December 5, 2024 • 30 mins
Jason Timpf discusses why he is DONE with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers following their embarrassing 134-93 loss to the Miami Heat. Jason breaks down LA's lack of effort and interest in playing competitive basketball and what has gone wrong with JJ Redick as head coach. Later, Jason reacts to Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks' 119-104 win over Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks for their fifth straight win.
Timeline:
5:15 - Done with the Lakers
25:00 - Hawks stay hot vs. Bucks
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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co slash b ball. All right, welcome to hoop tonight
here at the volume Heapy Thursday. Everybody, hope, all you
guys are having a great week. Got a quick show
for you guys today. I've got a rant about the
(01:53):
Lakers off the top. I won't say anymore right now,
we'll just get right into it. And then at the
tail end of the show. The Atlanta Hawks won the
fifth consecutive game on the road in Milwaukee, very impressively.
Jalen Johnson is playing super well, very interesting team construct
that's coming together for the Atlanta Hawk, so we're gonna
do a deep dive on them in the tail end
of the show. You guys did the trip before we
(02:14):
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
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Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your
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And the last, but not at least kee dropping mail
bag questions. I'm recording a mail bag in tomorrow's episode,
(02:36):
and this video today will be your last chance to
drop comments questions in the comments so that we can
hit them in that mail bag. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So at the risk of sounding like an
absolute fool, because just two days ago I said I
wasn't ready to admit I was wrong about the Lakers.
Last night was such an abomination that I don't even
(02:56):
care about being wrong or looking like a fool. Anybody
who wants to roast me in the comments go nuts.
I'm done with the Los Angeles Lakers. This team simply
does not have the basketball character necessary to compete for
an NBA championship. There's an illness within this team that
goes too deep to be fixed, even by a trade
(03:18):
or a team meeting or any sort of potential remedy.
I think this team is broken. We're not gonna talk
about x's and o's. I just shelf that for a bit,
and let's focus on this concept of basketball character. I
generally have a lot of grace for teams that go
through bad stretches in the regular season. The eighty two
game season is super long, and you can grab just
(03:39):
about any team in the league and you can find
a game or two or they look so bad that
if you just watched that game, you can't even imagine
that team being good. You can do that with just
about everybody. I pay more attention to big picker big
picture trends, right, So, like, are your bad stretches few
and far between? Do you identify them, do you rectify them?
(04:01):
Do you snap out of it? That's why I look
at like like defensive rating in the big picture as
like more of an indicator of just how dedicated you
are in a night and night in night out basis
at playing hard? Right, are you generally reliable? When we
zoom out from the season, I'm going to be more
forgiving of a bad stretch. But this is the fourth
consecutive season under three different coaches that I've seen a
(04:25):
Laker team completely lose the will to fight. Not for
a quarter, not for a game, not even for a
couple of games, but for weeks out of time. This
Laker team, for four years in a row, has completely
lost their entire competitive spirit. Con Coward used to say
this thing on his show where he'd be like, if
(04:47):
you get divorced once, that's normal. If you get divorced twice,
you know, you might raise an eyebrow, But if you
get divorced three times, maybe there's something wrong with you. Right.
And I had that issue as I was evaluating this
team through the coaching changes. This team also had stretches
weeks long where they wouldn't compete under Frank Vogel, So
(05:09):
I thought they just need a new voice. Frank Vogel
is a good coach, especially a good defensive coach. Yeah,
he might have some offensive limitations. Whatever, he's a good coach.
These guys just are tuning him out. Let's try something different.
But then they did it to Darvin Ham, and I thought,
it's just because Darvin Ham's a bad coach. He's making
funky rotation decisions, doesn't seem to be very schematically involved
(05:30):
with the teams. Kind of just like, come on, guys,
let's go do just that sort of thing, right. They
had that three to ten stretch in December where they
looked completely lifeless. But if you guys remember those guys
who listened to the show during that time, I was
talking about how I thought they just were trying to
get Darvin fired in the middle of the season. Like
I thought they were like openly protesting in the middle
of the season. But now they're doing it to JJ Reddick.
(05:51):
Last night was legitimately the worst effort I've ever seen
a team give in a serious basketball game at any level.
It was flat out in Garrison, and it started right away.
It started in the It started after like the first
couple minutes of the game. This wasn't like the third
quarter collapse against the Suns or the third quarter collapse
against the Nuggets that in the first quarter they had
(06:11):
an extended multi minute stretch with the starters where they
weren't competing. And it's been going on like this for
eight games. Ever since the misfree throws against Orlando, they've
been in this exact same funk, Like, how do you
get embarrassed the way you got embarrassed in Minnesota in
the big picture of having lost all the games you've
(06:33):
lost in the last couple of weeks, and your response
as a competitor is to come out the way you
did last night. I do not understand it. And so like,
at a certain point, if you did it to Frank,
and you did it to Darvin, and you're doing it
to JJ, then that's just who you are. And that's
(06:54):
the concerning part for me, because what about the Lakers
organization has been consistent? If in the through lines through
these four years, Lebron and Ad and Rob Polenka, that's
pretty much it. Osira's played a little bit in the
last year Frank Vogel, but like Rob Polinka and Lebron,
James and Anthony Davis, they are the through lines of
(07:15):
this issue. That is perpetuated through the last four seasons.
The two stars just haven't been willing to fight on
a daily basis in a way that is necessary to
compete for an NBA championship. And Rob Polinka has been
blind to that weakness and has made no attempt to
resolve it over that span. Lebron hasn't attacked a regular
season from start to finish since the twenty twenty one season. Now,
(07:37):
I understand it to a certain extent with his age,
Like I've I watched Lebron attack every game of the
regular season for well over a decade. That's who he
was as a basketball player. But in this phase of
his career, he's not capable or willing to do it. Now,
you got you can understand it with his age, But
the material reality is that thirty to forty games a year,
(07:58):
Lebron's gonna kind of stand around on defense and kind
of standing around on the defensive glass, just kind of
tried to pass his way through the game, take jump shots,
and try to do the bare minimum to win that game.
That's been the reality now for about three four years.
And then Anthony Davis, as talented as he is, doesn't
have natural motor sometimes he looks like the best player
in the world. Sometimes for long stretches. He was awesome
(08:21):
for the second half of last year and the playoffs.
He was awesome to start this year. But then sometimes
he just doesn't look interested in fighting. He got his
ass kicked by Bam last night, didn't fight, got his
ass kicked by Gobaar the previous game, didn't fight. Earlier
this year, second half against Durkic got his ass kick,
didn't care. Jared Allen and Cleveland got his ass kick,
didn't care. Nikole Jokic kicked his ass, didn't care. Jared
Jackson kicked his ass, didn't care. And it's not just
(08:44):
the regular season, by the way, I remember being super
frustrated in the twenty twenty three season in the Western
Conference finals that Ad didn't seem really to have that
fight against Jokic as he was kicking his ass. And
I know it's in there because I literally watched him
the very next season play to a stalemate with Nikola
Jokich in a first round series. The motor isn't consistent
(09:06):
for Anthony Davis. It's funny because I even when I
think back to the good old days and like you
Laker fans that have been following me on Twitter since
before I started with the volume might remember some of
this stuff. But in the championship season when they won
in twenty twenty, there was a game about once a
week where Ad would come out in the first half
and he'd just kind of be flat, and when he
(09:29):
was flat, the rest of the team would be engaged.
Lebron I thought should have won MVP that year was
the last season he like truly attacked things every single
day that season in the twenty the year right after
where the last two times I saw Lebron like really
attack the regular season, but Ady was just kind of
coasting through the game. And then what would happen is
every single time in the second half he would just
(09:50):
kind of get swept up in the competitive energy of
the team. And Ad was an awesome second half player
that year, especially in the playoffs. But like now in retrospect,
looking back at it, it's kind of like a continuation
of that same personality trade, which is that sometimes Ad
laces him up and walks out there and just kind
(10:11):
of doesn't feel like fighting. And this is where Rob
Polinka has blood on his hands. These characteristics of the
stars have been pretty clear for a while. The twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one Lakers just had a lot
of high motor players to compensate for Alex Crusoe high
motor two way athlete, Contavious Calledwo Pope, high motor two
(10:31):
way athlete, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, even having big athletic
centers like JaVale McGee Dwight Howard in twenty twenty to
cover for those games that ad wasn't super engaged. But
when he traded them away, it was abundantly clear that
the Lakers missed out on that motor immediately. I mean, guys,
they missed the playoffs the very next season. Even when
(10:53):
they brought in all of that offense in the Rush
trade in the middle of the twenty twenty three season.
You bring in Ruie, you bring in d Lo, and
there's clearly some upside with all the offensive talent. It
became abundantly clear in the Nuggets series that they were
still severely lacking in that high motor athleticism, as the
Nuggets just ran through and jumped over every one of
their perimeter players for the entire series. It's been clear
(11:17):
for a while and rob has still done nothing, and
now it's probably too late. Last year in April, Lebron
and AD were both playing at a top ten level
and we're both engaged pretty consistently, and that roster wasn't
good enough. So any upside that you gained by waiting
(11:38):
to maybe get something better in the trade has now
been lost by the decline of Lebron and the disengagement
of Anthony Davis, who's playing the worst basketball he's played
since back in twenty twenty three. But Jason, Lebron and
AD are clearly just frustrated. They don't believe in this roster. Yeah,
you're probably right, and that probably plays a little bit
of a role, especially with Lebron, Like the last time
(12:01):
Lebron was consistently engaged on a day to day basis
was the last time this roster was good. But I
even think with that, with Lebron's age and then with
the stuff we were talking about with ads Motor earlier,
I even think that necessary isn't necessarily telling the full story,
and regardless, it doesn't change the material reality. Like we
talked about earlier, that Lebron and AD are not attacking
(12:23):
the regular season on a day in a day out basis, Now,
where do we go from here? To be clear, I'm
not saying this team is bad. The Lakers have won
forty two of their last sixty eight regular season games,
forty two and twenty six. Bad teams can't do that.
If we fast forwarded this season and the Lakers were
forty two and twenty six, they'd be a top four
seed and everyone would be talking about them as a
(12:44):
fringe championship contender. I know that they can win, and
they will have more stretches this year where they look good,
they rack up some wins, and they beat some good teams.
But I'm completely out on this team as a championship contender.
I had them ranked eighth coming into the season as
a team that could potentially make a trade and vault
into contention. No, no chance. Every champion I've ever watched
(13:08):
has had a daily pursuit of excellence that drives them.
When a team like that gets their ass kicked in Minnesota,
which by the way, is part of just being in
the Western Conference. When you get your ass kicked on
the road, you take it personally, You get pissed off,
and you send a message the next time out and
even if you lose the next time out, you go
down fighting, you go down swinging. And the Lakers sent
(13:30):
a very different message last night. They sent the message
that they have no interest in fighting, which means they
have no interest in competing for an NBA championship. So
I'm done with them. They need a dramatic roster turnover
to bring in the basketball character that is lacking, and
it's just not possible to do that within one season.
I think they should trade Lebron and ad start the rebuild.
(13:50):
Genie Bus needs a fire Rob Pulink and hire somebody
who actually understands basketball, and they need a fresh start.
I feel bad for JJ Redick, Like, think about it,
You're you have like the cushest job in the world
as a multi millionaire making TV media personality, where he
works less, is around his family more, and is under
(14:11):
less pressure. And his love for the game of basketball
causes him to drop all of that and walk into
that tire fire down in Los Angeles. And he goes
in there trying to establish a basketball culture. And these
guys just can't fucking be bothered. They just can't fucking
be bothered. I feel bad for him. They need to
they need to completely break this thing down. They need
(14:33):
to completely reinvest in JJ Reddick in a new front
office and try to build a quality basketball culture from
the ground up. Now, one last thing I want to
get into before we move on to hawksbucks. This concept
of basketball chemistry, this concept of basketball character. How can that?
How can what happened to the Lakers be prevented? Basketball
chemistry is like a delicate balance. There's a lot of
(14:54):
different things that you need in order to have the
right type of locker room to win a title. We
talked earlier about like these checkpoints that you have to
get through to win an NBA championship. There's these characteristics
that you see championship teams have that are pretty consistent
down the line. Mark Titus from Barstool, he came on
a while back, and remember he presented that idea of
(15:18):
that basketball is more art than science. And this is
something that I've always believed in. I remember when I
read Bill Simmons's basketball book, he referred to it as
the secret based on something he heard from I believe
Isaiah Thomas if I remember correctly, and I'm a big
believer in that concept. There's kind of like a magical
mix of ingredients that makes the right type of basketball
(15:40):
personality to drive a team. You need veteran leadership, but
you also need youthful exuberants. You need high motor guys
who love the daily process, but you also need even
keeled guys who never get too high and never get
too low. You need somebody in there who leads by example.
You need someone in there who can be vocal when
the time comes. It's a magical mix of those characteristics. So,
(16:03):
for instance, if you're building around Lebron James and Anthony Davis,
and you know Lebron is a dead serious player that
will always be locked in for the real games, but
that is not going to bring it for the eighty two.
And you've got another star who has this apex talent
but has consistently struggled with motor. What is the obvious
thing that you need to anchor them with guys who
(16:27):
love the daily process, athletic motor size size with motor
that can help you carry things during the regular season,
so that Lebron and Ad have no choice but to
get swept up in that energy, just like they did
in the twenty twenty and twenty twenty one seasons. It's
a valuable lesson learned in team building from what happens
(16:47):
to the Lakers in this year. Again, I understand that
a lot of people are going to be like, dude,
you are going back on something you were harping on
pretty heavy for a year. Totally get it. I was.
I attached my names of this Laker team in a
lot of way, in a lot of ways, as a
team that I believed in, as a team that I
thought had real upside based on the fact that for
(17:08):
most of twenty twenty four they were good. As I
talked about. They're forty two and twenty six in their
last sixty was at sixty eight regular season games. But
I'm just done what I saw last night. I could
I could not, I could not believe what I was
seeing last night, And I can't in my right mind
sit up here and talk about that team as a
potential championship contender when they are made up of the
(17:29):
type of stuff that causes what we saw last night.
And so I'm done with them. Okay, We're gonna cover
them just like we do any other team. If they
go on a win streak or whatever, we'll we'll talk
about them and what they're doing. Well, if it makes
some big trade, we'll cover them. I'm not gonna stop
talking about the Lakers entirely, but I'm not. I don't
consider them to be a championship contender. They're just not.
That's an unserious basketball team over there, and it starts
with the leadership. Let's talk about a serious basketball team,
(18:05):
or at least a team that's playing some serious basketball
as of late. So Hawksbucks last night, really fun game.
Bucks get off to a hot start. The one went
up double figures a few times in the first half
or in the first quarter. I should say bench group
comes in, you know, Gary tren Junior comes in, Bobby
Portis comes in, and the Hawks start forcing a lot
of turnovers. They start getting out in transition. Damian Lillard
had a very uncharacteristically sloppy end to the first quarter.
(18:25):
He had three consecutive pick six turnovers, meaning like he
turned the ball over and the Hawks went down and
scored in the fast break three consecutive times down the floor.
I can't even remember seeing that at any point with
another player. Well, I've seen teams do that, but I
haven't seen an individual player do that in a long time,
but the Hawks just completely took control of the game
at that point, and the Bucks tried to battle back
(18:46):
a few times. A few times they made a few runs.
They went zone in the third quarter and kind of
disheveled the Hawks for a little bit and got it
down to I think they got it down within eight
or seven, But every single time they did, the Hawks
would just get a couple of stops and a couple
of transition run outs, and they would get right back
in control of the game. And some of the stats
that the Hawks put up in this game were outrageous.
They had sixty four points in the paint. The Bucks
(19:08):
came in as the eighth ranked paint defense, allowing just
forty six points per one hundred possessions. The Hawks came
in as the third ranked paint offense fifty four points
per one hundred possession, so a top five paint offense
versus a top ten paint defense, and the Hawks just
dominated that battle, although most of it was in transition.
They scored sixty four points in the paint. They had
thirty fast break points the Bucks average allowing thirteen per game,
(19:32):
so they nearly tripled their fast break point output on average.
Jalen johnson speed was huge here. He was out racing
them all night long, getting ahead of the defense on
leakouts when Milwaukee was in sharp with just like their
get back responsibilities. And there's even a play in the
fourth quarter where I think I think it was Giannis
missed a free throw, one of the Bucks missed free throw,
and Jalen Johnson got the rebound off of a situation
where the Bucks should have their transition defense set and
(19:54):
he just literally ran right through everybody and lay the
ballup and it put him up eleven. And that was
kind of like the story of the game. They just
couldn't contain Atlanta's speed in the open court. They had
twenty one second chance points. They're averaging the Bucks average
allowing just eleven per game, and they gave up twenty one.
The Hawks had sixteen offensive reboundsers. By the way, they've
been dominating games on the offensive glass. We'll be talking
(20:14):
about that in a minute. But they just did a
great job with their athletes of making things difficult for
Dame and Giannis on the defensive end as well. Like
one of the big things I noticed was their bigs,
particularly at cong Wu, was picking up Dame early in
pick and roll, like meeting him pretty far out, and
that was preventing him from turning the corner. I remember,
Dame is actually really good at like hitting that additional
hesitation or in and out dribble on the big to
(20:36):
get past him in high drop coverages and get into
the paint. And a congu in particular was just doing
a really nice job containing him. And then Dame was
trying to throw cross court passes over length and that's
where he ended up having those turnover issues. And then
the Hawks just have all sorts of length off the ball.
But then with that, with all the athleticism, it's just
waves of bodies at Yani's. Like there was a play
where like Giannis went at Cappella at the rim, Capella
(20:59):
goes vertic goal forces a miss Jannis, you know how
he goes. He goes right back up to try to
get the offensive rebound in comes flying Jalen Johnson. He
like taps at the ball and it like forces Yann
still gets it, but he has to like come down
with it. And then when he comes down, Dyson Daniels
comes flying in and like swipes at the basketball and
it causes Jannis to kind of lose his rhythm a
little bit, and he smoked a layup, and it's like
(21:19):
it's a smoked layup because it's ways of athleticism that
are making Yiannis feel uncomfortable. It was a really, really
impressive performance from the Hawks. We will talk more about
the Bucks here in a minute, but the Hawks have
won five straight games. Three of those wins were against
Cleveland and Milwaukee. Two of those Cleveland and Milwaukee wins
were on the road. They have a one to seventeen
offensive rating in that span that ranks tenth in the NBA.
(21:41):
One oh five defensive rating in that span, which ranked
second first in that span, by the way, is the
Minnesota Timberwolves, who we're not talking about today, but they
regain their defensive identity and got a huge win against
the Clippers last night and they're starting to get their
groove back. We'll be talking about them soon. But the
Hawks are second defensive rating over this five game span.
Here's the crazy sting. After getting sixteen offensive rebounds last
(22:02):
night and out rebounding Milwaukee fifty five to forty, the
Hawks are grabbing fifty five point two percent of available
rebounds over this five game streak that ranks one in
the NBA by a pretty decent margin. And that's really
the story of this team. They've reconfigured this summer around
a modern basketball concept that we've been talking about for
a while over the course of the last two years,
which is the athleticism surrounded by an offensive engine. Right.
(22:27):
This is kind of like very similar concept to what
the Clippers did with James Harden this summer. Right, But like,
you keep Trey Young as your primary offensive engine, you
keep Bogdan mcdonovitch as like your backup shot creator, right,
and you keep Clint Capella as your defensive anchor and
as Trey Young's pick and roll partner. But the rest
of the roster is just big athletic dudes who play
(22:47):
really hard. They turned to Jonte Murray into Dyson Daniels,
They drafted Zachary Rissasche. They started three rangy athletic perimeter
players between Trey and Capella by going with Dyson Daniels,
Jalen Johnson, and Zachary Resachet. And it's a wonderful fit.
All these athletes. They compliment Trey Young so well on
both ends of the floor. On the offensive end of
the floor. They run, They just they run and they
(23:10):
cut NonStop. And Trey Young is a very very gifted passer.
There's like advanced passing and then there's a kind of
basic passing. And most of the basic passers in the league,
they're the guys that they can beat a guy off
the dribble and get into the lane and see a
wide open three point shooter on the wing and like
make that kind of read like little basic reads. They're like, oh,
it's a cleared side of the floor and this guy
cuts back door and he's open. I can throw a
bounce pass. That sort of thing. The best passers in
(23:32):
the league are really good at finding like kick ahead passes,
guys slipping along the baseline, vertical spacing, opportunities that don't
look open, but if you throw the pass in the
right way, the athlete can go get it. That sort
of thing. That is a very very good fit alongside
Trey Young. Having tons of athletes that are constantly running, rolling,
and cutting, it just accentuates his skills so well. And
(23:54):
then on the defensive end of the floor, those guys
can cover for his athletic deficiencies and it creates an
easy role for him, like Trey Young threw some important
closeouts last night, or he's in rotation and he chases
a guy off the three point line. Trey Young is
fast if you can make it so that that's more
or less all he has to do. But he doesn't
have to get a bunch of contested rebounds or get
his hands dirty on the defensive end of the floor.
(24:15):
He can be at least not that damaging. Right again,
it's the Eastern Conference version of what we're seeing with
the Clippers in James Harden. You put James Harden with
a good pick and roll partner in if you can Zubach,
and you've got yourself your offensive engine in all these
rangy athletes that are around him, and all of a sudden,
the Clippers are a serious team. Jalen Johnson has been
(24:35):
incredible in his last sixteen games twenty two points, ten rebounds,
and six assists, fifty four percent from the field, forty
percent from three to eighty nine percent from the line,
still doing the majority of his damage in transition and
as a cutter and as an offensive rebounder in the
half court, but he is starting to gain some steam
in ball screens especially with Trey Young and inverted ball screens.
And again, this is a concept that we've talked a
lot about. But you can imagine like Trey Young coming
(24:57):
up to set a screen and he he's got you know,
aj Green or Andre Jackson on him, and that guy
just really doesn't want to leave Trey Young because that's
the head of the stake, right, and Jalen Johnson, Let's
say he's being guarded by Torrian Prince. This is the
play where Jalen Johnson got the huge dunk last night.
As Trey Young goes to set the screen, he's not
(25:19):
actually screening, he's slipping out of it. That's a ghost screen, right,
where you have a guard just set a screen for
a bigger player and then slip out of it to
the three point line. In that situation, Andre Jackson's not
gonna leave him because he's about Trey Young can shoot
and he's slipping out of that screen. But Torrian Prince
is thinking that a screen is coming, so he kind
of opens up his stance to prepare to chase over
(25:39):
the top of the screen. Jalen Johnson just hits the
jets goes right around him. Because again, if Andre Jackson
hedges or catches Jalen Johnson coming off that screen. Now,
Trey Young is wide open right then, and if you
switch there issues that come from that as well. Tray
Young against Torrian Prince is a matchup that you like
if you're a Hawks fan, right, Jalen Johnson just gets
(26:00):
right downhill and dunks on everybody. He Again, he's only
run one hundred and twenty picking rolls this year, and
he's only generated one hundred and ten points, which really
isn't that bad at zero point nine to two points
per possession. But he's been better as of late. In
his last nineteen pick and rolls, Jalen Johnson has generated
twenty six points including passes. That's one point thirty seven
points per possession. He's really starting to gain some steam
(26:22):
as an on ball player. And again, like it's just
once he gets that head of steam downhill, he's such
a good finisher and he's such a good passer in
those situations and he's just really difficult to deal with.
He's been outstanding defensively as of late. He's averaging two
point five stocks per game. I thought he was incredible
in the Bucks game last night in both on ball
and off the ball. And I think he's a really
interesting player in the long run too, because he has
(26:43):
outstanding touch, which means is if he improves overall with
his fluidity, he can become a more a more effective
on ball player. So, for instance, Jalen Johnson is shooting
just thirty two percent on off the dribble jump shots,
which is to zero point seven to four points per possession.
He's also shooting just twenty eight percent on guarded ketch
and shoot jump shots, but he's shooting fifty three percent
(27:07):
on unguarded catch and choot jump shots, and he's shooting
eighty nine percent from the free throw line over his
last sixteen games. That's like a pretty clear sign that
he has great touch, like his feel for the basketball
and his natural ability to put the ball in the
basket is really high. So when he adds the polish,
when he adds the fluidity, he should be able to
(27:29):
put the ball in the basket in more diverse ways.
Not to mention, averaging six assists per game over a
large span like this is a pretty like think about
how many Fords you've seen over a large portion of
time that have averaged six assists it's pretty rare. It's
a position in the league where there's typically pretty weak playmaking,
and he's showing some pretty high level stuff there. So
(27:49):
I think Jalen Johnson's a really nice foundational type of
player for the Hawks. And again, like this group has
got high potential. Like they went into the fourth quarter
last night and they played this lineup where they put
in Bogdan mcdonovich for Zachary Rissasche, And so they had
these athletes, right, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Clincapella. But
(28:10):
then they also had these two really high level offensive
players in Trey Young and Bogdann macdonovich. They went on
a run. That group has played twenty four possessions this
year and they're plus eight point four net in those possessions.
And if you interchange any of the other two guys,
So if it's just Trey, Jalen and Bogdan together, they've
played seventy five possessions in their plus twelve net per
one hundred possessions. So here's the thing, Like, no one's
(28:31):
gonna have delusions of granger here with the Hawks. They
aren't gonna win multiple playoff series this year. Or anything
like that their offense won't be good enough. But this
was a really smart little half rebuild that they did
around some proven modern basketball concepts, and there's real long
term upside with the development of their athletic wings. Trey
Young is still just twenty six years old. I really
like the direction the Atlanta Hawks are going. They were
(28:53):
fun to watch last night on the Bucks front. Just
a really sloppy game from them. Bobby Port has played
an exceptionally damaging first half shift, just incapable of protecting
the rim. He lost several offensive rebound battles, even ones
where he had position, and he just somehow lost the
fight for the ball, several sloppy turnovers and bad shots.
That was where the game started to go off. The
rail Rails Dame had those back to back to back
(29:14):
turnovers and the first quarter again I can't remember even
seeing that before. Their transition. Defense was abysmal in just
a basic way, like guys just hugging up to guys
off ball while Jalen Johnson's running off, running down the floor, dunking,
basic get back responsibility from the guards above the brake
not getting back, and just allowing easy passes over the
top for dunks, like their transition defense was really sloppy.
(29:36):
Torrian Prince had a really rough game at the point
of attack, although the whole team kind of struggled to
guard the ball. I also thought they shot really poorly,
like Gary Trent and AJ Green and Torrian Prince all
had like four to five like pretty good looks from
three in the fourth quarter that they just missed. As
a matter of fact, Percentergy, they shot six unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots in the fourth quarter and they
(29:58):
made just one of them. So you kind of just
scrap that game and just move on from it, especially
when you generally have been playing pretty well. But here's
the one thing that's weird about it. The Bucks have
mostly been beating up on bad teams. They have just
two wins this year against teams that are five hundred
or better. So I'd like to see the Bucks have
a sharp effort soon in a win against a good
team to legitimize some of the improvements they've made as
(30:19):
of late. All right, guys, that's all I have for today.
Looking forward to seeing your guys' shit talk in the comments.
That should be fun. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me in suporting the show. Don't forget
get those mailbag questions in we got our last mail bag,
I should say, last video for mailback today. We're recording
one tomorrow again. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see
you tomorrow the volume What's Up? Guys? As always, I
(30:40):
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
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co slash b ball. All right, welcome to hoop tonight
here at the volume Heapy Thursday. Everybody, hope, all you
guys are having a great week. Got a quick show
for you guys today. I've got a rant about the
(01:53):
Lakers off the top. I won't say anymore right now,
we'll just get right into it. And then at the
tail end of the show. The Atlanta Hawks won the
fifth consecutive game on the road in Milwaukee, very impressively.
Jalen Johnson is playing super well, very interesting team construct
that's coming together for the Atlanta Hawk, so we're gonna
do a deep dive on them in the tail end
of the show. You guys did the trip before we
(02:14):
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
on Twitter at underscore jsonlts. You guys, don't miss you announcements.
Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your
podcasts under Hoops Tonight. Don't forget We also have new
social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where we're
releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow there.
And the last, but not at least kee dropping mail
bag questions. I'm recording a mail bag in tomorrow's episode,
(02:36):
and this video today will be your last chance to
drop comments questions in the comments so that we can
hit them in that mail bag. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So at the risk of sounding like an
absolute fool, because just two days ago I said I
wasn't ready to admit I was wrong about the Lakers.
Last night was such an abomination that I don't even
(02:56):
care about being wrong or looking like a fool. Anybody
who wants to roast me in the comments go nuts.
I'm done with the Los Angeles Lakers. This team simply
does not have the basketball character necessary to compete for
an NBA championship. There's an illness within this team that
goes too deep to be fixed, even by a trade
(03:18):
or a team meeting or any sort of potential remedy.
I think this team is broken. We're not gonna talk
about x's and o's. I just shelf that for a bit,
and let's focus on this concept of basketball character. I
generally have a lot of grace for teams that go
through bad stretches in the regular season. The eighty two
game season is super long, and you can grab just
(03:39):
about any team in the league and you can find
a game or two or they look so bad that
if you just watched that game, you can't even imagine
that team being good. You can do that with just
about everybody. I pay more attention to big picker big
picture trends, right, So, like, are your bad stretches few
and far between? Do you identify them, do you rectify them?
(04:01):
Do you snap out of it? That's why I look
at like like defensive rating in the big picture as
like more of an indicator of just how dedicated you
are in a night and night in night out basis
at playing hard? Right, are you generally reliable? When we
zoom out from the season, I'm going to be more
forgiving of a bad stretch. But this is the fourth
consecutive season under three different coaches that I've seen a
(04:25):
Laker team completely lose the will to fight. Not for
a quarter, not for a game, not even for a
couple of games, but for weeks out of time. This
Laker team, for four years in a row, has completely
lost their entire competitive spirit. Con Coward used to say
this thing on his show where he'd be like, if
(04:47):
you get divorced once, that's normal. If you get divorced twice,
you know, you might raise an eyebrow, But if you
get divorced three times, maybe there's something wrong with you. Right.
And I had that issue as I was evaluating this
team through the coaching changes. This team also had stretches
weeks long where they wouldn't compete under Frank Vogel, So
(05:09):
I thought they just need a new voice. Frank Vogel
is a good coach, especially a good defensive coach. Yeah,
he might have some offensive limitations. Whatever, he's a good coach.
These guys just are tuning him out. Let's try something different.
But then they did it to Darvin Ham, and I thought,
it's just because Darvin Ham's a bad coach. He's making
funky rotation decisions, doesn't seem to be very schematically involved
(05:30):
with the teams. Kind of just like, come on, guys,
let's go do just that sort of thing, right. They
had that three to ten stretch in December where they
looked completely lifeless. But if you guys remember those guys
who listened to the show during that time, I was
talking about how I thought they just were trying to
get Darvin fired in the middle of the season. Like
I thought they were like openly protesting in the middle
of the season. But now they're doing it to JJ Reddick.
(05:51):
Last night was legitimately the worst effort I've ever seen
a team give in a serious basketball game at any level.
It was flat out in Garrison, and it started right away.
It started in the It started after like the first
couple minutes of the game. This wasn't like the third
quarter collapse against the Suns or the third quarter collapse
against the Nuggets that in the first quarter they had
(06:11):
an extended multi minute stretch with the starters where they
weren't competing. And it's been going on like this for
eight games. Ever since the misfree throws against Orlando, they've
been in this exact same funk, Like, how do you
get embarrassed the way you got embarrassed in Minnesota in
the big picture of having lost all the games you've
(06:33):
lost in the last couple of weeks, and your response
as a competitor is to come out the way you
did last night. I do not understand it. And so like,
at a certain point, if you did it to Frank,
and you did it to Darvin, and you're doing it
to JJ, then that's just who you are. And that's
(06:54):
the concerning part for me, because what about the Lakers
organization has been consistent? If in the through lines through
these four years, Lebron and Ad and Rob Polenka, that's
pretty much it. Osira's played a little bit in the
last year Frank Vogel, but like Rob Polinka and Lebron,
James and Anthony Davis, they are the through lines of
(07:15):
this issue. That is perpetuated through the last four seasons.
The two stars just haven't been willing to fight on
a daily basis in a way that is necessary to
compete for an NBA championship. And Rob Polinka has been
blind to that weakness and has made no attempt to
resolve it over that span. Lebron hasn't attacked a regular
season from start to finish since the twenty twenty one season. Now,
(07:37):
I understand it to a certain extent with his age,
Like I've I watched Lebron attack every game of the
regular season for well over a decade. That's who he
was as a basketball player. But in this phase of
his career, he's not capable or willing to do it. Now,
you got you can understand it with his age, But
the material reality is that thirty to forty games a year,
(07:58):
Lebron's gonna kind of stand around on defense and kind
of standing around on the defensive glass, just kind of
tried to pass his way through the game, take jump shots,
and try to do the bare minimum to win that game.
That's been the reality now for about three four years.
And then Anthony Davis, as talented as he is, doesn't
have natural motor sometimes he looks like the best player
in the world. Sometimes for long stretches. He was awesome
(08:21):
for the second half of last year and the playoffs.
He was awesome to start this year. But then sometimes
he just doesn't look interested in fighting. He got his
ass kicked by Bam last night, didn't fight, got his
ass kicked by Gobaar the previous game, didn't fight. Earlier
this year, second half against Durkic got his ass kick,
didn't care. Jared Allen and Cleveland got his ass kick,
didn't care. Nikole Jokic kicked his ass, didn't care. Jared
Jackson kicked his ass, didn't care. And it's not just
(08:44):
the regular season, by the way, I remember being super
frustrated in the twenty twenty three season in the Western
Conference finals that Ad didn't seem really to have that
fight against Jokic as he was kicking his ass. And
I know it's in there because I literally watched him
the very next season play to a stalemate with Nikola
Jokich in a first round series. The motor isn't consistent
(09:06):
for Anthony Davis. It's funny because I even when I
think back to the good old days and like you
Laker fans that have been following me on Twitter since
before I started with the volume might remember some of
this stuff. But in the championship season when they won
in twenty twenty, there was a game about once a
week where Ad would come out in the first half
and he'd just kind of be flat, and when he
(09:29):
was flat, the rest of the team would be engaged.
Lebron I thought should have won MVP that year was
the last season he like truly attacked things every single
day that season in the twenty the year right after
where the last two times I saw Lebron like really
attack the regular season, but Ady was just kind of
coasting through the game. And then what would happen is
every single time in the second half he would just
(09:50):
kind of get swept up in the competitive energy of
the team. And Ad was an awesome second half player
that year, especially in the playoffs. But like now in retrospect,
looking back at it, it's kind of like a continuation
of that same personality trade, which is that sometimes Ad
laces him up and walks out there and just kind
(10:11):
of doesn't feel like fighting. And this is where Rob
Polinka has blood on his hands. These characteristics of the
stars have been pretty clear for a while. The twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one Lakers just had a lot
of high motor players to compensate for Alex Crusoe high
motor two way athlete, Contavious Calledwo Pope, high motor two
(10:31):
way athlete, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, even having big athletic
centers like JaVale McGee Dwight Howard in twenty twenty to
cover for those games that ad wasn't super engaged. But
when he traded them away, it was abundantly clear that
the Lakers missed out on that motor immediately. I mean, guys,
they missed the playoffs the very next season. Even when
(10:53):
they brought in all of that offense in the Rush
trade in the middle of the twenty twenty three season.
You bring in Ruie, you bring in d Lo, and
there's clearly some upside with all the offensive talent. It
became abundantly clear in the Nuggets series that they were
still severely lacking in that high motor athleticism, as the
Nuggets just ran through and jumped over every one of
their perimeter players for the entire series. It's been clear
(11:17):
for a while and rob has still done nothing, and
now it's probably too late. Last year in April, Lebron
and AD were both playing at a top ten level
and we're both engaged pretty consistently, and that roster wasn't
good enough. So any upside that you gained by waiting
(11:38):
to maybe get something better in the trade has now
been lost by the decline of Lebron and the disengagement
of Anthony Davis, who's playing the worst basketball he's played
since back in twenty twenty three. But Jason, Lebron and
AD are clearly just frustrated. They don't believe in this roster. Yeah,
you're probably right, and that probably plays a little bit
of a role, especially with Lebron, Like the last time
(12:01):
Lebron was consistently engaged on a day to day basis
was the last time this roster was good. But I
even think with that, with Lebron's age and then with
the stuff we were talking about with ads Motor earlier,
I even think that necessary isn't necessarily telling the full story,
and regardless, it doesn't change the material reality. Like we
talked about earlier, that Lebron and AD are not attacking
(12:23):
the regular season on a day in a day out basis, Now,
where do we go from here? To be clear, I'm
not saying this team is bad. The Lakers have won
forty two of their last sixty eight regular season games,
forty two and twenty six. Bad teams can't do that.
If we fast forwarded this season and the Lakers were
forty two and twenty six, they'd be a top four
seed and everyone would be talking about them as a
(12:44):
fringe championship contender. I know that they can win, and
they will have more stretches this year where they look good,
they rack up some wins, and they beat some good teams.
But I'm completely out on this team as a championship contender.
I had them ranked eighth coming into the season as
a team that could potentially make a trade and vault
into contention. No, no chance. Every champion I've ever watched
(13:08):
has had a daily pursuit of excellence that drives them.
When a team like that gets their ass kicked in Minnesota,
which by the way, is part of just being in
the Western Conference. When you get your ass kicked on
the road, you take it personally, You get pissed off,
and you send a message the next time out and
even if you lose the next time out, you go
down fighting, you go down swinging. And the Lakers sent
(13:30):
a very different message last night. They sent the message
that they have no interest in fighting, which means they
have no interest in competing for an NBA championship. So
I'm done with them. They need a dramatic roster turnover
to bring in the basketball character that is lacking, and
it's just not possible to do that within one season.
I think they should trade Lebron and ad start the rebuild.
(13:50):
Genie Bus needs a fire Rob Pulink and hire somebody
who actually understands basketball, and they need a fresh start.
I feel bad for JJ Redick, Like, think about it,
You're you have like the cushest job in the world
as a multi millionaire making TV media personality, where he
works less, is around his family more, and is under
(14:11):
less pressure. And his love for the game of basketball
causes him to drop all of that and walk into
that tire fire down in Los Angeles. And he goes
in there trying to establish a basketball culture. And these
guys just can't fucking be bothered. They just can't fucking
be bothered. I feel bad for him. They need to
they need to completely break this thing down. They need
(14:33):
to completely reinvest in JJ Reddick in a new front
office and try to build a quality basketball culture from
the ground up. Now, one last thing I want to
get into before we move on to hawksbucks. This concept
of basketball chemistry, this concept of basketball character. How can that?
How can what happened to the Lakers be prevented? Basketball
chemistry is like a delicate balance. There's a lot of
(14:54):
different things that you need in order to have the
right type of locker room to win a title. We
talked earlier about like these checkpoints that you have to
get through to win an NBA championship. There's these characteristics
that you see championship teams have that are pretty consistent
down the line. Mark Titus from Barstool, he came on
a while back, and remember he presented that idea of
(15:18):
that basketball is more art than science. And this is
something that I've always believed in. I remember when I
read Bill Simmons's basketball book, he referred to it as
the secret based on something he heard from I believe
Isaiah Thomas if I remember correctly, and I'm a big
believer in that concept. There's kind of like a magical
mix of ingredients that makes the right type of basketball
(15:40):
personality to drive a team. You need veteran leadership, but
you also need youthful exuberants. You need high motor guys
who love the daily process, but you also need even
keeled guys who never get too high and never get
too low. You need somebody in there who leads by example.
You need someone in there who can be vocal when
the time comes. It's a magical mix of those characteristics. So,
(16:03):
for instance, if you're building around Lebron James and Anthony Davis,
and you know Lebron is a dead serious player that
will always be locked in for the real games, but
that is not going to bring it for the eighty two.
And you've got another star who has this apex talent
but has consistently struggled with motor. What is the obvious
thing that you need to anchor them with guys who
(16:27):
love the daily process, athletic motor size size with motor
that can help you carry things during the regular season,
so that Lebron and Ad have no choice but to
get swept up in that energy, just like they did
in the twenty twenty and twenty twenty one seasons. It's
a valuable lesson learned in team building from what happens
(16:47):
to the Lakers in this year. Again, I understand that
a lot of people are going to be like, dude,
you are going back on something you were harping on
pretty heavy for a year. Totally get it. I was.
I attached my names of this Laker team in a
lot of way, in a lot of ways, as a
team that I believed in, as a team that I
thought had real upside based on the fact that for
(17:08):
most of twenty twenty four they were good. As I
talked about. They're forty two and twenty six in their
last sixty was at sixty eight regular season games. But
I'm just done what I saw last night. I could
I could not, I could not believe what I was
seeing last night, And I can't in my right mind
sit up here and talk about that team as a
potential championship contender when they are made up of the
(17:29):
type of stuff that causes what we saw last night.
And so I'm done with them. Okay, We're gonna cover
them just like we do any other team. If they
go on a win streak or whatever, we'll we'll talk
about them and what they're doing. Well, if it makes
some big trade, we'll cover them. I'm not gonna stop
talking about the Lakers entirely, but I'm not. I don't
consider them to be a championship contender. They're just not.
That's an unserious basketball team over there, and it starts
with the leadership. Let's talk about a serious basketball team,
(18:05):
or at least a team that's playing some serious basketball
as of late. So Hawksbucks last night, really fun game.
Bucks get off to a hot start. The one went
up double figures a few times in the first half
or in the first quarter. I should say bench group
comes in, you know, Gary tren Junior comes in, Bobby
Portis comes in, and the Hawks start forcing a lot
of turnovers. They start getting out in transition. Damian Lillard
had a very uncharacteristically sloppy end to the first quarter.
(18:25):
He had three consecutive pick six turnovers, meaning like he
turned the ball over and the Hawks went down and
scored in the fast break three consecutive times down the floor.
I can't even remember seeing that at any point with
another player. Well, I've seen teams do that, but I
haven't seen an individual player do that in a long time,
but the Hawks just completely took control of the game
at that point, and the Bucks tried to battle back
(18:46):
a few times. A few times they made a few runs.
They went zone in the third quarter and kind of
disheveled the Hawks for a little bit and got it
down to I think they got it down within eight
or seven, But every single time they did, the Hawks
would just get a couple of stops and a couple
of transition run outs, and they would get right back
in control of the game. And some of the stats
that the Hawks put up in this game were outrageous.
They had sixty four points in the paint. The Bucks
(19:08):
came in as the eighth ranked paint defense, allowing just
forty six points per one hundred possessions. The Hawks came
in as the third ranked paint offense fifty four points
per one hundred possession, so a top five paint offense
versus a top ten paint defense, and the Hawks just
dominated that battle, although most of it was in transition.
They scored sixty four points in the paint. They had
thirty fast break points the Bucks average allowing thirteen per game,
(19:32):
so they nearly tripled their fast break point output on average.
Jalen johnson speed was huge here. He was out racing
them all night long, getting ahead of the defense on
leakouts when Milwaukee was in sharp with just like their
get back responsibilities. And there's even a play in the
fourth quarter where I think I think it was Giannis
missed a free throw, one of the Bucks missed free throw,
and Jalen Johnson got the rebound off of a situation
where the Bucks should have their transition defense set and
(19:54):
he just literally ran right through everybody and lay the
ballup and it put him up eleven. And that was
kind of like the story of the game. They just
couldn't contain Atlanta's speed in the open court. They had
twenty one second chance points. They're averaging the Bucks average
allowing just eleven per game, and they gave up twenty one.
The Hawks had sixteen offensive reboundsers. By the way, they've
been dominating games on the offensive glass. We'll be talking
(20:14):
about that in a minute. But they just did a
great job with their athletes of making things difficult for
Dame and Giannis on the defensive end as well. Like
one of the big things I noticed was their bigs,
particularly at cong Wu, was picking up Dame early in
pick and roll, like meeting him pretty far out, and
that was preventing him from turning the corner. I remember,
Dame is actually really good at like hitting that additional
hesitation or in and out dribble on the big to
(20:36):
get past him in high drop coverages and get into
the paint. And a congu in particular was just doing
a really nice job containing him. And then Dame was
trying to throw cross court passes over length and that's
where he ended up having those turnover issues. And then
the Hawks just have all sorts of length off the ball.
But then with that, with all the athleticism, it's just
waves of bodies at Yani's. Like there was a play
where like Giannis went at Cappella at the rim, Capella
(20:59):
goes vertic goal forces a miss Jannis, you know how
he goes. He goes right back up to try to
get the offensive rebound in comes flying Jalen Johnson. He
like taps at the ball and it like forces Yann
still gets it, but he has to like come down
with it. And then when he comes down, Dyson Daniels
comes flying in and like swipes at the basketball and
it causes Jannis to kind of lose his rhythm a
little bit, and he smoked a layup, and it's like
(21:19):
it's a smoked layup because it's ways of athleticism that
are making Yiannis feel uncomfortable. It was a really, really
impressive performance from the Hawks. We will talk more about
the Bucks here in a minute, but the Hawks have
won five straight games. Three of those wins were against
Cleveland and Milwaukee. Two of those Cleveland and Milwaukee wins
were on the road. They have a one to seventeen
offensive rating in that span that ranks tenth in the NBA.
(21:41):
One oh five defensive rating in that span, which ranked
second first in that span, by the way, is the
Minnesota Timberwolves, who we're not talking about today, but they
regain their defensive identity and got a huge win against
the Clippers last night and they're starting to get their
groove back. We'll be talking about them soon. But the
Hawks are second defensive rating over this five game span.
Here's the crazy sting. After getting sixteen offensive rebounds last
(22:02):
night and out rebounding Milwaukee fifty five to forty, the
Hawks are grabbing fifty five point two percent of available
rebounds over this five game streak that ranks one in
the NBA by a pretty decent margin. And that's really
the story of this team. They've reconfigured this summer around
a modern basketball concept that we've been talking about for
a while over the course of the last two years,
which is the athleticism surrounded by an offensive engine. Right.
(22:27):
This is kind of like very similar concept to what
the Clippers did with James Harden this summer. Right, But like,
you keep Trey Young as your primary offensive engine, you
keep Bogdan mcdonovitch as like your backup shot creator, right,
and you keep Clint Capella as your defensive anchor and
as Trey Young's pick and roll partner. But the rest
of the roster is just big athletic dudes who play
(22:47):
really hard. They turned to Jonte Murray into Dyson Daniels,
They drafted Zachary Rissasche. They started three rangy athletic perimeter
players between Trey and Capella by going with Dyson Daniels,
Jalen Johnson, and Zachary Resachet. And it's a wonderful fit.
All these athletes. They compliment Trey Young so well on
both ends of the floor. On the offensive end of
the floor. They run, They just they run and they
(23:10):
cut NonStop. And Trey Young is a very very gifted passer.
There's like advanced passing and then there's a kind of
basic passing. And most of the basic passers in the league,
they're the guys that they can beat a guy off
the dribble and get into the lane and see a
wide open three point shooter on the wing and like
make that kind of read like little basic reads. They're like, oh,
it's a cleared side of the floor and this guy
cuts back door and he's open. I can throw a
bounce pass. That sort of thing. The best passers in
(23:32):
the league are really good at finding like kick ahead passes,
guys slipping along the baseline, vertical spacing, opportunities that don't
look open, but if you throw the pass in the
right way, the athlete can go get it. That sort
of thing. That is a very very good fit alongside
Trey Young. Having tons of athletes that are constantly running, rolling,
and cutting, it just accentuates his skills so well. And
(23:54):
then on the defensive end of the floor, those guys
can cover for his athletic deficiencies and it creates an
easy role for him, like Trey Young threw some important
closeouts last night, or he's in rotation and he chases
a guy off the three point line. Trey Young is
fast if you can make it so that that's more
or less all he has to do. But he doesn't
have to get a bunch of contested rebounds or get
his hands dirty on the defensive end of the floor.
(24:15):
He can be at least not that damaging. Right again,
it's the Eastern Conference version of what we're seeing with
the Clippers in James Harden. You put James Harden with
a good pick and roll partner in if you can Zubach,
and you've got yourself your offensive engine in all these
rangy athletes that are around him, and all of a sudden,
the Clippers are a serious team. Jalen Johnson has been
(24:35):
incredible in his last sixteen games twenty two points, ten rebounds,
and six assists, fifty four percent from the field, forty
percent from three to eighty nine percent from the line,
still doing the majority of his damage in transition and
as a cutter and as an offensive rebounder in the
half court, but he is starting to gain some steam
in ball screens especially with Trey Young and inverted ball screens.
And again, this is a concept that we've talked a
lot about. But you can imagine like Trey Young coming
(24:57):
up to set a screen and he he's got you know,
aj Green or Andre Jackson on him, and that guy
just really doesn't want to leave Trey Young because that's
the head of the stake, right, and Jalen Johnson, Let's
say he's being guarded by Torrian Prince. This is the
play where Jalen Johnson got the huge dunk last night.
As Trey Young goes to set the screen, he's not
(25:19):
actually screening, he's slipping out of it. That's a ghost screen, right,
where you have a guard just set a screen for
a bigger player and then slip out of it to
the three point line. In that situation, Andre Jackson's not
gonna leave him because he's about Trey Young can shoot
and he's slipping out of that screen. But Torrian Prince
is thinking that a screen is coming, so he kind
of opens up his stance to prepare to chase over
(25:39):
the top of the screen. Jalen Johnson just hits the
jets goes right around him. Because again, if Andre Jackson
hedges or catches Jalen Johnson coming off that screen. Now,
Trey Young is wide open right then, and if you
switch there issues that come from that as well. Tray
Young against Torrian Prince is a matchup that you like
if you're a Hawks fan, right, Jalen Johnson just gets
(26:00):
right downhill and dunks on everybody. He Again, he's only
run one hundred and twenty picking rolls this year, and
he's only generated one hundred and ten points, which really
isn't that bad at zero point nine to two points
per possession. But he's been better as of late. In
his last nineteen pick and rolls, Jalen Johnson has generated
twenty six points including passes. That's one point thirty seven
points per possession. He's really starting to gain some steam
(26:22):
as an on ball player. And again, like it's just
once he gets that head of steam downhill, he's such
a good finisher and he's such a good passer in
those situations and he's just really difficult to deal with.
He's been outstanding defensively as of late. He's averaging two
point five stocks per game. I thought he was incredible
in the Bucks game last night in both on ball
and off the ball. And I think he's a really
interesting player in the long run too, because he has
(26:43):
outstanding touch, which means is if he improves overall with
his fluidity, he can become a more a more effective
on ball player. So, for instance, Jalen Johnson is shooting
just thirty two percent on off the dribble jump shots,
which is to zero point seven to four points per possession.
He's also shooting just twenty eight percent on guarded ketch
and shoot jump shots, but he's shooting fifty three percent
(27:07):
on unguarded catch and choot jump shots, and he's shooting
eighty nine percent from the free throw line over his
last sixteen games. That's like a pretty clear sign that
he has great touch, like his feel for the basketball
and his natural ability to put the ball in the
basket is really high. So when he adds the polish,
when he adds the fluidity, he should be able to
(27:29):
put the ball in the basket in more diverse ways.
Not to mention, averaging six assists per game over a
large span like this is a pretty like think about
how many Fords you've seen over a large portion of
time that have averaged six assists it's pretty rare. It's
a position in the league where there's typically pretty weak playmaking,
and he's showing some pretty high level stuff there. So
(27:49):
I think Jalen Johnson's a really nice foundational type of
player for the Hawks. And again, like this group has
got high potential. Like they went into the fourth quarter
last night and they played this lineup where they put
in Bogdan mcdonovich for Zachary Rissasche, And so they had
these athletes, right, Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Clincapella. But
(28:10):
then they also had these two really high level offensive
players in Trey Young and Bogdann macdonovich. They went on
a run. That group has played twenty four possessions this
year and they're plus eight point four net in those possessions.
And if you interchange any of the other two guys,
So if it's just Trey, Jalen and Bogdan together, they've
played seventy five possessions in their plus twelve net per
one hundred possessions. So here's the thing, Like, no one's
(28:31):
gonna have delusions of granger here with the Hawks. They
aren't gonna win multiple playoff series this year. Or anything
like that their offense won't be good enough. But this
was a really smart little half rebuild that they did
around some proven modern basketball concepts, and there's real long
term upside with the development of their athletic wings. Trey
Young is still just twenty six years old. I really
like the direction the Atlanta Hawks are going. They were
(28:53):
fun to watch last night on the Bucks front. Just
a really sloppy game from them. Bobby Port has played
an exceptionally damaging first half shift, just incapable of protecting
the rim. He lost several offensive rebound battles, even ones
where he had position, and he just somehow lost the
fight for the ball, several sloppy turnovers and bad shots.
That was where the game started to go off. The
rail Rails Dame had those back to back to back
(29:14):
turnovers and the first quarter again I can't remember even
seeing that before. Their transition. Defense was abysmal in just
a basic way, like guys just hugging up to guys
off ball while Jalen Johnson's running off, running down the floor, dunking,
basic get back responsibility from the guards above the brake
not getting back, and just allowing easy passes over the
top for dunks, like their transition defense was really sloppy.
(29:36):
Torrian Prince had a really rough game at the point
of attack, although the whole team kind of struggled to
guard the ball. I also thought they shot really poorly,
like Gary Trent and AJ Green and Torrian Prince all
had like four to five like pretty good looks from
three in the fourth quarter that they just missed. As
a matter of fact, Percentergy, they shot six unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots in the fourth quarter and they
(29:58):
made just one of them. So you kind of just
scrap that game and just move on from it, especially
when you generally have been playing pretty well. But here's
the one thing that's weird about it. The Bucks have
mostly been beating up on bad teams. They have just
two wins this year against teams that are five hundred
or better. So I'd like to see the Bucks have
a sharp effort soon in a win against a good
team to legitimize some of the improvements they've made as
(30:19):
of late. All right, guys, that's all I have for today.
Looking forward to seeing your guys' shit talk in the comments.
That should be fun. As always, as sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me in suporting the show. Don't forget
get those mailbag questions in we got our last mail bag,
I should say, last video for mailback today. We're recording
one tomorrow again. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see
you tomorrow the volume What's Up? Guys? As always, I
(30:40):
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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