November 4, 2025 • 37 mins
Jason reacts to three games from Monday's NBA slate, Giannis Antetokounmpo hitting an epic buzzer-beater to lift the Milwaukee Bucks to a win over the Indiana Pacers, Kevin Durant leading the Houston Rockets to a win against the Dallas Mavericks, and JJ Redick leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over the Portland Trail Blazers without LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, Well, good to hopes. Today you're
at the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody love you guys, are
having a great start to your week. Got a quick
show for you guys today. We're gonna be hitting three
(00:23):
games from last night. The Houston Rockets continue there now
four game winning streak with a win over the Dallas Mavericks,
the first game in a while that they shot the
ball extremely poorly, which I think was a good kind
of lesson for us, and how they're going to attack
teams when the spacing gets a little questionable from the
three point line, and they unlocked their cutting attack, their
(00:45):
best cutting scoring game of the season. We're going to
dig into that game after that. Giannis Antana Kumpo continues
his MVP campaign to start the season with a right
shoulder fade away over Aaroni Smith to beat the Indiana
Pacers in Indiana. We're going to talk about that game,
and then at the tail end of the show, the
Los Angeles Lakers continue their improbable start to the season,
(01:09):
winning again down many players, this time all three of
their key shot creators. As they go into Portland, a
very good team, a top ten defense in this league
and get another win hanging one hundred and twenty three points.
I want to dive into some of the early returns
from the depth of talent on this Lakers roster, and
we'll talk a little bit about how they are progressing
(01:31):
towards their goals to start the season. You guys are
the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops
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follow us there for content throughout the season. The last,
(01:52):
but not least, if you want to get questions into
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In the comments right mailbag colon, write your question. We'll
get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season.
All right, let's talk some basketball bock spacers. Giannis wins
the game with the buzzer with a right shoulder fade
right around that left elbow, they go to that patented
(02:13):
AJ Green ghost screen action for Giannis. This is one
of my favorite actions that they run. It's just impossible
to guard without giving up an advantage. Right, Like, if
you let AJ green screen and you don't help, now,
Giannis is going to go screaming downhill and it's going
to be a dunker and easy kickout for somebody. Right
if you hedge and recovers. If you have the guy
guarding AJ lunge out to stop Giannis from driving, AJ
(02:37):
knows to slip out of it, in which case he's
going to get a wide open three. Or even if
the hedger rotates or sprints back, or if they rotate
from the weak side, he's gonna have an opportunity to
drive a close out and make that next read for
an easy shot for someone else. Right, And if you switch,
AJ is most likely going to be guarded on most
nights by a much smaller player than the type player
(03:01):
that you would need to guard Giannis, and so it's
just really difficult to guard without giving up an advantage.
The pacers on that final possession elected to switch on
that particular play that ended up with Aaron Nesmith on Giannis,
and Aaron Nesmith is a big, physical wing who like
will slide his feet and take contact in the chest
and he'll get a good contest, but he is giving
up a ton of size to Giannis, and Yanni's just
(03:23):
calmly backed him down to that elbow, turned over his
right shoulder, good wide base, got great lift on the shot,
and just confidently rised up and knocked down that fade
away over his right shoulder. And now the Bucks sit
at five and two, tied for third in the Eastern Conference.
I was really impressed by the Bucks offense in that
(03:43):
fourth quarter. They logged a one forty four offensive rating
in that fourth quarter, is their best quarter of the game.
And it continued a trend of them team wide season long,
of them just being an awesome offense. The Bucks are
fourth in offensive rating to start this here in the
early part of the season. It started in that early
fourth quarter with Cole Anthony. I continue to be blown
(04:05):
away by how good he has been driving the basketball
and making the kickout reads. But not just like, oh,
I beat my man off the dribble and throw a
kickout like he had one of those. He had one
on the right wing where he just beat his man
off the dribble, pitched it out to aj Green in
the right corner, and he knocked out of three. But
also like some of the manipulative playmaking like he has.
You know, he'll dribble off a ball screen and wait
(04:26):
for the low man to sink over and then he'll
just whip a cross court pass to the left corner.
He had one of those in the fourth quarter that
generated a wide open three. He'll make higher level reads
when he gets all the way to the basket in traffic.
He had like a half dozen possessions in that early
fourth quarter where he started things by beating his man
off the dribble or by getting downhill on a ball
(04:46):
screen and it either ended in a kickout to a
shooter or some sort of sequence that led to an
open shot because Cole Anthony broke them at the point
of attack. Like there was a stretch there in the
early fourth quarter where the Bucks seemingly hit a three
like every time down the floor for a few minutes,
and Cole Anthony was a big part of that driving force.
(05:08):
I ended up hitting a couple of his own as
well in that stretch, and they've been able to maintain
when Giannis is off the floor and Cole Anthony is
on the floor, they've been able to maintain about even
on the scoreboard negative one point two points per one
hundred possessions. And like, I know it's a negative stat
but like to me, with the type of talent on
this roster, with Giannis off the floor, getting that kind
(05:31):
of shot creation from Cole, I think that's a win
considering the talent that they have on the floor with
those groups. And then that stretch of generating great threes
continued when Giannis came back on the floor. He just
kept attacking and drawing fouls. He's being super aggressive towards
the rim in that fourth quarter, and so whenever he
would catch on the perimeter at all in scoring position,
whether it was like a left block, extended post up,
(05:53):
or him just kind of dribbling at the top of
the key, Indiana was reacting so aggressively, either double teaming
off of the side when he was in his post
ups or just packing the paint when he's dribbling up top.
They were able to get easy threes by like not
even making complicated passing rates just like easy kickouts like
oh Yiannis is on the left block and aj Green
after the post entry is spotting up one pass away
(06:16):
and his man just sinks down. Janis just has to
literally right hand shovel pass out to AJ Green for
a wide open three. There was one that Gary Trent
hit late in the game, huge shot to put him
up one fourteen, one oh nine, where Giannis is just
dribbling up top and the whole Pacer defense is just
sucked in swing swing, and Gary Trent gets like a
pretty decent look off the catch and he knocks it down.
(06:36):
The Bucks to start this season have a one twenty
five offensive rating with Giannis on the floor, just an
insane start for him. Honestly, the the MVP front runner
for me, obviously very early. No one's gonna give the
MVP out over a couple of weeks worth of games,
But I just I don't think you could be more
happy with how Giannis has looked to start the season.
And then I have to shout out Myles Turner because
(06:58):
he was getting picked on a little bit down the
stretch of this game. He gave up some easy ones
to see, OK, him on drives. Late he lost track
of Isaiah Jackson on a driving dunk at the top
of the key where he was just playing him a
little too close on a triple threat and he just
kind of like got around his left with his left
hand drive and ended up getting a dunk. But he
made two massive plays down the stretch of this game.
(07:20):
He had an offensive rebound put back on an airball
late in the game that was a big play. It
was like right after he'd given up a bucket on
the other end. It kind of like made up for
what had happened. And then he made a defensive play
that I think demonstrates the difference between him and Brook.
There was a drive and on the drive, aj Green
had to rotate off of Ben Sheppard to get up
to the right wing, and as a result of that,
(07:43):
Ben Shepherd's wide open in the right corner and Miles
Turner's down in the paint, and Miles Turner rotated out
from the paint and blocked Ben Shepherd on the three.
Ryan Rollins comes in and gets a big rebound, huge
stop late in the game on a play where like
I'm not sure Brooke could have that play. In the
last couple of years. It's just that extra level of mobility.
(08:04):
Like I don't think I don't think that Miles has
been particularly good as like a in space defender over
the last couple of years. Like I don't think that's
necessarily some big leg up over a guy like Brooke,
Like Miles is not switching out like bam Adebayo, But
I do think that there's a substantial difference in like
rotational speed, like covering ground from the paint out to
(08:28):
short range shooters, out to three point shooters and recovering
back to the paint. I think there's been a difference
in mobility there that I think adds a different dynamic
to this defense than when Brooke was there. And again,
it's like as a team, the defense hasn't been fantastic
to start the season, but they're getting key stops and
I think a big part of that is just a
little bit more of an athletic ceiling within their best lineups.
(08:52):
Last note on the Bucks, Ryan Rollins has obviously been
one of the biggest stories on the team to start
the season. So part of the fun with a player
like this when we're learning about a new player is
on the rise is you get to learn about them, right,
and that's not just what they're great at already, but
also what their areas of opportunity are. And this was
like our first you know, since the rise of Ryan
(09:14):
this has been This was one of his worst games, right.
He had issues with Indiana's ball pressure last night. He
struggled bringing it up against Aaron Nesmith especially, but a
little bit against Ben Shephard as well. And I thought
it caused him to speed up and above and beyond,
like the couple of turnovers that he had in the
open floor handling pressure. It also caused him to rush
on his drives and be a little bit more out
(09:35):
of control than usual. And that even impacted him in
other areas of the game, like he had a couple
of post entries that were way off target, like kind
of bizarrely off target, which I think we're a byproduct
of him being rushed a little bit. He had seven
turnovers in this game. Was it all bad? I thought
he did a really nice job of hunting Giannis on
kick Aheads all night. That's been a really good early
(09:55):
season trend. I think that's sparking those transition possessions by
having somebody that can hit Yiannis on the run is
really important. He has a good eye for that sort
of thing. He hit some guys on cuts for layups.
He had like a nice feed to Kyle kuzmana inside
seal in the second half of this game. He had
seven assists, right, So it wasn't like it was all bad,
and had some big defensive sequences, had that huge contested
(10:18):
rebound laid off of the Ben Shepherd block three, So like,
it wasn't all bad. But it was one of those
things where we can learn a little bit about Ryan
as this progresses here. And one of the things I
noticed was like, oh, like Indiana ratchet up the ball
pressure on him. He struggled a little bit, So I'll
be curious to see how he handles that throughout the year.
Teams that can ratchet up the ball pressure with like shorter,
quicker players, and let's see if he can slow down
(10:40):
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or Virginia. Rockets MAVs a super interesting game. The MAVs
(12:31):
gave the Rockets a really good fight in this one.
Down obviously most of their starting center rotation. They doubled
the Rockets all over the floor. They were trapping KD
and ball screens. They were doubling both Kevin Durant and
Shangon on most of their post ups and ISOs. This
is something Dallas has been doing since their bigs have
(12:51):
gone out of the rotation to try to manufacture stops.
It's been kind of like a base scheme for them
in a lot of ways. They forced a bunch of turnovers,
especially that first quarter. Houston really struggled with it live
ball turnovers that led to runouts. The other way, they
scored twenty six points on them and transition running. Transition
defense has been a little bit of an issue for Houston.
We'll talk about that later on. And then PJ Washington
(13:14):
towards them. A bunch of floaters in the middle of
their zone, did damage in transition, did some damage one
on one, got drew some fouls on Alpern Shanggoun. As
a team, I thought they drove closeouts really well. That's
been kind of a little subplot for Dallas. They've been
driving closeouts well off of the perimeter with their athleticism,
(13:35):
and Houston finally got a game where they didn't shoot
the ball well. Houston for all to talk about their
jump shooting before the season. Ever since those first couple
of games, they've been shooting the shit out of the
basketball to start the year. And last night the Rockets
were just five for twenty six on catch and shoot threes,
and many of those misses were from guys who will
have cold nights like Alprin, Shangoon, Josha Kogi, Amen Thompson,
(13:59):
Jay Tate, and Aaron Holiday were combined two for twelve
on mostly open looks, and they will have nights like
that over the course of the season. Right so gave
us an opportunity to see how the Rockets could manufacture
offense in an ugly game, and the short answer is
three things. Tough buckets, over the top from their stars,
(14:22):
offensive rebounds, and cuts. They absolutely bludgeoned Dallas on the glass,
especially in the first half. They had thirteen offensive rebounds
in just twenty four minutes in the first half. This
is continuing a season long trend where they have been
rebounding a preposterous forty two percent of their own misses,
(14:43):
which leads the NBA. They also scored twenty four points
on cuts last night. This was a season high. This
has been a trend throughout the season. As a team,
the Rockets are averaging the second most points on cuts
in the entire NBA, behind the Denver Nuggets. This is
an advance of their team, especially in their two big configurations.
They have guys who can pass in the middle of
(15:05):
the floor when they catch right there in the kind
of paint outside the restricted area, and they've got a
bunch of guys who can score on cuts and on flashes.
Some people call it teeing up. It's the idea of
like when the ball is either being driven baseline or
in a post up flashing right to the front of
the rim, where you can catch and finish with a
little float or a layup, something along those lines, right.
(15:27):
Twenty four of them last night, most of them dunks
for a Men Thompson and Tari Eason couple easy ones.
Early we got to see some really interesting three man
sequences from a Men Thompson alprin Shangoon and Kevin Durant
to start the game, first possession of the game cleared side,
or they run a pick and roll off of the
left side with a Men Thompson in the left corner,
(15:47):
Kevin Durant dribbles off the Shangoon screen two on the
ball with kd pocket past to Shangoon in the middle
of the floor lob a Men Thompson dunk. That's the
sequence we talked about all summer that I look at
is like the tic tac toe sequence of Kevin Durant
and pick and roll that I think could be really deadly.
They get a dunk out of it early very next possession,
they run a horn set on that horn set and
(16:09):
men Thompson enters the ball to Shangun and then goes
and sets a pin down for Kevin Durant. And when
he sets the pin down for Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant
comes off of the dribble handoff with Shanegon and when
he got the ball back to men Thompson, both guys
run with KD off of the dho and Shang Goun
(16:31):
has inside position on PJ. Washington. He just slips right
to the basket easy bounce past another dunk to start
the game. So two easy dunks to start the game
off of three man sequences from their three best players.
And then throughout the game the guys just made good
reads in the middle of the floor constantly with guys
making good active cuts along the baseline and again flashing
(16:52):
up right above the charge circle to make themselves available.
Like kd gets doubled on a post up, Shane Goon
cuts into the gap easy too. Shane Goon gets doubled
on a post up. Aman Thompson teas up flashes right
to the front of the rim. Little easy floater. Steven
Adams catches the ball on a blitz kdie comes off
the ball screen. They blitz Stephen Adams short rolls when
(17:13):
he catches Tarry Easton cuts along the baseline, perfect drop
off dunk. At the end of the game, Shane Goon
just absolutely fries Daniel Gafford one on one and gets
a little left shoulder hook. So the next time he
catches out on the perimeter, they throw a double team.
This time d Lo kind of from the left hand side,
and it leaves Josha Koge wide open cutting on the baseline.
They hit him, he gets a foul. This is an
(17:34):
excellent way for them to space the floor when shots
aren't falling. Size and athleticism cutting along the baseline, good
little bits of shot making in the middle of the floor,
and as a team, really good passing in the middle
of the floor. Again, Rockets the second best cutting team
here in the early part of the NBA season. Look,
(17:56):
I know that Dallas has just kind of been doubling
everyone a base scheme for a little while now, but
a lot of this is the predicament that the Rockets
will put you in, like if you leave them one
on one, their guys are gonna fry you. Like Shane
Gun was killing PJ. Washington a really easy one in
crunch time where he just backed him down on the
right block for a little left shoulder hook, like that
(18:17):
easy one he got on Daniel Gafford, Like, if you
let him attack one on one, he's probably gonna score.
Kevin Durant got left on an island dribbling above the
break twice in the mid fourth quarter, and he had
two pull up threes. That's something that's gonna happen potentially
when you leave Kevin Durant on an island. Some of
this is the reality that the Rockets shock creators are
(18:37):
really damn good, and so yeah, Dallas may be doubling
as a base scheme, but teams are gonna generally have
that decision to make let these guys cook one on
one where they could fry you, or send the second
body where they get these tic tac toe passing sequences
and they get a lot of dunks and then even
on the ones they miss, like there's a lot of
them where it's like just get the ball up on
the rim, get the ball up on the rim, and
(18:59):
some like Click Coppeller Steven Adams is gonna grab that
offensive rebound and dunk it or put it back in.
But again, like when I look at their catch and
shoot shooting, it's more likely than not going to be
at the very least inconsistent and more likely not very good.
Through the large sample, there's a lot of guys there
that have been shooting a little above their pay grade
(19:19):
to start the season. That'll probably cool off a little bit. Again,
they're either going to be a middle of the pack
jump shooting team that's very hot and cold, or they're
gonna be a bottom of the pack jump shooting team.
So with that being the case, their ability to convert
that attention into cuts in offensive rebounds is going to
be a big part of how they'll be able to
beat some of the more aggressive defensive schemes that they
(19:39):
will inevitably face along the way. A couple little notes
from this game. This is something stuff that I've had
my eye on throughout the season, turnovers and transition defense.
Like they had six first quarter turnovers, a lot of
those were live ball turnovers that led to easy buckets.
The other way, they have the sixth worst turnover percentage
in the entire NBA to start the year. So turnover
(20:00):
has been a little bit of an issue, kind of
predictable with the ball handling issues that they have. Again,
they make up for some of that margin with their
offensive rebounding. Again, when you're grabbing forty two percent of
your own misses, that manufactures margin where you've been losing
margin on turnovers. And then transition defense just getting beat
down the floor. Shan Gun got beat just on a
(20:21):
straight line sprint by PJ. Washington late in the game
for a dunk. As a team, they're a little slow footed.
This is also exacerbated by the turnovers. Right. The turnovers
lead to a lot of live ball, you know, three
on twos, two on ones that I don't care how
hard you sprint back. They're difficult to guard, right, And
so as a team they're twenty second right now in
(20:42):
transition points allowed per game perc Entergy. So those are
a couple of like little red flags that have shown
up early in the season, but everything else is looking
super strong for them in the early going. They're first
in offensive rating overall, their defense is trending up through
up to ninth in defensive rating and the second in
net rating. I think Reed Shepherd has been pretty good
(21:03):
in the last two games. He had a bunch of
threes in the Boston game last night to some quality
shot creation off the bounce, and then after a brutal
start to the season where Tari Easton looked bad, he's
been fantastic in the four game winning streak. He's shooting
sixty five percent from three on five attempts per game.
He had three more of them last night, a couple
of big corner threes, and he's been filling up the
(21:24):
box score in his minutes per thirty six if you
take his production and expanded out to thirty six minutes again,
I always use that as just kind of like a
way to provide some perspective on how bench players in
smaller roles produce relative to how many minutes they have.
Right He's getting seven point two rebounds, four point four
assists in two point four stocks, one point two steals,
(21:45):
and one point two blocks per thirty six minutes during
the four game winning streak. So really nice play from
Tari Easton. Rockets are looking really good. Here a couple
of possessions again, like that little step back from Shay
over at men Thompson on the left elbow, they beat
okayc if he misses that Jabari Smith that wide open
(22:05):
catch and shoot three on the left wing against the
Pistons in their second game. He hits that they're six
and zero right now and a lot of winnable games
in their next seven too, if you look at their schedule,
especially with Cleveland being without Darius Garland. So look for
the Rockets to get a solid foundation in the standings
in the Western Conference over the course of the next
couple of weeks. All right, last segment. Today, the Lakers
(22:31):
win again on the road in Portland without Lebron, without Luca,
and without Austin. This is a Portland team that's been
top ten in defense to start the year. In a
Portland team that I had in my power rankings yesterday,
I think this is a decent team there, especially when
you're playing them in Portland. And so in this sort
of situation, right when you've got all these guys out
(22:51):
of the lineup, seemingly every single Laker had a lot
more responsibility on their plate, and to their credit, every
single one of them excelled in a larger role like
Marcus Smart. I thought he did a phenomenal job attacking
Portland's full court pressure. Portland picks up the ball full
court more than any team in the league. I was
a big part of how they were trying to work
(23:12):
their way back into the game late, and I thought
Marcus and I would I'd give Nick Smith Junior some
credit for this too, focusing in Marcus right now, but
attacking the ball pressure, like using your speed to get
past that first defender and kind of breaking the defense
at the start. JJ Reddick talked about this in his
postgame presser, but like he was talking about how like
one of the things that he thought helped down the
(23:34):
stretch of the game was guys just beating their man
off the dribble rather than in ball screens, where they
had struggled a little bit, and ball screens were still
an important part of their attack. Like we're gonna talk
about it with Nick Smith, like him hitting drop coverage threes,
and like, there were certain elements of their pick and
roll attack that I think were very important in this game.
But JJ's right, like a big part of them in
the fourth quarter having the success they did was just
(23:56):
Marcus Smart beating that first defender who's picking him up
full court and getting the defense in rotation before they
had to do anything. Deandreton and Rujachamura just providing reliable
scoring in every single way, Like both scored out of
action like eight and catching and finishing around the rim,
Ruey hitting catch and shoot threes or cutting along the baseline.
But they both also provided like tough mid range shot making,
(24:19):
which again is such a value add especially when you
deal with the team like Portland who does the switching
that they do, Like they have these small ball looks
where they go without a center and they just switch
everything because they got a bunch of six eight, six
nine dudes on the floor, and Drew Holliday's so big
and strong at the guard position and so kind of
forces you to have some guys that can go get
a bucket. And like having Ruy and Deandreton giving you
(24:39):
like a half dozen of those mid range pull up
jump shots. Those are huge shots in a game like this.
And then Jacobavia has really won me over over the
last six games. It started in the end of the
Kings game. He made a couple of big clutch plays
he relocated off of Ruey Hacha Mura post up and
hit a three right at the top of the key,
a tough movement three. And then he had like an
(25:00):
inside seal on Keon Ellis where he got a layup
and won late in the game. And I started to
notice in that game that he's just always in the
right spots and then he usually makes the right reads.
And it was a little it was a little up
and down. Early in the year. His lack of aggression
drove me crazy. It felt like he didn't want to
shoot unless he was completely wide open. But he's turned
that up a little bit, the aggression, and it's been
(25:22):
the perfect addition to this team. Like timely shooting, timely scoring,
connective playmaking, even like some bucket getting, Like he had
a late possession, late game possession in this game where
he had Shaydon Sharp on the right block and just
attacked him one on one and like got a little
drop step over his left shoulder. It hit like a
little bank shot off the glass. That was a huge
bucket in that game. And the thing that I'm noticing
(25:44):
with him on defense is he's just a very solid
positional defender. I talk about this all the time. The
difference between like really athletic, disruptive attacking defenders versus positional
defenders that do a great job of sliding their feet,
guessing which direction you're going to go, keep their chest
in front, absorbing contact, keeping their hands up and forcing
you to make shots over the top. And look, he's
(26:06):
a little athletically overmatch sometimes because he's a little bigger
and a little slower, and he'll occasionally get beat and
foul somebody. He had a couple of plays where he
gave up some drives late in this game, But generally speaking,
I view him as a positive defender in the team
context because he's usually in the right spot and he's
gonna win some of those battles he took. You know,
he gave up some drives late in the game, but
(26:27):
he also had a huge play late in the game
where they gaffed well and he slid his feet well
and Avdya tried to just force his way through him
with a spin move and once again positional, sliding his feet,
staying in front, hands up, Denny came up with the
elbow on the spin and caught him in the chin
on that spin move led to that offensive foul, and
like that was a hard to stop Portland attack there
(26:50):
late in the game, like Denny Avdya, Jeremy Grant and
Drew Holiday, they were in attack mode down the stretch,
trying to say that game driving, driving, driving, applying a
ton of pressure on the rim, and it was hard
to them, and so every stop felt like a huge win.
And he took that elbow and got in there and
got a big stop late in the game. He's rebounding
at a rate of six point five rebounds per thirty
(27:11):
six minutes, which I think is really solid for an
athlete of his level. He's just a good player. It
didn't take him long this season, just two weeks to
really win me over. I think he really helps the team,
and I think he's the perfect type of guy to
compliment their stars, to be a guy that can capitalize
on the attention that their stars draw over the course
(27:31):
of games. And man, what a show put on by
Nick Smith Junior. Obviously, when you're down Austin, Luca and Lebron,
the initiation talent is utterly devoid on this roster, and
the Lakers needed him, desperately needed him to step into
the game and just get buckets, and Nick did just that.
(27:55):
It was an interesting matchup for him because Portland has
all these ball pressure guys, but they're all pretty tall
and lanky, and Drew is older. Drew's more of like
a physical player at this point. He's not the same
quick type of guard that he was in the past. Right,
what Nick Smith is super quick and like smaller, So
he was actually able to handle the ball pressure pretty
well and get to his spots because despite all of
(28:16):
the depth of ball pressure talent that Portland has, Nick
is just faster than all those dudes, and so he
was able to get to his spots pretty quick, and
he generated baskets important baskets throughout the game against Portland's
two main coverages that we saw. They ran a super
deep drop coverage with their bigs with Klingon and Rob Williams,
and with those looks, he hit several pull up threes
(28:39):
where he would just set his man up for the
screen crossover and just get up into that footwork for
a pull up three point shot off the dribble. He
hit a bunch of those, and then in Portland switch
looks again, like when they started switching with their centerless looks,
all of a sudden, it becomes about beating people off
the dribble, and he hit two pull up mid range shots,
one against City Sosoko and one against Timani Kamara where
(28:59):
he eat them off the dribble with this quickness, got
enough separation to elevate in that like little short thirteen
fourteen foot range, and he hit shots. He also had
a big floater late in the game where he got
Drew Holiday on like a brush screen. It's like a
random screen where Portland was in their small ball look
that should have been switching, but they randomly didn't switch
that screen, and so Drew Hollidy got a little bit
(29:21):
caught on the screen and he got downhill and he
hit like a little right handed floater in the lane.
And then he iced the game with two catch and
shoot threes, both on plays like what I was talking
about with Marcus Smart earlier, where Marcus Smart beat the
full court pressure off the dribble, drew in help off
of the baseline, rotate, rotate, Nick Smith is wide open,
(29:42):
once on the left wing, once at the top of
the key. He hit both of those threes. Have yourself
a moment. Nick Smith twenty five points and they needed
every single one of them. To win that game. And lastly,
I got a shout out Brownie. He played real rotation
minutes and both ends of this back to back, and
he was legitimately solid in both games. In the Heat game,
(30:03):
JJ was desperately looking for someone that could hang with
Davion Mitchell, and it wasn't perfect. He picked up some fouls,
but I thought he came in and played super hard,
was generally in the right spot, and he made some
nice close out attacks. This is something I want to
get to you more in a second when we talk
about the Portland game, and I thought he was really
good last night. In that Portland game. He had a
massive three on the right wing that started the fourth quarter.
(30:23):
He hit some clutch free throws, and he had six assists,
most of which came out of racking closeouts. This is
something that I've talked about a lot baked in driving lanes.
Right when the defense reacts to a primary ball handler,
what ends up happening is often there's a closeout, and
on that close that it's usually coming at one side
of you, depending on how the shell drill works. And
so if you're a right handed player and a guy
(30:45):
is closing out at your left shoulder, you know, on
the catch, just catch and rip, And if you catch
and rip, you're probably gonna beat that dude off the dribble.
Same thing, if he's closing out at your right shoulder,
just catching rip left, you're gonna beat that man off
the dribble. And Broni's actually really good at me that
read and like one of his like superhuman traits that
he has at this phase. Even though he's undersized and
(31:06):
he has his certain limitations, he's very fast and he's
very vertically athletic. The vertical athletics is a manifest in
other ways, like the lob dunk that he got from Austin,
or like that big offensive rebound he got in the
fourth quarter against Portland, But like the quickness manifests when
he slashes these closeouts, and when he slashes the closeouts,
he just makes really nice reads. Oh easy drop off
(31:28):
pass for Jackson Hayes in the middle for a layup,
or oh rack baseline, there's Ruby Hotcha Murrow wide open
in the right corner, kickout pass, knock it down. He
was like just really good at making those reads out
of closeouts, and so I think this is one of
those underrated things that he like. We talk a lot
about Brownie shortcomings. He's undersized. He's not a good on
ball player in terms of like leading the team with
(31:49):
action at the beginning of possessions. There's certainly issues that
he has. But one of the things he is very
good at that I think he deserves credit for is
he's a good connective playmaker. This has been a thing
throughout his career. He's averaging four point three assists per
thirty six minutes to start his career on about a
one and a half assist the turnover ratio. Like, he's
a decent connective playmaker. It's something that he can do
(32:11):
to help the team. And he's just fastest shit, which
is valuable for a team that doesn't have a ton
of speed. And he's doing his job and that actually
helped the Lakers over the course of this back to back.
I want to give give him credit for playing some
quality rotation minutes in a winning context over this stretch
really quick on the Lakers. I just want to zoom
out and talk briefly about JJ Reddick and this roster.
So like, whenever I see a team start to rack
(32:34):
up wins, when Key guys are out. I always think
two things. One the roster must have good depth of talent,
and two the coach must be instilling a strong basketball culture.
Let's start with the roster for a second. It was
much maligned after training camp, and that super upsetting game
against the Warriors. Is actually funny listening to JJ Reddick
last night in his postgame, because he talked about how
(32:55):
like he kept referencing like the last seven games just
pretending as though the goal in State game doesn't exist,
and like, I don't blame him because it was bad.
They looked in that game like a bad combination of
unathletic and completely lacking physical intensity. That was the big
thing that stood out to me in the first game,
and I criticized them that night, and I wasn't alone
in doing so. They didn't look good throughout the entire
(33:18):
beginning of October through that Golden State game. They still
look super unathletic relative to the field, especially the top teams,
and we'll see if that becomes an issue down the line.
But they have been more intense and physical. They're using
their size and they're meeting the fight. They're competing every
night like they're playing harder than most teams on most nights.
(33:39):
That's a strong, a strong like quality in this roster
that I've seen over the course of the tail end
of last season we'll talk about a minute, but the
tail end of last season and started this season, they've
been pretty locked into the game plans that JJ's put together,
and they are big and so like they do have
a strength in terms of their size, and they're bringing
physicality and intensity now. So even though they're unathletic. It's
(34:00):
one thing to be unathletic and lack intensity in physical competition, right,
that's a death sentence. But if you're unathletic, but you're
in the right spots, you're playing super hard, and you're
competing physically, it becomes something that's a little bit more tenable.
And there's a clear roster strength that is rising to
the surface. For all the lack of athleticism and the
lack of two way players, the team is extremely deep
(34:23):
with smart players and very skilled offensive players. After facing
that excellent Heat defense and dropping one hundred and thirty
points on them again without Lebron, they face another top
ten defense in Portland on the road without their three
best offensive players and they dropped one hundred and twenty
three points. Deandreten's added the much needed firepower at the
(34:45):
center position. Marcus mart and Jake Larevia have added that
connective playmaking and that high IQ elements of the offense.
There is enough defensive talent on the court with Marcus Smart,
with Jared Vanderbilt, with Jake Larevia, with Deandreton at the rim,
just the high IQ of the group that they're they're
doing okay, Like their eighteenth in defense. That's better than
(35:06):
you would expect for this team without If you would
have told me they didn't have Lebron at this point
in the season, I'd be like twenty fifth, twenty sixth
in defense just because of the complete lack of talent.
They're out kicking their coverage, so to speak, on defense
right now. So like for all of the talk about
their athleticism as a weakness, I think the depth of
offensive talent and IQ is a roster strength that I
(35:27):
think we all, including myself, may have underrated a bit
this summer. Even as high as I was on them
as an offense, they look better than I expected because again,
there's been a lot of guys out of the lineup
including Luca and Lebron for the entirety of it, right.
The second piece of it is the strong basketball culture.
We talked a ton about this after JJ was hired.
I don't think the Lakers have a strong basketball culture organizationally.
(35:49):
I think their culture is essentially just go get the
next superstar. They desperately needed JJ to come in and
instill a strong basketball culture that is based on habits,
daily excellence, attention to detail, competitive energy, and like, look,
it was a little rough to start last season, like
(36:10):
the early you know, forty percent or so of last season.
It was a different group of players, but they kind
of lacked that like day to day intensity. But to
JJ's reddick, to JJ's reddick, to JJ's credit, ever since
late January, this team has been one of the hardest
playing teams in the league night tonight and throughout that stretch,
(36:32):
including the season, whether it's Anthony Davis down with an injury,
or it's Luca down with an injury, or it's Lebron
now with an injury, to now Luca and Lebron being down,
to all three of the guys being down, there have
been like a dozen different versions of this team because
of injuries over the course of this calendar year since
late January, and every single iteration of that team has
(36:54):
been able to sustain winning through excellent effort and execution,
and they've been, by win perge, one of the best
teams in the league over that span. I just think
JJ deserves a lot more credit than what he's been
getting for the job that he's done with this group.
And then, lastly, like the path for the Lakers to
start the season was obvious. Be the twenty twenty three
Denver Nuggets. Be an unstoppable offense with a depth of
(37:17):
shot creation talent in finishing talent, and then be a smart,
high IQ defense on the other end of the floor
that executes well and just gets enough stops. And to
be clear, it is very early. No one's given a
trophy out for eight games, but they're on the right path.
They are on the right path to achieving whatever this
team's ceiling is, and I am very, very excited to
(37:38):
see what they look like when they get Lebron James back.
All right, guys, it's all we have for today. As always,
a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting
the show. We'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction.
I'll see you guys then
The volume. All right, Well, good to hopes. Today you're
at the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody love you guys, are
having a great start to your week. Got a quick
show for you guys today. We're gonna be hitting three
(00:23):
games from last night. The Houston Rockets continue there now
four game winning streak with a win over the Dallas Mavericks,
the first game in a while that they shot the
ball extremely poorly, which I think was a good kind
of lesson for us, and how they're going to attack
teams when the spacing gets a little questionable from the
three point line, and they unlocked their cutting attack, their
(00:45):
best cutting scoring game of the season. We're going to
dig into that game after that. Giannis Antana Kumpo continues
his MVP campaign to start the season with a right
shoulder fade away over Aaroni Smith to beat the Indiana
Pacers in Indiana. We're going to talk about that game,
and then at the tail end of the show, the
Los Angeles Lakers continue their improbable start to the season,
(01:09):
winning again down many players, this time all three of
their key shot creators. As they go into Portland, a
very good team, a top ten defense in this league
and get another win hanging one hundred and twenty three points.
I want to dive into some of the early returns
from the depth of talent on this Lakers roster, and
we'll talk a little bit about how they are progressing
(01:31):
towards their goals to start the season. You guys are
the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops
to YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter, Underscore JCNLTC. You guys don't miss
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follow us there for content throughout the season. The last,
(01:52):
but not least, if you want to get questions into
our Friday mailbags, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube.
In the comments right mailbag colon, write your question. We'll
get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season.
All right, let's talk some basketball bock spacers. Giannis wins
the game with the buzzer with a right shoulder fade
right around that left elbow, they go to that patented
(02:13):
AJ Green ghost screen action for Giannis. This is one
of my favorite actions that they run. It's just impossible
to guard without giving up an advantage. Right, Like, if
you let AJ green screen and you don't help, now,
Giannis is going to go screaming downhill and it's going
to be a dunker and easy kickout for somebody. Right
if you hedge and recovers. If you have the guy
guarding AJ lunge out to stop Giannis from driving, AJ
(02:37):
knows to slip out of it, in which case he's
going to get a wide open three. Or even if
the hedger rotates or sprints back, or if they rotate
from the weak side, he's gonna have an opportunity to
drive a close out and make that next read for
an easy shot for someone else. Right, And if you switch,
AJ is most likely going to be guarded on most
nights by a much smaller player than the type player
(03:01):
that you would need to guard Giannis, and so it's
just really difficult to guard without giving up an advantage.
The pacers on that final possession elected to switch on
that particular play that ended up with Aaron Nesmith on Giannis,
and Aaron Nesmith is a big, physical wing who like
will slide his feet and take contact in the chest
and he'll get a good contest, but he is giving
up a ton of size to Giannis, and Yanni's just
(03:23):
calmly backed him down to that elbow, turned over his
right shoulder, good wide base, got great lift on the shot,
and just confidently rised up and knocked down that fade
away over his right shoulder. And now the Bucks sit
at five and two, tied for third in the Eastern Conference.
I was really impressed by the Bucks offense in that
(03:43):
fourth quarter. They logged a one forty four offensive rating
in that fourth quarter, is their best quarter of the game.
And it continued a trend of them team wide season long,
of them just being an awesome offense. The Bucks are
fourth in offensive rating to start this here in the
early part of the season. It started in that early
fourth quarter with Cole Anthony. I continue to be blown
(04:05):
away by how good he has been driving the basketball
and making the kickout reads. But not just like, oh,
I beat my man off the dribble and throw a
kickout like he had one of those. He had one
on the right wing where he just beat his man
off the dribble, pitched it out to aj Green in
the right corner, and he knocked out of three. But
also like some of the manipulative playmaking like he has.
You know, he'll dribble off a ball screen and wait
(04:26):
for the low man to sink over and then he'll
just whip a cross court pass to the left corner.
He had one of those in the fourth quarter that
generated a wide open three. He'll make higher level reads
when he gets all the way to the basket in traffic.
He had like a half dozen possessions in that early
fourth quarter where he started things by beating his man
off the dribble or by getting downhill on a ball
(04:46):
screen and it either ended in a kickout to a
shooter or some sort of sequence that led to an
open shot because Cole Anthony broke them at the point
of attack. Like there was a stretch there in the
early fourth quarter where the Bucks seemingly hit a three
like every time down the floor for a few minutes,
and Cole Anthony was a big part of that driving force.
(05:08):
I ended up hitting a couple of his own as
well in that stretch, and they've been able to maintain
when Giannis is off the floor and Cole Anthony is
on the floor, they've been able to maintain about even
on the scoreboard negative one point two points per one
hundred possessions. And like, I know it's a negative stat
but like to me, with the type of talent on
this roster, with Giannis off the floor, getting that kind
(05:31):
of shot creation from Cole, I think that's a win
considering the talent that they have on the floor with
those groups. And then that stretch of generating great threes
continued when Giannis came back on the floor. He just
kept attacking and drawing fouls. He's being super aggressive towards
the rim in that fourth quarter, and so whenever he
would catch on the perimeter at all in scoring position,
whether it was like a left block, extended post up,
(05:53):
or him just kind of dribbling at the top of
the key, Indiana was reacting so aggressively, either double teaming
off of the side when he was in his post
ups or just packing the paint when he's dribbling up top.
They were able to get easy threes by like not
even making complicated passing rates just like easy kickouts like
oh Yiannis is on the left block and aj Green
after the post entry is spotting up one pass away
(06:16):
and his man just sinks down. Janis just has to
literally right hand shovel pass out to AJ Green for
a wide open three. There was one that Gary Trent
hit late in the game, huge shot to put him
up one fourteen, one oh nine, where Giannis is just
dribbling up top and the whole Pacer defense is just
sucked in swing swing, and Gary Trent gets like a
pretty decent look off the catch and he knocks it down.
(06:36):
The Bucks to start this season have a one twenty
five offensive rating with Giannis on the floor, just an
insane start for him. Honestly, the the MVP front runner
for me, obviously very early. No one's gonna give the
MVP out over a couple of weeks worth of games,
But I just I don't think you could be more
happy with how Giannis has looked to start the season.
And then I have to shout out Myles Turner because
(06:58):
he was getting picked on a little bit down the
stretch of this game. He gave up some easy ones
to see, OK, him on drives. Late he lost track
of Isaiah Jackson on a driving dunk at the top
of the key where he was just playing him a
little too close on a triple threat and he just
kind of like got around his left with his left
hand drive and ended up getting a dunk. But he
made two massive plays down the stretch of this game.
(07:20):
He had an offensive rebound put back on an airball
late in the game that was a big play. It
was like right after he'd given up a bucket on
the other end. It kind of like made up for
what had happened. And then he made a defensive play
that I think demonstrates the difference between him and Brook.
There was a drive and on the drive, aj Green
had to rotate off of Ben Sheppard to get up
to the right wing, and as a result of that,
(07:43):
Ben Shepherd's wide open in the right corner and Miles
Turner's down in the paint, and Miles Turner rotated out
from the paint and blocked Ben Shepherd on the three.
Ryan Rollins comes in and gets a big rebound, huge
stop late in the game on a play where like
I'm not sure Brooke could have that play. In the
last couple of years. It's just that extra level of mobility.
(08:04):
Like I don't think I don't think that Miles has
been particularly good as like a in space defender over
the last couple of years. Like I don't think that's
necessarily some big leg up over a guy like Brooke,
Like Miles is not switching out like bam Adebayo, But
I do think that there's a substantial difference in like
rotational speed, like covering ground from the paint out to
(08:28):
short range shooters, out to three point shooters and recovering
back to the paint. I think there's been a difference
in mobility there that I think adds a different dynamic
to this defense than when Brooke was there. And again,
it's like as a team, the defense hasn't been fantastic
to start the season, but they're getting key stops and
I think a big part of that is just a
little bit more of an athletic ceiling within their best lineups.
(08:52):
Last note on the Bucks, Ryan Rollins has obviously been
one of the biggest stories on the team to start
the season. So part of the fun with a player
like this when we're learning about a new player is
on the rise is you get to learn about them, right,
and that's not just what they're great at already, but
also what their areas of opportunity are. And this was
like our first you know, since the rise of Ryan
(09:14):
this has been This was one of his worst games, right.
He had issues with Indiana's ball pressure last night. He
struggled bringing it up against Aaron Nesmith especially, but a
little bit against Ben Shephard as well. And I thought
it caused him to speed up and above and beyond,
like the couple of turnovers that he had in the
open floor handling pressure. It also caused him to rush
on his drives and be a little bit more out
(09:35):
of control than usual. And that even impacted him in
other areas of the game, like he had a couple
of post entries that were way off target, like kind
of bizarrely off target, which I think we're a byproduct
of him being rushed a little bit. He had seven
turnovers in this game. Was it all bad? I thought
he did a really nice job of hunting Giannis on
kick Aheads all night. That's been a really good early
(09:55):
season trend. I think that's sparking those transition possessions by
having somebody that can hit Yiannis on the run is
really important. He has a good eye for that sort
of thing. He hit some guys on cuts for layups.
He had like a nice feed to Kyle kuzmana inside
seal in the second half of this game. He had
seven assists, right, So it wasn't like it was all bad,
and had some big defensive sequences, had that huge contested
(10:18):
rebound laid off of the Ben Shepherd block three, So like,
it wasn't all bad. But it was one of those
things where we can learn a little bit about Ryan
as this progresses here. And one of the things I
noticed was like, oh, like Indiana ratchet up the ball
pressure on him. He struggled a little bit, So I'll
be curious to see how he handles that throughout the year.
Teams that can ratchet up the ball pressure with like shorter,
quicker players, and let's see if he can slow down
(10:40):
and execute a little bit. Today's show is brought to
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or Virginia. Rockets MAVs a super interesting game. The MAVs
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gave the Rockets a really good fight in this one.
Down obviously most of their starting center rotation. They doubled
the Rockets all over the floor. They were trapping KD
and ball screens. They were doubling both Kevin Durant and
Shangon on most of their post ups and ISOs. This
is something Dallas has been doing since their bigs have
(12:51):
gone out of the rotation to try to manufacture stops.
It's been kind of like a base scheme for them
in a lot of ways. They forced a bunch of turnovers,
especially that first quarter. Houston really struggled with it live
ball turnovers that led to runouts. The other way, they
scored twenty six points on them and transition running. Transition
defense has been a little bit of an issue for Houston.
We'll talk about that later on. And then PJ Washington
(13:14):
towards them. A bunch of floaters in the middle of
their zone, did damage in transition, did some damage one
on one, got drew some fouls on Alpern Shanggoun. As
a team, I thought they drove closeouts really well. That's
been kind of a little subplot for Dallas. They've been
driving closeouts well off of the perimeter with their athleticism,
(13:35):
and Houston finally got a game where they didn't shoot
the ball well. Houston for all to talk about their
jump shooting before the season. Ever since those first couple
of games, they've been shooting the shit out of the
basketball to start the year. And last night the Rockets
were just five for twenty six on catch and shoot threes,
and many of those misses were from guys who will
have cold nights like Alprin, Shangoon, Josha Kogi, Amen Thompson,
(13:59):
Jay Tate, and Aaron Holiday were combined two for twelve
on mostly open looks, and they will have nights like
that over the course of the season. Right so gave
us an opportunity to see how the Rockets could manufacture
offense in an ugly game, and the short answer is
three things. Tough buckets, over the top from their stars,
(14:22):
offensive rebounds, and cuts. They absolutely bludgeoned Dallas on the glass,
especially in the first half. They had thirteen offensive rebounds
in just twenty four minutes in the first half. This
is continuing a season long trend where they have been
rebounding a preposterous forty two percent of their own misses,
(14:43):
which leads the NBA. They also scored twenty four points
on cuts last night. This was a season high. This
has been a trend throughout the season. As a team,
the Rockets are averaging the second most points on cuts
in the entire NBA, behind the Denver Nuggets. This is
an advance of their team, especially in their two big configurations.
They have guys who can pass in the middle of
(15:05):
the floor when they catch right there in the kind
of paint outside the restricted area, and they've got a
bunch of guys who can score on cuts and on flashes.
Some people call it teeing up. It's the idea of
like when the ball is either being driven baseline or
in a post up flashing right to the front of
the rim, where you can catch and finish with a
little float or a layup, something along those lines, right.
(15:27):
Twenty four of them last night, most of them dunks
for a Men Thompson and Tari Eason couple easy ones.
Early we got to see some really interesting three man
sequences from a Men Thompson alprin Shangoon and Kevin Durant
to start the game, first possession of the game cleared side,
or they run a pick and roll off of the
left side with a Men Thompson in the left corner,
(15:47):
Kevin Durant dribbles off the Shangoon screen two on the
ball with kd pocket past to Shangoon in the middle
of the floor lob a Men Thompson dunk. That's the
sequence we talked about all summer that I look at
is like the tic tac toe sequence of Kevin Durant
and pick and roll that I think could be really deadly.
They get a dunk out of it early very next possession,
they run a horn set on that horn set and
(16:09):
men Thompson enters the ball to Shangun and then goes
and sets a pin down for Kevin Durant. And when
he sets the pin down for Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant
comes off of the dribble handoff with Shanegon and when
he got the ball back to men Thompson, both guys
run with KD off of the dho and Shang Goun
(16:31):
has inside position on PJ. Washington. He just slips right
to the basket easy bounce past another dunk to start
the game. So two easy dunks to start the game
off of three man sequences from their three best players.
And then throughout the game the guys just made good
reads in the middle of the floor constantly with guys
making good active cuts along the baseline and again flashing
(16:52):
up right above the charge circle to make themselves available.
Like kd gets doubled on a post up, Shane Goon
cuts into the gap easy too. Shane Goon gets doubled
on a post up. Aman Thompson teas up flashes right
to the front of the rim. Little easy floater. Steven
Adams catches the ball on a blitz kdie comes off
the ball screen. They blitz Stephen Adams short rolls when
(17:13):
he catches Tarry Easton cuts along the baseline, perfect drop
off dunk. At the end of the game, Shane Goon
just absolutely fries Daniel Gafford one on one and gets
a little left shoulder hook. So the next time he
catches out on the perimeter, they throw a double team.
This time d Lo kind of from the left hand side,
and it leaves Josha Koge wide open cutting on the baseline.
They hit him, he gets a foul. This is an
(17:34):
excellent way for them to space the floor when shots
aren't falling. Size and athleticism cutting along the baseline, good
little bits of shot making in the middle of the floor,
and as a team, really good passing in the middle
of the floor. Again, Rockets the second best cutting team
here in the early part of the NBA season. Look,
(17:56):
I know that Dallas has just kind of been doubling
everyone a base scheme for a little while now, but
a lot of this is the predicament that the Rockets
will put you in, like if you leave them one
on one, their guys are gonna fry you. Like Shane
Gun was killing PJ. Washington a really easy one in
crunch time where he just backed him down on the
right block for a little left shoulder hook, like that
(18:17):
easy one he got on Daniel Gafford, Like, if you
let him attack one on one, he's probably gonna score.
Kevin Durant got left on an island dribbling above the
break twice in the mid fourth quarter, and he had
two pull up threes. That's something that's gonna happen potentially
when you leave Kevin Durant on an island. Some of
this is the reality that the Rockets shock creators are
(18:37):
really damn good, and so yeah, Dallas may be doubling
as a base scheme, but teams are gonna generally have
that decision to make let these guys cook one on
one where they could fry you, or send the second
body where they get these tic tac toe passing sequences
and they get a lot of dunks and then even
on the ones they miss, like there's a lot of
them where it's like just get the ball up on
the rim, get the ball up on the rim, and
(18:59):
some like Click Coppeller Steven Adams is gonna grab that
offensive rebound and dunk it or put it back in.
But again, like when I look at their catch and
shoot shooting, it's more likely than not going to be
at the very least inconsistent and more likely not very good.
Through the large sample, there's a lot of guys there
that have been shooting a little above their pay grade
(19:19):
to start the season. That'll probably cool off a little bit. Again,
they're either going to be a middle of the pack
jump shooting team that's very hot and cold, or they're
gonna be a bottom of the pack jump shooting team.
So with that being the case, their ability to convert
that attention into cuts in offensive rebounds is going to
be a big part of how they'll be able to
beat some of the more aggressive defensive schemes that they
(19:39):
will inevitably face along the way. A couple little notes
from this game. This is something stuff that I've had
my eye on throughout the season, turnovers and transition defense.
Like they had six first quarter turnovers, a lot of
those were live ball turnovers that led to easy buckets.
The other way, they have the sixth worst turnover percentage
in the entire NBA to start the year. So turnover
(20:00):
has been a little bit of an issue, kind of
predictable with the ball handling issues that they have. Again,
they make up for some of that margin with their
offensive rebounding. Again, when you're grabbing forty two percent of
your own misses, that manufactures margin where you've been losing
margin on turnovers. And then transition defense just getting beat
down the floor. Shan Gun got beat just on a
(20:21):
straight line sprint by PJ. Washington late in the game
for a dunk. As a team, they're a little slow footed.
This is also exacerbated by the turnovers. Right. The turnovers
lead to a lot of live ball, you know, three
on twos, two on ones that I don't care how
hard you sprint back. They're difficult to guard, right, And
so as a team they're twenty second right now in
(20:42):
transition points allowed per game perc Entergy. So those are
a couple of like little red flags that have shown
up early in the season, but everything else is looking
super strong for them in the early going. They're first
in offensive rating overall, their defense is trending up through
up to ninth in defensive rating and the second in
net rating. I think Reed Shepherd has been pretty good
(21:03):
in the last two games. He had a bunch of
threes in the Boston game last night to some quality
shot creation off the bounce, and then after a brutal
start to the season where Tari Easton looked bad, he's
been fantastic in the four game winning streak. He's shooting
sixty five percent from three on five attempts per game.
He had three more of them last night, a couple
of big corner threes, and he's been filling up the
(21:24):
box score in his minutes per thirty six if you
take his production and expanded out to thirty six minutes again,
I always use that as just kind of like a
way to provide some perspective on how bench players in
smaller roles produce relative to how many minutes they have.
Right He's getting seven point two rebounds, four point four
assists in two point four stocks, one point two steals,
(21:45):
and one point two blocks per thirty six minutes during
the four game winning streak. So really nice play from
Tari Easton. Rockets are looking really good. Here a couple
of possessions again, like that little step back from Shay
over at men Thompson on the left elbow, they beat
okayc if he misses that Jabari Smith that wide open
(22:05):
catch and shoot three on the left wing against the
Pistons in their second game. He hits that they're six
and zero right now and a lot of winnable games
in their next seven too, if you look at their schedule,
especially with Cleveland being without Darius Garland. So look for
the Rockets to get a solid foundation in the standings
in the Western Conference over the course of the next
couple of weeks. All right, last segment. Today, the Lakers
(22:31):
win again on the road in Portland without Lebron, without Luca,
and without Austin. This is a Portland team that's been
top ten in defense to start the year. In a
Portland team that I had in my power rankings yesterday,
I think this is a decent team there, especially when
you're playing them in Portland. And so in this sort
of situation, right when you've got all these guys out
(22:51):
of the lineup, seemingly every single Laker had a lot
more responsibility on their plate, and to their credit, every
single one of them excelled in a larger role like
Marcus Smart. I thought he did a phenomenal job attacking
Portland's full court pressure. Portland picks up the ball full
court more than any team in the league. I was
a big part of how they were trying to work
(23:12):
their way back into the game late, and I thought
Marcus and I would I'd give Nick Smith Junior some
credit for this too, focusing in Marcus right now, but
attacking the ball pressure, like using your speed to get
past that first defender and kind of breaking the defense
at the start. JJ Reddick talked about this in his
postgame presser, but like he was talking about how like
one of the things that he thought helped down the
(23:34):
stretch of the game was guys just beating their man
off the dribble rather than in ball screens, where they
had struggled a little bit, and ball screens were still
an important part of their attack. Like we're gonna talk
about it with Nick Smith, like him hitting drop coverage threes,
and like, there were certain elements of their pick and
roll attack that I think were very important in this game.
But JJ's right, like a big part of them in
the fourth quarter having the success they did was just
(23:56):
Marcus Smart beating that first defender who's picking him up
full court and getting the defense in rotation before they
had to do anything. Deandreton and Rujachamura just providing reliable
scoring in every single way, Like both scored out of
action like eight and catching and finishing around the rim,
Ruey hitting catch and shoot threes or cutting along the baseline.
But they both also provided like tough mid range shot making,
(24:19):
which again is such a value add especially when you
deal with the team like Portland who does the switching
that they do, Like they have these small ball looks
where they go without a center and they just switch
everything because they got a bunch of six eight, six
nine dudes on the floor, and Drew Holliday's so big
and strong at the guard position and so kind of
forces you to have some guys that can go get
a bucket. And like having Ruy and Deandreton giving you
(24:39):
like a half dozen of those mid range pull up
jump shots. Those are huge shots in a game like this.
And then Jacobavia has really won me over over the
last six games. It started in the end of the
Kings game. He made a couple of big clutch plays
he relocated off of Ruey Hacha Mura post up and
hit a three right at the top of the key,
a tough movement three. And then he had like an
(25:00):
inside seal on Keon Ellis where he got a layup
and won late in the game. And I started to
notice in that game that he's just always in the
right spots and then he usually makes the right reads.
And it was a little it was a little up
and down. Early in the year. His lack of aggression
drove me crazy. It felt like he didn't want to
shoot unless he was completely wide open. But he's turned
that up a little bit, the aggression, and it's been
(25:22):
the perfect addition to this team. Like timely shooting, timely scoring,
connective playmaking, even like some bucket getting, Like he had
a late possession, late game possession in this game where
he had Shaydon Sharp on the right block and just
attacked him one on one and like got a little
drop step over his left shoulder. It hit like a
little bank shot off the glass. That was a huge
bucket in that game. And the thing that I'm noticing
(25:44):
with him on defense is he's just a very solid
positional defender. I talk about this all the time. The
difference between like really athletic, disruptive attacking defenders versus positional
defenders that do a great job of sliding their feet,
guessing which direction you're going to go, keep their chest
in front, absorbing contact, keeping their hands up and forcing
you to make shots over the top. And look, he's
(26:06):
a little athletically overmatch sometimes because he's a little bigger
and a little slower, and he'll occasionally get beat and
foul somebody. He had a couple of plays where he
gave up some drives late in this game, But generally speaking,
I view him as a positive defender in the team
context because he's usually in the right spot and he's
gonna win some of those battles he took. You know,
he gave up some drives late in the game, but
(26:27):
he also had a huge play late in the game
where they gaffed well and he slid his feet well
and Avdya tried to just force his way through him
with a spin move and once again positional, sliding his feet,
staying in front, hands up, Denny came up with the
elbow on the spin and caught him in the chin
on that spin move led to that offensive foul, and
like that was a hard to stop Portland attack there
(26:50):
late in the game, like Denny Avdya, Jeremy Grant and
Drew Holiday, they were in attack mode down the stretch,
trying to say that game driving, driving, driving, applying a
ton of pressure on the rim, and it was hard
to them, and so every stop felt like a huge win.
And he took that elbow and got in there and
got a big stop late in the game. He's rebounding
at a rate of six point five rebounds per thirty
(27:11):
six minutes, which I think is really solid for an
athlete of his level. He's just a good player. It
didn't take him long this season, just two weeks to
really win me over. I think he really helps the team,
and I think he's the perfect type of guy to
compliment their stars, to be a guy that can capitalize
on the attention that their stars draw over the course
(27:31):
of games. And man, what a show put on by
Nick Smith Junior. Obviously, when you're down Austin, Luca and Lebron,
the initiation talent is utterly devoid on this roster, and
the Lakers needed him, desperately needed him to step into
the game and just get buckets, and Nick did just that.
(27:55):
It was an interesting matchup for him because Portland has
all these ball pressure guys, but they're all pretty tall
and lanky, and Drew is older. Drew's more of like
a physical player at this point. He's not the same
quick type of guard that he was in the past. Right,
what Nick Smith is super quick and like smaller, So
he was actually able to handle the ball pressure pretty
well and get to his spots because despite all of
(28:16):
the depth of ball pressure talent that Portland has, Nick
is just faster than all those dudes, and so he
was able to get to his spots pretty quick, and
he generated baskets important baskets throughout the game against Portland's
two main coverages that we saw. They ran a super
deep drop coverage with their bigs with Klingon and Rob Williams,
and with those looks, he hit several pull up threes
(28:39):
where he would just set his man up for the
screen crossover and just get up into that footwork for
a pull up three point shot off the dribble. He
hit a bunch of those, and then in Portland switch
looks again, like when they started switching with their centerless looks,
all of a sudden, it becomes about beating people off
the dribble, and he hit two pull up mid range shots,
one against City Sosoko and one against Timani Kamara where
(28:59):
he eat them off the dribble with this quickness, got
enough separation to elevate in that like little short thirteen
fourteen foot range, and he hit shots. He also had
a big floater late in the game where he got
Drew Holiday on like a brush screen. It's like a
random screen where Portland was in their small ball look
that should have been switching, but they randomly didn't switch
that screen, and so Drew Hollidy got a little bit
(29:21):
caught on the screen and he got downhill and he
hit like a little right handed floater in the lane.
And then he iced the game with two catch and
shoot threes, both on plays like what I was talking
about with Marcus Smart earlier, where Marcus Smart beat the
full court pressure off the dribble, drew in help off
of the baseline, rotate, rotate, Nick Smith is wide open,
(29:42):
once on the left wing, once at the top of
the key. He hit both of those threes. Have yourself
a moment. Nick Smith twenty five points and they needed
every single one of them. To win that game. And lastly,
I got a shout out Brownie. He played real rotation
minutes and both ends of this back to back, and
he was legitimately solid in both games. In the Heat game,
(30:03):
JJ was desperately looking for someone that could hang with
Davion Mitchell, and it wasn't perfect. He picked up some fouls,
but I thought he came in and played super hard,
was generally in the right spot, and he made some
nice close out attacks. This is something I want to
get to you more in a second when we talk
about the Portland game, and I thought he was really
good last night. In that Portland game. He had a
massive three on the right wing that started the fourth quarter.
(30:23):
He hit some clutch free throws, and he had six assists,
most of which came out of racking closeouts. This is
something that I've talked about a lot baked in driving lanes.
Right when the defense reacts to a primary ball handler,
what ends up happening is often there's a closeout, and
on that close that it's usually coming at one side
of you, depending on how the shell drill works. And
so if you're a right handed player and a guy
(30:45):
is closing out at your left shoulder, you know, on
the catch, just catch and rip, And if you catch
and rip, you're probably gonna beat that dude off the dribble.
Same thing, if he's closing out at your right shoulder,
just catching rip left, you're gonna beat that man off
the dribble. And Broni's actually really good at me that
read and like one of his like superhuman traits that
he has at this phase. Even though he's undersized and
(31:06):
he has his certain limitations, he's very fast and he's
very vertically athletic. The vertical athletics is a manifest in
other ways, like the lob dunk that he got from Austin,
or like that big offensive rebound he got in the
fourth quarter against Portland, But like the quickness manifests when
he slashes these closeouts, and when he slashes the closeouts,
he just makes really nice reads. Oh easy drop off
(31:28):
pass for Jackson Hayes in the middle for a layup,
or oh rack baseline, there's Ruby Hotcha Murrow wide open
in the right corner, kickout pass, knock it down. He
was like just really good at making those reads out
of closeouts, and so I think this is one of
those underrated things that he like. We talk a lot
about Brownie shortcomings. He's undersized. He's not a good on
ball player in terms of like leading the team with
(31:49):
action at the beginning of possessions. There's certainly issues that
he has. But one of the things he is very
good at that I think he deserves credit for is
he's a good connective playmaker. This has been a thing
throughout his career. He's averaging four point three assists per
thirty six minutes to start his career on about a
one and a half assist the turnover ratio. Like, he's
a decent connective playmaker. It's something that he can do
(32:11):
to help the team. And he's just fastest shit, which
is valuable for a team that doesn't have a ton
of speed. And he's doing his job and that actually
helped the Lakers over the course of this back to back.
I want to give give him credit for playing some
quality rotation minutes in a winning context over this stretch
really quick on the Lakers. I just want to zoom
out and talk briefly about JJ Reddick and this roster.
So like, whenever I see a team start to rack
(32:34):
up wins, when Key guys are out. I always think
two things. One the roster must have good depth of talent,
and two the coach must be instilling a strong basketball culture.
Let's start with the roster for a second. It was
much maligned after training camp, and that super upsetting game
against the Warriors. Is actually funny listening to JJ Reddick
last night in his postgame, because he talked about how
(32:55):
like he kept referencing like the last seven games just
pretending as though the goal in State game doesn't exist,
and like, I don't blame him because it was bad.
They looked in that game like a bad combination of
unathletic and completely lacking physical intensity. That was the big
thing that stood out to me in the first game,
and I criticized them that night, and I wasn't alone
in doing so. They didn't look good throughout the entire
(33:18):
beginning of October through that Golden State game. They still
look super unathletic relative to the field, especially the top teams,
and we'll see if that becomes an issue down the line.
But they have been more intense and physical. They're using
their size and they're meeting the fight. They're competing every
night like they're playing harder than most teams on most nights.
(33:39):
That's a strong, a strong like quality in this roster
that I've seen over the course of the tail end
of last season we'll talk about a minute, but the
tail end of last season and started this season, they've
been pretty locked into the game plans that JJ's put together,
and they are big and so like they do have
a strength in terms of their size, and they're bringing
physicality and intensity now. So even though they're unathletic. It's
(34:00):
one thing to be unathletic and lack intensity in physical competition, right,
that's a death sentence. But if you're unathletic, but you're
in the right spots, you're playing super hard, and you're
competing physically, it becomes something that's a little bit more tenable.
And there's a clear roster strength that is rising to
the surface. For all the lack of athleticism and the
lack of two way players, the team is extremely deep
(34:23):
with smart players and very skilled offensive players. After facing
that excellent Heat defense and dropping one hundred and thirty
points on them again without Lebron, they face another top
ten defense in Portland on the road without their three
best offensive players and they dropped one hundred and twenty
three points. Deandreten's added the much needed firepower at the
(34:45):
center position. Marcus mart and Jake Larevia have added that
connective playmaking and that high IQ elements of the offense.
There is enough defensive talent on the court with Marcus Smart,
with Jared Vanderbilt, with Jake Larevia, with Deandreton at the rim,
just the high IQ of the group that they're they're
doing okay, Like their eighteenth in defense. That's better than
(35:06):
you would expect for this team without If you would
have told me they didn't have Lebron at this point
in the season, I'd be like twenty fifth, twenty sixth
in defense just because of the complete lack of talent.
They're out kicking their coverage, so to speak, on defense
right now. So like for all of the talk about
their athleticism as a weakness, I think the depth of
offensive talent and IQ is a roster strength that I
(35:27):
think we all, including myself, may have underrated a bit
this summer. Even as high as I was on them
as an offense, they look better than I expected because again,
there's been a lot of guys out of the lineup
including Luca and Lebron for the entirety of it, right.
The second piece of it is the strong basketball culture.
We talked a ton about this after JJ was hired.
I don't think the Lakers have a strong basketball culture organizationally.
(35:49):
I think their culture is essentially just go get the
next superstar. They desperately needed JJ to come in and
instill a strong basketball culture that is based on habits,
daily excellence, attention to detail, competitive energy, and like, look,
it was a little rough to start last season, like
(36:10):
the early you know, forty percent or so of last season.
It was a different group of players, but they kind
of lacked that like day to day intensity. But to
JJ's reddick, to JJ's reddick, to JJ's credit, ever since
late January, this team has been one of the hardest
playing teams in the league night tonight and throughout that stretch,
(36:32):
including the season, whether it's Anthony Davis down with an injury,
or it's Luca down with an injury, or it's Lebron
now with an injury, to now Luca and Lebron being down,
to all three of the guys being down, there have
been like a dozen different versions of this team because
of injuries over the course of this calendar year since
late January, and every single iteration of that team has
(36:54):
been able to sustain winning through excellent effort and execution,
and they've been, by win perge, one of the best
teams in the league over that span. I just think
JJ deserves a lot more credit than what he's been
getting for the job that he's done with this group.
And then, lastly, like the path for the Lakers to
start the season was obvious. Be the twenty twenty three
Denver Nuggets. Be an unstoppable offense with a depth of
(37:17):
shot creation talent in finishing talent, and then be a smart,
high IQ defense on the other end of the floor
that executes well and just gets enough stops. And to
be clear, it is very early. No one's given a
trophy out for eight games, but they're on the right path.
They are on the right path to achieving whatever this
team's ceiling is, and I am very, very excited to
(37:38):
see what they look like when they get Lebron James back.
All right, guys, it's all we have for today. As always,
a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting
the show. We'll be back tomorrow with more game reaction.
I'll see you guys then
Host
Jason Timpf
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