January 16, 2025 • 29 mins
Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers' 117-108 win over Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat. Jason discusses the Lakers' huge second half and breaks down the defensive improvement for JJ Redick's team. Later, Jason reacts to Stephen Curry's 31-point night in the Golden State Warriors' 116-115 win over Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Timeline:
4:15 - Introduction
5:15 -- Heat-Lakers Reaction
17:45 - Lakers defensive improvement
27:00 - Warriors-Timberwolves Reaction
31:45 - Warriors are worth investing in
34:15 - Rui Hachimura post game comments
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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All right, wellcot to tonight here at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody,
Oh bove you guys are having a great week. Just
(01:47):
a really quick show here this morning. We're gonna two games.
Instant reaction style from last night. The Los Angeles Lakers
getting a win against the Miami Heat to snap a
three game losing streak. Impressive second half Lebron James doing
a nice job picking apart that Miami heat zone. We're
gonna break that game down. Then in the second half
of the show, the Golden State Warriors get a huge,
important win for them on the road in Minnesota. Steph
(02:10):
Curry's fantastic, interesting couple of sequences at the tail end
of the game that we're gonna get into. We'll break
that game down from the perspective of both teams. You
guys are the drill before we get started. Subscribed to
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(02:31):
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We're having another mail bag just like we do every week,
coming out tomorrow on Friday. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So this Lakers Heat game was an interesting game. The
Heat really controlled the first half. The Heat guards Terry
(02:53):
Rozier and Terry and Tyler Harrow were really picking apart
Max Christy. Like the early in Max. I've been talking
about this with the Lakers, like, I'm a huge believer
in him being like kind of a rock solid NBA
role player for a long time. I think he's got
enough off the dribble and shooting polish that he's going
to be a pretty decent offensive player in a few
years too. And he's just got good physical tools, good quickness,
(03:16):
commitment to the defensive end. So I'm a believer in Max.
But as I keep saying, he's just a young player,
makes a lot of mistakes and there's an inconsistency with him,
which is super normal for young basketball players. And he
was kind of the culprit of a lot of the
Laker defensive breakdowns in the first quarter, like bam Adebayo's
posting up ad you like that matchup. He doesn't need
help down there, He's just fine. You're guarding Tyler Harrow,
(03:38):
the guy who's been one of the most lights out
shooters in the league this year, instead of just kind
of staying home. He ends up kind of lingering down
in the paint, leaves Tyler Harrow wide open. Bam just
throws a simple kickout pass. Tyler Harrow knocks down the three.
A couple possessions later, him and Austin. Remember Austin's guarding Terry,
He's guarding Tyler. There's a simple interchange between the two
that just needs to be a switched easy basketball right.
(04:00):
Austin thinks it's a switch, so he stops chasing Terry Rozier.
Max is not paying attention, and Terry Rozier just drives
right by. Max gets into the basket and makes a layup,
goes you get switched on, Terry Rozier. A couple possessions later,
they run a ball screen on the left side of
the floor. He goes under the ball screen. And when
you go under the ball screen, the whole point of
going under is to contain the ball. If you go over,
(04:20):
you're taking away the pull up jump shot. If you
go under, you're containing the drive. Right, That's what drop
coverage is. If you go over the top, you have
your big there to help you on the drive. If
you go under, you can actually cut off the drive
yourself and you don't require any help. But he goes
under and he takes a really bad angle, doesn't actually
cut Terry Rozier off. He just goes right around him,
drives right in. Lebron has to hard help easy kick
(04:42):
out to he would Highsmith in the right corner. He
knocks it out. He had a bad knocks it down.
He had a bad close out against Tyler Harrow right
on the right wing where Tyler just went right around him.
He got a driving layup. He just wasn't It was
a lot of like hectic movement without a lot of
like really baseline understanding of fundamental defense, and it caused
some issues for the Laker defense in the first half.
(05:03):
Miami also shot the ball extremely well. They took twenty
two jump shots in the first half and got one
point six to eight points per attempt. That's like crazy.
Tyler Harrow just continues all year to hit shots. And
like I'm gonna say the same thing about Tyler Harrow
that I've said about the Cleveland Cavaliers and a lot
of these other teams around the league, Like when you
see a guy who's shooting really, really well, when historically
(05:25):
he shoots at a lesser level. If you see a
team that's sho shooting really well when some of their
guys historically don't shoot as well, yeah we can sit
here and talk about like, oh, well they won't make
shots when it matters, but yeah they also might. So
like my thing with that, when it comes to like
if a guy is shooting super well or not, it's
not really worth getting into. We just will find out.
We'll find out if this is the new Tyler Harrow,
(05:45):
and if this is the new Tyler Harrow, then he's
a star in this league. And if it's just a
one year hot shooting street a streak, then obviously it's
a different conversation that Miami needs to have. But whatever
it is, this year, Tyler Harrow is just shooting the
damn laces off the basketball, to his credit. But the
game was actually pretty close in the first quarter. But
in the second quarter, Spolster just went all in on
(06:05):
zone defense and the Heat built their first margin of
the game during netspan. Remember, Miami's the zone defense so
much better than everyone else in the league's. They invest
so much more time in practicing it. It's a very
different type of zone than other zones around the league
because it's very active. It's very like guys are pressuring
the ball, jumping, passing lanes. A lot of times, zone
defenses breed passivity in people because you're only responsible for
(06:28):
this area, so you think about, like, oh, this guy
cut out of my area, or the ball's over there,
there's nothing I need to be doing. Eric Spolstra has
built a very active zone with the Miami Heat, and
that causes a lot more disruption and issue for opposing offenses.
And the Lakers weren't getting terrible looks in the first half,
but they weren't getting great looks either. It was a
lot of they were basically just screening the top man
(06:49):
every single time. So like if you imagine the two
three zone, there's two guys at the top, there's three
guys on the baseline. You have your two ball handlers
up top. But if you bring a Jackson Hayes up
to screen the top man, and let's say it's Lebron
on the left side and Austin's on the right side,
if you screened the top man, Lebron can get into
the lane and now it's say, basically a two on
one with him in Austin, and if that guy steps
(07:10):
over to stop the drive, he can pitch it out
to Austin. And if he doesn't stop step over to
stop the drive, Lebron can just keep going into the
lane and either make a kickout or make something at
the ram. And it wasn't like that. Again, they weren't
getting terrible looks, but they weren't getting great looks either.
Some contested stuff in the paint, and they were missing
some of their kickout threes in that situation. But the
(07:30):
main thing that stood out to me is not much
in the way of variety. They were basically just spamming
that high screen the top man instead of using more
ball in player movement to beat the zone. They ran
twenty possessions of zone in the first half Miami did
and the Lakers only got zero point eighty five points
per possession, and so he ended up going into the
locker room up by twelve. They were the better shot
(07:52):
makers in the first half, they played better defense than
the first half. They get a margin as a result.
But in the second half Lebron just completely dominated that
game and just eviscerated Miami's zone. There's several things you
have to do to beat his own right. And we
talked about it earlier, like you can do things like
screen the top man, and I'm not saying that you
shouldn't do that, but there's got to be variety. There's
(08:12):
gotta be ball in player movement. There's several different things
you got to get into. One, you need to get
the ball into the middle of the floor, like around
the foul line. Why it draws the attention of all
five guys and that's what opens up the opportunities for
guys to get open around that. Cutting along the baseline,
relocating around the above the brake line. You gotta get
the ball into the middle of the floor. The next
thing is off ball movement. You have to have guys
(08:34):
that capitalize on the attention that is drawn. When the
ball gets to the middle of the floor, everyone turns
their eyes towards the middle. You've got to be relocating
to find openings. You got to be cutting along the baseline.
Rui was great at this all night, just cutting out
of the slot like on the wing, towards that just
towards the rim. When the ball would get into the
middle of the floor. Gotta get the ball in the
middle floor gotta have guys moving around. You gotta hit
(08:56):
some catch and shoot threes like you got. You have
to knock down the threes over the top of the
defense that that zone is designed to give up right.
And then lastly, you need to be able to score
in the middle of the floor, meaning if you do
get the ball to the middle of the floor, and
the other five members of the zone kind of stay home,
meaning the center just says I'm going to take away
(09:17):
the rim and force you to make some sort of
shot in the middle of the floor. The two wings
in the corner kind of stay home, and the two
guys on the top are just tracking shooters. There's space
there in the middle of the floor, And basically what
miamis saying in that situation is score, go score there,
and you need to have guys who are willing to
score there. Every single player on the Lakers, in different ways,
(09:38):
stepped into those four roles, like the getting the ball
into the middle of the middle of the floor, Lebron
and Austin just making sure that the feeds were there,
whether it was to Anthony Davis or it was too
gay Vincent, or it was too Austin and Lebron from
each other. They got the ball into the middle of
the floor. The off ball movement, it was really everybody.
Everybody was doing a good job. The off ball movement
(10:00):
we talked about earlier. Rui's cutting, guys are cutting along
the baseline, Shooters are relocating, Gabe and Austin. Everyone's doing
their job in that regard. Hitting the catch and shoot threes.
Lebron hits a couple big ones right on the left
wing or on the left corner, and then in the
right corner. Those are the first two shots that kind
of shrunk the deficit down. I think it was like
seventy three to seventy at that point. Miami ended up
building it back up when Lebron was on the bench
(10:20):
in the middle of the third quarter. But Lebron hit
a couple of big catch and shoot threes, gave Vincent
hit some threes, like Max Christy started hitting threes, Ruts
Mercer like, everyone just starts hitting shots, which ended up
loosening up the zone a little bit that way, and
then the scoring in the middle of the floor is
mostly Anthony Davis and Gabe Vincent like Ady just hitting
quick post moves against Bam, like a little left shoulder
hook or against kelll Ware and then and then Gabe
(10:44):
Vincent again like he was doing it with those little
short range fadeaways. Again, like the zone is kind of
designed to concede a kind of tough contested shot there
in the middle of the floor, and Gabe was just
hitting them. Gabe was turning over his right shoulder and
saw its just shooting a nice soft shot that would
all in on the rim or swish through. And those
were just again, in all of those specific areas, guys
(11:05):
were making plays. But the one guy that I wanted
to really emphasize here was Lebron in his passing. Like again,
these openings that are in the zone, they're brief, right,
like one of the things that happens in his zone.
Like we talked about earlier, you're only responsible for your area,
and so as the guy cuts away from you, you
kind of are passing them off. And so there are
(11:25):
these like little transitions where you know you're a guy
is out of the zone of the area of one
man in the zone, but he's entering into the area
of another man in the zone, but he might be
tracking a different player at that point in time, And
so there are these like little temporary openings where a
guy can kind of like slip into a gap between
two zone defenders while one of them is distracted or
(11:46):
something along those lines. And they're usually tight windows, and
they're usually tough passes. Like the skip passes, you have
to hit, like you got to put a certain amount
of touch on them to get it over the top
of all the arms, but you also have to get
it to get there quick enough to where the defense
can't rotate or the ball that can land into the
shooting pockets so the guy can make a quick decision.
These tight space Like there was a pass that Lebron
(12:08):
hit to Ruy cutting out of the right wing towards
the basket, and it was like a bounce pass that
was literally just threaded into that tiny gap between the
center and the guy that was guarding Ruey up at
the top of the key. It there's a lot of
like tight space passing Lebron especially, but Austin as well.
Austin had a great passing game. He had fourteen assists
in this game. But those two guys just did a
great job making the connective passes to put together the
(12:33):
player movement that was generating openings. Against the zone. In
the second half, Miami ran twenty nine possessions of zone
and the Lakers got one point two to one points
per possession. Lots of Again, everyone contributed, Austin with this passing,
Lebron with his passing and his shooting, Gabe with his
mid range shot making, Ruey with his cutting. Rue had
twenty three points in this game. Anthony Davis hit a
(12:53):
couple of big shots over the top. Just everybody made
big plays, and at the tail end of the game,
Lebron's shot making really broad at home that three that
he hit at the top of the key. Lit'll pull up,
jump shot and pick and roll with Anthony Davis around
the left elbow, turn around, right shoulder, fade away. Like
Lebron's shot making is gonna be key to this team
accomplishing anything this year. Because again, they're gonna probably make
(13:15):
a trade here in the next month that is centered
around more of like a defensive two way guard to
anchor this team, or a backup center or something like that.
I don't think the Lakers are gonna make an ultra
aggressive move for a star. We'll see, We'll see what happens.
But the I'm gonna talk about that with Yovan when
we finish up here today. But like there's no doubt
(13:37):
that there's no doubt that like that that they're not
gonna get there. It's more likely than not that they're
not gonna get more offensive firepower at the deadline, which
is gonna put a certain amount of responsibility on Lebron
for that to make to make those types of shots, right,
and for Austin to make those types of shots, and
for Anthony Davis to make those types of shots. The
last thing I want to hit on the Lakers front
was the defensive improvement. So I talked a lot about
(13:59):
the one switching in the last video, right, and again,
the Lakers switched one through five a lot to start
the year, and then it looked like in the run
where they kind of turned things around, that they stopped
and they did more selective switching and keeping Anthony Davis
towards the ring more in drop coverage possessions. JJ Redick
said in the pregame presser that they were going to
(14:19):
go back to what they were using before and that
the one to five switching one through five switching was
match up specific for the Spurs game. Now, what was
interesting to me about that is they were doing it
against Dallas as well, and I'm not really sure what
the case would be for doing it against the Spurs
with Victor Wembyama versus doing it against the Mavericks with
(14:40):
Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford, guys that Anthony Davis could
easily just sag off of and help in the paint.
So like, again I'm I'm a little confused on that front.
But like JJ got away from it and went back
towards that more picky, more selective switching type of scheme
with more high drop coverage with Anthony Davis in this
particular game. But what ends up happening, and this is
(15:02):
one of the important details that I talk about a
lot on the show. Like a lot of times I'll
see people talk about like, oh, like there's this huge
adjustment this guy's guarding this guy. Oh there's this huge
adjustment they did this coverage instead, And like, what's so
funny to me about that is like I don't want
to pretend like that stuff doesn't matter. It does. But
I feel like there's this desire to come up with
(15:22):
a real, tangible, like like obvious solution that I can
write down on paper, and it's like, this is why
everything got better. But the truth of the matter is
basketball games are a shit show. There's so many different
things that go wrong in various situations. Like who you're
guarding doesn't matter when twenty percent ish of the possessions
are transition, and in transition there's cross matches. You're just
(15:45):
guarding the nearest guy because in transition it's instead of
guard your man, which is the half court principle, in transition,
it's stop the ball, protect the basket, spray out to shooters.
So like everyone ends up in these cross matches and
now all of a sudden, whatever matchup you're in doesn't matter.
The scheme shift and that sort of situation too, Like
you're gonna do more switching in situations like that where
it's scattered, or sometimes the big just sets a really
(16:07):
good screen. There's a play like this in the first half.
Sometimes the big just sets a really good screen, and
when he does, the guard has to switch. They call
it a peel off switch. You have no choice, Like
you're originally in your drop, you're chasing over the top,
but you see that the ball handler is strung The
big out too, far. You need to now peel off,
get back to the big and box him out, or
if they pitch it back, they're gonna post up. Right,
(16:29):
there was a play like that Max ended up getting
switched on to BAM and again like this is what
it's technically a switch, right, the five is switching a
ball screen, which is technically not the scheme, but it's
an audible within the scheme, like, oh, it's too good
of a screen, I have to switch now. They immediately
went to post BAM on Max. Now we're back in
(16:51):
the same problem that we always talk about with one
through five switching, which is mismatch attacking in the post. Right,
But what did I talk about in that video about
the Lakers earlier this earlier this week? I can't even
remember when we did it in that video. If you
guys remember, one of the things I talked about is like,
you can't just leave guys on an island, Like if
you don't have to in switches, just leave yourself compromised
(17:13):
in one on one situations, it's a five man attack
on defense. And like there was an early BAM post
up of Austin Lebron double teams and forces him to
give up the basketball. Max lost another play where Max
lost Tyler Harrow on the first half, just let one
pass away. Max is not paying attention to Tyler Harrow
and he knocks down at three. But if you do
it right off the ball, you now have supported Austin.
(17:37):
In the mismatch the play that I was just talking about,
Max and ad switch, BAM's going to post Max. Ruey
stunts in from the elbow. You can actually see Anthony
Davis stunting in two, but it's stunting. What I mean
by that is like you run in and kind of
swipe at the ball and then get back. You're not
actually double teaming. You're just trying to force the offensive
player to overthink or to rush, or to make a mistake.
(17:59):
Baman's a pump face on the hook shot when Ruy
comes in and swipes. Then he has a break rhythm
hook shot off of the pump fake that he misses
over the top of Max. You supported Max. You didn't
leave him on an island. You supported him. And this
is why I keep talking about the difference between like
what a scheme can do versus how well they're executed.
JJ wants to switch because he has a certain view
(18:20):
of this personnel. This group is capable of it. They're
capable of switching. The problem is is they just don't.
They have not been committed to the work necessary for
it to work. Whether they run this kind of like
more selective switching scheme, which I think is better. I
think you want to keep Anthony Davis at the rim
as much as possible, or if you end up full
(18:40):
on switching, or in the situations where switches occur out
of necessity, it's just about doing all the right things.
It's just about like if you swarm with stunting and helping,
that allows the on ball guy to be more aggressive.
But if everyone stays home, the on ball guy has
to play a very positional style of defense where you're
(19:02):
just forcing him to make a shot over the top,
and he's probably just going to go right through you
because he's bigger and stronger, or shoot right over the
top because he's bigger, So again it's a nice step
in the right direction. That's an excellent example in that
second half, ear in that entire game, really of how
execution matters more than the actual scheme does, because every
scheme in principle works. Certain schemes fit different personnel groups better,
(19:25):
but every scream scheme in principle works. It's a nice
step in the right direction. But again with the Lakers,
it's all about their day to day commitment, doing it
night in and night out to get to where they
want to go. All right on the Warriors' front, So
(19:51):
the Warriors just completely jump the Minnesota Timberwolves out the gates.
They go up by twenty four points in the first quarter.
The Warriors defense was excellent in that stretch, and you
know when the Warriors defense is at their best, it's
a very swarming type of attack. Everybody almost looks like
they're in two places at once. The ball handler always
feels crowded, like he's like he doesn't have any space
(20:13):
to operate. But it also feels like no one catches
on the perimeter clean because their closeouts are so sharp
and their rotations are so sharp, so it just feels
crowded with nobody open. That's when the Warriors defense is
at their best. It's very swarming. One of the things
they did really well in the first quarter of that
game too, is defending at the rim without found jumping
arm straight up, absorbing contact, forcing guys to make tough
(20:35):
over the top playups. They forced a bunch of misses.
Julius Randall was missing shots, Anthony Edwards was missing shots.
Tray Jackson Davis did a bunch of damage on the
offensive glass in the first half two, just beating Rudy
Golbaar to loose balls, beating Julius Randall to loose balls,
and then Steph Curry hitting tough shots against the Wolves
drop coverage, mainly by just doing a good job of
setting up guys for screens. He saw a steady diet
(20:57):
of Anthony Edwards and Jada McDaniels. This one with Jaden,
it's more about setting him up with aunt just as
struggles tracking shooters and off ball screens or really in
any sort of screening action. It's something that I've been
pointing out here for a while. He had some really
bad reps against Steph Curry in this game, but Steph
is just really good at setting up his defender for screens. Again,
(21:19):
like a screen, there's two There's two elements to getting
good contact on the screen. The screener has to get
into the right position, hold his ground, be physical, set
a good screen, but you also need your guard to
set up the defender to run into the screen. If
he doesn't do the right work before, the defender is
just gonna be able to run around the screen too easily.
And like there's a three he hitd against drop coverage
(21:39):
on the right block is the deep one he hit
over go bear. He got Jaden pinned on his left side, stopped,
waited for the screen, and then exploded forward to get
the separation to knock down the shot. He had Ant
on the left wing, same sort of thing, like a
swim move where he almost like threw Ant into the
screen and then ran out over the top knocked down.
The three hit a few threes in that first quarter
(21:59):
when they jumped out to that early lead. They end
up going up by twenty four points. Dennis Schroeder hits
a couple of threes, but heal came in was like
picking up Nikkeil. Alexander Walker full court, swiped the ball
away from him, hits a corner three on the other end.
Gis atos I thought was good again. He's just big
plays hard, can knock down an open shot, make basic
driving kick reads, which is like just useful in the
(22:20):
modern NBA when things are organized around him and he's
been playing really well as of late. The Warriors build
a massive lead and then the Wolves just kind of
slowly battled back the rest of the game, And that's
what you expect against a good team at home, right
They get it back to two in the mid fourth quarter,
but then the Warriors made just enough plays to pull
it out. Trace Jackson Davis when they got it down
(22:41):
to two, gets a tap out rebound that leads to
Moses Moody three that bumps it back up to five.
Andrew Wiggins hit a big transition three that bumped the
lead up to six, and then Steph Curry hits two
incredible shots to ice the game. A week side flair
off of like a dribble handoff with Kevon Looney where
Ant just wasn't paying a ten t Ant relaxed and
Steph just cut off of a dribble handoff from Looney
(23:04):
on the weak side. Wiggins was driving on the right
side of the floor, and that's where Ant got distracted.
But it's like, dude, you're guarding Steph Curry, You're guarding
the only guy that you cannot lose track of, and
Aunt just for a split second stop paying attention Steph
broke free with the Looney dribble handoff in the left corner.
He knocks down the three and then the biggest shout
of the game, nas Reed like like jumps out on
(23:25):
Steph on the left wing and Steph rifles a bounce pass.
I think it was Gary Payton in the dunker spot
on the left side of the floor. Anthony Edwards is
there on the left corner area. Nas is on Steph.
They both just turned their backs and stop paying attention
to Steph. Steph just relocates to the left corner easy
kickout pass. Nasri panic closes out when he realizes what's happening,
(23:47):
but it's too late. Steph knocks down the three that
should have ice to the game, but we ended up
needing one more big play from the Warriors for them
to close this one out. In the free throw game,
Gary Payton ends up missing a free throw that makes
at a two point game with ten seconds left, and
it's a loose ball and Kevon Looney just bullies his
way through. Rudy Gobert taps the rebound out kind of
(24:08):
towards the corner, and then Andrew Wiggins, who is out
above the break, crashed in and kind of crashed in
running left, and Wiggins crashed in running right, and it
was just a lucky bounce and Wiggins ran in there
and got that loose ball and that ended up saving
the game. One of the last thing I want to
say about the Warriors before we get out of here.
One of the reasons why I'm a believer in this
team investing at the deadline is their defense. Even without Draymond,
(24:33):
this is an incredibly organized team with a good amount
of foot speed that swarms and is committed. They're well
coached and committed to the defensive end of the floor.
I've never felt at any point this year that they
like let go of the rope in a real way.
There's just a very specific weakness in shot creation on
this team that manifests in a way that can kind
(24:56):
of trickle down. Right. When you have poor shot creation,
you can have more turnovers and missshots. More turnovers and
misshots lead to more transition offense opportunities for the opponent.
More transition offensive opportunities for the opponent means higher offensive
efficiency because, as we know, every single transition possession is
worth roughly twenty percent more than a half court possession, right,
So like they're getting extra efficiency there that forces you
(25:19):
to continue to attack their set defense, which is going
to continue to accentuate your lack of shot creation, which
is going to continue to put you in compromise positions
on defense. As things get ugly, your team starts to
lose belief than just that little extra bit of just
athletically can go away, and you can end up in
a situation where things spiral. All of these things are
(25:41):
intricately connected. You have a better shot creator out there
on the floor with Steph, you score more frequently, You
stay out of transition defense more frequently. Your team believes
in what you're doing more, which brings that extra layer
of intensity and verve, and it can be a snowball
effect in the pose direction. This is a good defense.
(26:02):
That's a good defense without Draymon. Draymond makes it an
elite defense, right. That's a good defense that is capable
of guarding that has struggled so much with offense at
times this year that things have unraveled a little bit.
But bringing in a specific player into an area of
need as desperate as what they have there on the
offensive end of the floor can make a huge difference
(26:24):
in uh in kind of turning this season around for
this Warrior's team again, like this team has real strengths.
I think there's a I understand with the recent struggle
that there's this emphasis on this team almost like being
dead in the water. And I think this is a
team with a crippling weakness, and if you address the
crippling weakness, it will accentuate the strengths of the roster,
which is the coaching staff, the depth of perimeter speed,
(26:47):
the talent of Steph Curry. Those things are being ground
down by this gaping hole in that secondary shot creator
position that they need to address. Last thing I wanted
to say, Rudy made some interesting comments after the game
about rebounding and talking about like the difference between boxing
out and going to get the basketball. And it's kind
of an interesting concept because, like in any sort of
(27:08):
live ball rebound situation at the big guy spot, it
almost always turns into the defensive big is going to
turn and box out. The offensive big is gonna try
like hell to get the offensive rebound, right Like, he's
not boxing out's unless he has interior position, But for
the most part, he's just crash it. And then there's
corner crashes. Right, you have the offensive players crashing out
of the corners and defensive players crashing out of the corners.
(27:30):
More often than not, it's the pursuit of the basketball
that leads to rebounds. Box outs are box outs, but
so many of these jumpers are coming high off of
the rim towards the middle of the floor, and it
actually becomes more about ball pursuit than it becomes about
boxing out. When I talk about corner crashes, I actually
don't think it's a great idea for the guy in
the corner to turn and try to box out the
guy crashing out of the corner. He's at a huge advantage.
(27:51):
It's like open field tackling. It's an open space. He's
going to hit a move and try to get around
you and go get the basketball. You just need to
turn and get the fucking back Like that's how you rebound.
You read from the perimeter, it's about crashing, Like, it's
not as much about boxing out as it is about crashing. Yeah,
if you happen to go crash and the ball's high
in the air and you happen to see the guy
behind you, by all means box out. But like Rudy's
(28:15):
job is to box out, the other guy's job is
to go get the basketball. Now to one of the
things that Rudy talked about was like, oh, I just
need to disengage and go get the basketball. I don't
disagree from time to time, but when I was watching that,
I thought Rudy was missing some box out. So like
that's where it can get a little tricky. But again,
it's a team effort of rebounding, crashing from the perimeter.
It's literally like it's like that game we used to
(28:35):
play when we were kids in elementary school where you
just throw the ball at the air and everyone tries
to go catch it. It's just a sheer force of
will combined with athleticism. Who's going to go get the basketball?
All right, guys, It's all I have for today. Is
always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and
supporting the show. I will see you guys tomorrow for
our mailbag episode the volume What so guys, As always,
(28:56):
I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
We 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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All right, wellcot to tonight here at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody,
Oh bove you guys are having a great week. Just
(01:47):
a really quick show here this morning. We're gonna two games.
Instant reaction style from last night. The Los Angeles Lakers
getting a win against the Miami Heat to snap a
three game losing streak. Impressive second half Lebron James doing
a nice job picking apart that Miami heat zone. We're
gonna break that game down. Then in the second half
of the show, the Golden State Warriors get a huge,
important win for them on the road in Minnesota. Steph
(02:10):
Curry's fantastic, interesting couple of sequences at the tail end
of the game that we're gonna get into. We'll break
that game down from the perspective of both teams. You
guys are the drill before we get started. Subscribed to
Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any
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Hoops under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
leave a rating in a review. On that front, we
(02:31):
also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook where we're releasing content throughout the year. Make
sure you guys follow us there, and then, last but
not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments.
We're having another mail bag just like we do every week,
coming out tomorrow on Friday. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So this Lakers Heat game was an interesting game. The
Heat really controlled the first half. The Heat guards Terry
(02:53):
Rozier and Terry and Tyler Harrow were really picking apart
Max Christy. Like the early in Max. I've been talking
about this with the Lakers, like, I'm a huge believer
in him being like kind of a rock solid NBA
role player for a long time. I think he's got
enough off the dribble and shooting polish that he's going
to be a pretty decent offensive player in a few
years too. And he's just got good physical tools, good quickness,
(03:16):
commitment to the defensive end. So I'm a believer in Max.
But as I keep saying, he's just a young player,
makes a lot of mistakes and there's an inconsistency with him,
which is super normal for young basketball players. And he
was kind of the culprit of a lot of the
Laker defensive breakdowns in the first quarter, like bam Adebayo's
posting up ad you like that matchup. He doesn't need
help down there, He's just fine. You're guarding Tyler Harrow,
(03:38):
the guy who's been one of the most lights out
shooters in the league this year, instead of just kind
of staying home. He ends up kind of lingering down
in the paint, leaves Tyler Harrow wide open. Bam just
throws a simple kickout pass. Tyler Harrow knocks down the three.
A couple possessions later, him and Austin. Remember Austin's guarding Terry,
He's guarding Tyler. There's a simple interchange between the two
that just needs to be a switched easy basketball right.
(04:00):
Austin thinks it's a switch, so he stops chasing Terry Rozier.
Max is not paying attention, and Terry Rozier just drives
right by. Max gets into the basket and makes a layup,
goes you get switched on, Terry Rozier. A couple possessions later,
they run a ball screen on the left side of
the floor. He goes under the ball screen. And when
you go under the ball screen, the whole point of
going under is to contain the ball. If you go over,
(04:20):
you're taking away the pull up jump shot. If you
go under, you're containing the drive. Right, That's what drop
coverage is. If you go over the top, you have
your big there to help you on the drive. If
you go under, you can actually cut off the drive
yourself and you don't require any help. But he goes
under and he takes a really bad angle, doesn't actually
cut Terry Rozier off. He just goes right around him,
drives right in. Lebron has to hard help easy kick
(04:42):
out to he would Highsmith in the right corner. He
knocks it out. He had a bad knocks it down.
He had a bad close out against Tyler Harrow right
on the right wing where Tyler just went right around him.
He got a driving layup. He just wasn't It was
a lot of like hectic movement without a lot of
like really baseline understanding of fundamental defense, and it caused
some issues for the Laker defense in the first half.
(05:03):
Miami also shot the ball extremely well. They took twenty
two jump shots in the first half and got one
point six to eight points per attempt. That's like crazy.
Tyler Harrow just continues all year to hit shots. And
like I'm gonna say the same thing about Tyler Harrow
that I've said about the Cleveland Cavaliers and a lot
of these other teams around the league, Like when you
see a guy who's shooting really, really well, when historically
(05:25):
he shoots at a lesser level. If you see a
team that's sho shooting really well when some of their
guys historically don't shoot as well, yeah we can sit
here and talk about like, oh, well they won't make
shots when it matters, but yeah they also might. So
like my thing with that, when it comes to like
if a guy is shooting super well or not, it's
not really worth getting into. We just will find out.
We'll find out if this is the new Tyler Harrow,
(05:45):
and if this is the new Tyler Harrow, then he's
a star in this league. And if it's just a
one year hot shooting street a streak, then obviously it's
a different conversation that Miami needs to have. But whatever
it is, this year, Tyler Harrow is just shooting the
damn laces off the basketball, to his credit. But the
game was actually pretty close in the first quarter. But
in the second quarter, Spolster just went all in on
(06:05):
zone defense and the Heat built their first margin of
the game during netspan. Remember, Miami's the zone defense so
much better than everyone else in the league's. They invest
so much more time in practicing it. It's a very
different type of zone than other zones around the league
because it's very active. It's very like guys are pressuring
the ball, jumping, passing lanes. A lot of times, zone
defenses breed passivity in people because you're only responsible for
(06:28):
this area, so you think about, like, oh, this guy
cut out of my area, or the ball's over there,
there's nothing I need to be doing. Eric Spolstra has
built a very active zone with the Miami Heat, and
that causes a lot more disruption and issue for opposing offenses.
And the Lakers weren't getting terrible looks in the first half,
but they weren't getting great looks either. It was a
lot of they were basically just screening the top man
(06:49):
every single time. So like if you imagine the two
three zone, there's two guys at the top, there's three
guys on the baseline. You have your two ball handlers
up top. But if you bring a Jackson Hayes up
to screen the top man, and let's say it's Lebron
on the left side and Austin's on the right side,
if you screened the top man, Lebron can get into
the lane and now it's say, basically a two on
one with him in Austin, and if that guy steps
(07:10):
over to stop the drive, he can pitch it out
to Austin. And if he doesn't stop step over to
stop the drive, Lebron can just keep going into the
lane and either make a kickout or make something at
the ram. And it wasn't like that. Again, they weren't
getting terrible looks, but they weren't getting great looks either.
Some contested stuff in the paint, and they were missing
some of their kickout threes in that situation. But the
(07:30):
main thing that stood out to me is not much
in the way of variety. They were basically just spamming
that high screen the top man instead of using more
ball in player movement to beat the zone. They ran
twenty possessions of zone in the first half Miami did
and the Lakers only got zero point eighty five points
per possession, and so he ended up going into the
locker room up by twelve. They were the better shot
(07:52):
makers in the first half, they played better defense than
the first half. They get a margin as a result.
But in the second half Lebron just completely dominated that
game and just eviscerated Miami's zone. There's several things you
have to do to beat his own right. And we
talked about it earlier, like you can do things like
screen the top man, and I'm not saying that you
shouldn't do that, but there's got to be variety. There's
(08:12):
gotta be ball in player movement. There's several different things
you got to get into. One, you need to get
the ball into the middle of the floor, like around
the foul line. Why it draws the attention of all
five guys and that's what opens up the opportunities for
guys to get open around that. Cutting along the baseline,
relocating around the above the brake line. You gotta get
the ball into the middle of the floor. The next
thing is off ball movement. You have to have guys
(08:34):
that capitalize on the attention that is drawn. When the
ball gets to the middle of the floor, everyone turns
their eyes towards the middle. You've got to be relocating
to find openings. You got to be cutting along the baseline.
Rui was great at this all night, just cutting out
of the slot like on the wing, towards that just
towards the rim. When the ball would get into the
middle of the floor. Gotta get the ball in the
middle floor gotta have guys moving around. You gotta hit
(08:56):
some catch and shoot threes like you got. You have
to knock down the threes over the top of the
defense that that zone is designed to give up right.
And then lastly, you need to be able to score
in the middle of the floor, meaning if you do
get the ball to the middle of the floor, and
the other five members of the zone kind of stay home,
meaning the center just says I'm going to take away
(09:17):
the rim and force you to make some sort of
shot in the middle of the floor. The two wings
in the corner kind of stay home, and the two
guys on the top are just tracking shooters. There's space
there in the middle of the floor, And basically what
miamis saying in that situation is score, go score there,
and you need to have guys who are willing to
score there. Every single player on the Lakers, in different ways,
(09:38):
stepped into those four roles, like the getting the ball
into the middle of the middle of the floor, Lebron
and Austin just making sure that the feeds were there,
whether it was to Anthony Davis or it was too
gay Vincent, or it was too Austin and Lebron from
each other. They got the ball into the middle of
the floor. The off ball movement, it was really everybody.
Everybody was doing a good job. The off ball movement
(10:00):
we talked about earlier. Rui's cutting, guys are cutting along
the baseline, Shooters are relocating, Gabe and Austin. Everyone's doing
their job in that regard. Hitting the catch and shoot threes.
Lebron hits a couple big ones right on the left
wing or on the left corner, and then in the
right corner. Those are the first two shots that kind
of shrunk the deficit down. I think it was like
seventy three to seventy at that point. Miami ended up
building it back up when Lebron was on the bench
(10:20):
in the middle of the third quarter. But Lebron hit
a couple of big catch and shoot threes, gave Vincent
hit some threes, like Max Christy started hitting threes, Ruts
Mercer like, everyone just starts hitting shots, which ended up
loosening up the zone a little bit that way, and
then the scoring in the middle of the floor is
mostly Anthony Davis and Gabe Vincent like Ady just hitting
quick post moves against Bam, like a little left shoulder
hook or against kelll Ware and then and then Gabe
(10:44):
Vincent again like he was doing it with those little
short range fadeaways. Again, like the zone is kind of
designed to concede a kind of tough contested shot there
in the middle of the floor, and Gabe was just
hitting them. Gabe was turning over his right shoulder and
saw its just shooting a nice soft shot that would
all in on the rim or swish through. And those
were just again, in all of those specific areas, guys
(11:05):
were making plays. But the one guy that I wanted
to really emphasize here was Lebron in his passing. Like again,
these openings that are in the zone, they're brief, right,
like one of the things that happens in his zone.
Like we talked about earlier, you're only responsible for your area,
and so as the guy cuts away from you, you
kind of are passing them off. And so there are
(11:25):
these like little transitions where you know you're a guy
is out of the zone of the area of one
man in the zone, but he's entering into the area
of another man in the zone, but he might be
tracking a different player at that point in time, And
so there are these like little temporary openings where a
guy can kind of like slip into a gap between
two zone defenders while one of them is distracted or
(11:46):
something along those lines. And they're usually tight windows, and
they're usually tough passes. Like the skip passes, you have
to hit, like you got to put a certain amount
of touch on them to get it over the top
of all the arms, but you also have to get
it to get there quick enough to where the defense
can't rotate or the ball that can land into the
shooting pockets so the guy can make a quick decision.
These tight space Like there was a pass that Lebron
(12:08):
hit to Ruy cutting out of the right wing towards
the basket, and it was like a bounce pass that
was literally just threaded into that tiny gap between the
center and the guy that was guarding Ruey up at
the top of the key. It there's a lot of
like tight space passing Lebron especially, but Austin as well.
Austin had a great passing game. He had fourteen assists
in this game. But those two guys just did a
great job making the connective passes to put together the
(12:33):
player movement that was generating openings. Against the zone. In
the second half, Miami ran twenty nine possessions of zone
and the Lakers got one point two to one points
per possession. Lots of Again, everyone contributed, Austin with this passing,
Lebron with his passing and his shooting, Gabe with his
mid range shot making, Ruey with his cutting. Rue had
twenty three points in this game. Anthony Davis hit a
(12:53):
couple of big shots over the top. Just everybody made
big plays, and at the tail end of the game,
Lebron's shot making really broad at home that three that
he hit at the top of the key. Lit'll pull up,
jump shot and pick and roll with Anthony Davis around
the left elbow, turn around, right shoulder, fade away. Like
Lebron's shot making is gonna be key to this team
accomplishing anything this year. Because again, they're gonna probably make
(13:15):
a trade here in the next month that is centered
around more of like a defensive two way guard to
anchor this team, or a backup center or something like that.
I don't think the Lakers are gonna make an ultra
aggressive move for a star. We'll see, We'll see what happens.
But the I'm gonna talk about that with Yovan when
we finish up here today. But like there's no doubt
(13:37):
that there's no doubt that like that that they're not
gonna get there. It's more likely than not that they're
not gonna get more offensive firepower at the deadline, which
is gonna put a certain amount of responsibility on Lebron
for that to make to make those types of shots, right,
and for Austin to make those types of shots, and
for Anthony Davis to make those types of shots. The
last thing I want to hit on the Lakers front
was the defensive improvement. So I talked a lot about
(13:59):
the one switching in the last video, right, and again,
the Lakers switched one through five a lot to start
the year, and then it looked like in the run
where they kind of turned things around, that they stopped
and they did more selective switching and keeping Anthony Davis
towards the ring more in drop coverage possessions. JJ Redick
said in the pregame presser that they were going to
(14:19):
go back to what they were using before and that
the one to five switching one through five switching was
match up specific for the Spurs game. Now, what was
interesting to me about that is they were doing it
against Dallas as well, and I'm not really sure what
the case would be for doing it against the Spurs
with Victor Wembyama versus doing it against the Mavericks with
(14:40):
Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford, guys that Anthony Davis could
easily just sag off of and help in the paint.
So like, again I'm I'm a little confused on that front.
But like JJ got away from it and went back
towards that more picky, more selective switching type of scheme
with more high drop coverage with Anthony Davis in this
particular game. But what ends up happening, and this is
(15:02):
one of the important details that I talk about a
lot on the show. Like a lot of times I'll
see people talk about like, oh, like there's this huge
adjustment this guy's guarding this guy. Oh there's this huge
adjustment they did this coverage instead, And like, what's so
funny to me about that is like I don't want
to pretend like that stuff doesn't matter. It does. But
I feel like there's this desire to come up with
(15:22):
a real, tangible, like like obvious solution that I can
write down on paper, and it's like, this is why
everything got better. But the truth of the matter is
basketball games are a shit show. There's so many different
things that go wrong in various situations. Like who you're
guarding doesn't matter when twenty percent ish of the possessions
are transition, and in transition there's cross matches. You're just
(15:45):
guarding the nearest guy because in transition it's instead of
guard your man, which is the half court principle, in transition,
it's stop the ball, protect the basket, spray out to shooters.
So like everyone ends up in these cross matches and
now all of a sudden, whatever matchup you're in doesn't matter.
The scheme shift and that sort of situation too, Like
you're gonna do more switching in situations like that where
it's scattered, or sometimes the big just sets a really
(16:07):
good screen. There's a play like this in the first half.
Sometimes the big just sets a really good screen, and
when he does, the guard has to switch. They call
it a peel off switch. You have no choice, Like
you're originally in your drop, you're chasing over the top,
but you see that the ball handler is strung The
big out too, far. You need to now peel off,
get back to the big and box him out, or
if they pitch it back, they're gonna post up. Right,
(16:29):
there was a play like that Max ended up getting
switched on to BAM and again like this is what
it's technically a switch, right, the five is switching a
ball screen, which is technically not the scheme, but it's
an audible within the scheme, like, oh, it's too good
of a screen, I have to switch now. They immediately
went to post BAM on Max. Now we're back in
(16:51):
the same problem that we always talk about with one
through five switching, which is mismatch attacking in the post. Right,
But what did I talk about in that video about
the Lakers earlier this earlier this week? I can't even
remember when we did it in that video. If you
guys remember, one of the things I talked about is like,
you can't just leave guys on an island, Like if
you don't have to in switches, just leave yourself compromised
(17:13):
in one on one situations, it's a five man attack
on defense. And like there was an early BAM post
up of Austin Lebron double teams and forces him to
give up the basketball. Max lost another play where Max
lost Tyler Harrow on the first half, just let one
pass away. Max is not paying attention to Tyler Harrow
and he knocks down at three. But if you do
it right off the ball, you now have supported Austin.
(17:37):
In the mismatch the play that I was just talking about,
Max and ad switch, BAM's going to post Max. Ruey
stunts in from the elbow. You can actually see Anthony
Davis stunting in two, but it's stunting. What I mean
by that is like you run in and kind of
swipe at the ball and then get back. You're not
actually double teaming. You're just trying to force the offensive
player to overthink or to rush, or to make a mistake.
(17:59):
Baman's a pump face on the hook shot when Ruy
comes in and swipes. Then he has a break rhythm
hook shot off of the pump fake that he misses
over the top of Max. You supported Max. You didn't
leave him on an island. You supported him. And this
is why I keep talking about the difference between like
what a scheme can do versus how well they're executed.
JJ wants to switch because he has a certain view
(18:20):
of this personnel. This group is capable of it. They're
capable of switching. The problem is is they just don't.
They have not been committed to the work necessary for
it to work. Whether they run this kind of like
more selective switching scheme, which I think is better. I
think you want to keep Anthony Davis at the rim
as much as possible, or if you end up full
(18:40):
on switching, or in the situations where switches occur out
of necessity, it's just about doing all the right things.
It's just about like if you swarm with stunting and helping,
that allows the on ball guy to be more aggressive.
But if everyone stays home, the on ball guy has
to play a very positional style of defense where you're
(19:02):
just forcing him to make a shot over the top,
and he's probably just going to go right through you
because he's bigger and stronger, or shoot right over the
top because he's bigger, So again it's a nice step
in the right direction. That's an excellent example in that
second half, ear in that entire game, really of how
execution matters more than the actual scheme does, because every
scheme in principle works. Certain schemes fit different personnel groups better,
(19:25):
but every scream scheme in principle works. It's a nice
step in the right direction. But again with the Lakers,
it's all about their day to day commitment, doing it
night in and night out to get to where they
want to go. All right on the Warriors' front, So
(19:51):
the Warriors just completely jump the Minnesota Timberwolves out the gates.
They go up by twenty four points in the first quarter.
The Warriors defense was excellent in that stretch, and you
know when the Warriors defense is at their best, it's
a very swarming type of attack. Everybody almost looks like
they're in two places at once. The ball handler always
feels crowded, like he's like he doesn't have any space
(20:13):
to operate. But it also feels like no one catches
on the perimeter clean because their closeouts are so sharp
and their rotations are so sharp, so it just feels
crowded with nobody open. That's when the Warriors defense is
at their best. It's very swarming. One of the things
they did really well in the first quarter of that
game too, is defending at the rim without found jumping
arm straight up, absorbing contact, forcing guys to make tough
(20:35):
over the top playups. They forced a bunch of misses.
Julius Randall was missing shots, Anthony Edwards was missing shots.
Tray Jackson Davis did a bunch of damage on the
offensive glass in the first half two, just beating Rudy
Golbaar to loose balls, beating Julius Randall to loose balls,
and then Steph Curry hitting tough shots against the Wolves
drop coverage, mainly by just doing a good job of
setting up guys for screens. He saw a steady diet
(20:57):
of Anthony Edwards and Jada McDaniels. This one with Jaden,
it's more about setting him up with aunt just as
struggles tracking shooters and off ball screens or really in
any sort of screening action. It's something that I've been
pointing out here for a while. He had some really
bad reps against Steph Curry in this game, but Steph
is just really good at setting up his defender for screens. Again,
(21:19):
like a screen, there's two There's two elements to getting
good contact on the screen. The screener has to get
into the right position, hold his ground, be physical, set
a good screen, but you also need your guard to
set up the defender to run into the screen. If
he doesn't do the right work before, the defender is
just gonna be able to run around the screen too easily.
And like there's a three he hitd against drop coverage
(21:39):
on the right block is the deep one he hit
over go bear. He got Jaden pinned on his left side, stopped,
waited for the screen, and then exploded forward to get
the separation to knock down the shot. He had Ant
on the left wing, same sort of thing, like a
swim move where he almost like threw Ant into the
screen and then ran out over the top knocked down.
The three hit a few threes in that first quarter
(21:59):
when they jumped out to that early lead. They end
up going up by twenty four points. Dennis Schroeder hits
a couple of threes, but heal came in was like
picking up Nikkeil. Alexander Walker full court, swiped the ball
away from him, hits a corner three on the other end.
Gis atos I thought was good again. He's just big
plays hard, can knock down an open shot, make basic
driving kick reads, which is like just useful in the
(22:20):
modern NBA when things are organized around him and he's
been playing really well as of late. The Warriors build
a massive lead and then the Wolves just kind of
slowly battled back the rest of the game, And that's
what you expect against a good team at home, right
They get it back to two in the mid fourth quarter,
but then the Warriors made just enough plays to pull
it out. Trace Jackson Davis when they got it down
(22:41):
to two, gets a tap out rebound that leads to
Moses Moody three that bumps it back up to five.
Andrew Wiggins hit a big transition three that bumped the
lead up to six, and then Steph Curry hits two
incredible shots to ice the game. A week side flair
off of like a dribble handoff with Kevon Looney where
Ant just wasn't paying a ten t Ant relaxed and
Steph just cut off of a dribble handoff from Looney
(23:04):
on the weak side. Wiggins was driving on the right
side of the floor, and that's where Ant got distracted.
But it's like, dude, you're guarding Steph Curry, You're guarding
the only guy that you cannot lose track of, and
Aunt just for a split second stop paying attention Steph
broke free with the Looney dribble handoff in the left corner.
He knocks down the three and then the biggest shout
of the game, nas Reed like like jumps out on
(23:25):
Steph on the left wing and Steph rifles a bounce pass.
I think it was Gary Payton in the dunker spot
on the left side of the floor. Anthony Edwards is
there on the left corner area. Nas is on Steph.
They both just turned their backs and stop paying attention
to Steph. Steph just relocates to the left corner easy
kickout pass. Nasri panic closes out when he realizes what's happening,
(23:47):
but it's too late. Steph knocks down the three that
should have ice to the game, but we ended up
needing one more big play from the Warriors for them
to close this one out. In the free throw game,
Gary Payton ends up missing a free throw that makes
at a two point game with ten seconds left, and
it's a loose ball and Kevon Looney just bullies his
way through. Rudy Gobert taps the rebound out kind of
(24:08):
towards the corner, and then Andrew Wiggins, who is out
above the break, crashed in and kind of crashed in
running left, and Wiggins crashed in running right, and it
was just a lucky bounce and Wiggins ran in there
and got that loose ball and that ended up saving
the game. One of the last thing I want to
say about the Warriors before we get out of here.
One of the reasons why I'm a believer in this
team investing at the deadline is their defense. Even without Draymond,
(24:33):
this is an incredibly organized team with a good amount
of foot speed that swarms and is committed. They're well
coached and committed to the defensive end of the floor.
I've never felt at any point this year that they
like let go of the rope in a real way.
There's just a very specific weakness in shot creation on
this team that manifests in a way that can kind
(24:56):
of trickle down. Right. When you have poor shot creation,
you can have more turnovers and missshots. More turnovers and
misshots lead to more transition offense opportunities for the opponent.
More transition offensive opportunities for the opponent means higher offensive
efficiency because, as we know, every single transition possession is
worth roughly twenty percent more than a half court possession, right,
So like they're getting extra efficiency there that forces you
(25:19):
to continue to attack their set defense, which is going
to continue to accentuate your lack of shot creation, which
is going to continue to put you in compromise positions
on defense. As things get ugly, your team starts to
lose belief than just that little extra bit of just
athletically can go away, and you can end up in
a situation where things spiral. All of these things are
(25:41):
intricately connected. You have a better shot creator out there
on the floor with Steph, you score more frequently, You
stay out of transition defense more frequently. Your team believes
in what you're doing more, which brings that extra layer
of intensity and verve, and it can be a snowball
effect in the pose direction. This is a good defense.
(26:02):
That's a good defense without Draymon. Draymond makes it an
elite defense, right. That's a good defense that is capable
of guarding that has struggled so much with offense at
times this year that things have unraveled a little bit.
But bringing in a specific player into an area of
need as desperate as what they have there on the
offensive end of the floor can make a huge difference
(26:24):
in uh in kind of turning this season around for
this Warrior's team again, like this team has real strengths.
I think there's a I understand with the recent struggle
that there's this emphasis on this team almost like being
dead in the water. And I think this is a
team with a crippling weakness, and if you address the
crippling weakness, it will accentuate the strengths of the roster,
which is the coaching staff, the depth of perimeter speed,
(26:47):
the talent of Steph Curry. Those things are being ground
down by this gaping hole in that secondary shot creator
position that they need to address. Last thing I wanted
to say, Rudy made some interesting comments after the game
about rebounding and talking about like the difference between boxing
out and going to get the basketball. And it's kind
of an interesting concept because, like in any sort of
(27:08):
live ball rebound situation at the big guy spot, it
almost always turns into the defensive big is going to
turn and box out. The offensive big is gonna try
like hell to get the offensive rebound, right Like, he's
not boxing out's unless he has interior position, But for
the most part, he's just crash it. And then there's
corner crashes. Right, you have the offensive players crashing out
of the corners and defensive players crashing out of the corners.
(27:30):
More often than not, it's the pursuit of the basketball
that leads to rebounds. Box outs are box outs, but
so many of these jumpers are coming high off of
the rim towards the middle of the floor, and it
actually becomes more about ball pursuit than it becomes about
boxing out. When I talk about corner crashes, I actually
don't think it's a great idea for the guy in
the corner to turn and try to box out the
guy crashing out of the corner. He's at a huge advantage.
(27:51):
It's like open field tackling. It's an open space. He's
going to hit a move and try to get around
you and go get the basketball. You just need to
turn and get the fucking back Like that's how you rebound.
You read from the perimeter, it's about crashing, Like, it's
not as much about boxing out as it is about crashing. Yeah,
if you happen to go crash and the ball's high
in the air and you happen to see the guy
behind you, by all means box out. But like Rudy's
(28:15):
job is to box out, the other guy's job is
to go get the basketball. Now to one of the
things that Rudy talked about was like, oh, I just
need to disengage and go get the basketball. I don't
disagree from time to time, but when I was watching that,
I thought Rudy was missing some box out. So like
that's where it can get a little tricky. But again,
it's a team effort of rebounding, crashing from the perimeter.
It's literally like it's like that game we used to
(28:35):
play when we were kids in elementary school where you
just throw the ball at the air and everyone tries
to go catch it. It's just a sheer force of
will combined with athleticism. Who's going to go get the basketball?
All right, guys, It's all I have for today. Is
always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and
supporting the show. I will see you guys tomorrow for
our mailbag episode the volume What so guys, As always,
(28:56):
I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight.
We 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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