February 9, 2025 • 35 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to the Mark Williams trade between the Los Angeles Lakers and Charlotte Hornets being rescinded following Williams' failed physical. How will this affect LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and LA as they make their push toward the NBA Playoffs. Later, Jason reacts to Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics' dominant win over Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks. What makes Boston such a difficult matchup for New York? Lastly, Jason reacts to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors' 132-111 win over the Chicago Bulls in Jimmy Butler's debut. Jason discusses Curry's 24-point explosion in the Warrior's massive comeback and breaks down what the future holds in Golden State.
Timeline:
4:15 - Introduction
5:30 - Mark Williams trade canceled
24:15 - Celtics blast Knicks
32:30 - Warriors WILD comeback
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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see DKG dot co slash b ball. All right, welcome
to tonight here at the Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. Hope
all of you guys are having a great weekend. We
(01:49):
got a big piece of NBA news last night as
the Mark Williams trade between the Los Angeles Lakers and
the Charlotte Hornets fell through, and we also got a
couple of interesting games last week night, as Jimmy Butler
made his debut for the Warriors as they had some
wild second half comeback where they're getting completely blown off
the floor and the next thing you know, they're blowing
the bulls off the court. So we're going to break
(02:11):
that game down. And then the New York Knicks got
another chance to try to demonstrate to the Celtics that
they were on their level and just got absolutely annihilated.
So we're gonna be breaking down those two games, hitting
some Mark Williams stuff off of the top, and then
we'll get out of here so you guys can enjoy
the Super Bowl. You guys know the joke before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
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(02:33):
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the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the Mark Williams trade, as Ben rescinded, the reporting
(02:55):
is just that they found too much in the scans
and the physical two justified believing him as a foundational
center for the Lakers over the course of this next era.
When this news came down last night, I had a
lot of mixed feelings about it. I had kind of
sort of been worried about this because it's highly unusual
(03:17):
for a trade like that to not be finalized in
the timeline that it had been finalized, and I'd been
texting with some people behind the scenes and being like,
this is weird, right, And then next thing you know,
the Mark Williams trade ends up getting rescinded. And on
one hand, Mark Williams is a very flawed NBA player,
and the playoffs have a remarkable ability to expose flaws.
(03:39):
That's why I talked a lot after the trade about
how this team is probably going to go down with
small ball lineups. Anyway, when the time comes even after
the Mark Williams trade, but I kept landing back on
the same simple logical progression that bummed me out, which
is that Dalton Connects wasn't going to be in the
playoff rotation for this team, and neither was Cam Reddish.
(04:00):
And even with Mark Williams's flaws, he still brings a
ton of positives to the team as a screen and
roll threat and as a rebounder, And even with his flaws,
he almost certainly would have played at least fifteen minutes
ish a game in the playoffs. So like, even if
you try to find the silver linings, like you get
your assets back, you have some more flexibility this summer,
(04:22):
which we'll talk about in a little bit. There's a simple,
harsh reality here, which is this trade falling through is
a loss of talent for this year's Los Angeles Lakers team.
So the first question is where do they go from here?
The good news is is that the Lakers are obviously
the top destination for the best available center from now
(04:43):
to the end of the season. They have a starting
spot you can walk right into and you'll just get
spoon fed dunks and layups by the Laker offense every
single game. That's the good news. The bad news is
that the options aren't great. I want to read to
you guys what I deemed to be all the potential options.
So first of all, here buyout candidates. This is every
tending unrestricted free agent, meaning they're about to be a
(05:04):
free agent this summer who makes less than twelve point
eight million dollars. So these are guys that could work
out buyouts with their team and could sign with the
Lakers as a first Apron team because they made less
than twelve point eight million on their last contract. Steven
Adams probably not getting bought out by the Rockets, Al
Horford definitely not. Kevon Looney definitely not. DeAndre Jordan probably
not available and not a good option. Tristan Thompson not available,
(05:27):
Todge Gibson not a good option, Mason plumbly not going
to be available, Alex Land already agreed to join a
different team, Christian Wood already a Laker and I'm not
even sure if he plays basketball anymore, and Luke Cornette
not available, Thomas Bryant not available, Jackson Hayes already is
your starting center, Charles Bass even you know there's Mamou
out of San Antonio. They're not getting rid of him.
(05:47):
Jericho Sims already with the Bucks. Paul Reid maybe right
like those are the buyout candidates's that's not that's not
anything that's going to be a substantial playoff rotation piece
for the Lakers. Right There are some okay options in
the currently available centers groups. So these are guys who
are currently free agents that can absolutely sign with the
Lakers right now, and I do think this is the
(06:09):
direction the Lakers will choose to go. There's a guy
like Daniel Tice, whose name has been bounced around. He's
a bigger body, which is I guess an advantage for
absorbing blows from Jokis, but he's not a vertical spacer.
He's technically a stretch big, but he doesn't really make
three point shots, so I'm not super high on that
as an option. Mobamba is an interesting option. He's probably
my favorite option at this point. He's got good length,
(06:31):
He's a good above the break three point shooter, which
makes him a pick and pop threat. He's very thin,
but at least he can block some shots, but he
really isn't a great defender. I think He's probably my
favorite option right now because he's like a thirteen and
thirteen with three blocks per thirty six minutes kind of
guy that's pretty decent production. So I think that's probably
the best option. Damian Jones used to be a Laker,
(06:53):
not a very good rebounder, which is my main concern,
but he is a little bit bigger and stronger than Mobama,
which could be advantageous for a Jokis matchup. Then there's
some other guys at Colin Castleton, jaliel Okuefer. I don't
think those are real options. So again, I think Mo
Bamba is probably your best bet, and that is probably
gonna be the kind of guy that they end up getting. Again,
I think it'll be either Bomba, Tye or Damian Jones,
(07:17):
but I think it'll probably end up being Bomba. So
let's just assume that the Lakers sign a guy like Bomba.
But as I'm moving forward and I'm talking through this,
when you hear the name Bomba, it doesn't really matter
whether it's Bomba or Tys or Damian Jones. It's still
the same kind of issue that it presents. Where does
that leave the Lakers for this season? They still have
a remarkably good small ball group. In the last five
(07:40):
games that the Lakers have played without Anthony Davis, they're
five and zero. They beat the Nixon Madison Square Garden,
they beat the Clippers in Inglewood, they beat the Warriors
and the Pacers at home, including beating the Pacers without Lebron,
So they've looked good in that span. They're second in
offense and fourth in defense. They've been guarding with that group.
It's a big thing I've been trying to hit on
(08:01):
this show, Like, the Lakers have been a really good
defense since Jared Vanderbilt got healthy and since Doryan Finney
Smith joined the team. They are also twelve in rebounding
percentage in that five game span, which, like for a
small ball group, is actually really solid. I think the
approach for the rest of this season needs to be
lean as much as possible into perfecting small ball. Originally,
(08:23):
I talked a lot about how Mark Williams would present
just a different look for the Lakers. They could have
these lineups out there where it's Luca and Mark Williams
and you know, any combination of three of their core
seven players that are the core seven rotation players.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That are still there, and.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
That group should be able to score the shit out
of the ball. So like, at least for twenty minutes
a night, you could have a unit with like a
one to twenty two to one to twenty three offensive
rating and a one to twenty defensive rating that stays positive,
that eats up innings in the regular season. You probably
don't lean on it much in the postseason, but that's there.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That that group is not going to be as effective
offensively because you're not going to have the screen in
role threat, right So, like now, I think you almost
have to lean into as much small ball as possible
and just perfect that. Here's why I feel that way,
because even if you do get a guy like Mobamba,
it was probably the best of all the guys that
we listed, he's just not one of your best players
(09:16):
for the Lakers after that deal. You always want to
have your best players on the court together as much
as possible to try to win basketball games. I know
it's a really, you know, a brave thing to say,
but who are the Lakers' best players right now? It's Luca,
it's Lebron, it's Austin Ruey, Dorian Finney, Smith, Jared Vanderbilt,
gave Vincent. That's that's your core seven. There's a huge
(09:38):
dropoff in reliability to the next group of players. Shake
Milton Jackson, Hayes, Mobamba in this case, or whoever it
is that the get as a center, even Dalton within
the playoff context, I view as a huge drop off
from those top seven guys. You don't want to play
Mobamba twenty plus minutes a game. Maybe in the regular
season eat innings, but definitely not in the postseason, not
(09:59):
at the of those top seven guys in their minutes,
not unless you absolutely have to, even within the context
of a Denver matchup, and by the way, they're gonna
play Denver here in less than two weeks. I'd lean
into finding ways to beat them with small ball. Those
are your best basketball players. You don't want to put
a center out there just for the sake of having
a center out there. If that center is not very good,
(10:20):
Bomba or whoever you get, he'll be there in case
you need him. And you definitely want to try some
of those looks on Jokic in the regular season and
just see how it looks. But I now look at
this team as completely committed to small ball rather than
as a group that will have multiple elite looks. Another
thing to keep an eye on is Maxic Kliba's recovery
from this foot injury. If he could somehow come back
(10:42):
and be healthy in time for the playoffs, he then
becomes super valuable. But foot injuries are sketchy, and the
eight week timeline stretches basically to the first couple of
weeks before the playoffs, so like, I don't necessarily think
you can depend on Maxi being available. So the big
question is can the Lakers win the title out a
legit starting center, And the answer is, of course they can,
(11:05):
But the reality is that it's never been done before.
Let's just go back to recent NBA history. These are
the starting centers in the last like roughly fifteen to
twenty NBA champions Chris Hops Porzingis and Al Horford, Nicole Jokic,
Draymond Green, Brook Lopez, Anthony Davis, Mark Gasol, Draymond Green,
Draymond Green, Kevin Love, and Tristan Thompson. With the Cavs,
(11:26):
those are two starting quality centers. Draymond Green, Tim Duncan,
Chris Bosh, Chris Bosh Tyson Chandler. That's probably the weakest
guy in that list, and he was awesome as a
rim protector and lob threat with that team. Pow Gasol
Po Gasol again, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan. You can go
on and on and on, and it's Shaquille O'Neal in
(11:47):
two thousand and six, Ben Wallace, like it just it
just continues.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
They're all good.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So like this will certainly be the greatest small ball
group that's ever been assembled. And so if there was
a group that would do it, it would be a
group that's got Luca and Lebron and a bunch of
rangey forwards. It would be a group like this. But
I'm skeptical for a variety of reasons. Big ones yoks
having to beat Jokich in a series when you literally
(12:15):
don't have a player that can come remotely close to
hanging with them physically is hard for me to envision,
even for a guy like Lebron. Like Lebron, I've seen
Lebron do it in the he did an amazing job
on Jokich in the fourth quarter of a gold medal game.
It's one thing to do it for a five to
ten minute spurt. It's an entirely different thing to have
Lebron guard Jokic for two straight weeks, especially when what
(12:36):
he does on offense would be a vital part of
you actually winning that series if you were to manage it.
But let's take that out of the equation. Let's just
say somehow the Nuggets get upset by someone else. So
let's say the Lakers fight up and they pass the
Nuggets in the standings, and they get to the three
seed and they end up in the two to three
matchup in the semi finals, but the Nuggets end up
(12:57):
getting Okac, and it's a one to four matchup between
Oklahoma's city in Denver and Chet and Isaiah Hardenstein and
all those guys. They just do a number on the
Nuggets and they somehow eliminate them, and so suddenly you
don't have the Jokic problem. Even within that context. Small
ball is hard on the body. It requires so much
flying around, so much fighting for contested rebounds. Lebron is
(13:20):
forty Daurrian Finney Smith is in his thirties. Luca has
been banged up all year and is not the most
mobile dud dude in the world like, it is a
lot to ask for those guys to hold up from
now February ninth, all the way through a late May
potential conference finals series or a June final series against
(13:41):
the Boston Celtics or Cleveland, whoever comes out of the East.
My injury concerns for this group skyrocket now because of
just how much you'll have to lean on small ball
and how hard small ball is on the body. Mark
Williams would have given them a much better chance to
eat up innings with conventional look, not just in the
regular season, but even for fifteen to twenty minutes a
(14:03):
night in the postseason. And that's just not an option anymore,
not a viable option. So in short, like this isn't
a death sentence for the Lakers, but it puts them
on a path that has actually never been accomplished before,
and that makes it entirely theoretical. Right, we don't have
anything to point to there. I had something to point
(14:24):
to before this fell through, in terms of what the
twenty twenty three nuggets were, which is like, what if
we just get good enough on defense because we have
good defenders mixed in with our limited defenders. The limited
defenders buy in and do their job. We get enough
stops and then we have this utterly unguardable offense which
Denver had that was the pathway, and now it just
feels that much thinner they can do it. But it's
(14:46):
a lot to ask. It's important context to go over
the silver lining of the future for the Lakers after this.
Rob was put in a tough spot at the deadline
after the Luka Doncic deal went through. He had less
than a week to solve the center problem at that point.
Now we don't know the story with the hornets. One
of two things happened. Either Rob didn't properly vet this
(15:10):
beforehand with the research and just digging around, or he
did and everything looked fine, but then something completely new
that just happened recently showed up on a scan and
that this is just bad luck. If Rob didn't vet
this properly, he deserves a ton of criticism for batching this.
But we just don't know what happened yet, so I
(15:31):
don't want to go down that road yet. We'll approach
that when we have more information. I would imagine within
the next couple of days we will The silver lining
here is Mark Williams was expensive. The Lakers got a
bunch of assets back here. They now have a first
round pick this summer to trade when they did it.
They now have Dalton Connect this summer to trade when
they didn't. Dalton Connect is worth more than a first
(15:53):
round pick. It's probably or about the same as a
first round pick in terms of it as a trade asset.
They now have access to two second round picks this
summer and act to four pick swaps this summer, and
they'll have a bunch of expiring salary trade. So to
put it simply, if the Mark Williams deal goes through,
you're basically locked in for the future. Now you have
a good amount of flexibility this summer, and you won't
(16:14):
be put into like a less than a week we
got to figure this out right now kind of thing.
You'll have more options. That bodes well. There's a lot
of upside this summer. But I keep coming back to
the same thing. Lebron is forty and for the last
couple of weeks has been playing like one of the
top tier superstars in this league. It is really hard
for me to imagine him doing this again next year.
(16:36):
Maybe he will, but this could end up being your
last great chance to win with Lebron and Luca both
at a top five level.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And you just took a huge punch to the gut
on that front.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's not over, but your chance has just got a
lot more slim I was definitely bummed out to see
that news last night. All Right, let's talk about some
(17:08):
games that actually took place yesterday, starting with the Celtics
and the Knicks. Once again a clear demonstration that the
Celtics are just an awful matchup for the Knicks because
of their ability to attack Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And it was all night long.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
With that second possession of the game, Jason Tatum ball
screen versus Karl Anthony Towns and just hits him with
a nasty in.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And out dribble.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Cat buckles off to his right side and Tatum just
goes in and absolutely mashes a slam over precious Achua
and it's like they're just getting easy stuff whenever they want.
Tatum hits who pull up threes early against Carl Anthony
Towns and drop Jalen Brown, posting Jalen Brunson a lot,
drawing multiple defenders and kicking out for threes from guys
(17:55):
like Al Horford. They built an early lead. Even in
the start of the second quarter, they were just consistently
doing the or started the third quarter, excuse me, they
were just doing the exact same thing every single time.
Down the floor. Get a screen to get Brunson onto Tatum,
then attack Karl Anthony Town so that you're attacking Brunson
and Kat in the same action. And they were just
(18:15):
getting dunk and layup and dunk and wide open three.
Even when the Knicks cut the lead down to three
with their little run that they had in the third quarter,
they got going to transition, they made some shots, they
cut it down to three. Tatum just promptly started spamming
this action where they would have instead of the getting
Brunson onto him first, they just started setting ram screens
(18:36):
so that Cat would have to close out to the level.
A ram screen is just a basic pick and roll concept.
Just imagine ball handler at the top of the key
screeners down here, but you have a third player run
down and scream Cat so that he is trailing as
the screener goes up right, Kat's man is running up
into a ball screen as he runs up into the ball.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Screen.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Kat needs to be there with him so he can
meet Tatum at the level and contain the ball. But
if you set a screen on Kat, all of a sudden,
there's a delay and a gap that forms between the
screener and where Cat is. So now when Tatum comes off,
he's coming off with Cat sprinting at him at the
same time, instead of him coming off.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
With Kat already there right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And so because of that gap and because Kat is
closing out, Tatum started just coming off the screen hard
and then snatching a crossover back to the left and
just beating Kat off the dribble there and relentlessly getting
downhill for dunks, drop off for Derek White in the
dunker spot, kick out pass, kickout pass, there's Derek White
White open three on the right wing. And then at
(19:42):
that point Tatum gets in this crazy hot rhythm. Now
he's hitting sidestep threes over McHale bridges. He just had
every part of his game going at that point. It
was just a really nice example of methodical shot creation
from Jason Tatum to get great shots instead of settling.
And like I've talked about this all season a long
(20:03):
with the Celtics, it really comes down to how deliberate
they are on offense. When they are deliberate on offense,
to when they take the time to set the screen
that gets the primary defender that you then want to
bring into the ball screen with the weakest defender, so
that you're not just getting an okay shot, but instead
you're constantly getting Tatum screaming downhill or we're gonna Kat
(20:25):
already sucks at guarding Tatum in space, Let's make it
even harder for him by making him navigate a screen
before he comes up to the level to try to
contain Jason Tatum. That sort of deliberate approach to advantage
creation is what greases the wheels for the Celtics offense. Again,
Tatum is an excellent fadeaway jump shot maker, or Tatum
(20:46):
is a great you know, step back, pull up three
point shot maker. Jalen Brown is a great post up,
fade away jump shot maker. Like those guys can do that,
and in the postseason there will be times when they
have to lean on that shot making and it will
carry them through a signi stretches of games. But it
is the deliberate shot creation that is the nuts and bolts,
the meat and potatoes of what makes this Celtics offense
(21:08):
so good, and especially against teams like the Knicks, when
they have these clearly defined entry points, they can just
spam that stuff and continue to get fantastic shots. And
I thought Tatum was absolutely brilliant in this game. He
had forty the scoring, the advantage creation. He was just
very clearly the best player on the floor by a
wide margin. Last night. I thought Luke Cornett had a
(21:30):
great game too, just his rim protection, that you're setting
great screens for Tatum in these ball screens and like
getting separation, rolling into space and clearing out of help
and rim protection like he's Martin Gortat, like he just
Marcine Gortat. I should say he was just he was
just excellent in this game. Luke Cornett was really really
(21:51):
impressive win for the Celtics to continue to kind of
oscillate back and forth between embarrassing performances and here we
are where the Champs performances in this phase of the season.
On the Knicks front. I've been saying this all season,
but I want to harp on this because there was
a sequence there in that third quarter where They had
run that ram screen to get Cat in space a
(22:13):
bunch of times in a row, and I'm like the
fourth or fifth time in a row they got to stop.
And the way they got to stop was Kat saw
the ram screen coming and fought through it with physicality
and stayed attached to the screener so that when he
came up to the level, Tatum couldn't turn the corner
(22:33):
fast with speed. Instead, Tatum came off a little passive
and Mikhale Bridges was able to fight over the top
of the screen. Then they Tatum had to pull the
ball out and they had to run offense again from there,
and I think if I remember correctly settled for a
pull jump shot missed it. Point being like, yeah, like,
there are going to be times Cat where you do
get screened good and you get beat. There are going
(22:55):
to be times, Jalen Brunson where you're guarding Derek White
and you die on a screen a little bit and
Derek White hits a pull up three on the left wing.
That's going to happen from time to time. But those
aren't battles that take place during a game when you're
getting hunted dozens of times over the course of a game.
You can't lose that battle eighty eighty five percent of
(23:16):
the time. It's got to be closer to like fifty
percent of the time. It's got to turn into a
situation where we're attacking Brunson and Cat because that's our
best chance. But we're not just cutting them up. The
Celtics were cutting them up. That's a problem. There is
a certain amount of fight and like, again, they can
(23:37):
do it. They are capable of doing better. I have
seen Kat navigate screens and contain the ball at the level.
I've also seen Kat be a step slow, get hit
by the screen, be slow up to the level, and
then get crossed over in.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Space and get dunked on.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So like it's a simple matter of Like a lot
of times when we're talking about this stuff, it's not
about big picture roster weaknesses. Frankly, you're married to this
Brunton Cat pairing. Now, this is the future of the Knicks.
So you've got to find a way to win with
this group. And to win with this group, you got
to get through Boston. And if you're gonna get through Boston,
(24:13):
Brunson and Cat are gonna have to find a way
to offer at least a little bit more resistance at
the point of attack at the in those ball screens,
at the level, there has to be more resistance there. Now, Again,
there's there's context here, right, Like Drew Holliday was out,
but so is so is og and Andobi oj And
Andobiy is more important to the Knicks than Drew Holliday
(24:36):
is to the Celtics. There were kickout passes where the
ball ends up Imprecious to chew his hands and he's
just claying in threes off the side of the rim.
Like I there's obviously a personnel limitation there when ogn
Andobi is out on the line out of the lineup,
but that that might give you a little bit of
an offensive boost, but it doesn't change the fact that
you're gonna have to do a better job because yeah,
(24:58):
you're right, like they were hiding Luke Cornett on Precious
to Chua, But like Luke Cornett's probably not gonna play
in that series. If you play them in the in
the Eastern Conference, Semis, it's gonna be Horford, it's gonna
be Porzingis. So like the way I look at it,
I thought it was a pretty discouraging performance from the Knicks,
just simply in terms of the fact that you were
(25:19):
going against lower level Celtics players.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Celtics looks that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Are should be easier for them to attack, and they
were just still having the same problems that they had
in their previous season opening matchup against the Celtics.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Pretty discouraging on that front. All right, Let's move on
to the Warriors.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Bulls looked like it was gonna be an ugly start
for the Jimmy Butler era era.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The Bulls were red hot in this game.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
They were up by twenty four in about like a
few minutes into the third quarter. But Steph Curry has
the first heater that he has of the season, his
first twenty point quarter of the season. He has twenty
four points by himself in the third quarter as the
Warriors going a crazy around the Bulls, I think twenty
five by themselves, So he almost single handedly outscored the Bulls.
(26:03):
By the way, before I even get into this, like
I talked a lot about belief and like the invigoration
I've seen in Lebron James as of late, I don't
think it's a coincidence that Steph Curry had his first
twenty plus point game in the first game that Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Butler played in.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That will light a fire under a star player one
he sees an opportunity. I do think that those things
are connected. He was torching one on ones. You'd got
vooch on a switch hit a three in his face.
Ye had a really nice driving lay up against Patrick Williams.
One of the most athletic, one of the most athletic
plays that I saw Steph make all season was that
driving lay up there towards the end of the third
quarter run against Patrick Williams. He was hitting shots flying
(26:40):
off of screens like on the move for an He
had a four point play coming off of a movement
screen on the left side of the floor. He was
hitting shots in the mid range and ball screens. He
was sitting shots off of the chaos of offensive rebounds.
By the way, shout out to Gi Santos and Kevon
Looney who both just absolutely dominated the offensive glass in
that in that third quarter stretch.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
They go on this run and Steph checks out of
the game right to start the fourth quarter, and they
had come back. They had erase the twenty four point deficit.
They'd actually taken a three point lead. But now it's
a close game and Steph Curry is off the floor.
But instead of a unit led by Pat Spencer and
Brandon Pajemski like it was against the Lakers, the Warriors
were able to put out a unit led by Jimmy Butler.
(27:20):
I also thought Steve Kerr made a really smart adjustment
with that group to start the fourth quarter by leaving
Draymond Green. It a lot of times Kerr will like
pair Draymond and Steph together because of their fit, but
he put Draymond in, and Draymond's just a really good
post entry passer and just in general, like a passer
above the key, and a lot of the best work
that Jimmy Butler was doing in this game started off
(27:40):
the ball. It wasn't like Jimmy was running a ton
of spread ball screens. He was operating a ton in
this game as a screener, which is something that we
knew would be the case coming into this partnership. But
one of the things that stood out to me immediately
is just how amazing Jimmy Butler is at ceiling and
creating a passing and then high pointing the basketball in
(28:02):
traffic and then once he gets it, going back up
quickly for buckets and for free throws. I talk a
lot about this concept of inside ceiling as a method
with which to beat switching defenses. A lot of times
teams will switch screens with Steph Curry with the intention
of making sure that when he comes off the screen
there's someone there waiting for him. Now, a lot of
(28:25):
times teams will chase in those cases as well, but
that usually involves with the center, because you don't want
to switch your center onto Steph, because Steph is going
to do what he did to Vusovich and just hit
a jumper in his face, right. But a lot of times,
like off ball screens that don't involve or any sort
of screening action that doesn't involve the center with Steph,
like a lot of teams are going to switch those actions.
(28:46):
So as you can imagine, if Jimmy Butler walks up
to Steph's man and he sets a screen, that guy
is now going to Jimmy's defender is now going to
go out onto Steph. So Jimmy, the guy he he's screening,
is now suddenly the guy that's going to be guarding Jimmy. Well,
Jimmy's fantastic at and this is what's going to be
so effective in the Warriors two man game. He'll screen
(29:10):
the backside of that player, put his forearm into his back,
and just create this passing angle over the top. Now,
what ends up happening there is there's traffic on the backside,
the helpers coming from behind.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
This is that bracket that we always talked about in
fronting the post. When you have a guy effectively posting up,
which is what Jimmy's doing. When he's inside ceiling on
a switch, there's usually a help on the backside, so
you have to high point the basketball. There's a small
window there that you're throwing the ball into, and Jimmy's
just skying in and grabbing the ball. And then he's
such a good second leaper, even at this phase in
(29:44):
his career, that he just comes down with it and
goes right back up and he can finish. But then
at the same time, it's like you're throwing the ball
on the block when STEP's out of the game on
the left side and it's a clear side, he just
beats his man off the dribble to the baseline throws
a beautiful kickout pass to the corner for a wide
open three. He can create shots without having the without
(30:05):
needing the support of Steph Curry, and that is the
key addition that changes the dynamic of this team. I
thought I had written the numbers in my notes, but
I accidentally forget to put him in there. But I
believe he ran thirteen pick and rolls, ISOs and post
ups last night, and I think he generated sixteen points.
It's like close to what one point two points per possession.
(30:26):
That's incredible shot creation. Again, small sample, but like especially
in ISOs and post ups, he was just absolutely killing.
Was just I think he had eleven points on five
ISOs and post ups last night, including passes like that.
That's over two points per possession. That there's the playmaking piece,
(30:47):
the ability to get to the foul line. Look at
how often last night Jimmy Butler was able to slow
the game down get to the foul line. I talked
about the playmaking piece. Jimmy Butler had more seven assist
games year for the Miami Heat than Andrew Wiggins has
had in his entire career. An entirely different level of
playmaker and again, like I keep coming back to this
(31:09):
idea of I keep coming back to this idea of belief.
Steph has the craziest hot streak that he's had. You
end up having this massive comeback on the road where
the team just looks completely reinvigorated. This Warriors defense put
up an eighty four defensive rating in the second half.
That came on really strong in the second half, same
way they did in that Lakers game. Just a ton
(31:30):
of ball pressure, a ton of physicality, starting to force misses.
If you let guys get good looks, you're hoping they miss.
If you make guys uncomfortable, they will miss. That's how
you can regain a control of the game defensively. And
that's why I was such a big believer in this movie. Look,
I'm not trying to sit here and take a victory lap.
I don't think the Warriors are suddenly a top tier contender.
(31:50):
I don't think the Warriors are suddenly gonna crawl all
the way up to the fourth or fifth seed and
just have this magical season. I mean, I'm not gonna
say it's not a potential outcome. But we haven't seen
enough from last night to just say, Okay, the Warriors
are here now, but there is somewhat of a proof
of concept in the sense that, like, you were able
to massively continue a run without Steph Curry because you
(32:13):
had a star play, a bona fide star player on
the floor, a guy that can score twenty five points,
a guy that can make plays for his teammates, a
guy that can rebound in traffic, a guy that can
make big defensive plays. That makes life easier for Steph,
makes Steph believe in what this team can do more.
That allows you to score the basketball more effectively. When
(32:35):
you score the ball more effectively, your defense is set
more often you have a top ten defense. If you
want to weaponize that top ten defense, you've got to
be able to consistently pay it off on the other
end of the floor to start that momentum. You want
to know why basketball games have momentum, because every part
of the game is attached. You start going on a
(32:55):
run by hitting a couple of shots, You start setting
your defense. You start getting more stops and forcing more turnovers.
You start getting out in transition more. That makes offense
even easier. When your offense is even easier, you score
even more, which makes it even easier for you to
set your defense. It's like a momentous snowball effect, and
it can reverse. You have a couple like it literally
(33:15):
could have turned negatively in the fourth quarter, right, it
could have been a Pods led group. You don't score
the basketball, Chicago ends up turning a three point deficit
into a five or six point lead. You check back
into the game. Now the Bulls are fired up. Now
they're defending in the half court. Now you're climbing uphill
as you're trying to regain control of things. Like it
(33:37):
is a snowball effect. And like Jimmy Butler wasn't just
a super talented piece, He's a super talented piece that
fits a very specific.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Need on this roster.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And like again in just one example here, and we
need to see a lot more before we can determine
what this team is truly capable of. We saw an
example of what that return looks like. I'm excited I
was when I saw Jimmy get that dunk. I think
it was in transition, might have been offensive rebound, but
he got that like dunk, and he hung on the
rim and was yelling and the group was.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
All just stoked.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I was like, it looks like they're just invigorated again,
and I'm excited to watch some Warriors basketball over the
course of the rest of the season. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. Is always, as sincerely,
appreciate you guys for supporting me and for supporting the show.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
The super Bowl is tonight. I'm not sure if we're
gonna go tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
We might do power rankings tomorrow, we might wait for
the evening and just cover the Luca's debut. We might
just wait till Tuesday. I'm not one hundred percent sure yet.
I got to clear that with my staff, But keep
an eye on my Twitter feed at Underscore, Jason LT
and I will tweet out an announcement in the morning
once we make up our mind. But again, I appreciate
you guys enjoying the game tonight and we'll see you
either tomorrow or Tuesday the volume. What's up?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
As always, I 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.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Supporting us. But if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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see DKG dot co slash b ball. All right, welcome
to tonight here at the Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. Hope
all of you guys are having a great weekend. We
(01:49):
got a big piece of NBA news last night as
the Mark Williams trade between the Los Angeles Lakers and
the Charlotte Hornets fell through, and we also got a
couple of interesting games last week night, as Jimmy Butler
made his debut for the Warriors as they had some
wild second half comeback where they're getting completely blown off
the floor and the next thing you know, they're blowing
the bulls off the court. So we're going to break
(02:11):
that game down. And then the New York Knicks got
another chance to try to demonstrate to the Celtics that
they were on their level and just got absolutely annihilated.
So we're gonna be breaking down those two games, hitting
some Mark Williams stuff off of the top, and then
we'll get out of here so you guys can enjoy
the Super Bowl. You guys know the joke before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so
you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me
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(02:33):
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sure you guys follow us there in the last but
not least, keep dropping mail bag questions and the YouTube
comments so we can get to them on Fridays throughout
the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the Mark Williams trade, as Ben rescinded, the reporting
(02:55):
is just that they found too much in the scans
and the physical two justified believing him as a foundational
center for the Lakers over the course of this next era.
When this news came down last night, I had a
lot of mixed feelings about it. I had kind of
sort of been worried about this because it's highly unusual
(03:17):
for a trade like that to not be finalized in
the timeline that it had been finalized, and I'd been
texting with some people behind the scenes and being like,
this is weird, right, And then next thing you know,
the Mark Williams trade ends up getting rescinded. And on
one hand, Mark Williams is a very flawed NBA player,
and the playoffs have a remarkable ability to expose flaws.
(03:39):
That's why I talked a lot after the trade about
how this team is probably going to go down with
small ball lineups. Anyway, when the time comes even after
the Mark Williams trade, but I kept landing back on
the same simple logical progression that bummed me out, which
is that Dalton Connects wasn't going to be in the
playoff rotation for this team, and neither was Cam Reddish.
(04:00):
And even with Mark Williams's flaws, he still brings a
ton of positives to the team as a screen and
roll threat and as a rebounder, And even with his flaws,
he almost certainly would have played at least fifteen minutes
ish a game in the playoffs. So like, even if
you try to find the silver linings, like you get
your assets back, you have some more flexibility this summer,
(04:22):
which we'll talk about in a little bit. There's a simple,
harsh reality here, which is this trade falling through is
a loss of talent for this year's Los Angeles Lakers team.
So the first question is where do they go from here?
The good news is is that the Lakers are obviously
the top destination for the best available center from now
(04:43):
to the end of the season. They have a starting
spot you can walk right into and you'll just get
spoon fed dunks and layups by the Laker offense every
single game. That's the good news. The bad news is
that the options aren't great. I want to read to
you guys what I deemed to be all the potential options.
So first of all, here buyout candidates. This is every
tending unrestricted free agent, meaning they're about to be a
(05:04):
free agent this summer who makes less than twelve point
eight million dollars. So these are guys that could work
out buyouts with their team and could sign with the
Lakers as a first Apron team because they made less
than twelve point eight million on their last contract. Steven
Adams probably not getting bought out by the Rockets, Al
Horford definitely not. Kevon Looney definitely not. DeAndre Jordan probably
not available and not a good option. Tristan Thompson not available,
(05:27):
Todge Gibson not a good option, Mason plumbly not going
to be available, Alex Land already agreed to join a
different team, Christian Wood already a Laker and I'm not
even sure if he plays basketball anymore, and Luke Cornette
not available, Thomas Bryant not available, Jackson Hayes already is
your starting center, Charles Bass even you know there's Mamou
out of San Antonio. They're not getting rid of him.
(05:47):
Jericho Sims already with the Bucks. Paul Reid maybe right
like those are the buyout candidates's that's not that's not
anything that's going to be a substantial playoff rotation piece
for the Lakers. Right There are some okay options in
the currently available centers groups. So these are guys who
are currently free agents that can absolutely sign with the
Lakers right now, and I do think this is the
(06:09):
direction the Lakers will choose to go. There's a guy
like Daniel Tice, whose name has been bounced around. He's
a bigger body, which is I guess an advantage for
absorbing blows from Jokis, but he's not a vertical spacer.
He's technically a stretch big, but he doesn't really make
three point shots, so I'm not super high on that
as an option. Mobamba is an interesting option. He's probably
my favorite option at this point. He's got good length,
(06:31):
He's a good above the break three point shooter, which
makes him a pick and pop threat. He's very thin,
but at least he can block some shots, but he
really isn't a great defender. I think He's probably my
favorite option right now because he's like a thirteen and
thirteen with three blocks per thirty six minutes kind of
guy that's pretty decent production. So I think that's probably
the best option. Damian Jones used to be a Laker,
(06:53):
not a very good rebounder, which is my main concern,
but he is a little bit bigger and stronger than Mobama,
which could be advantageous for a Jokis matchup. Then there's
some other guys at Colin Castleton, jaliel Okuefer. I don't
think those are real options. So again, I think Mo
Bamba is probably your best bet, and that is probably
gonna be the kind of guy that they end up getting. Again,
I think it'll be either Bomba, Tye or Damian Jones,
(07:17):
but I think it'll probably end up being Bomba. So
let's just assume that the Lakers sign a guy like Bomba.
But as I'm moving forward and I'm talking through this,
when you hear the name Bomba, it doesn't really matter
whether it's Bomba or Tys or Damian Jones. It's still
the same kind of issue that it presents. Where does
that leave the Lakers for this season? They still have
a remarkably good small ball group. In the last five
(07:40):
games that the Lakers have played without Anthony Davis, they're
five and zero. They beat the Nixon Madison Square Garden,
they beat the Clippers in Inglewood, they beat the Warriors
and the Pacers at home, including beating the Pacers without Lebron,
So they've looked good in that span. They're second in
offense and fourth in defense. They've been guarding with that group.
It's a big thing I've been trying to hit on
(08:01):
this show, Like, the Lakers have been a really good
defense since Jared Vanderbilt got healthy and since Doryan Finney
Smith joined the team. They are also twelve in rebounding
percentage in that five game span, which, like for a
small ball group, is actually really solid. I think the
approach for the rest of this season needs to be
lean as much as possible into perfecting small ball. Originally,
(08:23):
I talked a lot about how Mark Williams would present
just a different look for the Lakers. They could have
these lineups out there where it's Luca and Mark Williams
and you know, any combination of three of their core
seven players that are the core seven rotation players.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That are still there, and.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
That group should be able to score the shit out
of the ball. So like, at least for twenty minutes
a night, you could have a unit with like a
one to twenty two to one to twenty three offensive
rating and a one to twenty defensive rating that stays positive,
that eats up innings in the regular season. You probably
don't lean on it much in the postseason, but that's there.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's not there anymore.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That that group is not going to be as effective
offensively because you're not going to have the screen in
role threat, right So, like now, I think you almost
have to lean into as much small ball as possible
and just perfect that. Here's why I feel that way,
because even if you do get a guy like Mobamba,
it was probably the best of all the guys that
we listed, he's just not one of your best players
(09:16):
for the Lakers after that deal. You always want to
have your best players on the court together as much
as possible to try to win basketball games. I know
it's a really, you know, a brave thing to say,
but who are the Lakers' best players right now? It's Luca,
it's Lebron, it's Austin Ruey, Dorian Finney, Smith, Jared Vanderbilt,
gave Vincent. That's that's your core seven. There's a huge
(09:38):
dropoff in reliability to the next group of players. Shake
Milton Jackson, Hayes, Mobamba in this case, or whoever it
is that the get as a center, even Dalton within
the playoff context, I view as a huge drop off
from those top seven guys. You don't want to play
Mobamba twenty plus minutes a game. Maybe in the regular
season eat innings, but definitely not in the postseason, not
(09:59):
at the of those top seven guys in their minutes,
not unless you absolutely have to, even within the context
of a Denver matchup, and by the way, they're gonna
play Denver here in less than two weeks. I'd lean
into finding ways to beat them with small ball. Those
are your best basketball players. You don't want to put
a center out there just for the sake of having
a center out there. If that center is not very good,
(10:20):
Bomba or whoever you get, he'll be there in case
you need him. And you definitely want to try some
of those looks on Jokic in the regular season and
just see how it looks. But I now look at
this team as completely committed to small ball rather than
as a group that will have multiple elite looks. Another
thing to keep an eye on is Maxic Kliba's recovery
from this foot injury. If he could somehow come back
(10:42):
and be healthy in time for the playoffs, he then
becomes super valuable. But foot injuries are sketchy, and the
eight week timeline stretches basically to the first couple of
weeks before the playoffs, so like, I don't necessarily think
you can depend on Maxi being available. So the big
question is can the Lakers win the title out a
legit starting center, And the answer is, of course they can,
(11:05):
But the reality is that it's never been done before.
Let's just go back to recent NBA history. These are
the starting centers in the last like roughly fifteen to
twenty NBA champions Chris Hops Porzingis and Al Horford, Nicole Jokic,
Draymond Green, Brook Lopez, Anthony Davis, Mark Gasol, Draymond Green,
Draymond Green, Kevin Love, and Tristan Thompson. With the Cavs,
(11:26):
those are two starting quality centers. Draymond Green, Tim Duncan,
Chris Bosh, Chris Bosh Tyson Chandler. That's probably the weakest
guy in that list, and he was awesome as a
rim protector and lob threat with that team. Pow Gasol
Po Gasol again, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan. You can go
on and on and on, and it's Shaquille O'Neal in
(11:47):
two thousand and six, Ben Wallace, like it just it
just continues.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
They're all good.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
So like this will certainly be the greatest small ball
group that's ever been assembled. And so if there was
a group that would do it, it would be a
group that's got Luca and Lebron and a bunch of
rangey forwards. It would be a group like this. But
I'm skeptical for a variety of reasons. Big ones yoks
having to beat Jokich in a series when you literally
(12:15):
don't have a player that can come remotely close to
hanging with them physically is hard for me to envision,
even for a guy like Lebron. Like Lebron, I've seen
Lebron do it in the he did an amazing job
on Jokich in the fourth quarter of a gold medal game.
It's one thing to do it for a five to
ten minute spurt. It's an entirely different thing to have
Lebron guard Jokic for two straight weeks, especially when what
(12:36):
he does on offense would be a vital part of
you actually winning that series if you were to manage it.
But let's take that out of the equation. Let's just
say somehow the Nuggets get upset by someone else. So
let's say the Lakers fight up and they pass the
Nuggets in the standings, and they get to the three
seed and they end up in the two to three
matchup in the semi finals, but the Nuggets end up
(12:57):
getting Okac, and it's a one to four matchup between
Oklahoma's city in Denver and Chet and Isaiah Hardenstein and
all those guys. They just do a number on the
Nuggets and they somehow eliminate them, and so suddenly you
don't have the Jokic problem. Even within that context. Small
ball is hard on the body. It requires so much
flying around, so much fighting for contested rebounds. Lebron is
(13:20):
forty Daurrian Finney Smith is in his thirties. Luca has
been banged up all year and is not the most
mobile dud dude in the world like, it is a
lot to ask for those guys to hold up from
now February ninth, all the way through a late May
potential conference finals series or a June final series against
(13:41):
the Boston Celtics or Cleveland, whoever comes out of the East.
My injury concerns for this group skyrocket now because of
just how much you'll have to lean on small ball
and how hard small ball is on the body. Mark
Williams would have given them a much better chance to
eat up innings with conventional look, not just in the
regular season, but even for fifteen to twenty minutes a
(14:03):
night in the postseason. And that's just not an option anymore,
not a viable option. So in short, like this isn't
a death sentence for the Lakers, but it puts them
on a path that has actually never been accomplished before,
and that makes it entirely theoretical. Right, we don't have
anything to point to there. I had something to point
(14:24):
to before this fell through, in terms of what the
twenty twenty three nuggets were, which is like, what if
we just get good enough on defense because we have
good defenders mixed in with our limited defenders. The limited
defenders buy in and do their job. We get enough
stops and then we have this utterly unguardable offense which
Denver had that was the pathway, and now it just
feels that much thinner they can do it. But it's
(14:46):
a lot to ask. It's important context to go over
the silver lining of the future for the Lakers after this.
Rob was put in a tough spot at the deadline
after the Luka Doncic deal went through. He had less
than a week to solve the center problem at that point.
Now we don't know the story with the hornets. One
of two things happened. Either Rob didn't properly vet this
(15:10):
beforehand with the research and just digging around, or he
did and everything looked fine, but then something completely new
that just happened recently showed up on a scan and
that this is just bad luck. If Rob didn't vet
this properly, he deserves a ton of criticism for batching this.
But we just don't know what happened yet, so I
(15:31):
don't want to go down that road yet. We'll approach
that when we have more information. I would imagine within
the next couple of days we will The silver lining
here is Mark Williams was expensive. The Lakers got a
bunch of assets back here. They now have a first
round pick this summer to trade when they did it.
They now have Dalton Connect this summer to trade when
they didn't. Dalton Connect is worth more than a first
(15:53):
round pick. It's probably or about the same as a
first round pick in terms of it as a trade asset.
They now have access to two second round picks this
summer and act to four pick swaps this summer, and
they'll have a bunch of expiring salary trade. So to
put it simply, if the Mark Williams deal goes through,
you're basically locked in for the future. Now you have
a good amount of flexibility this summer, and you won't
(16:14):
be put into like a less than a week we
got to figure this out right now kind of thing.
You'll have more options. That bodes well. There's a lot
of upside this summer. But I keep coming back to
the same thing. Lebron is forty and for the last
couple of weeks has been playing like one of the
top tier superstars in this league. It is really hard
for me to imagine him doing this again next year.
(16:36):
Maybe he will, but this could end up being your
last great chance to win with Lebron and Luca both
at a top five level.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
And you just took a huge punch to the gut
on that front.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
It's not over, but your chance has just got a
lot more slim I was definitely bummed out to see
that news last night. All Right, let's talk about some
(17:08):
games that actually took place yesterday, starting with the Celtics
and the Knicks. Once again a clear demonstration that the
Celtics are just an awful matchup for the Knicks because
of their ability to attack Jalen Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And it was all night long.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
With that second possession of the game, Jason Tatum ball
screen versus Karl Anthony Towns and just hits him with
a nasty in.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And out dribble.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Cat buckles off to his right side and Tatum just
goes in and absolutely mashes a slam over precious Achua
and it's like they're just getting easy stuff whenever they want.
Tatum hits who pull up threes early against Carl Anthony
Towns and drop Jalen Brown, posting Jalen Brunson a lot,
drawing multiple defenders and kicking out for threes from guys
(17:55):
like Al Horford. They built an early lead. Even in
the start of the second quarter, they were just consistently
doing the or started the third quarter, excuse me, they
were just doing the exact same thing every single time.
Down the floor. Get a screen to get Brunson onto Tatum,
then attack Karl Anthony Town so that you're attacking Brunson
and Kat in the same action. And they were just
(18:15):
getting dunk and layup and dunk and wide open three.
Even when the Knicks cut the lead down to three
with their little run that they had in the third quarter,
they got going to transition, they made some shots, they
cut it down to three. Tatum just promptly started spamming
this action where they would have instead of the getting
Brunson onto him first, they just started setting ram screens
(18:36):
so that Cat would have to close out to the level.
A ram screen is just a basic pick and roll concept.
Just imagine ball handler at the top of the key
screeners down here, but you have a third player run
down and scream Cat so that he is trailing as
the screener goes up right, Kat's man is running up
into a ball screen as he runs up into the ball.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Screen.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Kat needs to be there with him so he can
meet Tatum at the level and contain the ball. But
if you set a screen on Kat, all of a sudden,
there's a delay and a gap that forms between the
screener and where Cat is. So now when Tatum comes off,
he's coming off with Cat sprinting at him at the
same time, instead of him coming off.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
With Kat already there right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And so because of that gap and because Kat is
closing out, Tatum started just coming off the screen hard
and then snatching a crossover back to the left and
just beating Kat off the dribble there and relentlessly getting
downhill for dunks, drop off for Derek White in the
dunker spot, kick out pass, kickout pass, there's Derek White
White open three on the right wing. And then at
(19:42):
that point Tatum gets in this crazy hot rhythm. Now
he's hitting sidestep threes over McHale bridges. He just had
every part of his game going at that point. It
was just a really nice example of methodical shot creation
from Jason Tatum to get great shots instead of settling.
And like I've talked about this all season a long
(20:03):
with the Celtics, it really comes down to how deliberate
they are on offense. When they are deliberate on offense,
to when they take the time to set the screen
that gets the primary defender that you then want to
bring into the ball screen with the weakest defender, so
that you're not just getting an okay shot, but instead
you're constantly getting Tatum screaming downhill or we're gonna Kat
(20:25):
already sucks at guarding Tatum in space, Let's make it
even harder for him by making him navigate a screen
before he comes up to the level to try to
contain Jason Tatum. That sort of deliberate approach to advantage
creation is what greases the wheels for the Celtics offense. Again,
Tatum is an excellent fadeaway jump shot maker, or Tatum
(20:46):
is a great you know, step back, pull up three
point shot maker. Jalen Brown is a great post up,
fade away jump shot maker. Like those guys can do that,
and in the postseason there will be times when they
have to lean on that shot making and it will
carry them through a signi stretches of games. But it
is the deliberate shot creation that is the nuts and bolts,
the meat and potatoes of what makes this Celtics offense
(21:08):
so good, and especially against teams like the Knicks, when
they have these clearly defined entry points, they can just
spam that stuff and continue to get fantastic shots. And
I thought Tatum was absolutely brilliant in this game. He
had forty the scoring, the advantage creation. He was just
very clearly the best player on the floor by a
wide margin. Last night. I thought Luke Cornett had a
(21:30):
great game too, just his rim protection, that you're setting
great screens for Tatum in these ball screens and like
getting separation, rolling into space and clearing out of help
and rim protection like he's Martin Gortat, like he just
Marcine Gortat. I should say he was just he was
just excellent in this game. Luke Cornett was really really
(21:51):
impressive win for the Celtics to continue to kind of
oscillate back and forth between embarrassing performances and here we
are where the Champs performances in this phase of the season.
On the Knicks front. I've been saying this all season,
but I want to harp on this because there was
a sequence there in that third quarter where They had
run that ram screen to get Cat in space a
(22:13):
bunch of times in a row, and I'm like the
fourth or fifth time in a row they got to stop.
And the way they got to stop was Kat saw
the ram screen coming and fought through it with physicality
and stayed attached to the screener so that when he
came up to the level, Tatum couldn't turn the corner
(22:33):
fast with speed. Instead, Tatum came off a little passive
and Mikhale Bridges was able to fight over the top
of the screen. Then they Tatum had to pull the
ball out and they had to run offense again from there,
and I think if I remember correctly settled for a
pull jump shot missed it. Point being like, yeah, like,
there are going to be times Cat where you do
get screened good and you get beat. There are going
(22:55):
to be times, Jalen Brunson where you're guarding Derek White
and you die on a screen a little bit and
Derek White hits a pull up three on the left wing.
That's going to happen from time to time. But those
aren't battles that take place during a game when you're
getting hunted dozens of times over the course of a game.
You can't lose that battle eighty eighty five percent of
(23:16):
the time. It's got to be closer to like fifty
percent of the time. It's got to turn into a
situation where we're attacking Brunson and Cat because that's our
best chance. But we're not just cutting them up. The
Celtics were cutting them up. That's a problem. There is
a certain amount of fight and like, again, they can
(23:37):
do it. They are capable of doing better. I have
seen Kat navigate screens and contain the ball at the level.
I've also seen Kat be a step slow, get hit
by the screen, be slow up to the level, and
then get crossed over in.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Space and get dunked on.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So like it's a simple matter of Like a lot
of times when we're talking about this stuff, it's not
about big picture roster weaknesses. Frankly, you're married to this
Brunton Cat pairing. Now, this is the future of the Knicks.
So you've got to find a way to win with
this group. And to win with this group, you got
to get through Boston. And if you're gonna get through Boston,
(24:13):
Brunson and Cat are gonna have to find a way
to offer at least a little bit more resistance at
the point of attack at the in those ball screens,
at the level, there has to be more resistance there. Now, Again,
there's there's context here, right, Like Drew Holliday was out,
but so is so is og and Andobi oj And
Andobiy is more important to the Knicks than Drew Holliday
(24:36):
is to the Celtics. There were kickout passes where the
ball ends up Imprecious to chew his hands and he's
just claying in threes off the side of the rim.
Like I there's obviously a personnel limitation there when ogn
Andobi is out on the line out of the lineup,
but that that might give you a little bit of
an offensive boost, but it doesn't change the fact that
you're gonna have to do a better job because yeah,
(24:58):
you're right, like they were hiding Luke Cornett on Precious
to Chua, But like Luke Cornett's probably not gonna play
in that series. If you play them in the in
the Eastern Conference, Semis, it's gonna be Horford, it's gonna
be Porzingis. So like the way I look at it,
I thought it was a pretty discouraging performance from the Knicks,
just simply in terms of the fact that you were
(25:19):
going against lower level Celtics players.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Celtics looks that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Are should be easier for them to attack, and they
were just still having the same problems that they had
in their previous season opening matchup against the Celtics.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Pretty discouraging on that front. All right, Let's move on
to the Warriors.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Bulls looked like it was gonna be an ugly start
for the Jimmy Butler era era.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
The Bulls were red hot in this game.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
They were up by twenty four in about like a
few minutes into the third quarter. But Steph Curry has
the first heater that he has of the season, his
first twenty point quarter of the season. He has twenty
four points by himself in the third quarter as the
Warriors going a crazy around the Bulls, I think twenty
five by themselves, So he almost single handedly outscored the Bulls.
(26:03):
By the way, before I even get into this, like
I talked a lot about belief and like the invigoration
I've seen in Lebron James as of late, I don't
think it's a coincidence that Steph Curry had his first
twenty plus point game in the first game that Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Butler played in.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That will light a fire under a star player one
he sees an opportunity. I do think that those things
are connected. He was torching one on ones. You'd got
vooch on a switch hit a three in his face.
Ye had a really nice driving lay up against Patrick Williams.
One of the most athletic, one of the most athletic
plays that I saw Steph make all season was that
driving lay up there towards the end of the third
quarter run against Patrick Williams. He was hitting shots flying
(26:40):
off of screens like on the move for an He
had a four point play coming off of a movement
screen on the left side of the floor. He was
hitting shots in the mid range and ball screens. He
was sitting shots off of the chaos of offensive rebounds.
By the way, shout out to Gi Santos and Kevon
Looney who both just absolutely dominated the offensive glass in
that in that third quarter stretch.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
They go on this run and Steph checks out of
the game right to start the fourth quarter, and they
had come back. They had erase the twenty four point deficit.
They'd actually taken a three point lead. But now it's
a close game and Steph Curry is off the floor.
But instead of a unit led by Pat Spencer and
Brandon Pajemski like it was against the Lakers, the Warriors
were able to put out a unit led by Jimmy Butler.
(27:20):
I also thought Steve Kerr made a really smart adjustment
with that group to start the fourth quarter by leaving
Draymond Green. It a lot of times Kerr will like
pair Draymond and Steph together because of their fit, but
he put Draymond in, and Draymond's just a really good
post entry passer and just in general, like a passer
above the key, and a lot of the best work
that Jimmy Butler was doing in this game started off
(27:40):
the ball. It wasn't like Jimmy was running a ton
of spread ball screens. He was operating a ton in
this game as a screener, which is something that we
knew would be the case coming into this partnership. But
one of the things that stood out to me immediately
is just how amazing Jimmy Butler is at ceiling and
creating a passing and then high pointing the basketball in
(28:02):
traffic and then once he gets it, going back up
quickly for buckets and for free throws. I talk a
lot about this concept of inside ceiling as a method
with which to beat switching defenses. A lot of times
teams will switch screens with Steph Curry with the intention
of making sure that when he comes off the screen
there's someone there waiting for him. Now, a lot of
(28:25):
times teams will chase in those cases as well, but
that usually involves with the center, because you don't want
to switch your center onto Steph, because Steph is going
to do what he did to Vusovich and just hit
a jumper in his face, right. But a lot of times,
like off ball screens that don't involve or any sort
of screening action that doesn't involve the center with Steph,
like a lot of teams are going to switch those actions.
(28:46):
So as you can imagine, if Jimmy Butler walks up
to Steph's man and he sets a screen, that guy
is now going to Jimmy's defender is now going to
go out onto Steph. So Jimmy, the guy he he's screening,
is now suddenly the guy that's going to be guarding Jimmy. Well,
Jimmy's fantastic at and this is what's going to be
so effective in the Warriors two man game. He'll screen
(29:10):
the backside of that player, put his forearm into his back,
and just create this passing angle over the top. Now,
what ends up happening there is there's traffic on the backside,
the helpers coming from behind.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
This is that bracket that we always talked about in
fronting the post. When you have a guy effectively posting up,
which is what Jimmy's doing. When he's inside ceiling on
a switch, there's usually a help on the backside, so
you have to high point the basketball. There's a small
window there that you're throwing the ball into, and Jimmy's
just skying in and grabbing the ball. And then he's
such a good second leaper, even at this phase in
(29:44):
his career, that he just comes down with it and
goes right back up and he can finish. But then
at the same time, it's like you're throwing the ball
on the block when STEP's out of the game on
the left side and it's a clear side, he just
beats his man off the dribble to the baseline throws
a beautiful kickout pass to the corner for a wide
open three. He can create shots without having the without
(30:05):
needing the support of Steph Curry, and that is the
key addition that changes the dynamic of this team. I
thought I had written the numbers in my notes, but
I accidentally forget to put him in there. But I
believe he ran thirteen pick and rolls, ISOs and post
ups last night, and I think he generated sixteen points.
It's like close to what one point two points per possession.
(30:26):
That's incredible shot creation. Again, small sample, but like especially
in ISOs and post ups, he was just absolutely killing.
Was just I think he had eleven points on five
ISOs and post ups last night, including passes like that.
That's over two points per possession. That there's the playmaking piece,
(30:47):
the ability to get to the foul line. Look at
how often last night Jimmy Butler was able to slow
the game down get to the foul line. I talked
about the playmaking piece. Jimmy Butler had more seven assist
games year for the Miami Heat than Andrew Wiggins has
had in his entire career. An entirely different level of
playmaker and again, like I keep coming back to this
(31:09):
idea of I keep coming back to this idea of belief.
Steph has the craziest hot streak that he's had. You
end up having this massive comeback on the road where
the team just looks completely reinvigorated. This Warriors defense put
up an eighty four defensive rating in the second half.
That came on really strong in the second half, same
way they did in that Lakers game. Just a ton
(31:30):
of ball pressure, a ton of physicality, starting to force misses.
If you let guys get good looks, you're hoping they miss.
If you make guys uncomfortable, they will miss. That's how
you can regain a control of the game defensively. And
that's why I was such a big believer in this movie. Look,
I'm not trying to sit here and take a victory lap.
I don't think the Warriors are suddenly a top tier contender.
(31:50):
I don't think the Warriors are suddenly gonna crawl all
the way up to the fourth or fifth seed and
just have this magical season. I mean, I'm not gonna
say it's not a potential outcome. But we haven't seen
enough from last night to just say, Okay, the Warriors
are here now, but there is somewhat of a proof
of concept in the sense that, like, you were able
to massively continue a run without Steph Curry because you
(32:13):
had a star play, a bona fide star player on
the floor, a guy that can score twenty five points,
a guy that can make plays for his teammates, a
guy that can rebound in traffic, a guy that can
make big defensive plays. That makes life easier for Steph,
makes Steph believe in what this team can do more.
That allows you to score the basketball more effectively. When
(32:35):
you score the ball more effectively, your defense is set
more often you have a top ten defense. If you
want to weaponize that top ten defense, you've got to
be able to consistently pay it off on the other
end of the floor to start that momentum. You want
to know why basketball games have momentum, because every part
of the game is attached. You start going on a
(32:55):
run by hitting a couple of shots, You start setting
your defense. You start getting more stops and forcing more turnovers.
You start getting out in transition more. That makes offense
even easier. When your offense is even easier, you score
even more, which makes it even easier for you to
set your defense. It's like a momentous snowball effect, and
it can reverse. You have a couple like it literally
(33:15):
could have turned negatively in the fourth quarter, right, it
could have been a Pods led group. You don't score
the basketball, Chicago ends up turning a three point deficit
into a five or six point lead. You check back
into the game. Now the Bulls are fired up. Now
they're defending in the half court. Now you're climbing uphill
as you're trying to regain control of things. Like it
(33:37):
is a snowball effect. And like Jimmy Butler wasn't just
a super talented piece, He's a super talented piece that
fits a very specific.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Need on this roster.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And like again in just one example here, and we
need to see a lot more before we can determine
what this team is truly capable of. We saw an
example of what that return looks like. I'm excited I
was when I saw Jimmy get that dunk. I think
it was in transition, might have been offensive rebound, but
he got that like dunk, and he hung on the
rim and was yelling and the group was.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
All just stoked.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I was like, it looks like they're just invigorated again,
and I'm excited to watch some Warriors basketball over the
course of the rest of the season. All right, guys,
it's all I have for today. Is always, as sincerely,
appreciate you guys for supporting me and for supporting the show.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
The super Bowl is tonight. I'm not sure if we're
gonna go tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
We might do power rankings tomorrow, we might wait for
the evening and just cover the Luca's debut. We might
just wait till Tuesday. I'm not one hundred percent sure yet.
I got to clear that with my staff, But keep
an eye on my Twitter feed at Underscore, Jason LT
and I will tweet out an announcement in the morning
once we make up our mind. But again, I appreciate
you guys enjoying the game tonight and we'll see you
either tomorrow or Tuesday the volume. What's up?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
As always, I 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.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Supporting us. But if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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