on those games, you
could see Philly get the one seed, which is important
for a couple of different reasons. The same case I
(33:51):
made for Janice for m v P getting the one
seed also applies for Joel Embiid. So if the Sixers
can eat out enough wins over this easy schedule down
the stretch and they get the one seed, I could
see a very strong case for Joel MVP Joe Joel
Embiid for m v P. And then home court advantage.
I talked all the time about how these playoffs series
is are decided by the smallest of margins, and one
(34:14):
mismatch here, one guy gets hurt, here, one role player
goes down there, one pivotal game on a home floor
versus on the road could be the difference between one
team advancing and another team advancing. And obviously this is
second round home court advantage on on at stake here.
If Philly finishes first, they get home court in the
(34:36):
second round and in the conference finals. If they finished fourth,
which is where they're currently sitting now, they have to
go on the road to Boston in the second round.
Now they have to play potentially the Milwaukee Bucks. With
Milwaukee having Game five and seven at home. That gets
a lot tougher, so just keep an eye on that
down the stretch. Could go either way, and I think
(34:58):
it's really relevant for both the end VP race and
for home court advantage over the playoff run. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. I sincerely apologize
for the technical difficulties there at the beginning. We'll get
it all sorted out and edited for you guys later today.
We will be back on Tuesday for the next Laker game.
We'll be going right after the final buzzer then. As always,
I sincerely appreciate your guys support, and we'll see you
(35:19):
guys in a couple of days. Volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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