Episode 85: Suns/Lakers Postgame Spaces

In this episode, Jason is joined by Vinay Killawala to break down the Lakers ugly loss to Phoenix. Thanks for listening!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mmmmm, all right, Welcome to the State of the Lakers
post game show after yet another restorating game. Although they

(00:22):
I don't know about you, man, I'm feeling weirdly positive
after this one. I know that sounds insane to say, um,
and it has nothing to do with the comeback, which
I think you and I will get into. But first
of all, I sincerely appreciate you on short notice coming
to hop On tonight while ROJ is partying listening to
E d M music doing god knows what else. I know.

(00:42):
I think where is it. He's in Vegas right now,
these dudes doing something some some some dim festival. I'm glad.
I'm glad that I could fill uh Phil Roger's seat,
and I'll i'll try to do my best to fill
his role for for this episode, this post game. I
appreciate it, man, um. So you know, obviously, as things

(01:04):
were progressing in the game, it was extremely frustrating, but
I kept trying to compartmentalize it by acknowledging you know
where things went off the rails, and you actually did
a good job of calling this out as well. But
I feel like the Lakers lost their focus in the
second quarter and when you do that against the team
as good as Phoenix, with the continuity that they have

(01:25):
and at the level that they're playing right now, things
can get out of control pretty quickly. And I that
my impression was that it kind of started with those
bad three point shot fouls, and I genuinely believe they
were bad calls that said, you can't let a bad
call in the second quarter get that far into your head.
And then you you brought up the fact that Chris

(01:46):
Paul at that point kind of smell blood or you know,
picked up on what was happening and just went to
the kill. And during that stretch he was magnificent. So
do you want to talk about what you noticed in
that stretch? Yeah, So, I mean, I think the turning
point of this game is when Chris Paul got into
his generational troll bag and just started baiting the Lakers

(02:07):
into just you know, like stupid fouls. Um. You know,
he started doing a lot of stuff that he kind
of does when and you know, it's it's one of
the things that makes him the player that he is.
Like he he always had a pretty good uh finger
on like the pulse of the game and how the
revs are calling the game and stuff I got, and
I thought he was working really hard to get calls. Um.

(02:28):
I was shocked at some of the calls that he
was getting UM, but he was getting him and I
think it completely took the Lakers out of it. And um,
it's I think what you just described, like Crowder getting
that flavrant foul onbron Um. I think Chris Paul drew
another three point file just a little bit later. I
think I'm mellow or something I got. Like it just

(02:48):
that completely put the Lakers in a funk. And I
don't think the Lakers ever kind of recovered from it
because they probably thought there was a lot of fifty
fifty calls they weren't getting UM on the opposite end.
And I mean, you you played basketball. I haven't played
same little basketball you have. I played a high school.
But like that kind of stuff, when you're not getting
calls in urine and then the other team it seems
like they're getting all the calls that you kind of

(03:09):
can seep in um to the psyche of your team
for the game. And I thought the Lakers just pretty
much completely lost focus at that point. And then you know,
I think it's waited out like after a halftime. I
was like, all right, either the Lakers are gonna cut
this lead in half, like within the first six minutes
of the game, where are they gonna get blown out?
And that's you know, it went in the opposite direction, um,

(03:30):
towards the blowout. So it's kind of what I expected
to have. Yeah, you know, it was interesting because during
that stretch simultaneous because you have to think, how could
it go so bad so fast? Right because they were up.
You despite all of the things that I complained about
with the Laker offense, which we will get to and
they are still legitimate concerns having to do with spacing,

(03:50):
um and you. You and I were uh in a
direct message kind of talking about what we were viewing
as the main talking points from this game, and we
will get into those. But the you know, during that
stretch when the Lakers up, there was a lot of
good for starters. I thought Russ looked fantastic with exception
of a couple of bad jump shots. He did a
really good job, in my opinion, defensively putting his physical

(04:13):
imprint on the game. And and looks like what this
version of Russ with this team could look like in
a good capacity, and to Phoenix's credit, the way it
went off the rail so fast. In addition to the
Lakers losing their focus, they were extremely dialed in on
the defensive end of the floor, disrupting everything around the

(04:34):
paint in terms of passes and drives and in rotations.
And Michail Bridges had this stretch there in that quarter
where defensively he was just like an octopus just getting
his hands on everything. And so I wanted to start
by just giving Phoenix credit during that stretch they just
played magnificent basketball. And the Lakers right now are not
playing good basketball. They haven't played good basketball through these

(04:57):
through the entire preseason and really for most still these
two regular season games. So inevitably, when you let your
focus off, the team that is dialed in, the team
that has the continuity, the team that's playing good basketball
is going to put you out of your misery pretty quickly. Yeah,
I think that's pretty consistent, right, And so like the
opening game, uh, they play the Warriors, who have a

(05:19):
decent amount of turnover themselves on their roster, and so
we saw the Lakers kind of pretty much be in
control of the game even though it kind of it
was like a game of runs. I think Rogers that's
the thing that he's called a while back. Like it's just, uh,
the game was always like seven points eight points, seven
points eight points, Warriors cut into the lead, Lakers extended out.
It never really turned into like blowout territory or big

(05:42):
double digit territory. And then eventually towards the end of
the game, um, you know, Warriors went small and they
kind of took the lead and then they never never
gave it back up. So like you could see the Lakers,
a team with no continuity matching up with another team's
no continuity and just you know, talented scheme kind of
working out and they lose it in the end. But
then the Lakers this and they play against the team
that has a lot of continuity from from you know,

(06:03):
everything that they did last season. Most of that roster,
the core of that roster is pretty intact, so they
know what they have going. Um. But even then, you know,
like it was kind of good to see Russ start
this game off pretty well. Um despite the two big
starting which I know that you mentioned we're gonna get
into later, but and Braun again, you know, like I
think I've mentioned this when I kind of jumped on

(06:25):
just to offer some comments last time, when you rodg
Rod Braunze, shot quality is so good, Like some of
these threes he's taking ore like wide wide open. Some
of the midrange shots he's taking their wide open. It's
his quality. Shot quality is so good. So it's just
I'm hoping that that continues to stay there and everybody
else starts figuring things out. But you know, it's it's

(06:47):
it's going to be a learning process. Like I don't
know what the Lakers record is going to be. Um,
I'm saving a lot of my thoughts to to see
what Vogel does with these lineups. But he made some
changes um in this game lineup wise that I thought
were good compared to the last game, and and they
looked pretty good to me. Yeah, he waited a lot

(07:07):
longer to go to Rondo, who knows that his first
stub off the bench was Molik monk Uh in general.
You know, So this is something you said to me
in the direct message, which I thought was super fascinating
because it's something that I've been harping on this entire
suming this idea. I was it was the one article
I wrote on the on the blog that I started
that I said I was going to write occasionally, and
occasionally it has turned out to do once. So the

(07:29):
article I wrote was about just modern basketball, and you know,
the way that the smartest minds in the NBA right
now approached the game and looking past all the scheme stuff,
because you can get convoluted into all sorts of stuff
having to do with specific actions and the things they
do off the ball and the things that you want
the ball and blah blah blah blah blah. But the
gist of it is what Phoenix is doing. You've got

(07:52):
your primary creators. There's three of them on the team.
They run everything through campaign, Chris Paul and Devin Booker,
and every single one of their actions involves getting one
of them in advantage, usually involving some sort of either
off ball screen or on ball screen, and then from
there they space the floor and and because of that,
everything they get is easy. And what's frustrating for me

(08:14):
watching this Laker team, especially, you know, with the lineups
that Frank has opted to go with in these first
two games, is the Stars are not getting those same
opportunities you know, uh Pete from like a film room,
you know, as obsessive as he is, which is such
a blessing because he does a lot of the dirty
work for us. He charts all these possessions out and

(08:35):
he charted and realized that in the first game, the
starting lineup in the half court attempted fourteen shots and
attempted two shots at the rim. And fortunately, um we
can interpret from that that the spacing leads them to
become jump shooters, and that happened again tonight by my account,
that russ drive to the basket where he got free throws,

(08:57):
which was on like their seventh or eighth possession of
the game, was their first attempt in the paint. Everything
else was a jump shot. That's just what you're going
to get when you put those guys in a position
where they can't get an advantage because of the way
the defense is loading up on them. And so what
I'd like to see is, like what you saw there
in that fourth quarter, you space the floor and everything

(09:17):
just starts with getting the ball in your best players
hands with an advantage. From there, everything will be easier.
Guys will be in a better rhythm. I don't think
it's a coincidence that Anthony Davis in two of his
last three games, including that preseason game against the Kings,
looked awful because he's not getting easy looks at the ring.
I do think those things are related, and I think

(09:39):
that that's all part of the living organism of a
basketball game, and it's the part that's getting ignored as
Frank heavily favor size and heavily favors you know that
that defensive mentality at the expense of the of the
rhythm and focus, the rhythm and confidence of his stars. Yeah,
I'm on board with you. Um So, So there's actually

(10:00):
one thing that I just kind of I wanted to
talk about, and um you know, a lot of the
conversation that's been going on by by very very smart folks,
Laker fans and non Laker fans, just very smart folks
around basketball has been around that this idea that you
present that you're mentioning right now, right like spacing the
floor out giving giving your best players in the advantage
to play, is important. Um But but I think as

(10:21):
it relates to like the Lakers, one of the things
that I'm seeing a lot on the timeline is well, well,
you've got to do it for Russ. You've got to
do it for Russ. You've gotta do it for Russ.
And the thing that I think folks are the only
thing I want to like suggest to folks is it's
not about just Russ. This is the direction, like if
we had Dennis Schroder, or if we had like I

(10:43):
don't know, even if we had like Chris Paul in
Russ's position. This is the direction that NBA offenses are
going in. This is this is separate from Russ all together.
It doesn't matter whether he's on a roster or not.
Spacing the floor is absolutely necessary. And so the reason
why I'm saying this is because we've what maybe about
three three days where the games come through, right, And

(11:03):
I watched a couple. I watched the Nets games because
they were they were the early game before the Laker games. Um.
I watched the Atlanta game. I watched that Clippers Warriors
game last night, and I was absolutely fascinated at the
fact that both teams at one point we're running almost
four guards, like four maybe like six five or shorter

(11:24):
kind of guards ball handlers, and they'd run like a
like a single you know, high motor, rebounding wing and
when I saw that, and you know, obviously some of
that's playing the game of chess Tyrone Lou playing chess
um against Steve Kerr and just trying to match up
and stuff I got. But what was happening is those
teams were trying to match up like not just space,

(11:46):
but they're trying to match up like the speed that's
on the floor. Like if you watched the Laker game,
you saw a couple of you saw a couple of
possessions where the Sun's just got out faster than the
Lakers could, you know, in transition, and they got to
eat like I think I want to want to. I
think Michael uh, Michael Bridge has probably had like what
two or three just kind of wide open dunk's just
kind of running the outlet or something. My gut so

(12:09):
that that there's there's a um. The thing with the
two bigs is not just a Vogel thing or or
Russell Westbrook thing. This is a this is the direction
the NBA is going in, And I just don't know
what Vogeo is sort of thinking the trade off here
is because it's not making any sense to keep playing

(12:30):
two big, So I'm just I'm just waiting to see
when he adjusts. You know, I thought he played the
single big with a d um after that first shift
happened when they brought him link Monk and I think
Avery Bradley next to Russ and the ad went to
the five, and that looked really good. Uh that you
know that the ball was moving, there was good shots
coming out. Um, but you know they need more reps.

(12:52):
I just I don't know about the two bigs things,
Like I'm not seeing in any game that I've seen
so far this season, I have not seen any team
run two bigs successfully, like just dominating another team with
two bigs, And you know, it's it's just interesting to see. Yeah,
even if you're like, as a Laker fan, when you
see the Keevan Moone starting, aren't you thrilled? You're excited?

(13:14):
You're like, oh, thank god they're playing Keevan Like it's
an advantage that you're that they're basically playing into your hands.
And I love what you brought up about the speed
thing because it reminds me a lot of you know,
what's happening in the NFL. You know, like, for instance,
a linebacker fifteen years ago was Brian or Lacker, you know,
this giant mountain of a human being who stopped everything
inside that that that came his way. And now the

(13:37):
successful linebacker in the NFL is Micah Parsons. You know,
this smaller six one six two ish type of speedy
like range e. It's almost like a hybrid between a
cornerback and the linebacker. That that is the evolution of
the game that the Cowboys you know, read in advance
and made a really smart draft pick and it's helping

(13:58):
them win games. And that that to me is like
you're either going to be on the right side of
that kind of stuff, but you're gonna be on the
wrong side of that kind of stuff. And you know,
it's kind of discouraging because do you guys remember uh
Frank's first interview when he was like, we're going to
take an analytical outside in approach and he said all
he said all the right. He sounded like that modern

(14:18):
basketball mind that we desperately wanted after the Luke Walton experience, right,
And it's been kind of discouraging because at the end
of the day, the way the way that Frank looks
at it, it seems to me at least that at
the he's obsessed with a certain amount of of that
rim deterrence right and then. But the point is is

(14:39):
it only worked in because he had these guards that
were really willing to put in the work to get
over the top of screens, chase guys off the three
point line and close out, rotate in that chaos and
funnel everybody inside. But this year right now, so far,
at least the guard corps hasn't been able to hold
up there and of the bargain, so now we just

(15:01):
look slow. So at a certain point you have to
adapt and and and call an audible here. And I'm
with you, like just and one of my biggest beefs
with the whole thing is all these people that say, hey,
when you ditch DeAndre Jordan or you ditch Dwight Howard
as the center, you have rebounding problems, you have size problems. Bullshit.

(15:21):
You have Lebron James and Anthony Davis in the front court.
But maybe maybe Brook, Lopez and Janice are the only
other front court in the league that's bigger like they,
and Russell Westbrook is like a center version of a guard.
So they absolutely can handle the physical responsibilities of a
five man lineup with those three on the floor without

(15:42):
a center, and so it's actively handicapping them. And by
the way, DeAndre Jordan plus four again tonight. So yeah,
on Opening night in plus four, what would that have
been if it was not anybody else? Okay, So that
I saw somebody tweet that, so I thought that was Larrius, right,
So I get I get that, right, I understand why
it's plus two and plus four. But if we if

(16:03):
you rewatch the starts of those games, right, and you
look at how how both those games started. Lebron starts
off super hot against the Warriors at the beginning of
that first game, right, so that first ship that DeAndre
is part of, before he leaves the floor, the Lakers
are up like ten or something, I forgot what they
were up against the Warriors, something like that. They had
a pretty decent lead, and then he'll he doesn't come
back into the game until way, you know, basically the

(16:25):
second half. So that number is always misleading because it's
really big because of the first shift, and then the
first shift to the second half, it gets you know,
slightly cut into because you know, eventually Vogan will be
a little bit quick with the rotation change, so it's
a plus two and then and then this game, this
game is like literally the same thing, right, Like Russ
starts off really well, Um, Phoenix doesn't start off very well.

(16:45):
And this is a separate conversation, but our separate topic.
But Phoenix had very very good looks at the beginning
of the game and in the mid range, especially Booker.
He just missed them. That's all. It was. Like DeAndre
was DeAndre wasn't challenging him, Nobody was getting in front
of him. Him and Chris Paul had really good looks
and they were just really not to not to cut

(17:07):
you off. Remember how good the look Step got in
the first quarter of the opening night game. Those were
fantastic looks that he just missed right exactly, and so
and so it's it's misleading because you're if you're just
looking at the box score at the end of the game,
you're like, well, well, hold on the second why DeAndre
looks so good? Or if Frank Vogo is doing this,
which I hope he's not doing, if he's looking at
the box score and saying that DeAndre looked good, like

(17:30):
you have to look at the film and see that
the shot quality that the opposing team was getting was
really good. They just weren't making him. So then that's
how I knew, Like towards in the second half of
the game, I was like, at some point, Chris Paul
is just going to start making all these been range
shots because he's gonna know that DeAndre is not going
to challenge his shot, and um, that's basically what happened
right in the second half, just Chris Paul kind of

(17:51):
gets into this mode where he just goes to wherever
his favorite spots are on the court. And then by
the time the Leakers switched Anthony Davidson the five, Chris
Paul has already got it going right, so he can't
do anything. Chris Paul is gonna shoot rainbow shots, and
so that's that's kind of my my concern. You're jamming
up the spacing, you're jamming up the natural flow of

(18:12):
your offense, and at the same time, the analytics are
probably telling you. Even though they may be telling you
that DJ is playing well, or line ups with DJ
and e D are playing well, they're not because if
you're watching the tape, the shot quality for the opposing
team is amazing. They're just not making their shots and
eventually they will. And that's basically what's happened in both
of these games. So I just don't, you know, I

(18:33):
think last year I was a little bit more lenient
with Vocal when it came to this entire process, and
I was just like, you know, I'm sorry. Not last year,
the very very first year that he was he was hired.
I was like, all right, this doesn't make sense, but
I understand where he's coming from. And obviously, the Lakers
won a championship last season. Because the Lakers are out
of the playoffs early, I spent you know, I watched

(18:54):
a lot of the games that the other teams are playing.
I just the way the refs called the game. Now,
you know, I think Laker fans were pretty pissed today
that Braun wasn't getting calls at the rim, and he
wasn't getting calls at the rim, especially against like smaller guys,
like folks. You need to understand the direction that this
the league is going in. This is what refs are

(19:15):
going to do. If you are a smaller defender against
a bigger, bigger offensive player, they're going to give you leniency.
It's almost a guarantee. Now, there should be no confusion
about it. So aside from the spacing stuff in the
direction of the league, league is going in. The refs
are not going to give you those calls anymore. Braun
is not going to get collision calls anymore. They're just
not gonna give it to him. And so you might

(19:36):
as well size down and match up with a guy
like Jake Powder because maybe he has a better chance
than than being matched up against like a Michael Bridges
or you know, whoever they whoever else they decided to
play that's smaller Lebron. Yeah, it's a it's a really
interesting point because you gotta like it's funny, you gotta
you gotta read the tea leaves here. You gotta see
what the are favoring and what they're not favoring in

(19:57):
the death like for instance, like Lebron was really frustrated
because he wasn't calls at the rim and then he
tried one of those jankie three point shot fouls and
it's like, dude, like they are they are actively being
coached to not call that, So you're you're you're not
going to get it you've got to kind of adapt
in that regard these It's weird how with the and
like and here's the other part two, Like, I'm frustrated

(20:18):
with the landing space stuff, right, we all are that
that was It was really annoying that Lebron closed out
on Jay Crowder with the exact same close out that
abdel Nader used on Russell Westbrook at the end of
the game, and rust gets called for an offensive foul
and and Jay Crowder gets two free throws and the
ball because of a flavorant Like, it's really frustrating that
that happened. But at the end of the day, to
your point, from the beginning, they let that get into

(20:40):
their head. And you can't let a call in the
second quarter of a game throw you off as much
as they did. But so let's let's let's try to
get to some positive stuff here, because I do think,
like like I said at the beginning, I am optimistic
about this team in the long run. I think that
basketball is a game of habits. I've always felt this way,

(21:00):
and they are impossible to reverse overnight. And I do
think it's I don't think it's a coincidence that you
lose your preseason games, all six of them. Because what
that means is down the roster, including your G League guys,
there's a a level of accountability and a level of
effort that is lacking compared to the other team. Your point,
because you know, Austin Reeves is every bit as good

(21:22):
as the G League guy on the other team, and
so as Chaundy Brown and all these other guys. The
differences is that team culturally in their training camp was
more dialed in on that end, and it it became
abundantly clear that the Lakers in those games, and it
manifested into these two regular season games, just worn't as sharp.
And so fortunately they are going to run into a

(21:44):
stretch here where they're gonna get some winnable games. So
they're gonna have it, They're gonna have the opportunity to
try to reverse some of these habits against competition that
they can still afford to make some mistakes, because again,
and it's not going to happen overnight, and God willing,
they'll be somewhere in that seven to two, you know, uh,
six and three range when they head back into a

(22:06):
tougher part of their schedule, so that that this is
what I've been preaching about all preseason. They look terrible
and that's continued here to the start. But they have
time to figure this out. They're not going to get
into the tough part of their schedule until you know,
another couple of weeks from now. They just eventually their
competitive fire has to kick in a little bit, and
they did there in that fourth quarter, although Phoenix let
their foot off the gas. But they need to ride

(22:28):
that competitive way into better basketball. Yeah, Oh, it's that
that competitive wave is coming sooner or later. Like I
think one of one of the things that I kind
of took I've been watching as opposing teams play against
play against Lakers is you know, like I've seen a
lot of basketball, Like in my lifetime, Lakers basketball, love
a lot of basketball in general. As guys get older,

(22:49):
like the superstar players and the star players get all there,
there's always a point, you know, uh, in their career
where younger players kind of come in and they and
they're very disconnected from the aura and and the the
like amazing nous of the player that they're playing against. Right, So,
Braun maybe five years ago, seven years ago. You anybody

(23:11):
who played against Braun always was like, wow, you know,
I've I've always had a young guy playing against would
be like, oh wow, you know, like I'm always wanted
to bron has been my idol. I've always wanted to
play against him. And there there are players that are
still like that right now. But you are also going
to get players like Jay Crowder. You are also going
to get players like, you know, like a Jordan Pool
who really don't care about who they're playing against, and

(23:31):
they're going to bring like you know, the the the
what what's this? What's the same? You know, like when
you play against like a Juggernaut team and you just
know you're probably not gonna win, or they've got a
guy on the other team that nobody can stop, and
so you're walking into that game thinking to yourself like,
you know, maybe halfway like all right, you know what,
I'm gonna We're probably not gonna win this game. I'm
gonna try my best. Like, I don't think teams look

(23:52):
at the Lakers like that this this season, Does that
make sense? Like I think this fear, Yeah, I think
people look at Anthony Davis say said, all right, you
know what if I if I try to bullieve this
guy a little bit, maybe maybe I can win this game,
you know, where they look at Braun and they say, Okay,
maybe if I give him a hard file here or there,
if I or if I really kind of get into
space or something I got, I can make it difficult. Front.

(24:12):
That doesn't mean that that these guys, you know, the
Lakers just gonna fold. But I genuinely think that there's
enough young players amongst all these contending teams across the
league that the Lakers are going to have to run
into where they're going to give the Lakers, you know,
and they're not going to be afraid. You know, even
if they go down ten, ten points, twelve points, it
means nothing in the modern NBA. So it's like the

(24:34):
reason I'm saying that is because we're playing who Lakers
are playing Memphis the next game, Like Memphis, I think
he's winning their game. Yeah, exactly. Like none of these
teams that the Lakers. I know that you mentioned that
there's a soft schedule, but none of these teams are
looking at the Lakers, outside of maybe like the bottom
five teams, Like they're not looking at the Lakers as like,

(24:54):
oh you know what, you know, we're just gonna lose,
so I'm not gonna try. Like every single one of
these teams probably believes that they can be the Lakers
um and they want to make a name for themselves
doing it. So I think it's good because I would
love to see more opposing players talk trash Lebron and
talk trash d D because if they think that they're
going to coast through the regular season, I don't think
that's going to happen. And so that's that's that's what

(25:15):
I'm fascinated to see how they respond. Yeah, that's a
really good point, and and that's kind of what I
like about it, is like these games are going to
be close, and that's good because if you look in
previous seasons, they run into these stretches of their schedule
and they developed bad habits, you know what I mean.
These would be the parts of the schedule where they
get worse, and then they'd run into a good team
and they'd be like running into a freight train. Um.

(25:36):
You know. It's funny because earlier tonight so many people
were talking about how bad Brooklyn looked, and I noticed
in that first game against Milwaukee that it seemed really
clear to me right up front that Milwaukee was attacking
that game with a playoff intensity. Meanwhile, if you watched
um Brooklyn, they looked like they were kind of easing
their way into it, you know, and then they got

(25:58):
the butts kicked and they fought back and tried to
get back into it, just wasn't one enough. And then
again tonight, same kind of deal on the road in Philly.
You know, Brooklyn, still kind of easing their way into things,
and then like they get that there, find themselves down,
you know, ten fifteen points throughout the game. Finally they're
competitive nature kicked in, you know, right around that, I

(26:19):
think it was that first time out of the fourth quarter,
and they locked in and they were talented enough to
overcome it because they weren't in that big of a deficit.
That's kind of what happened for the Lakers tonight. They
were just down by thirty. You know, it was just
it was just too much for them to overcome. But
the point is is like there was a clear difference
in the overall intensity and focus and competitiveness and willingness

(26:42):
to do what it takes to win between what the
Warriors were doing and what the Suns were doing and
what the Lakers were doing, and that gap needed to
be bridged. And and even though it didn't amount to
win tonight, like as we're always going to talk about
with these regular season games and you play eighty two,
of them were more concerned about process, were more concerned
about what translates to the playoffs. The Lakers if they're

(27:05):
if they're seven in two after this stretch and they
go into Milwaukee and they are going to Portland I
think is the one after that, and they go into
Portland and they beat Portland's and they're eight and two,
they will completely erase what happened in this week. No
one will care. No one's going to care about them.
Jay Crowder clowning them, No one's gonna care about you know,
CP three literally turning Anthony Davis into a barbecue chicken legs, Like,

(27:29):
no one's gonna care because they'll be eight and two
and they will have just won a big game on
the road. That's the way the NBA regular season works.
They just need to kick that like they're like a
rusty engine right now that's trying to get going to
get you know what I mean? Yeah, no, that that
makes sense. So I'm with you I think process. I
think the regular season, especially when you have this many people, uh,

(27:50):
new faces to the roster and stuff like that, that's
that it is a process to get them integrated, figure
things out and whatnot. And so obviously most of the
conversation and the thought process has been around how Russell
Westbrook's going to integrate with the Lakers. Um. He wasn't
that great the first game. He was much better this game.
I thought he didn't try to force too much. But
you know, he miss lamps and stuff like I that's

(28:11):
the typical brick vick threes um that sort of stuff.
But he looked he looked good overall, kind of doing
the Russ stuff that he does, setting up plays, putting
pressure on the rim. But what what is the incremental thing?
What is the thing that you need if you had
to make a list of small things, right and just
small things. Not not just change the lineup because that
everybody's screaming for that already. You know that did not

(28:34):
not play two bigs. But what is the small process
thing that you want to see this Lakers team start
doing that they have not done or or you know,
maybe they did a little bit of at this time,
but they need to carry it over into the next game.
It's a really good question. Um, I would say pick
and roll defense. So and in two on two fascetts, So,

(28:55):
you know, you you kind of mentioned DeAndre Jordan earlier,
like being uh, it might have been you who mentioned
this on Twitter, but it might have been someone else.
I apologize if I'm crediting the wrong person here, but
there there's a difference between being in a drop coverage
and being active in a drop coverage. And DeAndre Jordan
has a tendency in those pick and roll coverages to

(29:16):
just stand there with his hands out by his side
and like, yeah, if you drive right into him like
an idiot, that he's gonna he's gonna bother you. But
but if you but like if you as far as
where you're at there, in that little pocket of space
there between the guy who's still caught on the screen
and in the four or five ft between you and
DeAndre Jordan's you're extremely comfortable as the ball handler. And

(29:36):
you know, one of the things that I'd like to
see is just more activity from that drop that drop
coverage man to at least force him to uh force
the guard to to continue to penetrate and and and
possibly do something that he doesn't want to do instead
of something that he's comfortable doing, you know what I mean.
Like Kawhi Leonard is one of the best in the

(29:56):
world at this, Like he will not let you dribble
comfortably outside of outside on the permiter. He's always going
to be up in you trying to make you make
a decision that you don't want to make, you know
what I mean. And that's what that's what all of
the pick and roll defenders on the Lakers need to
do at the at the at the big position, and
then the guards just need to do a better job
of chasing over the top. Right now, Russ I thought

(30:19):
did a pretty good job in the first half of
this base has done a pretty good job all season
so far of this. But almost everyone else on the roster,
especially Rondo, especially in the league Monk, those guys are
getting caught too much on that kind of thing, and
that's something that they can get better at, even just
incrementally over the course of the season to make that
coverage work. If that makes sense. No, I think you're

(30:42):
absolutely right. You know, the leaguers probably last season, Yeah,
I would say last regular season with gasol Um and
then eight in spots and then obviously the first season
with Javail and Dwight in that in that position, Like
they had very very consistent coverage I would say against
the at least from the big from pick and roll,

(31:03):
like JaVale was one of those guys where he would
just straight up run up and and just basically hedge
whoever was coming off of the screen because he knew
he was so long. Even if you beat him off
the hip, he would still try to get to your shot.
Sometimes it would result in um I think he used
to get called for goaltends a lot because of it,
because he used to kind of miss time some of
those blocks, or he'd be a little bit too late
game into the blox. But he it was always consistent, right,

(31:25):
so you always knew what javal was going to do.
So the rest of his teammates knew that, all right,
either JaVale is gonna, you know, make sure this guy
doesn't turn in the corner, or if he does, he's
gonna go for this block. So I I know where
I need to be, um do I former Defensive Player
of the Year. He know, like he's also much much better. Right,
he can stay, he can stand in an open space
against a lot of ball handlers and still you know,
kind of hold his own as they're coming off off

(31:46):
the pick and roll. I think you're absolutely right. I
think DeAndre when he's put in this position, when he's
put in that position, he does exactly what you're describing,
which is he just kind of stands in the middle
of no man's lines. So he's not in position to
you know, reflecting out of you, and he's not in
position to block a shot or challenge a shot with
enough authority. So I agree with you. I think that

(32:08):
should be a small process thing that that that should
improve Um. One of the process things that I would
like to see, uh short of improved, is um better
better guard rebounding, like like Rust grabbed a couple of rebounds.
But one of the things that I think I was
a little happy about where I was happy to see

(32:29):
is Um. You know, when they played League Monk today,
like he was in jumping into traffic and grabbing some
rebounds and then he would push it out on the break.
Um when they did when he had his first shift
after after at the very beginning of the game, and
some of some of them. You know, like the shot
quality was pretty good. Uh, you know, the guys that
he was setting up. He has a little bit of
an issue sometimes with like tunnel vision, like he kind

(32:51):
of misses guys that are already standing and waiting. Um,
but that's okay because he's kind of still learning, uh
as the process goes. But like, um, if the Lakers
are gonna play two big, so those two bigs aren't
going to come out to like the mid range area
to rebound the ball or the long too area to
rebound the ball, and there needs to be better rebounding
from that standpoint because you know, like if they're not.

(33:12):
If if you're gonna scare teams away from taking shots
at the rim, that's fine, but then you can't also
let them get the long rebounds if you're forcing them
into into you know, threes and jumpers. So that kind
of stuff has to be cleaned up or else, like
the second chance opportunities will eventually catch up to them. Um,
what do you what do you what do you think
about that? Do you think agree? You know who used

(33:33):
to be really good at that was caseyp If you
don't remember he used to do he always understood like
the value of the defensive rebound. Uh, and understanding that
the possession is worthless if you can't get insecure the
rebound after it's way more valuable than the transition attempt.
If that makes sense. Um, And I actually thought I'm

(33:54):
glad you pointed out Molie because I actually thought Molie
looked pretty good tonight. Um. He stopped a nub Or
transition play where Chris Paul kind of had a steam
had a scheme and he forced him into a fade away.
He's actually blown up I think four fast breaks already
this season, which is kind of wild for a thin,
wiry six ft three guard. Another guy who used to
do a really good job of what you're talking about

(34:15):
is Kyle Kuzma. Kyle Kuzma used to do really good
job of coming flying in from out of the play
to help secure the defensive rebound. I'm with you, that's
definitely something that can be incrementally approved improved. Um kind
of along the same vein in terms of like something
that is strategically kind of drives me insane. And I
want to see if you agree with this, So like again,

(34:37):
Chris Paul gets you on the screen, gets you on
a switch. And so let's say it's you know, uh,
Anthony Davis for instance, because I think he made at
least what three or four pull up long twos over
Anthony Davis. So on those plays, Anthony Davis is kind
of like crawling him, you know what I mean, Like
like I kind of had him where I want him

(34:59):
on the or I'm taking away the rim he's not
getting by me, and so on the surface, it looks
like good defense, right and then and then Chris Paul
takes the fade away and you think, oh, like Anthony
Davis did his job. He made he made Chris Paul
take a tough fade away and his hand was right there,
just just went in like I gotta shake the guy's hand.
And my opinion on that is like Chris Paul wants that,

(35:22):
he wants that shot. All he's doing on those weird
corral dribbles is he's just getting his rhythm and getting
to the point where he feels comfortable. And my thing,
it kind of goes back to what I was talking
about with Kawhi Leonard. There was a there was a
famous game like years ago. I don't know if you
guys remember I think it was Katie's last game in
the last season in Golden State where he was in

(35:43):
Toronto on the road and Golden State was down three
coming out of the time out and Kevin Durant was
bringing the ball up the floor and and kau I
just jumped in and and made instead of letting him
get comfortable, because you know, you always think of Katie
taking that pull up three over Lebron, right, Like one
of the critical mistakes Lebron made there is, yeah, you

(36:04):
contested the shot, Yeah you made Katie take a pull
up three, but that's the shot Katie wanted and he
was comfortable, And so you have to at a certain
point strategically, you gotta jump in and yeah, he might
beat you off the dribble, but if he beats you
off the dribble, first of all, he didn't want to
do that on that play. He wanted his jump shots.
So now he's he's adapting on the fly. Secondly, you

(36:26):
put yourself in a position where your health defenders can
be there and maybe you can rotate your way out
of it. But just strategically, something I'd like to see teams,
all teams do a better job of it is like
when they get the switch and they're doing all those
rhythm dribbles. You you can't just let them do that
because they've won the possession at that point. At a
certain point, you've got to jump the person and make

(36:48):
them do something else, even if it's what seems like
a high percentage play, just because it's not what they
want to do and they're uncomfortable, it might give you
a better chance of success, especially when they already have
the rhythm. Like you said, Chris Paul got his rhythm
at the free throw line and built his confidence and
he rode that into making a bunch of contested jump shots.
On the surface, it looks like good defense, but in reality,

(37:10):
Chris Paul was comfortable and he was getting exactly what
he wanted. Yeah, Chris Paul's old ass, that's what he
wants to do, Like he wants to like he's old, Like, well,
why do you think Lebron when he was like for
the past couple of years, Like he keeps looking down
at his hand, like there's a rhythm, there's a motion
that these old guys get into because that's what they're
most comfortable with. And Chris Paul's old ass was trying
to do that all through the playoffs, and then once

(37:32):
he ran into the box, Drew Holiday said all right,
we're not doing this. We're not doing this anymore, and
he started pressing him from like three quarters of the quarter.
He had Chris Paul dribbling backwards for like six of
those games, Like he said, I'm not gonna let you
get into rhythm. So what it forced them to do
was and you know, obviously this is this is the
Buck series. This is different because you you game plan differently.

(37:53):
Lakers may not game plan the same way because it's
a regular season obviously, but it's when you when you
press the ball handler, uh and from half court and
you don't let him get comfortable and dictate which where
are the screens coming up? Us like the screen the
defense dictates where the screen comes from. So now deal
and has to set that screen way above the three

(38:13):
point line. So now, maybe DeAndre Jordan is not kind
of confused as to what, you know, what he's supposed
to do. He's not standing in no man's land or uh,
you know, the a D or whoever whoever the guard is. Sorry,
he can recover or switch or whatever that has to happen.
But if you're just letting them dribble around and do
whatever they want to do, like they're just gonna pick
their spots, you know, like Devin Booker is just gonna

(38:35):
dribble right to the free throw line like he likes to,
and he's gonna pull up right and he doesn't like
going left. Like Booker doesn't like going left, Chris Paul
doesn't like going left, like neither of them like to
go left. That's something that the Clippers scouted out in
the playoffs last year, Like if you force them to
go in a certain direction, you can dictate what they're
you know, what decision that they're going to make. And again,
like I said, it's just regular season, but you're right,

(38:56):
like a d is the athlete, Like why are you
watching this old dude just kind of tell you, you you know,
dictate what kind of shot he's going to take, Like
he knows that he's not going to get by you. Uh,
and if he gets by you, he's probably just gonna
stop short and try and draw a foul with you
running into him from behind, because that's what Chris Paul does.
So it's I think these kind of small things they
probably get ironed out over the course of the season. Um,

(39:19):
but you know, you bring up an interesting thing, you know, like,
I'm sure that Chris Paul is shooting that jumper over
Anthony Davis. The highlight is going to be shared like
on Twitter, right, and people are going all Adie that,
you guys, sure he's the defense player here, blah blah blah,
all that sort of stuff, And so what what is
your thought on what a d has looked like? I

(39:40):
let me as a specifically on the offensive end, but
what do you think, what does Adie look like to
you on the offensive end so far through these two games?
So it's it's ironic, right, because he looked fantastic in
the opening night game, but the two games sandwiching that
were two of the worst games he's ever played. I
think he is four for nineteen against Sacramento and then

(40:03):
I don't remember his finals stat line from tonight. He
was like, but it was bad. So the point so, uh,
Anthony Davis tries to build his rhythm in the same
way that Kuzma tries to build his rhythm. And it's
something that has always driven me nuts. It's this idea
that like they go into the game, and they start

(40:24):
by taking tough shots, and when they start going in,
it's like it's like you're you're just your s O L.
You're done. Like even Kyle Kuzma, he makes a couple
of his tough ones to start the game, he might
get you know what I mean. But but like with
Anthony Davis, it's like a nuclear version of that, right,
Like he was just unstoppable against Golden State because he

(40:44):
was making all of those tough, fading, leaning shots in
the lane. But then when he misses him, when he
misses him to start the game, there's no easy to
bounce that balance that out, you know. And one of
the reasons why Lebron has been so efficient throughout his
entire rear, he always builds his rhythm with easy ones.
They're one of the reasons why he's made a bunch

(41:05):
of threes to start this season. Like you pointed out earlier,
the shot quality is fantastic. The threes he takes are
always in rhythm, in balance, uncontested, and then maybe the
third or fourth one makes might be contested, but at
that point he already has his rhythm. At that point.
It's like Chris Paul on those little step back jump shots.
He's exactly where he wants to be and he's comfortable

(41:27):
and if that makes sense. So one of the things
that I'd like to see Anthony Davis doo a better
job because physically he looks great. I think that's good.
Although tonight was weirdly reminiscent of game Game one where
he kind of got physically pushed around a lot by
eighton Um. There was that the famous one where they
both got the double technicals there I think it was
early fourth quarter, but even late third quarter where where

(41:50):
got the ball deep under the basket and Eton just
kind of shoved him around and didn't get the no
call obviously because the rest were letting a lot of
that kind of stuff go. And next thing you know,
it's fallen out of bound and the balls off of
him and now he's screaming at eight and he's screaming
at the rest and it's like, no, man, Like the
rests are letting this be physical, and you just got
out physical by the third year center, you know, the

(42:10):
the you know, the same one that you were talking
trash to the other night in the preseason. So like
at a certain point, you know, and some of this
is on the spacing stuff. It's kind of all tied
together because I do think it'd be easier for Anthony
Davis to get easier shots to start the game if
he wasn't playing alongside the under Jordan's But but I
do get frustrated watching his process of offense. And he's

(42:31):
so damn talented that it doesn't really affect him that much.
But I do think that the next level for him
is consistency, right, Like, the next level for him is
almost every night looks like that Golden State game, And
the best way for that to happen is to consistently
build his rhythm the right way by starting with easy

(42:53):
stuff and working his way backwards from there. Yeah, so
I agree with you. Um, I was going to I
was going to riff on the you know, I don't
know if we're playing on bringing up guests, um, but
if we don't have time tonight, well guys, we're going
to do guests on Sunday night after that game. We
have our we're just doing hard five minute outs for
dash Radio. So obviously then a ven is a different

(43:16):
guest and Rog and I've had for a long time,
so we wanted to kind of give him an opportunity to, uh,
you know, kind of talk about some stuff that we
haven't talked about before. But Rog and I will both
be back Sunday and we'll do guests then. So tonight
we're gonna just doven A. But I do appreciate you
guys for for coming in, and I appreciate you understanding,
and I hope you'll come back on Sunday and request
to speak then anyway, go ahead. Yeah, so so you know,

(43:39):
I I agree with you. You know, I think, um,
he he's not doing himself any favors UM when it
comes to having having the second big on the floor.
I don't think he's ever going to get good touches
or he's ever going to get good looks um with
if IF as long as they continue to run UM
two bigs to start games, because it's just really really
hard between asking Russ to attack the rim to collapse

(44:01):
the paint. Bron You know, Brons look great because he's
making all these open threes, but it's just like where, now,
where where do a d S shots come from? Right?
He's not in the dunker spot. He's either standing in
the corner. He's not the one who's making the screens
for Russ, like he's not involved in the offense and
the way you want, like maybe you run a couple
of picking pop plays, because you can't run a pick

(44:22):
and role play with DeAndre, there's going to be a
second guy available. So it's just there's a lot of stuff.
I think his offense is suffering because of the two
bigs and uh, you know, I know there's a tug
of war on on Twitter about you know, is it Vogel,
is it a d um, you know, whatever it is.
I think his offense is suffering the most because of

(44:42):
it because and and you know, one of the things
I talked about in the off season, or I was
kind of trying to mention the offseason, is that if
the Lakers size down and he plays the five, there's
more opportunity for him to get more picking pops and
there's more opportunity for him to get like easy how
you attempts or you know, one of those rusts collapses
the paint and kind of drops it off to him

(45:03):
and he has to kind of finish through somebody like
something that to to help him get like sort of
a lather as it relates to what it is maybe
he gets a couple of quick early fouls so that
he can get to the free throw line and find
his jump shot a little bit earlier. Stuff I got.
It's it's I think, the two big thing. More than
it's hurting Russ, it's hurting a D because it's allowing

(45:23):
him to do exactly what you're describing, which is he
takes a bunch of jump shots which were probably low
quality jump shots because you know that everybody on defense
just standing around, everybody offense is just standing around, and
they're not good quality jump shots. And if he makes him,
that's great. You know, we get a start like the
Warriors game where we're like, Wow, Anthony James is back,

(45:43):
or we get games like or we get games like
this one where it just doesn't look good, you know.
And there was a point where I want to say,
at the beginning game, they ran a pick and roll
with a D and he did like a pick and
pop jumper at the free throw line, which he made
and it looked great. I was like, oh wow, it
looks like DeAndre Atan is not going to step out
on these. They should just keep running this over and
over again. And then they like never ran any and

(46:06):
I was just like, okay, like I don't understand, like
what's going you know, So that that's what I'm trying
to say, Like it doesn't there's no consistency when you
have two bigs on the floor, so it hurts your
offensive players the most. So you're taking away Russell's ability
to attack, uh you know, get the first step on
his guy and attack the paint. And now you're also
making it difficult for a D to do anything with

(46:28):
the ball. And when it's in his hand, Braun can
shoot the ship out of the ball. So it's not
gonna matter. He'll be fine, it won't. It won't be
a big deal at all. Um. So that I'm my
concern with a D on the defensive end is not
just that that big, because I think once his conditioning
gets there and stuff, I got some of the some
of the silly stuff that he's getting cooked for and
it'll go away eventually. My concern is genuinely on the

(46:49):
offensive end with him, like he has to be he
has to be good, like we can't. These last two games,
Lebron has been great, like great to his standard, and
he's doing in a way that I did not expect
him to do, which is was just with the three ball.
Like I did not expect Braun to be taking as
many threes to start games as he has, but he has,
and he's been doing really well. I need a D

(47:10):
to build some consistency. And uh, you know, I'm not
gonna lie. I know the Laker fans probably don't want
to see the Lakers start off, you know, like oh
and three on four and five. But if that's the
way that we get an a D at the five lineup,
like I'd rather they lose, because I honestly think that's
the only way the Lakers are going to win. Like
a D has to be committed to playing that five

(47:32):
position at least to start the games. Like flip the rotation,
start a D at the five and then go into
the two bigs or whatever it is you want to
do against opposing benches and end the first quarter. Because
a D and Dwight actually have a weird defensive like
like craziness to them. That's hard for other teams score on. Right, Yeah,
don't don't. Don't start with the two biggs. Jump start

(47:53):
your offense by playing a space lineup and then grind
the game down to a halt against opposing benches, but
don't don't do it the other way, because I think
when they I think teams have already kind of scouted
the Lakers out because Voco hasn't really changed very much
of his philosophy, and they kind of know how they
want to approach these games. So like, uh, who does
Memphis having Memphis has Steven Adams right, like he's a trip. Now,

(48:15):
this is three games now, folks, Like, for anybody's listening,
we've had Kavan Looney, we have DeAndre, and we've had
Steven Adams. If they go with two bigs again, you're
going to see very very similar stuff. You're going to
see the four guys space it out. So a D
can't help help on defense for DeAndre. If DeAndre gets
pulled away and you're going to see like the same

(48:35):
sort of thing happened, Lebron will probably get really good shots.
Russ may look good too as well, But we don't
know a version of a D we're gonna get because
we're running two bigs. That's that's uh, that's that's probably
the one thing that's on my mind more than anything
at all. I'm so glad you did such a good
job of breaking that down, and I sincerely appreciate that.
I first of all, thank you again for hopping on here.

(48:56):
I really enjoy having you on when you do have
the time for it. You it's such a good job
of breaking it down, because it's so you know, my
biggest beef with the analytics community has nothing to do
with analytics. It has to do with the fact that
they kind of disconnect. They try to take away the
organic elements of basketball, because there are organic elements of basketball.
They're they're they're meaning like, it's not no two shots

(49:18):
are the same. It's the easiest way that I could
break it down, okay, And it's really the simple. Okay.
So I've been playing basketball the vast majority of my life,
and and some days when I play, I shoot well,
and some days when I play, I don't. Now, you
can try to associate that with just luck, but I
don't see it that way. It's usually a culmination of
a bunch of factors. Okay. Sometimes it's just somebody who

(49:41):
does a really good job guarding me. Sometimes it's bad
process on my part. Sometimes it's you know, some Jankee
zone that just throws you out of your rhythm. Or
whatever it is. But the bottom line is, there's like
a there's a like a natural organic flow to a
basketball game. And the way you start is the is

(50:01):
the is always going to be that first step in
whatever direction you're going in. You know, like the russ
had a horrible, horrible game on on Tuesday night, but
it started with a jankee you know, ugly offense type
of flow in in in that first stint, with those starters,

(50:22):
and I genuinely believe, even if it hurts you with
your defensive rating, even if it hurts you in terms
of uh rebounding, even if it hurts you in in
in a handful of these different even if other teams
had more points in the paint, which, by the way,
Phoenix absolutely destroyed us in the paint in the first half,
despite us playing Deandretan and Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis

(50:44):
for large portions of that. So you couldn't tell me
that has anything to do with it. But at the
end of the day, and you could sacrifice a bunch
of those things, but you could tell me that Anthony
Davis would be more confident after every one of his
first stints. I would take it because At the end
of the day, this team goes as far as Lebron

(51:04):
and Anthony Davis take them, and the only way that
they will consistently play well, Lebron is gonna be Lebron.
Lebron is one of the most consistent players in NBA history.
But for Anthony Davis to be consistent, I think it's
gonna have to be with him being at the five
because it's the only way for him to inevitably get
that organic basketball game flow headed off on the right

(51:26):
foot every night because he has, like you said, like
you cannot run a pick and roll with Anthony Davis
because of the dunker DeAndre Jordan in the dunker spot,
So you have to have him spot up and you
have to DeAndre Jordan clump and set the screen. What
if every action to start the game was Anthony Davis,
it was either russan a D or Lebron and Nadi

(51:47):
or Russ and a D or Lebron in a D.
Chances are he's going to get off the better starts
every night. It's and it will inherently lead to better
free throw shooting because he feels more confident in himself.
It will in early lead to better three point shooting.
It will lead to better defense. His defense suffered tonight
because he was struggling, and it manifested in other areas

(52:09):
of his game. And and and you cannot tell me
till that you could present the most amazing list metrics
this world has ever seen that breaks down even the
most intricate basketball possessions. And you will never be able
to tell me that there isn't like a living organism
to the way that a basketball game progresses. And that
always gets lost in these kinds of things. No, I

(52:31):
think you're absolutely right. I think all this stuff is
like incremental stuff. Um, it's all. It all contributes in
small ways, you know, more touches for Anthony Davis, more
consistent touches in a role for Anthony Davis, like stuff
like that, you know, allowing people to slot into the
positions that they have. My thing is this, like, what
do you have to lose in the regular season if
if we're going to step back, if we're going to

(52:53):
step back as Laker fans and say that, look, the
regular season doesn't matter. It's a process. We have to
learn to be the best team that we can and
the good habits so that going into the playoffs, were
locked in and we know what we are, just like
we did two years ago, just like we did last year,
which which is why we survived, you know, not having
brought any of either. Then what is the harm in
doing it now? There's no harm in trying it now.

(53:14):
And if it if it fails, if it sucks, then okay,
then you go back to the drawing board and you
do it different. Yeah exactly, But now we also but
now we have two years, two years and two games,
you know, or not two full years obviously, but we
have a lot of games of seeing this not work,
you know what I mean. And I don't know what

(53:34):
more Vocal needs to see or Anthony Davis needs to see,
or if it's a wear and tear thing, like look,
if Anthony Davis says, look, it's too much wear and
tear on my body to play the five, I'm gonna
miss possessions, I won't get the defense rebounds, all right,
cool man, Like, let's give up more offensive rebounds. We
can look at it in film and we can tell
the rest of the guards, and we can tell Lebroun, like,
hey help him out, help him rebound the ball and
stuff like that because he can't do it himself. But

(53:56):
how do we come to that conclusion if we don't
actually see it happened, right, It can't all just be
hyd pothetical conversations. And so I'm just curious to see
this this this game on Sunday. Um, it's gonna be
another traditional five, and I won't be surprised of Vogel
plays two bigs yet again. I just I don't know
what's going to happen, um, because I think it's a

(54:18):
little bit of fool's gold some that those lineups kind
of start off really well because we kind of see
what happens after that. So you know, a lot of
this you know conversation has been very critical, but they
were definitely you know, small things that that were improving.
I think the Monk plus Russ them being kind of

(54:39):
active rebounderies in the guard position and pushing out in transition.
I think that was really really good stuff and I
think it's something that the leaders can build on. I
hope that Austin Reeves kid gets more gets more burned,
because I actually do like him and how he plays
and stuff like that. He kind of fits in naturally.
So you know, we'll see Uh, well, we'll eventually get there.
There's you and I are both you and are both

(55:00):
Laker optimists, and over the course of the season, it's
there's a difference between frustration and like actual pessimism. Those
are two completely different things, you know, And I would
describe what we're feeling as frustration, which is warranted in
this case. Um. But anyway, the day, I sincerely appreciate
you taking the time to join me tonight, UM means

(55:21):
a lot. I hope we will see you many times
throughout this season when time permits. And for all of
you guys who listen, thank you so much for hanging
out over the course of the last hour. Roger will
be back on Sunday, and hopefully we can do a
show like this after a Lakers win and uh and
get you guys up here to talk about something positive

(55:41):
instead of something negative. All right, man, that I appreciate,
appreciate Stubby and for ROJ hopefully he comes back sober
and healthy. And you guys are good. You guys are
good to go on Sunday, but you know, I appreciate it, uh,
And you know, as as always, you guys continue to
do great, great stuff. Where with these post games, so

(56:01):
I always enjoy it. Thanks for n H right, everybody,
have a good night.