January 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers' dominant 117-96 win over Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics. Jason discusses LA's impressive night and shares why JJ Redick and LA must go all-in on LeBron and AD this season.
Timeline:
5:00 - Lakers MUST believe
15:00 - Lakers "best game of season" vs. Celtics
24:00 - Will Lakers add a center?
31:00 - Why LA is more dangerous in playoffs than regular season
33:00 - Austin Reaves rises to the occasion
34:45 - LeBron & AD dominate
36:00 - Lakers must go all-in
39:00 - What's gone wrong for Celtics?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(01:33):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume.
Happy Friday, everybody, He'll bother you. Guys are having a
great end of your week. Got a jam pack day
for the show today. We're gonna do two episodes in
this one. I watched Lakers Celtics live last night and
I just wanted to give my Lakers Celtics thoughts here
in the morning. Then when I'm done here, I'm gonna
go back and watch some more games from last night
and do our mailbag. So just Laker Celtics in this
video and then keep an eye on the feed. Later
(01:55):
today we'll have more instant reaction content as well as
a mailbag. You guys are the joke before we get started.
Subscribe to Hoops and Not YouTube channels. You don't miss
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(02:15):
We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys
follow us there. And the last but not least, keep
dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so we
can keep hitting them on Fridays throughout the remainder of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So after
the Lakers got smashed by the Clippers, I did an
episode where I talked about the Lakers looking like they're
starting to lose belief a little bit, some bad body language,
(02:37):
some comments, and the postgame presser from JJ Reddick and
Lebron James. It just kind of seemed like they didn't,
they were losing confidence in their ability to achieve their
ultimate goal this year. After last night's dominant win against
the Boston Celtics, JJ Reddick said, hopefully there's some belief
reinforced here about what we can and be, And so
(03:01):
I wanted to take a second, just really quickly before
we dive into the deeper details of this game, to
talk about why belief is so important to a basketball team.
In my opinion, there are two mental hurdles that every
team has to get through in order to play championship basketball.
And these are separate from anything with talent on the
roster because we all can agree that, like, in order
(03:23):
to accomplish something as a basketball team, you have to
have talented players, and then you have to play a
certain type of way. Right, it's a combination of two factors, right.
The first mental hurdle is you got to compete. You
have to get your competitive motor running, meaning you have
to be bought into the concept of winning, not just
playing basketball. I've referred to this concept on the show
(03:47):
as the fear of losing, because I think that's actually
more how it manifests for competitors, Like I think it
has more to do with just like a trying to
survive that game without losing that mentality that brings that
competitive nature out of people. If you're not going to compete,
you're not going to win. If you're just okay with
(04:07):
losing and you're more in it for love of the game,
you're never gonna get to where you want to go
in terms of championship goals. I thought that D'Angelo Russell
quote was an interesting example of that when he talked
about never taking for granted playing free basketball again. Free
basketball is fun. I know the feeling. I vividly remember
when I finished my last practice, last game, last sequence
(04:29):
playing in college, and I came home and I went
to go play pick up at the University of Arizona
Rec Center, and I vividly remember this feeling where I
was like, this is fun, Like it's not work anymore.
Like it's like, if I happen to not get back
on defense on this possession, I'm not going to have
a coach chewing me out or anything like that. And
especially coming off of that particular season, which was the
(04:49):
most structured team that I ever played with, and so
like I sympathize with the feeling of like what it
feels like to play stakes free basketball, but at the
end of the day, like it has some fun to it.
But playing winning basketball is a fundamentally different thing. It's
also fun, but in a different way. It's more like work.
(05:10):
The attention to detail consumes your every thought. That last
year that I played in college, I played at the
NAIA level up in Phoenix at a school called Arizona
Christian University. At the NAIA level, the coaching is insane.
Shout out to coach Jeff Rudder up there by far
the most structured team that I played in in college
and the closest thing to the pros in terms of
(05:31):
like advanced schematic stuff on both ends of the floor,
and so like there what I had a coaching staff
that was relentlessly holding me accountable to my job on
both ends of the floor when I was there. That
it's like work, but the rewards come in different ways.
Like you build camaraderie with your teammates as you survive
(05:52):
the grind together. You have these team accomplishments like winning
games or winning trophies, and yes, you do still have
some fun. Do you think the Lakers were having fun
when they were kicking the shit out of the Celtics
last night. Like it's fun when it all comes together,
but it definitely feels overall more like work. So you
got to get your competitive motor running so that you're
(06:14):
willing to do the work. But if basketball is gonna
feel like work, if it's going to feel like a chore,
then you better be getting rewarded for it. This is
where belief comes into the equation. Playing winning basketball is
a pain in the ass. It's constant mental engagement. It's
(06:34):
a shit ton of running, it's taking a bunch of
physical contact. It's holding onto the rope. No matter how
good or how bad things get, it's really hard to do.
The team needs to believe that they're hard work the
shit that sucks will actually lead to them getting the
(06:57):
thing that they want, in this case, silario'brian Trophy. Before
this game against the Celtics, the Lakers had been consistently
dropping games against good teams. The Clippers controlled them, These
Spurs destroyed them in the second half. The Mavericks destroyed
them in the second half. The Rockets basically led them
wire to wire. The Lakers got it close a couple times,
(07:19):
but Houston always pulled away the Cavs. The Lakers hung
tight for about two and a half quarters and then
lost control.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Of that one.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Now I would argue that poor execution played a role
in those losses, but the point is they were losing
consistently to the good teams in the league. And so
if you're gonna get a forty year old Lebron James
and an aging Anthony Davis to really commit to the work,
they need to believe that this team can actually win.
(07:50):
And there are two things that can actually convince them
that they're capable of winning an NBA championship. One a
trade for more talent, which we'll get into later. But
if you bring in more talent, obviously Lebron and Ad
will believe more. But a second thing that can accomplish
that is a signature win, a win that demonstrates to
you what your ceiling looks like. So you can at
(08:13):
least strive to be at that ceiling as much as
possible moving forward. And I thought last night was that
for the Lakers internally, Lebron James in his postgame presser
was really trying to dump a bunch of water on
that win and talk about it's just another night in
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
There's a lot of factors there, Like disclaimer for Celtics fans,
I know that that was a really tough game for
you guys, schedule wise, it was your fifth game and
seven nights is on the road for the last three
games in that stretch, tail end of a back to back,
It's an overtime game the previous night against the Clippers,
and in general, the Celtics is aren't playing their best
basketball right now. All that is true, we can agree
(08:51):
that there were some other factors that play here. I
thought that last night had a lot more to do
with like good Lakers than any sort of like big
picture problem that the Celtics have. Like the Lakers played
a great game. The Celtics weren't playing their best and
they were worn down. That's how you end up getting
a blowout, right But I do think where I disagree
with Lebron is I do think it's an example of
(09:12):
what they can be. I saw a lot of potential
outcomes in my mind for last night's game, including some
that involved the Lakers winning. I thought they could win
that game, but I never in a million years thought
the Lakers would control that game from wire to wire,
blow them out, and do it with their defense. That
(09:35):
was Boston's first twenty point loss of this entire season.
It was only the second twenty point loss in the
Drew Holiday, and chrisops porzingis era here with the Celtics.
So again, everyone including Lakers fans, knows that the Boston
Celtics are not at their best right now and that
when they see them again in March, it will probably
(09:56):
be a much greater challenge. But the Lakers also played
their best game of the season last night. It's okay
to acknowledge that too. To JJ's point, hopefully there's some
belief reinforced about what this team can be.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I was really high on the Lakers before the season.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I thought they would win fifty games if they stayed
relatively healthy. I thought that they were a good trade
deadline away from serious contention. Now my faith in them
has been seriously shaken as I've actually watched the season layout.
I think they've been mostly bad this year if you
really dig into it. They've dominated the bad teams in
(10:34):
the league and have been pretty consistently mediocre to bad
against the good teams in the league. They've been a
bad road team. They have shaken my faith in them,
in large part beyond it because the roster issues I
knew about going into the season. In large part what
shook my faith in them is the lack of commitment.
I thought after what happened with Darvin ham last night,
I thought that or last season. I thought that JJ
(10:56):
Reddick coming in and trying to establish more structure with
the group from are to finish and on a possession
of possession basis, would galvanize these guys to actually attack
a regular season and that's not what happened. I think
that there's a mandatory minimum level of regular season engagement
for a team to win a title, and I think
the Lakers have fallen woefully short of that in the
large sample this season. But there have been moments where
(11:20):
we've seen what it looks like last night is at
least the kind of win that JJ can use to
try to put up on a pedestal as an example
and put it in the team's face and be like,
this is what you're capable of doing. This is where
I want to start getting into some specifics from the game.
(11:43):
JJ Reddick talked about them keeping the ball in front.
It was a big part of how the Lakers kept
the Celtics out of wide open catch and shoot jump
shots last night. The Celtics generate sixteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots per game according to Synergy, that's the
third most in the NBA. They generated only eleven last night.
A big part of that was the Lakers containing the
(12:04):
basketball staying out of rotation. Are the Lakers an elite
perimeter defense full of guys that can put the clamps
on people? No, of course not. But they do have
plenty of guys who can guard. And there is a
huge difference in this team between when they're really competing
to stay in front of the ball and when they aren't.
(12:27):
The other thing that JJ talked a lot about was
game plan discipline. He said it was their best game
plan discipline game of the season. The big thing there
was not overreacting to Boston hunting mismatches. The Celtics are
a killer whale offense, right They pick on your worst defender,
try to attack him, usually in the post or with
an ISO. When Porzingis would catch a smaller player in
(12:51):
the post, whether it was Max or was Austin. They
weren't doubling. They were doing what you're supposed to do
in a switching defense. They were crowding, digging, stunting, but
all within the context of being able to quickly close
out to a shooter to not give up the easy
swing pass, swing pass, wide open catch and shoot. Three
types of things that can happen when you recklessly double
(13:13):
or you're not set up for that sort of thing.
Anthony Davis was really the only guy last night that
would occasionally completely leave his man to try to like
go for a late shot block on a player in
the post, or like really dig down. But again, Anthony
Davis his if you think of it like this, like
if you the camera are the shooter and I am
the offensive player that has the ball, there's a space
between us, right and if you're the help defender, your
(13:36):
ability to cover ground is going to dictate how much
you can come over to help. If you're a freaky athlete,
you might be able to straight up double team and
then recover. Like there are guys like Gary Payton with
the Warriors, Draymond Green with the Warriors I've talked about
where it's like they can straight up double team but
then still get out. Yehannest for years did this with
the Bucks and still does from time to time, where
it's like he can help at the rim or double
(13:57):
team but still close out to a shooter. That's that's
unique player to player. Anthony Davis was the guy last
night that was a little bit more aggressive in terms
of his helper's doubles or stunts or is attempting to
go in and get a block at the end of
an ISO. But for the most part, everyone else was
kind of splitting that difference and not overreacting to those attacks.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So as a result, Yeah, Chris.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Tops Porzingis and Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, they hit
some buckets in the post, but they avoided that onslaught
of threes that Boston usually destroys teams with. Again, that
eleven unguarded catch and shoot threes stat that I told
you guys about earlier is a great stat to demonstrate that,
And that's what like, as I kind of look back
(14:42):
at the Lakers defensively after last night, I genuinely feel
bad for JJ Reddick about.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The stuff with the switching.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The Lakers switched one through five with the starters last
night against Boston's shooting bigs. They did some more drop
type stuff when it was like Cornette on the floor,
but like for the most part when it was Horford
or porzingis because they didn't want to give up easy
picking pop threes. They switched, which is the same scheme
(15:13):
that has been killing the Lakers all season.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But it worked last night.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Why because the Lakers did all the stuff that you're
supposed to do to make switching work, actually competing on
the ball to keep the ball in front, crowding but
not overhelping, gang rebounding, all of that stuff. But again,
it's been terrible for the Lakers all season because they've
sucked at all three of those things. They haven't competed
(15:40):
as well on the ball. They've given up too many
straight line drives, they've been dominated in the post. They've
been standing around off ball and glued up to shooters
and just leaving a guy on an island one on
one instead of crowding and making it more of a
tight space type of ISO to make life easier for
your on ball defender. And then the gang rebounding piece.
They give up a switch, and then they'd all just
standing around while the ball came off the rim, and
(16:02):
a big player that's matched up with a little player
would go get the rebound over the little player. It's
pretty clear after what you saw last night and what
we've seen at times this year, they are capable of
executing that scheme properly. And that's the vision that JJ
sees when he's in practice, when he's looking at the roster,
(16:22):
when he's you know, at home, obsessing over this kind
of thing. He thinks, like, these fucking guys can switch.
I know they can do it. This is a scheme
that will work for us. They just gotta fucking do it.
That's what he's thinking. That's what's going on in JJ's head,
and that's why like he stuck with it as long
as he did.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Now, I actually like.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That JJ's been using it more as a matchup specific
kind of thing, like using it depending on the team,
depending on the opponent. Right now, here's the thing. They
did it match up specific against Boston. It worked. They
did it match up specific against the Spurs. It didn't
because there was a they didn't X right, Like, It's
all it comes hand in hand with whether or not
you execute it. But I do actually think this is
(17:05):
a scheme the Lakers will need to use when they
get into the postseason. So I like the idea of
continuing to try to build it out. I just think
they might have to stick with more traditional schemes for
the most part during the regular season because this team
just doesn't want to do the job in order for
that switching scheme to work. I've always talked about how
to guard Boston. In my opinion, the best way to
(17:25):
guard Boston is to switch and contain, because if you
switch and contain, then you force them to take off
the dribble jump shots. As soon as you get compromised
in containment, meaning they start driving past you or posting
through you, that's when you're gonna start either giving up
layups which will beat you, or having a hard help
which will beat you with them getting wide open threes.
But switching and containing is the way to guard Boston.
(17:47):
It is the appropriate game plan. The Lakers did it,
they did it right, and it worked. Like JJ said,
it was their best game plan discipline game of the season.
Their rebounding was super sharp. The Lakers have been a
bad rebounding team all season. Specifically, they allow an offensive
rebound on about thirty percent of their opponent's misses on
the season, that ranks twenty third in the NBA. Last night,
(18:09):
the group effort was excellent. There were some weak spots,
like I thought Ruey had a RUI. I think he
had six or seven rebounds, but he lost several. He
allowed several offensive rebounds by missing box outs and not
crashing properly. But as a team, I thought they did great.
They allowed an offensive rebound on just twenty three percent
of Boston's missus last night, which is an excellent number.
(18:30):
That's a seventy seven percent defensive rebound percenters.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's excellent.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Lebron was the main factor there, Like one of the
biggest issues for the Lakers this year defensively is Lebron
is a lowman and is inconsistent effort. The lowman is
an incredibly important position in the NBA because in terms
of defensive responsibility, the reason why, like what usually happens
there is you're putting the You're always going to put
(18:55):
the lowman is typically on the opponent's worst offensive player,
a guy that they're typically gonna jam in the corner
in the dunker spot, right because they want to have
them provide a very basic role to try to provide
some spacing, but they're not going to do much in
the way ball handling, right, And so then what ends
up happening is your elite ball handlers, they're all like
(19:16):
great jump shooters, and so as they're coming up off
these screens, you got to have your big up at
the level. You got to get your big up there, right,
So Anthony Davis is coming up to the level of screens,
he's getting out on the perimeter, especially in these switches,
right like when the Lakers are switching, Anthony Davis is
ending up on the perimeter. And so what ends up
happening is like in those ball screens, the low man
(19:36):
all of a sudden becomes responsible for two people. Because
if Anthony Davis is up at the level and there's
a role man behind, Lebron now has to account for
the role man who got behind Anthony Davis and Lebron's
man in the corner. Or if Anthony Davis switches out
onto the perimeter in a switch and now there's a
post player looking to attack a smaller Laker, Lebron once
(19:59):
again is the primary helper and rebounder in that situation.
If he's gonna help the guy in the post. He's
the guy who's closest, He's the guy who's got to
get the rebound when the shot goes up. There's a
lot of physical responsibility on that position, a lot of
meeting guys at the rim, like rim confrontations, a lot
of big contested rebounds, a lot of difficult rotations out
(20:20):
to a shooter in the corner. It's a difficult position,
and you got a forty year old playing it, a
forty year old that on nights like last night looks
like a dominant lowman, and then on many nights this
season is a downright destructive lowman because he's not jumping
for every contested rebound, not jumping in every ring confrontation,
(20:41):
and not making those rotations on.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
The back line.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And so that's kind of like one of the conundrums
with this Laker team is like when Lebron and Ad.
When Ad is at a level like he was defensively
last night, and when Lebron is engaged as a lowman,
they can be really good defensively, especially when now they've
got like pretty solid perimeter defenders. In a way that
they did it because gave Vincent is healthy and playing
good basketball, because Dorian Finney Smith is playing, because Max
(21:07):
Christy is playing. You know, now, Austin Reeves is not
your best perimmeter defender in the starting lineup, right, Like,
they have good talent around them in terms of at
least adequate defensive talent. When Lebron and ad are engaged
like that, they can actually be a really successful defensive group.
But this is one of the things, like, and again,
I've been on the fence about the trading for a
(21:28):
center thing because I think it's got to be the
right kind of center. If it's a really good center,
I think it's the kind of thing that could add
a physical element to this team that makes them difficult
to deal with. I just think a really good center
is expensive and maybe not available, and I'm not sure
that the Lakers can pull it off. And I think
bringing in a mediocre center or a bad center, you know,
(21:49):
relative to starting centers in the league, doesn't really accomplish anything.
But if you want to know why that like too
big look that Anthony Davis talks about a lot is
something that's appealing to him, it's specifically because Anthony Davis
would love to have a lowman who does that kind
of stuff consistently night tonight, unlike Lebron James does, or
(22:13):
maybe he'd like to be the low man. Right, this
is where we talk about the Jannis and brook Lopez concept. Right,
like it's a bracket if you're defending action three on
two in ball screens, meaning like you're ball screen defenders
coming up to the level and back like a high
drop and back, and your lowman is going help at
the rim corner. Help at the rim corner. There's these
(22:34):
two large amounts of space that you have to cover
both vertically and side to side, and so having two
seven foot dudes that can get back and forth in
those situations is really difficult to deal with for any offense.
And so one of the reasons why Anthony Davis has
talked a lot about wanting to have a center is
he envisions a world where you send a center. Let's
(22:57):
call it Walker Kestler. And I think Walker Kestler is
a very very long shot. I think it's very unlikely
that Utah trades him, but he's kind of like a
dream target for me, just because I think he's the
kind of guy that could really add a physical dynamic
to the Lakers. You send Walker Kessler up to the level.
Anthony Davis is your low man. You saw how good
Lebron was at it last night. Imagine Anthony Davis doing
(23:17):
that in large chunks throughout the season.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Or switch the roles.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Anthony Davis is defending out on the perimeter and you
have Walker Kessler, a guy like that, cleaning things up
on the back line. Again, that's the basketball concept behind
that desire for Anthony Davis, behind that desire for the team.
I just think it has to be a really high
level center for it to make a lot of sense. Like,
there are a lot of guys out there that people
(23:43):
have talked about as potential trade targets at the center
position that are a little closer to Jackson Hayes than
people are willing to admit. And so from that standpoint, like,
it's got to be the right kind of guy. But
it is an interesting concept. One of the things that
(24:08):
we saw last night is Lebron James himself can scale
up and be a great low man in the postseason.
This is why the Lakers are very difficult to discuss
as a regular season team. They are definitely more dangerous
as a playoff team than they are as a regular
season team. Their regular season performances are not necessarily the
(24:28):
best representation of what they would look like in the postseason.
When I watch the Calves, I'm watching a Calves team
that's gonna play more or less the same way in
the postseason. They're young, they're athletic, They're playing great basketball
every single night. Their pathway is, we're gonna perfect basketball
and see if it carries us when we get into
the postseason. This is a forty year old Lebron James.
It's completely unrealistic to expect him to be as locked
(24:50):
in in the regular season every single night as some
of these other teams are. That said, even within that context,
I think there is a certain threshold, a mandatory minimum
of regular season engagement. Like I talked about, that is
mandatory that Lebron and the Lakers have fallen short of
this season.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But they're halfway through. They're halfway through.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They're capable of restoring that at some point in the
next forty one games. But again, like that concept of
Lebron and his kind of wavering effort as a low
man is a big part of why I think the
Lakers are a complicated team to discuss as a playoff
threat relative to their regular season success. A couple other
Lakers I wanted to shout out on the glass, Dalton,
(25:32):
Max and Austin getting down and scrapping for loose balls.
Those guys got eleven defensive rebounds.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Again, this is part of the shit that is hard
about basketball.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It's not easy to constantly get involved in every scrum,
jump ball, everything like that to try to get a
loose ball.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It sucks.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You get scratched, you jam fingers, you get an elbow
to the ribcage, you get all sorts of shit that hurts,
and it's exhausting. And again, it's a chore. It's a job.
This is part of the shit that's hard about basketball.
But it's a non negotiable to get to where you
want to go. A couple of the guys I want
to shout out in the big picture, I just thought
(26:07):
Austin Reeves was incredible. I've talked a ton over the
last couple of years about how I just trust Austin
Reeves in really important games. He just I don't know
if it's it's the expression, it's like he's a gamer.
That's literally what it is for Austin, Like, if it's
a really big, really important game, I just count on
(26:28):
Austin Reeves to be the best version of himself. I
thought his dribble penetration was key last night. He was
just constantly attacking getting downhill a lot of like pace,
meaning like instead of dribbling the ball off the floor
slowly and then statically standing at it, staring at a
defender and then trying to drive past him, which is
going to be the hardest time to drive past a
good defender, especially a good defender like a Derek whit
(26:49):
or Drew Holiday, Right, that's the hardest time to do it.
But if you're going up pace, meaning like let's say
you get a defensive rebound, you throw it up to Austin,
Austin dribbles up the floor and then with like he's
all right, but he got ahead of steam. He's coming
at you at full speed and then it's in and
out crossover, Like while he's coming at you full speed,
that's so much harder to contain. That's so much harder
(27:10):
to keep in front, right, And like he was just
all night like made basket miss basket. It didn't matter
Austin was coming at the Celtics with a head of
steam and getting into the paint. I actually thought he
generated some catch and shoot looks that didn't go down either.
Like I thought, Austin played a great game, didn't turn
the ball over, competed defensively, just a really really solid game.
(27:31):
Gave Vincent defended well all night. There was an early
fourth quarter stretch where Peyton Pritchard kept trying to bully him,
and he just stood him up and got stops. He
had four threes gave Vincent, by the way, in his
last sixteen games of shooting forty one percent from three
on four attempts per game. But I want to just
just before we're done with the Lakers, I just want
to shout out Lebron James and Anthony Davis. I've been
(27:52):
really critical of them this year for inconsistent engagement, and
I've blamed them in a lot of ways for this
lopsided season that they've had, and I do believe that
their their lack of engagement has been a problem for
this Lakers team in terms of their kind of uneven
performance throughout this season. But I just thought they were
(28:12):
absolutely fantastic on both ends of the floor last night.
I thought they were the two best players last night.
And again, I know Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum were gassed,
and again I set them aside for a minute. We're
talking about the Lakers. I'm just saying in that particular game,
Lebron James and Anthony Davis were better. They were truly
physically dominant on both ends of the floor in a
way that they have often looked when they get to
(28:33):
the postseason. That's why it's so hard to quit these guys.
You have a six nine, two hundred and sixty pound
monster power forward and a six ' eleven, two hundred
and sixty pound monster center with a seven to six
wingspan that can play power forward. They both can run
and jump with the best in the league and their
elite defensive players when they want to be, and they
(28:55):
both thrive offensively as the physicality and the intensity go up,
Which brings me to my final point.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We talked about ways.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
To restore belief, to grow belief in your big picture goals,
a signature win, or an influx of talent. If you're
Rob Pulink and Genie Buss, it's time to shit or
get off the pot Yovan Boja on our show last week,
reported that he thinks it's more likely that the Lakers
(29:25):
do a smaller deal. I literally do not see the
point in that Lebron's forty years old and this team
does have championship upside, but only with a legit talent upgrade.
And you're not getting a legit talent upgrade by making
a smaller deal on the margins. You need to include
(29:47):
first round draft compensation. And if you don't think Lebron
James and Anthony Davis can do it, which I think
would be fucking insane after what we saw last night,
then pull the dam of team up, Like, if you
don't think they can do it, trade the guys. But
a smaller move accomplishes nothing. Either be about it or
(30:09):
don't be about it. No more sitting around and watching
the greatest basketball player of all time and another top
ten player in this league. Try to fight through what
you guys know, damn well, is not a championship roster. Frankly,
if you Rob Polinka and Jeanie Buss are not going
to compete alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis, then you
(30:30):
need to send them to a team that will compete
with them. And so at that point, I mean, Lebron
and Ad said a clear message last night. We can
still go. We can still go with the best guys,
but they need horses, and you've got two first round picks.
How are we gonna look back at the Lebron era
(30:53):
with the Lakers? How are we gonna look back when
it's five years from now in the Lake are mid rebuild,
but they have two extra first round picks instead of
the you know seven or whatever they would or they
could get by taking on bad salary and trading role
(31:14):
players for draft compensation. They could easily recoup all this
stuff down the line. You know what happens when you
trade for good players. They're good players. So when you
trade for good players, then suddenly you don't need the
good players anymore. You get to trade the good players.
And when you get to trade the good players, you
get picks back. Put the picks on the table, Do
(31:34):
everything in your power to give these guys what they
need to fight or be done with this, be done
with it. Trade them. But like Lebron and Ad want
it as frustrating as their commitment has been this year.
So either meet them at that level or don't. On
(31:55):
the Celtics front, I don't think there's much to get
in here. Ironically, as I talked about, this is their
first twenty point loss of the season and only their
second indie drew holiday Christops porzingis era. Guess what their
last twenty point loss was January last year, a thirty
plus point blowout loss in Milwaukee. Also a fifth game
(32:18):
and seven nights, also the tail end of a back
to back, also an overtime game the night before. Most
of this was just fatigue, guys, not too much to
get into there. I talked about settling the other day.
Settling is about conserving energy, and settling, to me is
just like I have a mismatch, but instead of attacking
it with physicality, I'm gonna take a jump shot. There
(32:39):
was a lot of settling last night, but a good
amount of that is almost to be expected under the circumstances,
and again something we've seen.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Before, as recently as last year.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
But I do think Boston has been in a little
bit of a funk with their offensive process. This isn't
just a last night thing. This is something I've been
talking about for a while when they've been loo of late,
it's been their offense that's been the problem almost every time.
Still a lot of bad process. The entire opening sequence
of this game was Jalen Brown trying to iso Anthony
(33:10):
Davis straight up, that's just stupid. He hit a couple
of threes, so it ended up being like reasonably efficient.
That's not good process. Still a ton of settling. That
really is the main issue that I'm seeing if you
ask me to like pinpoint one specific issue with the
Celtics right now. They're trying to beat mismatches too often
with jump shots instead of physical aggression. When you're physically
(33:34):
aggressive against the mismatch, you get easy twos. When you
get easy twos, it becomes untenable for the defense. When
it becomes untenable for the defense, they start to send
extra bodies. When they start to send extra bodies, that's
when you get your wide open catch and shoot threes.
It happens in that order. If you attack mismatches by settling,
(33:56):
you get tougher twos. If you get tougher twos, you
don't hit enough of them. If you don't hit enough
of them, the defense doesn't view it as untenable. If
the defense doesn't view it as an untenable. They're gonna
let you keep attacking like that. They let you keep
attacking like that, you'll continue to hit inefficient twos and
you won't keep your team in rhythm with catch and
(34:17):
shoot jump shots in the ball popping ground. It's just
a it's an order of operations for Boston. And again
I'm not judging last night because I think it's about fatigue.
But like I talked about that sixteen catch and shoot
wide open, sixteen unguarded catch shoo jump shots at the
Celtics attempt every game that ranks third in the NBA.
Last night was the fifth consecutive game where they did
(34:38):
not reach sixteen unguarded catching shoots six games in a
row or five games five games in a row like that.
That's a troubling trend in terms of just their overall
offensive approach. That's the thing that they got a picks
to get this thing back on track. All right, guys,
that's all I have for today, or all I have
for this morning. I should say I'll be back later.
Today was some more game reactions in a mailbag.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Then the volume.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
What's up guys?
Speaker 1 (35:05):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
hoops 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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(01:33):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume.
Happy Friday, everybody, He'll bother you. Guys are having a
great end of your week. Got a jam pack day
for the show today. We're gonna do two episodes in
this one. I watched Lakers Celtics live last night and
I just wanted to give my Lakers Celtics thoughts here
in the morning. Then when I'm done here, I'm gonna
go back and watch some more games from last night
and do our mailbag. So just Laker Celtics in this
video and then keep an eye on the feed. Later
(01:55):
today we'll have more instant reaction content as well as
a mailbag. You guys are the joke before we get started.
Subscribe to Hoops and Not YouTube channels. You don't miss
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(02:15):
We're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys
follow us there. And the last but not least, keep
dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so we
can keep hitting them on Fridays throughout the remainder of
the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So after
the Lakers got smashed by the Clippers, I did an
episode where I talked about the Lakers looking like they're
starting to lose belief a little bit, some bad body language,
(02:37):
some comments, and the postgame presser from JJ Reddick and
Lebron James. It just kind of seemed like they didn't,
they were losing confidence in their ability to achieve their
ultimate goal this year. After last night's dominant win against
the Boston Celtics, JJ Reddick said, hopefully there's some belief
reinforced here about what we can and be, And so
(03:01):
I wanted to take a second, just really quickly before
we dive into the deeper details of this game, to
talk about why belief is so important to a basketball team.
In my opinion, there are two mental hurdles that every
team has to get through in order to play championship basketball.
And these are separate from anything with talent on the
roster because we all can agree that, like, in order
(03:23):
to accomplish something as a basketball team, you have to
have talented players, and then you have to play a
certain type of way. Right, it's a combination of two factors, right.
The first mental hurdle is you got to compete. You
have to get your competitive motor running, meaning you have
to be bought into the concept of winning, not just
playing basketball. I've referred to this concept on the show
(03:47):
as the fear of losing, because I think that's actually
more how it manifests for competitors, Like I think it
has more to do with just like a trying to
survive that game without losing that mentality that brings that
competitive nature out of people. If you're not going to compete,
you're not going to win. If you're just okay with
(04:07):
losing and you're more in it for love of the game,
you're never gonna get to where you want to go
in terms of championship goals. I thought that D'Angelo Russell
quote was an interesting example of that when he talked
about never taking for granted playing free basketball again. Free
basketball is fun. I know the feeling. I vividly remember
when I finished my last practice, last game, last sequence
(04:29):
playing in college, and I came home and I went
to go play pick up at the University of Arizona
Rec Center, and I vividly remember this feeling where I
was like, this is fun, Like it's not work anymore.
Like it's like, if I happen to not get back
on defense on this possession, I'm not going to have
a coach chewing me out or anything like that. And
especially coming off of that particular season, which was the
(04:49):
most structured team that I ever played with, and so
like I sympathize with the feeling of like what it
feels like to play stakes free basketball, but at the
end of the day, like it has some fun to it.
But playing winning basketball is a fundamentally different thing. It's
also fun, but in a different way. It's more like work.
(05:10):
The attention to detail consumes your every thought. That last
year that I played in college, I played at the
NAIA level up in Phoenix at a school called Arizona
Christian University. At the NAIA level, the coaching is insane.
Shout out to coach Jeff Rudder up there by far
the most structured team that I played in in college
and the closest thing to the pros in terms of
(05:31):
like advanced schematic stuff on both ends of the floor,
and so like there what I had a coaching staff
that was relentlessly holding me accountable to my job on
both ends of the floor when I was there. That
it's like work, but the rewards come in different ways.
Like you build camaraderie with your teammates as you survive
(05:52):
the grind together. You have these team accomplishments like winning
games or winning trophies, and yes, you do still have
some fun. Do you think the Lakers were having fun
when they were kicking the shit out of the Celtics
last night. Like it's fun when it all comes together,
but it definitely feels overall more like work. So you
got to get your competitive motor running so that you're
(06:14):
willing to do the work. But if basketball is gonna
feel like work, if it's going to feel like a chore,
then you better be getting rewarded for it. This is
where belief comes into the equation. Playing winning basketball is
a pain in the ass. It's constant mental engagement. It's
(06:34):
a shit ton of running, it's taking a bunch of
physical contact. It's holding onto the rope. No matter how
good or how bad things get, it's really hard to do.
The team needs to believe that they're hard work the
shit that sucks will actually lead to them getting the
(06:57):
thing that they want, in this case, silario'brian Trophy. Before
this game against the Celtics, the Lakers had been consistently
dropping games against good teams. The Clippers controlled them, These
Spurs destroyed them in the second half. The Mavericks destroyed
them in the second half. The Rockets basically led them
wire to wire. The Lakers got it close a couple times,
(07:19):
but Houston always pulled away the Cavs. The Lakers hung
tight for about two and a half quarters and then
lost control.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Of that one.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Now I would argue that poor execution played a role
in those losses, but the point is they were losing
consistently to the good teams in the league. And so
if you're gonna get a forty year old Lebron James
and an aging Anthony Davis to really commit to the work,
they need to believe that this team can actually win.
(07:50):
And there are two things that can actually convince them
that they're capable of winning an NBA championship. One a
trade for more talent, which we'll get into later. But
if you bring in more talent, obviously Lebron and Ad
will believe more. But a second thing that can accomplish
that is a signature win, a win that demonstrates to
you what your ceiling looks like. So you can at
(08:13):
least strive to be at that ceiling as much as
possible moving forward. And I thought last night was that
for the Lakers internally, Lebron James in his postgame presser
was really trying to dump a bunch of water on
that win and talk about it's just another night in
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't disagree with him.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
There's a lot of factors there, Like disclaimer for Celtics fans,
I know that that was a really tough game for
you guys, schedule wise, it was your fifth game and
seven nights is on the road for the last three
games in that stretch, tail end of a back to back,
It's an overtime game the previous night against the Clippers,
and in general, the Celtics is aren't playing their best
basketball right now. All that is true, we can agree
(08:51):
that there were some other factors that play here. I
thought that last night had a lot more to do
with like good Lakers than any sort of like big
picture problem that the Celtics have. Like the Lakers played
a great game. The Celtics weren't playing their best and
they were worn down. That's how you end up getting
a blowout, right But I do think where I disagree
with Lebron is I do think it's an example of
(09:12):
what they can be. I saw a lot of potential
outcomes in my mind for last night's game, including some
that involved the Lakers winning. I thought they could win
that game, but I never in a million years thought
the Lakers would control that game from wire to wire,
blow them out, and do it with their defense. That
(09:35):
was Boston's first twenty point loss of this entire season.
It was only the second twenty point loss in the
Drew Holiday, and chrisops porzingis era here with the Celtics.
So again, everyone including Lakers fans, knows that the Boston
Celtics are not at their best right now and that
when they see them again in March, it will probably
(09:56):
be a much greater challenge. But the Lakers also played
their best game of the season last night. It's okay
to acknowledge that too. To JJ's point, hopefully there's some
belief reinforced about what this team can be.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I was really high on the Lakers before the season.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I thought they would win fifty games if they stayed
relatively healthy. I thought that they were a good trade
deadline away from serious contention. Now my faith in them
has been seriously shaken as I've actually watched the season layout.
I think they've been mostly bad this year if you
really dig into it. They've dominated the bad teams in
(10:34):
the league and have been pretty consistently mediocre to bad
against the good teams in the league. They've been a
bad road team. They have shaken my faith in them,
in large part beyond it because the roster issues I
knew about going into the season. In large part what
shook my faith in them is the lack of commitment.
I thought after what happened with Darvin ham last night,
I thought that or last season. I thought that JJ
(10:56):
Reddick coming in and trying to establish more structure with
the group from are to finish and on a possession
of possession basis, would galvanize these guys to actually attack
a regular season and that's not what happened. I think
that there's a mandatory minimum level of regular season engagement
for a team to win a title, and I think
the Lakers have fallen woefully short of that in the
large sample this season. But there have been moments where
(11:20):
we've seen what it looks like last night is at
least the kind of win that JJ can use to
try to put up on a pedestal as an example
and put it in the team's face and be like,
this is what you're capable of doing. This is where
I want to start getting into some specifics from the game.
(11:43):
JJ Reddick talked about them keeping the ball in front.
It was a big part of how the Lakers kept
the Celtics out of wide open catch and shoot jump
shots last night. The Celtics generate sixteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots per game according to Synergy, that's the
third most in the NBA. They generated only eleven last night.
A big part of that was the Lakers containing the
(12:04):
basketball staying out of rotation. Are the Lakers an elite
perimeter defense full of guys that can put the clamps
on people? No, of course not. But they do have
plenty of guys who can guard. And there is a
huge difference in this team between when they're really competing
to stay in front of the ball and when they aren't.
(12:27):
The other thing that JJ talked a lot about was
game plan discipline. He said it was their best game
plan discipline game of the season. The big thing there
was not overreacting to Boston hunting mismatches. The Celtics are
a killer whale offense, right They pick on your worst defender,
try to attack him, usually in the post or with
an ISO. When Porzingis would catch a smaller player in
(12:51):
the post, whether it was Max or was Austin. They
weren't doubling. They were doing what you're supposed to do
in a switching defense. They were crowding, digging, stunting, but
all within the context of being able to quickly close
out to a shooter to not give up the easy
swing pass, swing pass, wide open catch and shoot. Three
types of things that can happen when you recklessly double
(13:13):
or you're not set up for that sort of thing.
Anthony Davis was really the only guy last night that
would occasionally completely leave his man to try to like
go for a late shot block on a player in
the post, or like really dig down. But again, Anthony
Davis his if you think of it like this, like
if you the camera are the shooter and I am
the offensive player that has the ball, there's a space
between us, right and if you're the help defender, your
(13:36):
ability to cover ground is going to dictate how much
you can come over to help. If you're a freaky athlete,
you might be able to straight up double team and
then recover. Like there are guys like Gary Payton with
the Warriors, Draymond Green with the Warriors I've talked about
where it's like they can straight up double team but
then still get out. Yehannest for years did this with
the Bucks and still does from time to time, where
it's like he can help at the rim or double
(13:57):
team but still close out to a shooter. That's that's
unique player to player. Anthony Davis was the guy last
night that was a little bit more aggressive in terms
of his helper's doubles or stunts or is attempting to
go in and get a block at the end of
an ISO. But for the most part, everyone else was
kind of splitting that difference and not overreacting to those attacks.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
So as a result, Yeah, Chris.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Tops Porzingis and Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, they hit
some buckets in the post, but they avoided that onslaught
of threes that Boston usually destroys teams with. Again, that
eleven unguarded catch and shoot threes stat that I told
you guys about earlier is a great stat to demonstrate that,
And that's what like, as I kind of look back
(14:42):
at the Lakers defensively after last night, I genuinely feel
bad for JJ Reddick about.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
The stuff with the switching.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The Lakers switched one through five with the starters last
night against Boston's shooting bigs. They did some more drop
type stuff when it was like Cornette on the floor,
but like for the most part when it was Horford
or porzingis because they didn't want to give up easy
picking pop threes. They switched, which is the same scheme
(15:13):
that has been killing the Lakers all season.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But it worked last night.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Why because the Lakers did all the stuff that you're
supposed to do to make switching work, actually competing on
the ball to keep the ball in front, crowding but
not overhelping, gang rebounding, all of that stuff. But again,
it's been terrible for the Lakers all season because they've
sucked at all three of those things. They haven't competed
(15:40):
as well on the ball. They've given up too many
straight line drives, they've been dominated in the post. They've
been standing around off ball and glued up to shooters
and just leaving a guy on an island one on
one instead of crowding and making it more of a
tight space type of ISO to make life easier for
your on ball defender. And then the gang rebounding piece.
They give up a switch, and then they'd all just
standing around while the ball came off the rim, and
(16:02):
a big player that's matched up with a little player
would go get the rebound over the little player. It's
pretty clear after what you saw last night and what
we've seen at times this year, they are capable of
executing that scheme properly. And that's the vision that JJ
sees when he's in practice, when he's looking at the roster,
(16:22):
when he's you know, at home, obsessing over this kind
of thing. He thinks, like, these fucking guys can switch.
I know they can do it. This is a scheme
that will work for us. They just gotta fucking do it.
That's what he's thinking. That's what's going on in JJ's head,
and that's why like he stuck with it as long
as he did.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Now, I actually like.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
That JJ's been using it more as a matchup specific
kind of thing, like using it depending on the team,
depending on the opponent. Right now, here's the thing. They
did it match up specific against Boston. It worked. They
did it match up specific against the Spurs. It didn't
because there was a they didn't X right, Like, It's
all it comes hand in hand with whether or not
you execute it. But I do actually think this is
(17:05):
a scheme the Lakers will need to use when they
get into the postseason. So I like the idea of
continuing to try to build it out. I just think
they might have to stick with more traditional schemes for
the most part during the regular season because this team
just doesn't want to do the job in order for
that switching scheme to work. I've always talked about how
to guard Boston. In my opinion, the best way to
(17:25):
guard Boston is to switch and contain, because if you
switch and contain, then you force them to take off
the dribble jump shots. As soon as you get compromised
in containment, meaning they start driving past you or posting
through you, that's when you're gonna start either giving up
layups which will beat you, or having a hard help
which will beat you with them getting wide open threes.
But switching and containing is the way to guard Boston.
(17:47):
It is the appropriate game plan. The Lakers did it,
they did it right, and it worked. Like JJ said,
it was their best game plan discipline game of the season.
Their rebounding was super sharp. The Lakers have been a
bad rebounding team all season. Specifically, they allow an offensive
rebound on about thirty percent of their opponent's misses on
the season, that ranks twenty third in the NBA. Last night,
(18:09):
the group effort was excellent. There were some weak spots,
like I thought Ruey had a RUI. I think he
had six or seven rebounds, but he lost several. He
allowed several offensive rebounds by missing box outs and not
crashing properly. But as a team, I thought they did great.
They allowed an offensive rebound on just twenty three percent
of Boston's missus last night, which is an excellent number.
(18:30):
That's a seventy seven percent defensive rebound percenters.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
That's excellent.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Lebron was the main factor there, Like one of the
biggest issues for the Lakers this year defensively is Lebron
is a lowman and is inconsistent effort. The lowman is
an incredibly important position in the NBA because in terms
of defensive responsibility, the reason why, like what usually happens
there is you're putting the You're always going to put
(18:55):
the lowman is typically on the opponent's worst offensive player,
a guy that they're typically gonna jam in the corner
in the dunker spot, right because they want to have
them provide a very basic role to try to provide
some spacing, but they're not going to do much in
the way ball handling, right, And so then what ends
up happening is your elite ball handlers, they're all like
(19:16):
great jump shooters, and so as they're coming up off
these screens, you got to have your big up at
the level. You got to get your big up there, right,
So Anthony Davis is coming up to the level of screens,
he's getting out on the perimeter, especially in these switches,
right like when the Lakers are switching, Anthony Davis is
ending up on the perimeter. And so what ends up
happening is like in those ball screens, the low man
(19:36):
all of a sudden becomes responsible for two people. Because
if Anthony Davis is up at the level and there's
a role man behind, Lebron now has to account for
the role man who got behind Anthony Davis and Lebron's
man in the corner. Or if Anthony Davis switches out
onto the perimeter in a switch and now there's a
post player looking to attack a smaller Laker, Lebron once
(19:59):
again is the primary helper and rebounder in that situation.
If he's gonna help the guy in the post. He's
the guy who's closest, He's the guy who's got to
get the rebound when the shot goes up. There's a
lot of physical responsibility on that position, a lot of
meeting guys at the rim, like rim confrontations, a lot
of big contested rebounds, a lot of difficult rotations out
(20:20):
to a shooter in the corner. It's a difficult position,
and you got a forty year old playing it, a
forty year old that on nights like last night looks
like a dominant lowman, and then on many nights this
season is a downright destructive lowman because he's not jumping
for every contested rebound, not jumping in every ring confrontation,
(20:41):
and not making those rotations on.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
The back line.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And so that's kind of like one of the conundrums
with this Laker team is like when Lebron and Ad.
When Ad is at a level like he was defensively
last night, and when Lebron is engaged as a lowman,
they can be really good defensively, especially when now they've
got like pretty solid perimeter defenders. In a way that
they did it because gave Vincent is healthy and playing
good basketball, because Dorian Finney Smith is playing, because Max
(21:07):
Christy is playing. You know, now, Austin Reeves is not
your best perimmeter defender in the starting lineup, right, Like,
they have good talent around them in terms of at
least adequate defensive talent. When Lebron and ad are engaged
like that, they can actually be a really successful defensive group.
But this is one of the things, like, and again,
I've been on the fence about the trading for a
(21:28):
center thing because I think it's got to be the
right kind of center. If it's a really good center,
I think it's the kind of thing that could add
a physical element to this team that makes them difficult
to deal with. I just think a really good center
is expensive and maybe not available, and I'm not sure
that the Lakers can pull it off. And I think
bringing in a mediocre center or a bad center, you know,
(21:49):
relative to starting centers in the league, doesn't really accomplish anything.
But if you want to know why that like too
big look that Anthony Davis talks about a lot is
something that's appealing to him, it's specifically because Anthony Davis
would love to have a lowman who does that kind
of stuff consistently night tonight, unlike Lebron James does, or
(22:13):
maybe he'd like to be the low man. Right, this
is where we talk about the Jannis and brook Lopez concept. Right,
like it's a bracket if you're defending action three on
two in ball screens, meaning like you're ball screen defenders
coming up to the level and back like a high
drop and back, and your lowman is going help at
the rim corner. Help at the rim corner. There's these
(22:34):
two large amounts of space that you have to cover
both vertically and side to side, and so having two
seven foot dudes that can get back and forth in
those situations is really difficult to deal with for any offense.
And so one of the reasons why Anthony Davis has
talked a lot about wanting to have a center is
he envisions a world where you send a center. Let's
(22:57):
call it Walker Kestler. And I think Walker Kestler is
a very very long shot. I think it's very unlikely
that Utah trades him, but he's kind of like a
dream target for me, just because I think he's the
kind of guy that could really add a physical dynamic
to the Lakers. You send Walker Kessler up to the level.
Anthony Davis is your low man. You saw how good
Lebron was at it last night. Imagine Anthony Davis doing
(23:17):
that in large chunks throughout the season.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Or switch the roles.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Anthony Davis is defending out on the perimeter and you
have Walker Kessler, a guy like that, cleaning things up
on the back line. Again, that's the basketball concept behind
that desire for Anthony Davis, behind that desire for the team.
I just think it has to be a really high
level center for it to make a lot of sense. Like,
there are a lot of guys out there that people
(23:43):
have talked about as potential trade targets at the center
position that are a little closer to Jackson Hayes than
people are willing to admit. And so from that standpoint, like,
it's got to be the right kind of guy. But
it is an interesting concept. One of the things that
(24:08):
we saw last night is Lebron James himself can scale
up and be a great low man in the postseason.
This is why the Lakers are very difficult to discuss
as a regular season team. They are definitely more dangerous
as a playoff team than they are as a regular
season team. Their regular season performances are not necessarily the
(24:28):
best representation of what they would look like in the postseason.
When I watch the Calves, I'm watching a Calves team
that's gonna play more or less the same way in
the postseason. They're young, they're athletic, They're playing great basketball
every single night. Their pathway is, we're gonna perfect basketball
and see if it carries us when we get into
the postseason. This is a forty year old Lebron James.
It's completely unrealistic to expect him to be as locked
(24:50):
in in the regular season every single night as some
of these other teams are. That said, even within that context,
I think there is a certain threshold, a mandatory minimum
of regular season engagement. Like I talked about, that is
mandatory that Lebron and the Lakers have fallen short of
this season.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But they're halfway through. They're halfway through.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
They're capable of restoring that at some point in the
next forty one games. But again, like that concept of
Lebron and his kind of wavering effort as a low
man is a big part of why I think the
Lakers are a complicated team to discuss as a playoff
threat relative to their regular season success. A couple other
Lakers I wanted to shout out on the glass, Dalton,
(25:32):
Max and Austin getting down and scrapping for loose balls.
Those guys got eleven defensive rebounds.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Again, this is part of the shit that is hard
about basketball.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
It's not easy to constantly get involved in every scrum,
jump ball, everything like that to try to get a
loose ball.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
It sucks.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
You get scratched, you jam fingers, you get an elbow
to the ribcage, you get all sorts of shit that hurts,
and it's exhausting. And again, it's a chore. It's a job.
This is part of the shit that's hard about basketball.
But it's a non negotiable to get to where you
want to go. A couple of the guys I want
to shout out in the big picture, I just thought
(26:07):
Austin Reeves was incredible. I've talked a ton over the
last couple of years about how I just trust Austin
Reeves in really important games. He just I don't know
if it's it's the expression, it's like he's a gamer.
That's literally what it is for Austin, Like, if it's
a really big, really important game, I just count on
(26:28):
Austin Reeves to be the best version of himself. I
thought his dribble penetration was key last night. He was
just constantly attacking getting downhill a lot of like pace,
meaning like instead of dribbling the ball off the floor
slowly and then statically standing at it, staring at a
defender and then trying to drive past him, which is
going to be the hardest time to drive past a
good defender, especially a good defender like a Derek whit
(26:49):
or Drew Holiday, Right, that's the hardest time to do it.
But if you're going up pace, meaning like let's say
you get a defensive rebound, you throw it up to Austin,
Austin dribbles up the floor and then with like he's
all right, but he got ahead of steam. He's coming
at you at full speed and then it's in and
out crossover, Like while he's coming at you full speed,
that's so much harder to contain. That's so much harder
(27:10):
to keep in front, right, And like he was just
all night like made basket miss basket. It didn't matter
Austin was coming at the Celtics with a head of
steam and getting into the paint. I actually thought he
generated some catch and shoot looks that didn't go down either.
Like I thought, Austin played a great game, didn't turn
the ball over, competed defensively, just a really really solid game.
(27:31):
Gave Vincent defended well all night. There was an early
fourth quarter stretch where Peyton Pritchard kept trying to bully him,
and he just stood him up and got stops. He
had four threes gave Vincent, by the way, in his
last sixteen games of shooting forty one percent from three
on four attempts per game. But I want to just
just before we're done with the Lakers, I just want
to shout out Lebron James and Anthony Davis. I've been
(27:52):
really critical of them this year for inconsistent engagement, and
I've blamed them in a lot of ways for this
lopsided season that they've had, and I do believe that
their their lack of engagement has been a problem for
this Lakers team in terms of their kind of uneven
performance throughout this season. But I just thought they were
(28:12):
absolutely fantastic on both ends of the floor last night.
I thought they were the two best players last night.
And again, I know Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum were gassed,
and again I set them aside for a minute. We're
talking about the Lakers. I'm just saying in that particular game,
Lebron James and Anthony Davis were better. They were truly
physically dominant on both ends of the floor in a
way that they have often looked when they get to
(28:33):
the postseason. That's why it's so hard to quit these guys.
You have a six nine, two hundred and sixty pound
monster power forward and a six ' eleven, two hundred
and sixty pound monster center with a seven to six
wingspan that can play power forward. They both can run
and jump with the best in the league and their
elite defensive players when they want to be, and they
(28:55):
both thrive offensively as the physicality and the intensity go up,
Which brings me to my final point.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
We talked about ways.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
To restore belief, to grow belief in your big picture goals,
a signature win, or an influx of talent. If you're
Rob Pulink and Genie Buss, it's time to shit or
get off the pot Yovan Boja on our show last week,
reported that he thinks it's more likely that the Lakers
(29:25):
do a smaller deal. I literally do not see the
point in that Lebron's forty years old and this team
does have championship upside, but only with a legit talent upgrade.
And you're not getting a legit talent upgrade by making
a smaller deal on the margins. You need to include
(29:47):
first round draft compensation. And if you don't think Lebron
James and Anthony Davis can do it, which I think
would be fucking insane after what we saw last night,
then pull the dam of team up, Like, if you
don't think they can do it, trade the guys. But
a smaller move accomplishes nothing. Either be about it or
(30:09):
don't be about it. No more sitting around and watching
the greatest basketball player of all time and another top
ten player in this league. Try to fight through what
you guys know, damn well, is not a championship roster. Frankly,
if you Rob Polinka and Jeanie Buss are not going
to compete alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis, then you
(30:30):
need to send them to a team that will compete
with them. And so at that point, I mean, Lebron
and Ad said a clear message last night. We can
still go. We can still go with the best guys,
but they need horses, and you've got two first round picks.
How are we gonna look back at the Lebron era
(30:53):
with the Lakers? How are we gonna look back when
it's five years from now in the Lake are mid rebuild,
but they have two extra first round picks instead of
the you know seven or whatever they would or they
could get by taking on bad salary and trading role
(31:14):
players for draft compensation. They could easily recoup all this
stuff down the line. You know what happens when you
trade for good players. They're good players. So when you
trade for good players, then suddenly you don't need the
good players anymore. You get to trade the good players.
And when you get to trade the good players, you
get picks back. Put the picks on the table, Do
(31:34):
everything in your power to give these guys what they
need to fight or be done with this, be done
with it. Trade them. But like Lebron and Ad want
it as frustrating as their commitment has been this year.
So either meet them at that level or don't. On
(31:55):
the Celtics front, I don't think there's much to get
in here. Ironically, as I talked about, this is their
first twenty point loss of the season and only their
second indie drew holiday Christops porzingis era. Guess what their
last twenty point loss was January last year, a thirty
plus point blowout loss in Milwaukee. Also a fifth game
(32:18):
and seven nights, also the tail end of a back
to back, also an overtime game the night before. Most
of this was just fatigue, guys, not too much to
get into there. I talked about settling the other day.
Settling is about conserving energy, and settling, to me is
just like I have a mismatch, but instead of attacking
it with physicality, I'm gonna take a jump shot. There
(32:39):
was a lot of settling last night, but a good
amount of that is almost to be expected under the circumstances,
and again something we've seen.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Before, as recently as last year.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
But I do think Boston has been in a little
bit of a funk with their offensive process. This isn't
just a last night thing. This is something I've been
talking about for a while when they've been loo of late,
it's been their offense that's been the problem almost every time.
Still a lot of bad process. The entire opening sequence
of this game was Jalen Brown trying to iso Anthony
(33:10):
Davis straight up, that's just stupid. He hit a couple
of threes, so it ended up being like reasonably efficient.
That's not good process. Still a ton of settling. That
really is the main issue that I'm seeing if you
ask me to like pinpoint one specific issue with the
Celtics right now. They're trying to beat mismatches too often
with jump shots instead of physical aggression. When you're physically
(33:34):
aggressive against the mismatch, you get easy twos. When you
get easy twos, it becomes untenable for the defense. When
it becomes untenable for the defense, they start to send
extra bodies. When they start to send extra bodies, that's
when you get your wide open catch and shoot threes.
It happens in that order. If you attack mismatches by settling,
(33:56):
you get tougher twos. If you get tougher twos, you
don't hit enough of them. If you don't hit enough
of them, the defense doesn't view it as untenable. If
the defense doesn't view it as an untenable. They're gonna
let you keep attacking like that. They let you keep
attacking like that, you'll continue to hit inefficient twos and
you won't keep your team in rhythm with catch and
(34:17):
shoot jump shots in the ball popping ground. It's just
a it's an order of operations for Boston. And again
I'm not judging last night because I think it's about fatigue.
But like I talked about that sixteen catch and shoot
wide open, sixteen unguarded catch shoo jump shots at the
Celtics attempt every game that ranks third in the NBA.
Last night was the fifth consecutive game where they did
(34:38):
not reach sixteen unguarded catching shoots six games in a
row or five games five games in a row like that.
That's a troubling trend in terms of just their overall
offensive approach. That's the thing that they got a picks
to get this thing back on track. All right, guys,
that's all I have for today, or all I have
for this morning. I should say I'll be back later.
Today was some more game reactions in a mailbag.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I will see you guys.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Then the volume.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
What's up guys?
Speaker 1 (35:05):
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
hoops 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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