January 26, 2025 • 35 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers win over Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors. Jason discusses the biggest highlights from the game and shares his takeaways for both teams as the NBA season rolls on.
Timeline:
4:00 - Introduction
5:30 - Lakers/Warriors
26:00 - Mavericks/Celtics
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Episode Transcript
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welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Saturday,
everybody a little hoops tonight after dark. We haven't had
one of these in a long time. We know better
than to go headed head to head with the NFL
and the college football Playoff, but there's gonna be a
lot more of these nighttime instant reaction games that we
had towards the end of the season. And then you
guys know the drill. We go live every single night
(01:53):
during the postseason. We're gonna be breaking down a jam
pack slate of Rivals week games as the Los Angeles
Vikers continued their excellent play beating the Golden State Warriors
in Oracle. After that, we're going to be talking about
the Boston Celtics putting together their most impressive performance in
a while, a blowout win on the road in Dallas.
(02:15):
After that, the Denver Nuggets might have a little bit
of a Minnesota Timberwolves problem as Minnesota wins their fourth
consecutive time against Denver dating back to the Western Conference
semi finals. And then at the very end, just very briefly,
all touched on Pacers Spurs as well as the Calves,
who have dropped five out of eight. So a bunch
of games are going to be getting into today. You
(02:35):
guys are the drip before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops to Night YouTube channels you don't miss any
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(02:58):
but not least, keep dropping mail bag question in our
YouTube comments. Every Friday throughout the year, we record a mailbag.
That's where you guys can drop questions there in the
YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the
Anthony Davis matchup for Golden State is just a huge problem.
When Draymond Green is out of the lineup. Draymon is
(03:18):
the only player on the Warriors who can actually make
AD feel uncomfortable. AD will still win some of those battles,
but Draymond has a combination of the ability to really
bother AD's base with his strength and the length to
get good contests up top that he's gonna at least
make Anthony Davis really work for it, right, And so
(03:38):
in iso situations, AD can't just like bully Draymond and
get wherever he wants. And then Draymond is the only
player on the Warriors who's fast enough, with long enough
arms and good enough defensive instincts to in ball screens
show on the ball handler or help as his responsibility is,
but to also recover back to Anthony David on the
(04:00):
roll when he ends up in that foul line area
to either bother him, make him get rid of the ball,
or get a good contest on some of the shots
that he takes there in the pocket. So with Draymond out,
it was always going to be a really tough night
for the Warriors dealing with Anthony Davis, and that's exactly
what it ended up being. The guys battled. Quinton Post
in particular, probably logged the best looking defensive possessions against
(04:23):
Anthony Davis, but Ady got him with some overaggression, got
to the foul line against him and got enough. And
all night long he just beat every Golden State big
every which way. He posted guys up and scored with
hook shots. He beat guys with face up ISO moves
like using his speed to get to the basket or
hitting those little step back jump shots. His jump shot
(04:45):
was just incredibly important to the Lakers in this one.
And then in ball screens he kept hitting floaters if
he got close enough to the basket. When he would
catch in the pocket, he hit picking like kind of
those picking half pop jumpers where he kind of ends
up around the top of the key. I'd prefer him
to just pop to the three point line and get
a bit little better at that shot, just for the
(05:06):
math of it, because you know, even if you hit
that shot of forty five percent, it's just only worth,
you know, zero point nine points per attempt. I think
eighties got the capability to knock down pick and pop threes.
I'd like to see him do that a little bit more.
But he was hitting jumpers at the top of the
key when he was catching in the pocket. And then
there was a time where the Warriors tried to put
two on the ball in a ball screen and ad
(05:26):
Cot on a short roll and made a beautiful corner
kick to Max Christy in the left corner and he
knocked it down. They tried switching at one point in
the first half and Lebron just threw an easy over
the top pass to Anthony Davis and he dunked it
with two hands. Like there was just nothing that Golden
State could do with him all night, and so he
just looked like an absolute superhero out there. He finished
with thirty six points and thirteen rebounds, three steals in
(05:49):
a block, just an incredibly impressive performance from Anthony Davis.
He got off to such an incredible start this year,
and in the stretch since that time, it's been kind
of uneven. There's been some injuries that he's been dealing with.
But I was a little concerned and just that there
wasn't that much top end with Anthony Davis in that
stretch after the start of the season. But these last
(06:09):
two games, that game against Boston, in the game against
Golden State, he's looked absolutely fantastic. So I hope that
that means that he's turning a corner in terms of
his health and starting to feel a little bit better,
have some healthy wheels, actually be able to move around,
get the lift that he needs on his jump shot.
Anthony Davis looked absolutely great tonight. But interestingly enough, the Lakers,
(06:30):
who have struggled NonStop with Anthony Davis off the floor
this year, they were plus one tonight with Anthony Davis
off the floor. A big part of that was the
return of Jared Vanderbilt. It was good to see him
back out there. The mythological basketball player that was Jared Vanderbilt,
who was playing so well there in January when you
guys saw that the one corner three that Jared Vanderbilt
(06:51):
ended up with, he didn't take more than one of them,
and he didn't end up in that spot often because
throughout those possessions, for the most part that he was
on the floor, he was operating more as a screen
or a roller, a cutter, working in the middle of
the floor, which is exactly where he succeeded back in
January of twenty twenty four. And like when he was
(07:11):
in that group, that bench group, it was kind of
like Lebron Jared Vanderbilt, Dorian Phinney Smith and two guards.
That group, they were able to just kind of use
Jared Vanderbilt as the ball screen guy and just have
him screen and roll into open space. And he had
one where he screened and rolled and made a really
nice kickout pass for a corner three as well. And
Jared Vanderbilt, like every time I watch him, his combination
(07:34):
of like size and strength with like crazy motor in
terms of just how hard he plays, Like little things
like there'll be a transition push and like you'll see
a position where like Andrew Wiggins will be running the
left side of the floor and he's got the ball.
He catches the ball and the kick head pass and
he kind of has an angle on Vanderbilt, and so
many players in the NBA will just like let it
go because it's just a transition possession in a random
(07:56):
regular season game in January, Jared Vanderbilt like sprints back
and takes an angle and cuts Andrew Wiggins off and
at least forces him to pass the ball and make
Golden State make a couple of nice passing reads in
a transition situation, or you'll see him go for the
offensive glass. Like literally every single possession that he's on
the floor, his effort in rotation, his effort in every
(08:19):
spot of the floor just pops because of his combination
of size, strength and just long arms and just all
this stuff that makes him such an impact athlete on
the floor. And that group was able to guard really well.
And like, this is the this is the main thing
that I've found to be fascinating in the time since
Dorian Finney Smith came to this team. And you know,
(08:42):
in exchange for D'Angelo Russell and getting Jared Vanderbilt back,
there's just a lot more defensive talent on this Lakers
roster now than there was a month ago. Like it's
just it's kind of a fundamentally different build in that sense.
And like when you have more good defensive players, you
have more lineups that have more good defensive players. When
you have more lineups full of good defensive players, you've
(09:04):
got more guys on the floor that are good at
all of the things you need to be good at
to be a good defense, like getting back in transition,
communicating with each other, containing the basketball in isolation situations
and in ball screens, rotating around when you get in
scramble situations, boxing out, rebounding, like all of those things
are things that those, you know, role player athletes have
(09:26):
always been good at because that's what they've done since
they were kids. And if you get a bunch of
offensive players on the floor that haven't had to do
that stuff often in their careers, like there just aren't
that many players on the floor that are that good
at those things, and you start to see things slip
through the cracks. Bad transition possessions, too many straight line drives,
bad rotations, wide open threes, too many offensive rebounds, like
that kind of stuff, Like that's all part of like
(09:49):
this like scale's like there's like a mandatory minimum of
defensive talent you have to have on the floor in
order to be a competent defensive team. And then there's
like another level you can get to where it's like
what everyone Like what if everyone's good at defense? And
there were a lot of lineups out there tonight where
it's like, oh wow, like that's Austin and Max with
Dorian vandoh and Lebron, Like Austin's the worst defender in
(10:12):
that group, you know, or like you'll be like Dalton
is the one week defender in that group, but like
Dalton and Jackson Hayes are the only two guys that
were in their rotation tonight that are not good defensive
players when they're locked in. You know, Lebron obviously can
ebb and flow with his effort, but like, there's just
a lot more defensive talent on this roster now than
(10:33):
there was because of a trade and because of the
return of Jared Vanderbilt that means more defensive runs. I
thought it was fascinating Dorsburg who dors Burke every time
I listened to her, she I think she's one of
the best in the business at that color commentary piece
because she just quickly identifies what's happening in the game
and expresses it in a very concise and easy way
for people to digest. Shout out to Dorsburke, She's just awesome.
(10:55):
But she made a comment at the beginning of that
game about the difference in styles between Boston and Golden State,
and it's a really interesting point because Boston, you know,
Boston is going to match up hunt and they're gonna
do They're gonna attack a lot of like switches, right,
and the Lakers are gonna compete against that team with
(11:15):
a switching defensive scheme, right, Like they put Anthony Davis
on Jaylen Brown because Jaylen Brown has a slower type
of catch and shoot release, so they felt like ad
could like dig down and recover to the perimeter better
than everyone else and help against mismatch hunting. And they
it's all about like communicating switches, you know, switching aggressively
(11:35):
to stop the shooting in that switch gap that I
talk about all the time that Derek White's really good at,
where like when you're in the middle of a switch,
there's like a transition when the one player's disengaging and
the next players engaging, and if you're slow in that interchange,
Derek White will torch you, right, Like the MAVs got
torched by that all night tonight, specifically guys like Gafford
and Maxi Kleiba, right, And like, so you go from
(11:57):
this challenge where it's like we're switching, We've got to
be attentive and close out on our switches, and then
when we end up in our precarious mismatches, we have
to help recover, rebound, compete on the ball. Very different
type of challenge to Golden State, where it's just a
blender of people running through all these screens all over
the floor and they're not really looking to attack matchups.
(12:19):
It's much more like advantage creation and trying to play
driving kick basketball, and so they get wide open threes
and layups and it taxes your defense in a fundamentally
different way. And you know, they had a lot of
breakdowns as a result of that. Guys get losing shooters,
guys losing guys crashing the offensive glass, like a lot
of Lakers got caught in that blender. But they had
(12:43):
defensive runs and that's really the key. They got stops
in stretches that allowed them to build leads and to
maintain leads, and again, like, those are the defensive runs
that are going to come more frequently the more defensive
talent you have on the floor. You Lakers fans will
remember if you think back to the twenty twenty team,
in the twenty twenty one team the year after, that
(13:03):
team had a tendency to go on to literally win
games with defensive runs. It wonn't all the time, and
you know, it kind of felt like a special like
kind of flashing a pan type of thing when it
would happen, similar to like when you see a shooter
get super high, like Tyros Haliburton who got insanely hot
had sixteen points in three minutes at the end of
the third quarter in that game against the Spurs. Like
(13:24):
it was like the defensive version of that. You'd see
the twenty twenty Lakers and they just have these like
three four five minute stretches where they would lock in
and the other team would just not score, like they
would literally just not be able to score. And that
was an even better team with a younger, more athletic Lebron,
a younger, more athletic Anthony Davis, even better defensive talent,
but like defensive runs have been the way that the
(13:45):
Lebron and Ad Lakers have won at the highest level,
even dating back to the year they made it to
the Western Conference finals. That was not a great offensive team,
that was a great defensive team, and so like, it's
kind of an interesting it's kind of an interesting identity
that's starting to form around the Lakers as like this
really good defensive team that or at least a team
(14:08):
that's capable of being really good on defense. I'm not
about to start taking victory laps about the Lakers defense
after two games, but this team that's capable of being
really good defensively and then kind of like Who's got
it tonight type of offensive thing, like Austin's got it tonight,
AD's got it tonight, Lebron's got it tonight. They're not
gonna have some helio centric guy that's going to average
thirty points a game, but a lot of really well
rounded scoring and then guys making shots off of that
(14:31):
I'd like tonight. I thought the corner kicks were fantastic,
both in ball screens from the pick and roll ball
handlers skipping the ball to the corner and in short
roll opportunities where guys just would cut a catch on
the short roll in a four on three and make
that kickout pass to the corner, and it was like
Max Christy and Dalton connect just again and again and again,
just making the Warriors pay for helping off the corner.
(14:52):
And you can just kind of see the identity starting
to take shape. But the key is they're going to
have to be really really shit. This is not going
to be a team that's going to win by having
an overwhelming talent advantage. There's gonna be help on the way.
I think the Lakers will make another trade and there
will be more talent on this team, but not any
sort of like meaningful talent increase that's gonna have you
(15:15):
looking at the roster next to Oklahoma City and going, man,
the Lakers have more talent than Oklahoma City or Boston
or something like that. You're not gonna win with talent.
You're gonna have to be an incredibly good execution team.
And so that's the opportunity that the Lakers have here.
They're very healthy, they're in a groove, they're about to
get reinforcements. They've got to commit to this thing in
(15:37):
terms of the day to day process to get really
really sharp on the details. They're going to have to
be the team that makes fewer mistakes on both ends
of the floor than their opponent if they're gonna have
any real chance to win. And then from there, if
you got the defense and you support them with enough
talent and you execute the way you're supposed to, all
you need is Lebron James to have one last throwback
(15:58):
playoff run and for an Anthony Davis to be Anthony Davis,
and for Austin Reeves to be the reliable big game
player that he's been in his entire career, and you've
got a puncher's chance to do some damage. And so
again it starts. Now it's it can't be. Okay, we
did it against Boston and Golden State on national television,
but we're about to go on this chill road trip
(16:18):
where we play some bad teams and now we just
lose all of our good habits and fall apart. It's
got to be a commitment that starts from today on
the Golden Safron. I'm not going to get too far
into it that they're just so devoid of talent with
Jonathan Kaminga and Draymond Green out of the lineup. I mean,
we talked about Draymond specifically for the Anthony Davis matchup,
(16:38):
but like you know, Jonathan Kminga is the closest thing
to like that secondary scoring option that this team has,
and when he's out, it's got Dennis Schroeder slotted up
into that role. And I've talked a lot about in
the last couple of days on the show about how
Dennis Schroder is a good player, but he's completely miscast
on this Warriors team as like a secondary star. It's
not what he needs to be. He needs to be
a guy who's like consistently your fifth best place player,
(17:00):
maybe your fourth best player on the floor. And that's
only gonna happen when you get healthy and if you
make the type of deal that we've talked about in
terms of bringing in a legitimate secondary creator. And like,
I mean, it's not gonna get any easier. I mean,
you're seeing, like Steph Curry, this is yet another game
tonight where he kind of really struggled to get free.
Like it's not like Steph's getting good looks and missing,
(17:23):
Like he's actually struggling to get shots off. And that's
not a Lakers problem. That's been a problem that's been
periodically there throughout the year. And so like it's like
the more you ride this out to where Steph has
to do more while you're anchoring him with inferior talent,
the more it's gonna wear his body down, and the
(17:43):
less likely it is that he ends up actually returning
to any sort of form that you need him to
be out in order to be good in the playoffs anyway.
And so that's why I keep talking about, like the
slotting with this team. You've got to bring in the
talent that puts all these guys in the right role.
The only way you're gonna do that, like we talked
about it, you make a camp, Say you make a
(18:04):
Cam Johnson deal without including Jonathan Kaminga. That's where you
could end up in a situation where Steph is your
best offensive player. You know, Cam Johnson is your second
best offensive player, Jonathan Kaminga is your third best offensive player,
Dennis Shrewder is your fourth best offensive player. That starts
to slot pretty well. Now, you can actually take advantage
of the strength of your roster, which is your depth
(18:26):
of role player talent. GUIs Santos and Quintin Post are
the latest two guys in a long line of dudes
on this roster that have shown the ability to play
winning basketball in a role player context. You've got a
plethora of those guys and you've got one good offensive player.
You've got to find a way to balance that out
a little bit, all right, Moving on to Boston Dallas,
(18:59):
No rest for the weird for the Boston Celtics. The
loss in Los Angeles was their fifth game in seven nights,
but they were right back to playing tonight in Dallas
against the Mavericks. They do get to go home now,
but they actually play every other night up until the
All Star breaks, so they're gonna probably benefit from that
break a lot compared to some other teams in the league.
Because they definitely looked tired against the Lakers, and they
(19:21):
even looked tired to start this game against the MAVs
as they fell down nineteen to ten. But this is
the NBA regular season. You just have to find a
way to survive from game to game through the grind,
and the Celtics responded with an extremely impressive two way
performance against the Maps. They got blitzed a little bit early,
like we talked about. Dallas came out with a ton
of energy, specifically in transition and semi transition. They were
(19:42):
just applying a lot of pressure on the rim PJ.
Washington was just like a bowl in a China shop
going downhill in the early part of the game. But
Boston weathered the storm and slowly took control. I thought
it was their best defensive performance in a while. They
had two really big defensive runs in the late first quarter.
Dallas had nineteen points with six forty one left in
the first quarter. They had thirty five points with three
(20:03):
forty eight left in the second quarter, So a fifteen
minute stretch where Boston allowed just sixteen points as they
turned a nine point deficit into a fourteen point lead.
A huge turnaround there. And then in the mid third quarter,
same sort of thing they had. The MAVs had fifty
nine points with nine minutes left. They had sixty eight
points with two minutes left in the third quarter. So
in a seven minute span, Boston allows just nine points
(20:26):
and turns a six point lead into a twenty five
point lead. So two defensive runs completely put this game away.
I thought they did an excellent job with their physicality
on both ends, on both ends of actions, like on
the ball and in off ball situations, like they were
pressuring the ball, they were switching with pressure like closing out,
but they were also digging down really well and swiping
(20:47):
at the ball. Drew Holliday has always been really good
at this, Like there's always like a time in terms
of dig and recover. So like if you're if you're
helping off the ball and there's a ball hand ball
handler looking to attack and he's looking right at you
and stunt down at the ball, he's just gonna throw
the pass and you're gonna get burned, and that guy's
gonna make the shot. But there are times when he
gets distracted as he's looking at the rest of the
floor where you can find an opportunity to lunge in
(21:08):
there and swipe out the basketball but not get burned
on that kickout pass. And that's kind of the delicate
balance of helping recover defense all over the floor. That's
what makes a good off ball defender is those instincts
in those situations. And Boston just made Dallas play in
a crowd all night long, and it just caused them
to rush and to make mistakes. I thought Luke Cornett
(21:30):
in particular, had several really good like help defense possessions
around the rim that forced misses, and like Dallas missed
a ton of layups. I think they had thirty seven
layup attempts and made twenty seventeen missed layups in this game. PJ.
Washington missed a bunch of them. That's all a pressure,
a product of that pressure that you're applying on them
around the rim. And then the Celtics had a really
(21:52):
good job of running out on Dallas's turnovers. They had
twenty one points off of turnovers in this game. Their
closeouts were really sharp. Dallas generated just four unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots in this game, by far, the
least that Dallas has had in a game this season.
They've had their previous low with seven, So just an
excellent defensive performance from the Boston Celtics. They actually looked
(22:14):
like the more physically fresh team as the game progressed,
which is a remarkable testament to their competitive spirit. They
just dug deep and they found the energy to go
out there and outwork Dallas. They even grabbed seventeen offensive rebounds.
They just looked quicker to the ball all night and
then on offense some good physical aggression towards the rim.
There was still a good amount of settling, which is
something I've been complaining about with Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
(22:37):
Thirty of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown's forty three shot
attempts in this game were jump shots. I would like
to see some better balance there. One thing I'll say
is it was more settling in terms of Tatum because
he was taking a lot of threes. And again, Tatum
is the guy that I think looks the most gassed
right now. I think he's the guy that could really
use a night off, and hopefully Boston can find an
opportunity for him to take a night off here in
(23:00):
one of the next game, in one of these games
before the All Star break. But Jalen Brown, most of
his jump shots that he was taking were much closer
to the rim. As a matter of fact, Jalen Brown
made four jump shots that were actually in the paint.
Those are like actually easier jump shots that are very
makeable in that ere three of them were like right
around the semi circle, Like that's a ten footer that
(23:22):
might as well be like a jump shot that has
the same sort of touch that you have on a
hook shot, right, So like those are less settling, But again,
in general, that's kind of the thing I have my
eye on with Boston. And even though Jason Tatum was settling,
I thought for the most part, the team was aggressive enough.
Like Jalen Brown was operating in the paint all game long,
even when he was taking jump shots. But outside of that,
(23:44):
he had a couple of really nice kickout passes to
Chris hops Porzingis, he had some nice physically aggressive moves
towards the rim. They even posted Horford a few times
and he just got to that little left shoulder hook
in the lane where he scored. It was just a
much better a pro to the offensive end of the
floor in terms of getting great shots instead of settling
(24:04):
for the first ok shot that they get their eyes on.
An easy way to describe this is the assists. They
had thirty three assists on forty four makes. That's a
seventy five percent assist percentage. In January, before that game tonight,
the Celtics had been getting assists on just sixty two
percent of their mix. That's a substantial increase that by
(24:24):
the way, that ranked nineteenth in the league so far
in January, So they were a team that was not
popping the ball around. They were moving the ball much
much better today. They generated thirty six catch and shoot
jump shots, which is tied for the most that they've
generated in a single game in January. Even the pull
up jumpers that they took I thought were smart in
this game, Like Dallas was doing a lot of switching
(24:45):
with their five men, which is something you kind of
have to do against Boston because of their pick and
pop attack that they can unleash on you. But it's
difficult because it puts you in a predicament of asking
your bigs who are accustomed to sagging back or maybe
just lightly showing at the level in these ball screens,
and now you're asking them to close out to the
perimeter and like legitimately guard a guy out there, and
(25:05):
like specifically Derek White, but Jaylen Brown did a couple
times to like punish them for switching passively. I talked
about this in the in the Lakers segment. But like
when there's a switch, there's a moment when the on
ball guy disengages and the new defender engages, and it's
kind of like a gap, and Derek White torches people
all the time by shooting threes right in that shooting gap,
(25:27):
and he was killing both Gafford and Klee, but even
got PJ. Washington with it once, like you and we're
gonna talk about it when we get into Dallas, Like
there's a certain like attention to detail you need to
beat the Boston Celtics, and it just was not there
for Dallas in this game. But like, uh, it was
just a really nice, well rounded win for the Celtics.
(25:48):
All five of their starters had at least seventeen points. Again,
thirty three as system forty four makes dominant stretches of defense.
Just a reminder that this is a really damn good
basketball team. They just have to get through two more
weeks and they'll get a nice little break before they
head into the home stretch. And then on the Dallas front,
they just weren't nearly sharp enough in order to win
a game like this. A lot of botch switches, way
(26:09):
too stop switches, like I talked about it really got
burned in transition. In the first half. They were not
matched up several times and gave up corner threes. That
was a big part of Boston's early run in the game.
And then on offense, two things really played the Mavericks.
Too many mislayups around the rim. They had seventeen miss
layups in this game, and then too many bad mid
range attempts from mediocre shooters. They had eight mid range
attempts from players that were not named Kyrie Irving. And
(26:32):
especially in the middle fourth quarter stretch they go in
this run, they get it down to like twelve or
eleven or something, and there were like three possessions in
a row where they took mid range jump shots, and
I'm like, the contested mid range jump shots are not
going to be how you get back in this game.
It's going to be playing defense, sprinting out in transition
getting easy ones, and then really sharp execution in the
half court to get great shots. And so it just
(26:53):
they just didn't play well enough to beat a team
like Boston. Often there were kickout rereads in those situations too. Again,
the mass only generate four unguarded catch and shoot jump
shot attempts in that game, by far their worst mark
of the season. So just Dallas didn't play a really
good game, and that obviously is going to keep them
out of competing in a matchup like this against Boston.
(27:15):
I can move a little quicker now through the rest
of the show Denver, Minnesota. Minnesota blows out the Nuggets
to win their fourth consecutive time this matchup, dating back
to the Western Conference semi finals last year. The Nuggets
have a specific weakness on each end of the floor
that causes them to have issues in this matchup. On offense,
they have several guys who struggle against the physicality of
(27:35):
Minnesota's bigger, stronger defensive players. They just cause the Nuggets
to rush things, which in turn causes them to get sloppy.
A similar concept to what we talked about earlier with
Dallas right that leads to turnovers, that leads to miss layups,
that sort of thing. Right, Jokich had seven turnovers. Who's
fumbling the ball away in contact situations. He forced some
bad passes. Not the first time that Jokich has kind
(27:58):
of struggled to take care of the basketball against Minnesota.
Michael Porter Junior was like smoking wide open layups and
just looked uncomfortable everywhere. He's a guy that seems to
struggle with that physicality, which by the way, Michael Porter
Junior really really struggled in the Minnesota series last year
in the second round, Julian Strather really struggled. And so
when you got these guys again, that's the first weakness
(28:21):
in this matchup is that there are several players, key
players for Denver that struggle under Minnesota's big, physical perimeter defenders.
And they're big physical frontline defenders, right, And as a result,
they can just go through some really bad offensive lolls
against Minnesota's defense. And then on defense, teams usually load
up on Anthony Edwards and then they try to get
the ball out of his hands before he can get downhill. Right.
(28:44):
But Ant is so damn fast, and Denver always has
like two or three guys on the floor that aren't
great athletes, guys like Nikola Jokich, guys like Michael Porter Junior,
guys like Jamal Murray. Right, So, as a result, Ant
was able to relatively easily get downhill and laps the
defense kind of just by going through and around guys
like he just kind of slalloms through Denver's defense even
(29:06):
when they're loaded up on him. He's just almost it
almost looks like all of the Nuggets defenders are stuck
in mud or running on beach sand, and he's running
around with basketball shooes like he just looks like he's
moving a step slower and as a result, he can
get downhill, really claps the defense and creates some pretty
simple kickout reads for him. And so I mean, both
Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall were for fantastic in this one.
(29:28):
I don't want to overplay or overlook Julius Randall, like
he was bullying Denver smaller perimeter players all game long
for buckets for kickouts. Julius was great, but Ant's downhill
scoring and his playmaking in this game were fantastic. It'ds
several beautiful feeds to go Bear, including one like a
tight window rifle pass that he caught and finished. The
(29:48):
Ant was like having a little celebration. I think it
was late first quarter if I remember correctly, but he
had a couple of nice pisses passes to go Bear,
some really nice skip passes, which, by the way, like
Rudy Gobert and Jada McDaniels were both great on offense
in this one. Like Gobert was like actually catching and
finishing things around the rim and making nice reads out
(30:10):
of his short role situations. When he had to face
a four on three, Jada McDaniels hit the one three
he took. It was on one of those kickouts from
Julius Randall on a post up. He was driving closeouts
and getting to the rim. Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert
had twenty seven points in this game, nine assists, zero
turnovers in only four missed shots. Like I'm gonna take
(30:34):
a little bit of a detour here, do you guys
remember when I talked about the concept of belief with
the Lakers, as it pertains to like them being willing
to do the work. The job is hard. If you
want them to do it, they need to think it's
gonna lead to a reward, specifically a trophy. As soon
as that belief is there, then they're gonna be willing
to do the work. When they're willing to do the work,
they give themselves the best chance to get the reward, right.
(30:56):
I almost think of that as like a similar type
of concept in terms of Anthony Dards as a playmaker.
You guys all want Anthony Edwards to trust the passport.
Y'all want him to be willing to feed it to
go bear. You all want him to be willing to
break the defense down when they load up on him.
But guess what's gonna make him believe that that's gonna work.
Guys scoring, Guys catching the ball and finishing in traffic,
(31:20):
Guys knocking down the threes on those skip passes. Like,
I don't think it's a huge coincidence that like it
has this one of his better playmaking games of the
season on a night when Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert
were actually catching and finishing the basketball when they had advantages. Again,
AT's got to believe that the playmaking is actually gonna
(31:40):
lead to him winning. And one of the things that
I keep talking about with this Timberwolves team big problem
throughout the season is that, like when they have Jaden,
Julius and Rudy out there, you have a guy that
literally can't effectively consistently score anywhere on the floor, and
Rudy Jayden who is a bad spot up shooter, and
Julius Randall is a bad spot up shooter, and so
(32:02):
as a result, it puts him in a situation where,
like teams can load up and Ant's gonna make these
kickout passes, but a lot of times they're not bearing fruit.
And so that's why you see these clutch time situations
where Ant's taking really difficult step back jump shots over
the top of the defense because he didn't believe in
those guys. He didn't think they can finish, He didn't
think they can make shots, right, And so, like I
do think it's fascinating because, like I think that over time,
(32:25):
as the Timberwolves continue to surround Anthony Edwards with better
offensive talent, that he'll be more willing to lean into
that part of his game and develop that part of
his game. But I thought he was really really good
as a playmaker in this one. Nice win for the
Wolves as they get their second in a row. And
again we're gonna go really quick on these last two.
Pacer Spurs's close game until Tyrey Saliburton caught that insane
(32:45):
heater or he had sixteen points in three minutes. He
was just had that like you know, a little step
back three going. He caught the Spurs in some bad switches.
He caught like while he was red hot. Keldon Johnson
did one of those softs switches as we talk about
where he didn't actually close out, they lost him in
transition once and then once he got hot, he was
(33:05):
just starting to it just started to make every shot
he took and hit a couple of really tough ones,
like kind of a forward leaning one and then a
little step back in transition that he made, and it
just completely discombobulated the Spurs, like they lost all their composure.
They started to just force everything at the rim through
help and started missing a lot of layups and getting
blocked at the rim, which just led to bad floor
(33:26):
balance situations, meaning like not guys ready to get back
in transition defense, which is something that Indiana is just
always going to turn around and kill you with in transition.
And it went from a close game in the late
third quarter to Indiana winning by thirty eight. So that's
all you need to know about how Tyree Saliberton shooting
like legitimately just like murdered the psyche of the San
Antonio Spurs. And then lastly, before we get out of here, tonight,
(33:49):
the Cleveland Cavaliers drop a game to the Houston Rockets
at home. They've now lost five out of eight. A
couple things in there, Houston's a really bad matchup for
Cleveland because they're just so much more athletic on the perimeter. Now,
for the record, like I don't I was thinking about
this earlier in that AKVS fan actually messaged me today
and I was talking about it with him, But like,
I don't think Cleveland's going to face a team athletic
(34:13):
enough in the Eastern Conference to cause that type of
problem for them. And I don't think they're going to
run into a team like Houston. If it got to
the finals and they ran into a team like Oklahoma City,
I do think that that it could be a problem,
but they're I think Houston uniquely brings the waves of
these big, freaky athletic perimeter defenders that could have perimeter
(34:33):
athletes that can cause them problems. So again, some of
its matchups and some of it's a lull. Like there's
a bunch of specific things. We talked about how the
Calves have been shooting the absolute shit out of the
basketball all year long. Well, they're just thirty seven percent
from three in this three and five stretch. Donovan Mitchell
has been slumping and the five losses he's shooting below
forty percent from the field with only four assists per
(34:54):
game has really been forcing the issue has looked like
out of rhythm. And then their defense has been really
bad and the five loss they have a one to
twenty four defensive rating, which I think has a lot
to do with just kind of a little mid season
low here, so little drop down here for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
We'll see how they respond to it. Adversity is part
of the process. You don't see teams too often just
(35:15):
cruise through regular season, dominate everybody and win. Like what
happened last year with Boston is pretty rare, and so
you know, this is a little bit of adversity for
the Cavs, and I'm interested to see how they respond
to it. All right, guys, that's all half for tonight.
As always, sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and
for supporting the show. We're going to take the rest
of the weekend off and we will be back on
Monday with our typical power rankings and weekend reaction. I
(35:37):
will see you guys then the volume. What's up guys.
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
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
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(01:33):
welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Saturday,
everybody a little hoops tonight after dark. We haven't had
one of these in a long time. We know better
than to go headed head to head with the NFL
and the college football Playoff, but there's gonna be a
lot more of these nighttime instant reaction games that we
had towards the end of the season. And then you
guys know the drill. We go live every single night
(01:53):
during the postseason. We're gonna be breaking down a jam
pack slate of Rivals week games as the Los Angeles
Vikers continued their excellent play beating the Golden State Warriors
in Oracle. After that, we're going to be talking about
the Boston Celtics putting together their most impressive performance in
a while, a blowout win on the road in Dallas.
(02:15):
After that, the Denver Nuggets might have a little bit
of a Minnesota Timberwolves problem as Minnesota wins their fourth
consecutive time against Denver dating back to the Western Conference
semi finals. And then at the very end, just very briefly,
all touched on Pacers Spurs as well as the Calves,
who have dropped five out of eight. So a bunch
of games are going to be getting into today. You
(02:35):
guys are the drip before we get started. Subscribe to
the Hoops to Night YouTube channels you don't miss any
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JSNLT so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't
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under Hoops Tonight Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
leave a rating in a review. On that front, we
also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook for the Hoops Tonight channel, where we're going
to be releasing content throughout the season. And then, last
(02:58):
but not least, keep dropping mail bag question in our
YouTube comments. Every Friday throughout the year, we record a mailbag.
That's where you guys can drop questions there in the
YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the
Anthony Davis matchup for Golden State is just a huge problem.
When Draymond Green is out of the lineup. Draymon is
(03:18):
the only player on the Warriors who can actually make
AD feel uncomfortable. AD will still win some of those battles,
but Draymond has a combination of the ability to really
bother AD's base with his strength and the length to
get good contests up top that he's gonna at least
make Anthony Davis really work for it, right, And so
(03:38):
in iso situations, AD can't just like bully Draymond and
get wherever he wants. And then Draymond is the only
player on the Warriors who's fast enough, with long enough
arms and good enough defensive instincts to in ball screens
show on the ball handler or help as his responsibility is,
but to also recover back to Anthony David on the
(04:00):
roll when he ends up in that foul line area
to either bother him, make him get rid of the ball,
or get a good contest on some of the shots
that he takes there in the pocket. So with Draymond out,
it was always going to be a really tough night
for the Warriors dealing with Anthony Davis, and that's exactly
what it ended up being. The guys battled. Quinton Post
in particular, probably logged the best looking defensive possessions against
(04:23):
Anthony Davis, but Ady got him with some overaggression, got
to the foul line against him and got enough. And
all night long he just beat every Golden State big
every which way. He posted guys up and scored with
hook shots. He beat guys with face up ISO moves
like using his speed to get to the basket or
hitting those little step back jump shots. His jump shot
(04:45):
was just incredibly important to the Lakers in this one.
And then in ball screens he kept hitting floaters if
he got close enough to the basket. When he would
catch in the pocket, he hit picking like kind of
those picking half pop jumpers where he kind of ends
up around the top of the key. I'd prefer him
to just pop to the three point line and get
a bit little better at that shot, just for the
(05:06):
math of it, because you know, even if you hit
that shot of forty five percent, it's just only worth,
you know, zero point nine points per attempt. I think
eighties got the capability to knock down pick and pop threes.
I'd like to see him do that a little bit more.
But he was hitting jumpers at the top of the
key when he was catching in the pocket. And then
there was a time where the Warriors tried to put
two on the ball in a ball screen and ad
(05:26):
Cot on a short roll and made a beautiful corner
kick to Max Christy in the left corner and he
knocked it down. They tried switching at one point in
the first half and Lebron just threw an easy over
the top pass to Anthony Davis and he dunked it
with two hands. Like there was just nothing that Golden
State could do with him all night, and so he
just looked like an absolute superhero out there. He finished
with thirty six points and thirteen rebounds, three steals in
(05:49):
a block, just an incredibly impressive performance from Anthony Davis.
He got off to such an incredible start this year,
and in the stretch since that time, it's been kind
of uneven. There's been some injuries that he's been dealing with.
But I was a little concerned and just that there
wasn't that much top end with Anthony Davis in that
stretch after the start of the season. But these last
(06:09):
two games, that game against Boston, in the game against
Golden State, he's looked absolutely fantastic. So I hope that
that means that he's turning a corner in terms of
his health and starting to feel a little bit better,
have some healthy wheels, actually be able to move around,
get the lift that he needs on his jump shot.
Anthony Davis looked absolutely great tonight. But interestingly enough, the Lakers,
(06:30):
who have struggled NonStop with Anthony Davis off the floor
this year, they were plus one tonight with Anthony Davis
off the floor. A big part of that was the
return of Jared Vanderbilt. It was good to see him
back out there. The mythological basketball player that was Jared Vanderbilt,
who was playing so well there in January when you
guys saw that the one corner three that Jared Vanderbilt
(06:51):
ended up with, he didn't take more than one of them,
and he didn't end up in that spot often because
throughout those possessions, for the most part that he was
on the floor, he was operating more as a screen
or a roller, a cutter, working in the middle of
the floor, which is exactly where he succeeded back in
January of twenty twenty four. And like when he was
(07:11):
in that group, that bench group, it was kind of
like Lebron Jared Vanderbilt, Dorian Phinney Smith and two guards.
That group, they were able to just kind of use
Jared Vanderbilt as the ball screen guy and just have
him screen and roll into open space. And he had
one where he screened and rolled and made a really
nice kickout pass for a corner three as well. And
Jared Vanderbilt, like every time I watch him, his combination
(07:34):
of like size and strength with like crazy motor in
terms of just how hard he plays, Like little things
like there'll be a transition push and like you'll see
a position where like Andrew Wiggins will be running the
left side of the floor and he's got the ball.
He catches the ball and the kick head pass and
he kind of has an angle on Vanderbilt, and so
many players in the NBA will just like let it
go because it's just a transition possession in a random
(07:56):
regular season game in January, Jared Vanderbilt like sprints back
and takes an angle and cuts Andrew Wiggins off and
at least forces him to pass the ball and make
Golden State make a couple of nice passing reads in
a transition situation, or you'll see him go for the
offensive glass. Like literally every single possession that he's on
the floor, his effort in rotation, his effort in every
(08:19):
spot of the floor just pops because of his combination
of size, strength and just long arms and just all
this stuff that makes him such an impact athlete on
the floor. And that group was able to guard really well.
And like, this is the this is the main thing
that I've found to be fascinating in the time since
Dorian Finney Smith came to this team. And you know,
(08:42):
in exchange for D'Angelo Russell and getting Jared Vanderbilt back,
there's just a lot more defensive talent on this Lakers
roster now than there was a month ago. Like it's
just it's kind of a fundamentally different build in that sense.
And like when you have more good defensive players, you
have more lineups that have more good defensive players. When
you have more lineups full of good defensive players, you've
(09:04):
got more guys on the floor that are good at
all of the things you need to be good at
to be a good defense, like getting back in transition,
communicating with each other, containing the basketball in isolation situations
and in ball screens, rotating around when you get in
scramble situations, boxing out, rebounding, like all of those things
are things that those, you know, role player athletes have
(09:26):
always been good at because that's what they've done since
they were kids. And if you get a bunch of
offensive players on the floor that haven't had to do
that stuff often in their careers, like there just aren't
that many players on the floor that are that good
at those things, and you start to see things slip
through the cracks. Bad transition possessions, too many straight line drives,
bad rotations, wide open threes, too many offensive rebounds, like
that kind of stuff, Like that's all part of like
(09:49):
this like scale's like there's like a mandatory minimum of
defensive talent you have to have on the floor in
order to be a competent defensive team. And then there's
like another level you can get to where it's like
what everyone Like what if everyone's good at defense? And
there were a lot of lineups out there tonight where
it's like, oh wow, like that's Austin and Max with
Dorian vandoh and Lebron, Like Austin's the worst defender in
(10:12):
that group, you know, or like you'll be like Dalton
is the one week defender in that group, but like
Dalton and Jackson Hayes are the only two guys that
were in their rotation tonight that are not good defensive
players when they're locked in. You know, Lebron obviously can
ebb and flow with his effort, but like, there's just
a lot more defensive talent on this roster now than
(10:33):
there was because of a trade and because of the
return of Jared Vanderbilt that means more defensive runs. I
thought it was fascinating Dorsburg who dors Burke every time
I listened to her, she I think she's one of
the best in the business at that color commentary piece
because she just quickly identifies what's happening in the game
and expresses it in a very concise and easy way
for people to digest. Shout out to Dorsburke, She's just awesome.
(10:55):
But she made a comment at the beginning of that
game about the difference in styles between Boston and Golden State,
and it's a really interesting point because Boston, you know,
Boston is going to match up hunt and they're gonna
do They're gonna attack a lot of like switches, right,
and the Lakers are gonna compete against that team with
(11:15):
a switching defensive scheme, right, Like they put Anthony Davis
on Jaylen Brown because Jaylen Brown has a slower type
of catch and shoot release, so they felt like ad
could like dig down and recover to the perimeter better
than everyone else and help against mismatch hunting. And they
it's all about like communicating switches, you know, switching aggressively
(11:35):
to stop the shooting in that switch gap that I
talk about all the time that Derek White's really good at,
where like when you're in the middle of a switch,
there's like a transition when the one player's disengaging and
the next players engaging, and if you're slow in that interchange,
Derek White will torch you, right, Like the MAVs got
torched by that all night tonight, specifically guys like Gafford
and Maxi Kleiba, right, And like, so you go from
(11:57):
this challenge where it's like we're switching, We've got to
be attentive and close out on our switches, and then
when we end up in our precarious mismatches, we have
to help recover, rebound, compete on the ball. Very different
type of challenge to Golden State, where it's just a
blender of people running through all these screens all over
the floor and they're not really looking to attack matchups.
(12:19):
It's much more like advantage creation and trying to play
driving kick basketball, and so they get wide open threes
and layups and it taxes your defense in a fundamentally
different way. And you know, they had a lot of
breakdowns as a result of that. Guys get losing shooters,
guys losing guys crashing the offensive glass, like a lot
of Lakers got caught in that blender. But they had
(12:43):
defensive runs and that's really the key. They got stops
in stretches that allowed them to build leads and to
maintain leads, and again, like, those are the defensive runs
that are going to come more frequently the more defensive
talent you have on the floor. You Lakers fans will
remember if you think back to the twenty twenty team,
in the twenty twenty one team the year after, that
(13:03):
team had a tendency to go on to literally win
games with defensive runs. It wonn't all the time, and
you know, it kind of felt like a special like
kind of flashing a pan type of thing when it
would happen, similar to like when you see a shooter
get super high, like Tyros Haliburton who got insanely hot
had sixteen points in three minutes at the end of
the third quarter in that game against the Spurs. Like
(13:24):
it was like the defensive version of that. You'd see
the twenty twenty Lakers and they just have these like
three four five minute stretches where they would lock in
and the other team would just not score, like they
would literally just not be able to score. And that
was an even better team with a younger, more athletic Lebron,
a younger, more athletic Anthony Davis, even better defensive talent,
but like defensive runs have been the way that the
(13:45):
Lebron and Ad Lakers have won at the highest level,
even dating back to the year they made it to
the Western Conference finals. That was not a great offensive team,
that was a great defensive team, and so like, it's
kind of an interesting it's kind of an interesting identity
that's starting to form around the Lakers as like this
really good defensive team that or at least a team
(14:08):
that's capable of being really good on defense. I'm not
about to start taking victory laps about the Lakers defense
after two games, but this team that's capable of being
really good defensively and then kind of like Who's got
it tonight type of offensive thing, like Austin's got it tonight,
AD's got it tonight, Lebron's got it tonight. They're not
gonna have some helio centric guy that's going to average
thirty points a game, but a lot of really well
rounded scoring and then guys making shots off of that
(14:31):
I'd like tonight. I thought the corner kicks were fantastic,
both in ball screens from the pick and roll ball
handlers skipping the ball to the corner and in short
roll opportunities where guys just would cut a catch on
the short roll in a four on three and make
that kickout pass to the corner, and it was like
Max Christy and Dalton connect just again and again and again,
just making the Warriors pay for helping off the corner.
(14:52):
And you can just kind of see the identity starting
to take shape. But the key is they're going to
have to be really really shit. This is not going
to be a team that's going to win by having
an overwhelming talent advantage. There's gonna be help on the way.
I think the Lakers will make another trade and there
will be more talent on this team, but not any
sort of like meaningful talent increase that's gonna have you
(15:15):
looking at the roster next to Oklahoma City and going, man,
the Lakers have more talent than Oklahoma City or Boston
or something like that. You're not gonna win with talent.
You're gonna have to be an incredibly good execution team.
And so that's the opportunity that the Lakers have here.
They're very healthy, they're in a groove, they're about to
get reinforcements. They've got to commit to this thing in
(15:37):
terms of the day to day process to get really
really sharp on the details. They're going to have to
be the team that makes fewer mistakes on both ends
of the floor than their opponent if they're gonna have
any real chance to win. And then from there, if
you got the defense and you support them with enough
talent and you execute the way you're supposed to, all
you need is Lebron James to have one last throwback
(15:58):
playoff run and for an Anthony Davis to be Anthony Davis,
and for Austin Reeves to be the reliable big game
player that he's been in his entire career, and you've
got a puncher's chance to do some damage. And so
again it starts. Now it's it can't be. Okay, we
did it against Boston and Golden State on national television,
but we're about to go on this chill road trip
(16:18):
where we play some bad teams and now we just
lose all of our good habits and fall apart. It's
got to be a commitment that starts from today on
the Golden Safron. I'm not going to get too far
into it that they're just so devoid of talent with
Jonathan Kaminga and Draymond Green out of the lineup. I mean,
we talked about Draymond specifically for the Anthony Davis matchup,
(16:38):
but like you know, Jonathan Kminga is the closest thing
to like that secondary scoring option that this team has,
and when he's out, it's got Dennis Schroeder slotted up
into that role. And I've talked a lot about in
the last couple of days on the show about how
Dennis Schroder is a good player, but he's completely miscast
on this Warriors team as like a secondary star. It's
not what he needs to be. He needs to be
a guy who's like consistently your fifth best place player,
(17:00):
maybe your fourth best player on the floor. And that's
only gonna happen when you get healthy and if you
make the type of deal that we've talked about in
terms of bringing in a legitimate secondary creator. And like,
I mean, it's not gonna get any easier. I mean,
you're seeing, like Steph Curry, this is yet another game
tonight where he kind of really struggled to get free.
Like it's not like Steph's getting good looks and missing,
(17:23):
Like he's actually struggling to get shots off. And that's
not a Lakers problem. That's been a problem that's been
periodically there throughout the year. And so like it's like
the more you ride this out to where Steph has
to do more while you're anchoring him with inferior talent,
the more it's gonna wear his body down, and the
(17:43):
less likely it is that he ends up actually returning
to any sort of form that you need him to
be out in order to be good in the playoffs anyway.
And so that's why I keep talking about, like the
slotting with this team. You've got to bring in the
talent that puts all these guys in the right role.
The only way you're gonna do that, like we talked
about it, you make a camp, Say you make a
(18:04):
Cam Johnson deal without including Jonathan Kaminga. That's where you
could end up in a situation where Steph is your
best offensive player. You know, Cam Johnson is your second
best offensive player, Jonathan Kaminga is your third best offensive player,
Dennis Shrewder is your fourth best offensive player. That starts
to slot pretty well. Now, you can actually take advantage
of the strength of your roster, which is your depth
(18:26):
of role player talent. GUIs Santos and Quintin Post are
the latest two guys in a long line of dudes
on this roster that have shown the ability to play
winning basketball in a role player context. You've got a
plethora of those guys and you've got one good offensive player.
You've got to find a way to balance that out
a little bit, all right, Moving on to Boston Dallas,
(18:59):
No rest for the weird for the Boston Celtics. The
loss in Los Angeles was their fifth game in seven nights,
but they were right back to playing tonight in Dallas
against the Mavericks. They do get to go home now,
but they actually play every other night up until the
All Star breaks, so they're gonna probably benefit from that
break a lot compared to some other teams in the league.
Because they definitely looked tired against the Lakers, and they
(19:21):
even looked tired to start this game against the MAVs
as they fell down nineteen to ten. But this is
the NBA regular season. You just have to find a
way to survive from game to game through the grind,
and the Celtics responded with an extremely impressive two way
performance against the Maps. They got blitzed a little bit early,
like we talked about. Dallas came out with a ton
of energy, specifically in transition and semi transition. They were
(19:42):
just applying a lot of pressure on the rim PJ.
Washington was just like a bowl in a China shop
going downhill in the early part of the game. But
Boston weathered the storm and slowly took control. I thought
it was their best defensive performance in a while. They
had two really big defensive runs in the late first quarter.
Dallas had nineteen points with six forty one left in
the first quarter. They had thirty five points with three
(20:03):
forty eight left in the second quarter, So a fifteen
minute stretch where Boston allowed just sixteen points as they
turned a nine point deficit into a fourteen point lead.
A huge turnaround there. And then in the mid third quarter,
same sort of thing they had. The MAVs had fifty
nine points with nine minutes left. They had sixty eight
points with two minutes left in the third quarter. So
in a seven minute span, Boston allows just nine points
(20:26):
and turns a six point lead into a twenty five
point lead. So two defensive runs completely put this game away.
I thought they did an excellent job with their physicality
on both ends, on both ends of actions, like on
the ball and in off ball situations, like they were
pressuring the ball, they were switching with pressure like closing out,
but they were also digging down really well and swiping
(20:47):
at the ball. Drew Holliday has always been really good
at this, Like there's always like a time in terms
of dig and recover. So like if you're if you're
helping off the ball and there's a ball hand ball
handler looking to attack and he's looking right at you
and stunt down at the ball, he's just gonna throw
the pass and you're gonna get burned, and that guy's
gonna make the shot. But there are times when he
gets distracted as he's looking at the rest of the
floor where you can find an opportunity to lunge in
(21:08):
there and swipe out the basketball but not get burned
on that kickout pass. And that's kind of the delicate
balance of helping recover defense all over the floor. That's
what makes a good off ball defender is those instincts
in those situations. And Boston just made Dallas play in
a crowd all night long, and it just caused them
to rush and to make mistakes. I thought Luke Cornett
(21:30):
in particular, had several really good like help defense possessions
around the rim that forced misses, and like Dallas missed
a ton of layups. I think they had thirty seven
layup attempts and made twenty seventeen missed layups in this game. PJ.
Washington missed a bunch of them. That's all a pressure,
a product of that pressure that you're applying on them
around the rim. And then the Celtics had a really
(21:52):
good job of running out on Dallas's turnovers. They had
twenty one points off of turnovers in this game. Their
closeouts were really sharp. Dallas generated just four unguarded catch
and shoot jump shots in this game, by far, the
least that Dallas has had in a game this season.
They've had their previous low with seven, So just an
excellent defensive performance from the Boston Celtics. They actually looked
(22:14):
like the more physically fresh team as the game progressed,
which is a remarkable testament to their competitive spirit. They
just dug deep and they found the energy to go
out there and outwork Dallas. They even grabbed seventeen offensive rebounds.
They just looked quicker to the ball all night and
then on offense some good physical aggression towards the rim.
There was still a good amount of settling, which is
something I've been complaining about with Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
(22:37):
Thirty of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown's forty three shot
attempts in this game were jump shots. I would like
to see some better balance there. One thing I'll say
is it was more settling in terms of Tatum because
he was taking a lot of threes. And again, Tatum
is the guy that I think looks the most gassed
right now. I think he's the guy that could really
use a night off, and hopefully Boston can find an
opportunity for him to take a night off here in
(23:00):
one of the next game, in one of these games
before the All Star break. But Jalen Brown, most of
his jump shots that he was taking were much closer
to the rim. As a matter of fact, Jalen Brown
made four jump shots that were actually in the paint.
Those are like actually easier jump shots that are very
makeable in that ere three of them were like right
around the semi circle, Like that's a ten footer that
(23:22):
might as well be like a jump shot that has
the same sort of touch that you have on a
hook shot, right, So like those are less settling, But again,
in general, that's kind of the thing I have my
eye on with Boston. And even though Jason Tatum was settling,
I thought for the most part, the team was aggressive enough.
Like Jalen Brown was operating in the paint all game long,
even when he was taking jump shots. But outside of that,
(23:44):
he had a couple of really nice kickout passes to
Chris hops Porzingis, he had some nice physically aggressive moves
towards the rim. They even posted Horford a few times
and he just got to that little left shoulder hook
in the lane where he scored. It was just a
much better a pro to the offensive end of the
floor in terms of getting great shots instead of settling
(24:04):
for the first ok shot that they get their eyes on.
An easy way to describe this is the assists. They
had thirty three assists on forty four makes. That's a
seventy five percent assist percentage. In January, before that game tonight,
the Celtics had been getting assists on just sixty two
percent of their mix. That's a substantial increase that by
(24:24):
the way, that ranked nineteenth in the league so far
in January, So they were a team that was not
popping the ball around. They were moving the ball much
much better today. They generated thirty six catch and shoot
jump shots, which is tied for the most that they've
generated in a single game in January. Even the pull
up jumpers that they took I thought were smart in
this game, Like Dallas was doing a lot of switching
(24:45):
with their five men, which is something you kind of
have to do against Boston because of their pick and
pop attack that they can unleash on you. But it's
difficult because it puts you in a predicament of asking
your bigs who are accustomed to sagging back or maybe
just lightly showing at the level in these ball screens,
and now you're asking them to close out to the
perimeter and like legitimately guard a guy out there, and
(25:05):
like specifically Derek White, but Jaylen Brown did a couple
times to like punish them for switching passively. I talked
about this in the in the Lakers segment. But like
when there's a switch, there's a moment when the on
ball guy disengages and the new defender engages, and it's
kind of like a gap, and Derek White torches people
all the time by shooting threes right in that shooting gap,
(25:27):
and he was killing both Gafford and Klee, but even
got PJ. Washington with it once, like you and we're
gonna talk about it when we get into Dallas, Like
there's a certain like attention to detail you need to
beat the Boston Celtics, and it just was not there
for Dallas in this game. But like, uh, it was
just a really nice, well rounded win for the Celtics.
(25:48):
All five of their starters had at least seventeen points. Again,
thirty three as system forty four makes dominant stretches of defense.
Just a reminder that this is a really damn good
basketball team. They just have to get through two more
weeks and they'll get a nice little break before they
head into the home stretch. And then on the Dallas front,
they just weren't nearly sharp enough in order to win
a game like this. A lot of botch switches, way
(26:09):
too stop switches, like I talked about it really got
burned in transition. In the first half. They were not
matched up several times and gave up corner threes. That
was a big part of Boston's early run in the game.
And then on offense, two things really played the Mavericks.
Too many mislayups around the rim. They had seventeen miss
layups in this game, and then too many bad mid
range attempts from mediocre shooters. They had eight mid range
attempts from players that were not named Kyrie Irving. And
(26:32):
especially in the middle fourth quarter stretch they go in
this run, they get it down to like twelve or
eleven or something, and there were like three possessions in
a row where they took mid range jump shots, and
I'm like, the contested mid range jump shots are not
going to be how you get back in this game.
It's going to be playing defense, sprinting out in transition
getting easy ones, and then really sharp execution in the
half court to get great shots. And so it just
(26:53):
they just didn't play well enough to beat a team
like Boston. Often there were kickout rereads in those situations too. Again,
the mass only generate four unguarded catch and shoot jump
shot attempts in that game, by far their worst mark
of the season. So just Dallas didn't play a really
good game, and that obviously is going to keep them
out of competing in a matchup like this against Boston.
(27:15):
I can move a little quicker now through the rest
of the show Denver, Minnesota. Minnesota blows out the Nuggets
to win their fourth consecutive time this matchup, dating back
to the Western Conference semi finals last year. The Nuggets
have a specific weakness on each end of the floor
that causes them to have issues in this matchup. On offense,
they have several guys who struggle against the physicality of
(27:35):
Minnesota's bigger, stronger defensive players. They just cause the Nuggets
to rush things, which in turn causes them to get sloppy.
A similar concept to what we talked about earlier with
Dallas right that leads to turnovers, that leads to miss layups,
that sort of thing. Right, Jokich had seven turnovers. Who's
fumbling the ball away in contact situations. He forced some
bad passes. Not the first time that Jokich has kind
(27:58):
of struggled to take care of the basketball against Minnesota.
Michael Porter Junior was like smoking wide open layups and
just looked uncomfortable everywhere. He's a guy that seems to
struggle with that physicality, which by the way, Michael Porter
Junior really really struggled in the Minnesota series last year
in the second round, Julian Strather really struggled. And so
when you got these guys again, that's the first weakness
(28:21):
in this matchup is that there are several players, key
players for Denver that struggle under Minnesota's big, physical perimeter defenders.
And they're big physical frontline defenders, right, And as a result,
they can just go through some really bad offensive lolls
against Minnesota's defense. And then on defense, teams usually load
up on Anthony Edwards and then they try to get
the ball out of his hands before he can get downhill. Right.
(28:44):
But Ant is so damn fast, and Denver always has
like two or three guys on the floor that aren't
great athletes, guys like Nikola Jokich, guys like Michael Porter Junior,
guys like Jamal Murray. Right, So, as a result, Ant
was able to relatively easily get downhill and laps the
defense kind of just by going through and around guys
like he just kind of slalloms through Denver's defense even
(29:06):
when they're loaded up on him. He's just almost it
almost looks like all of the Nuggets defenders are stuck
in mud or running on beach sand, and he's running
around with basketball shooes like he just looks like he's
moving a step slower and as a result, he can
get downhill, really claps the defense and creates some pretty
simple kickout reads for him. And so I mean, both
Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall were for fantastic in this one.
(29:28):
I don't want to overplay or overlook Julius Randall, like
he was bullying Denver smaller perimeter players all game long
for buckets for kickouts. Julius was great, but Ant's downhill
scoring and his playmaking in this game were fantastic. It'ds
several beautiful feeds to go Bear, including one like a
tight window rifle pass that he caught and finished. The
(29:48):
Ant was like having a little celebration. I think it
was late first quarter if I remember correctly, but he
had a couple of nice pisses passes to go Bear,
some really nice skip passes, which, by the way, like
Rudy Gobert and Jada McDaniels were both great on offense
in this one. Like Gobert was like actually catching and
finishing things around the rim and making nice reads out
(30:10):
of his short role situations. When he had to face
a four on three, Jada McDaniels hit the one three
he took. It was on one of those kickouts from
Julius Randall on a post up. He was driving closeouts
and getting to the rim. Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert
had twenty seven points in this game, nine assists, zero
turnovers in only four missed shots. Like I'm gonna take
(30:34):
a little bit of a detour here, do you guys
remember when I talked about the concept of belief with
the Lakers, as it pertains to like them being willing
to do the work. The job is hard. If you
want them to do it, they need to think it's
gonna lead to a reward, specifically a trophy. As soon
as that belief is there, then they're gonna be willing
to do the work. When they're willing to do the work,
they give themselves the best chance to get the reward, right.
(30:56):
I almost think of that as like a similar type
of concept in terms of Anthony Dards as a playmaker.
You guys all want Anthony Edwards to trust the passport.
Y'all want him to be willing to feed it to
go bear. You all want him to be willing to
break the defense down when they load up on him.
But guess what's gonna make him believe that that's gonna work.
Guys scoring, Guys catching the ball and finishing in traffic,
(31:20):
Guys knocking down the threes on those skip passes. Like,
I don't think it's a huge coincidence that like it
has this one of his better playmaking games of the
season on a night when Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert
were actually catching and finishing the basketball when they had advantages. Again,
AT's got to believe that the playmaking is actually gonna
(31:40):
lead to him winning. And one of the things that
I keep talking about with this Timberwolves team big problem
throughout the season is that, like when they have Jaden,
Julius and Rudy out there, you have a guy that
literally can't effectively consistently score anywhere on the floor, and
Rudy Jayden who is a bad spot up shooter, and
Julius Randall is a bad spot up shooter, and so
(32:02):
as a result, it puts him in a situation where,
like teams can load up and Ant's gonna make these
kickout passes, but a lot of times they're not bearing fruit.
And so that's why you see these clutch time situations
where Ant's taking really difficult step back jump shots over
the top of the defense because he didn't believe in
those guys. He didn't think they can finish, He didn't
think they can make shots, right, And so, like I
do think it's fascinating because, like I think that over time,
(32:25):
as the Timberwolves continue to surround Anthony Edwards with better
offensive talent, that he'll be more willing to lean into
that part of his game and develop that part of
his game. But I thought he was really really good
as a playmaker in this one. Nice win for the
Wolves as they get their second in a row. And
again we're gonna go really quick on these last two.
Pacer Spurs's close game until Tyrey Saliburton caught that insane
(32:45):
heater or he had sixteen points in three minutes. He
was just had that like you know, a little step
back three going. He caught the Spurs in some bad switches.
He caught like while he was red hot. Keldon Johnson
did one of those softs switches as we talk about
where he didn't actually close out, they lost him in
transition once and then once he got hot, he was
(33:05):
just starting to it just started to make every shot
he took and hit a couple of really tough ones,
like kind of a forward leaning one and then a
little step back in transition that he made, and it
just completely discombobulated the Spurs, like they lost all their composure.
They started to just force everything at the rim through
help and started missing a lot of layups and getting
blocked at the rim, which just led to bad floor
(33:26):
balance situations, meaning like not guys ready to get back
in transition defense, which is something that Indiana is just
always going to turn around and kill you with in transition.
And it went from a close game in the late
third quarter to Indiana winning by thirty eight. So that's
all you need to know about how Tyree Saliberton shooting
like legitimately just like murdered the psyche of the San
Antonio Spurs. And then lastly, before we get out of here, tonight,
(33:49):
the Cleveland Cavaliers drop a game to the Houston Rockets
at home. They've now lost five out of eight. A
couple things in there, Houston's a really bad matchup for
Cleveland because they're just so much more athletic on the perimeter. Now,
for the record, like I don't I was thinking about
this earlier in that AKVS fan actually messaged me today
and I was talking about it with him, But like,
I don't think Cleveland's going to face a team athletic
(34:13):
enough in the Eastern Conference to cause that type of
problem for them. And I don't think they're going to
run into a team like Houston. If it got to
the finals and they ran into a team like Oklahoma City,
I do think that that it could be a problem,
but they're I think Houston uniquely brings the waves of
these big, freaky athletic perimeter defenders that could have perimeter
(34:33):
athletes that can cause them problems. So again, some of
its matchups and some of it's a lull. Like there's
a bunch of specific things. We talked about how the
Calves have been shooting the absolute shit out of the
basketball all year long. Well, they're just thirty seven percent
from three in this three and five stretch. Donovan Mitchell
has been slumping and the five losses he's shooting below
forty percent from the field with only four assists per
(34:54):
game has really been forcing the issue has looked like
out of rhythm. And then their defense has been really
bad and the five loss they have a one to
twenty four defensive rating, which I think has a lot
to do with just kind of a little mid season
low here, so little drop down here for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
We'll see how they respond to it. Adversity is part
of the process. You don't see teams too often just
(35:15):
cruise through regular season, dominate everybody and win. Like what
happened last year with Boston is pretty rare, and so
you know, this is a little bit of adversity for
the Cavs, and I'm interested to see how they respond
to it. All right, guys, that's all half for tonight.
As always, sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and
for supporting the show. We're going to take the rest
of the weekend off and we will be back on
Monday with our typical power rankings and weekend reaction. I
(35:37):
will see you guys then the volume. What's up guys.
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
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Host
Jason Timpf
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