Lakers-Spurs Reaction: Luka Doncic leads WILD win vs. Wemby + Knicks-Timberwolves & Nuggets-Heat

Jason reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers continuing their win streak by earning a win on the back of Luka Doncic against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. He discusses how good LA is and how good they can be when LeBron James returns. Then he breaks down Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks getting a win against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Anthony Edwards' return from injury, and Nikola Jokic having an incredible game for the Denver Nuggets in a win over the Miami Heat.

All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, Well, good to hoops tonight. You're
at the volume heavy Thursday, everybody. Hope all you guys
are having a great end of your week. Got a
Jampack show for you guys today, we're doing three game reactions.

(00:24):
Los Angeles Lakers win their fifth consecutive game as Luka
Doncic has kind of an ugly inefficient scoring night, but
he carries the offensive load with Austin Reeves and and
Lebron James out of the lineup as the Lakers beat
the San Antonio Spurs. After that, the New York Knicks
ride a transition wave in the second half to beat

(00:44):
the Minnesota Timberwolves as Anthony Edwards makes his return. And
then the last segment of tonight's show, the Denver Nuggets
get a big win at home over a feisty Miami
Heat team riding Nicole Jokic as a passer versus post
fronts and cuts. Lots of interesting stuff to get into
in all three games. You guys know the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to Hoops to Night YouTube channels

(01:06):
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but not least, if you want to get mail bag
questions into our Friday mail bags, we're going to be

(01:27):
recording another one tomorrow. Drop your questions in the comments
on these full episodes on YouTube. Put mail bag with
a colon and write your question. We'll get to them
on Fridays throughout the rest of the season. Today is
your last day to get a question in for tomorrow's
mail bag. All right, let's talk some basketball. So kind
of a weird, ugly game in Los Angeles between the

(01:49):
Spurs and the Lakers. I was actually just Jackson and
I were just venting about it before we started recording today.
It was kind of like way too many stoppages, way
too many whistles. Both teams attempted over forty free throws,
and two of my least favorite officiating dynamics on the
Lakers side, the grifting mainly from Marcus Smart and Luka

(02:10):
Doncic and just them constantly flopping and doing Janki stuff
to try to get foul shots. And then on the
Spurs front, another dynamic that drives me crazy the unwillingness
of the league to allow any contact on drives. Like
driving the basketball is a very physical play. There's going
to be bumps, It's a leverage battle. I talked about
it all the time. Usually when the guy makes a drive,

(02:31):
the shoulder's gonna hit. And who's going to win that
shoulder battle? Is the defender going to flatten out the driver?
Is the offensive player going to blow through that shoulder
and get all the way to the basket. And it
felt like the Lakers weren't allowed to touch the Spurs
on any of their drives, and so it just was
like this super stilted and stop and go and stop
and go game. Took damn near three hours to watch

(02:53):
this game. It was just an example of where I
think officiating has got a little off the rails in
the NBA. But that's a story for another day. Everyone
was in foul trouble. It just was kind of clunky, right,
but nevertheless, it was an interesting game and yet another
Lakers win. They have now won five in a row.
Is that takes sole possession of the two seed in
the Western Conference. JJ Reddick cad when I thought was

(03:14):
a really smart game plan for this particular Spurs matchup.
He mimicked a lot of the stuff we saw from
Phoenix when they got the first win against San Antonio
in this particular season. Guarding him with smaller forwards and wings,
getting up underneath him, physicality before the catch, bumping him
on every possession early as he's trying to fight for position,

(03:35):
and then throwing a lot of doubles at him, sometimes
before the dribble, sometimes after he put on the put
the ball on the floor, sometimes more of like a
gapping driving lanes kind of thing, essentially just putting smaller
players on him that forced him to put the ball
on the floor into traffic where you're bringing the help
in the doubles and forcing him to beat you as
a passer or beating you with physicality in traffic, and

(03:59):
that has caused went some problems over the last couple
of games as he's had his two worst games of
the season here in the last two and then this
was a team wide thing, not just for Wenby, but
also with San Antonio's guards. It was one of the Lakers'
most exaggerated gapping games. What I mean by that is
just by sitting in driving gaps. A lot of times
we see that in at the top of the key

(04:20):
with guys just sagging down in both lanes, but the
Lakers were exaggerating it even out of the corners. They
were sagging off of the corner, even the strongside corner sometimes,
which is usually a no no in basketball, But this
is one of the things you're gonna see. The Spurs
face a lot because they're a team, at least by reputation,
that is not considered to be a good catch and
shoot team. And to the Spurs credit, they beat it

(04:41):
a lot last night. They ended up generating eleven corner
threes and hit five of them. They generated twenty eight
catch and shoot threes in total and hit twelve of them,
which is over forty percent. So here in the early
part of the season, for the most part, obviously the
Phoenix game notwithstanding, for the most part, the Spurs actually
shot the ball pretty well on catch and shoot jump shots,

(05:03):
and like, this is one of those things where again
throughout the year, that's going to be the give and take.
The Spurs are going to have to beat it over
and over and over again with those catch and shoot
jump shots off of swing passes and kickouts in order
to get these opponents to treat them with the respect
in their shooting, with the necessary respect so that Victor

(05:24):
Wenbinyama can get more one on one opportunity, so that
Steph Cassel can get more driving lanes, so that Dylan
Harper when he's healthy, can get more driving lanes. And
you know, it's kind of an interesting concept, right because
Wemby struggled mightily all game, but san Antonio actually ended
up finding a configuration that worked pretty well for them
down the stretch. This is something to keep an eye
on them as we see teams deploy this coverage, these

(05:46):
types of aggressive coverages more often down the stretch. Three
straight consecutive possessions in crunch time, the Spurs basically spammed
the exact same configuration a Horns configuration where they had
Wemby on the right elbow and Devin Vassel on the
left elbow and then Steph Castle at the top with
their shooters in the other corners, so Julian Champagnee and

(06:08):
Harrison Barnes. And basically what they do is they just
have Steph Castle enter the ball to Victor Wembin Yama
on the right elbow, and then Steph would cut through
to the opposite dunker spot. And what this does is
it sets everybody up in a position where they can
be a threat. Right, So like Wemby obviously the on
ball threat, Devin Vassell out of the horn set will
then pop just right to the above the brake spot

(06:31):
on the left wing, and then they have either Harrison
Barnes or Julian Champagnee in that strong side corner, with
the opposite in the opposite corner, and so everyone's in
a position where they can be successful. Right. Devin Vassell
is a good above the break three point shooter. Harrison
Barnes and Julian Champagnee money corner three point shooters. Both
of them had hit a bunch of corner threes already

(06:51):
in that game. And then Steph Castle, your weakest shooter,
but your best vertical athlete on the perimeter is sitting
right under the basket where he can either get a
pass on a cut or an offensive rebound, and that
actually worked for the Spurs as they generated a couple
of buckets right Victor Wemenyama. There's a hesitancy to gap
off of those two shooters Devin Vessel on the left,

(07:13):
Harrison Barnes on the right. Victor Wemenyama is able to
get to a one on one look a nice little
wonderbble pull up around the around the foul line that
he knocks down right very next possession, he rips through
to the right on Rui and draws a foul. No
double team in each case, more driving lane in each case.
He's able to actually get a couple of scores out

(07:35):
of that set in a game where he wasn't able
to do anything. And then on the third possession, this
was really what determined the game. So Luca ends up
hitting that step back three on the right wing right,
he hits going to his right, big shot. Obviously the
type of like to the right step back kind of
jumper that Luca was hitting in that twenty twenty four
playoff run that made him so hard to guard because

(07:56):
he's always been so good stepping back to his left too,
hits that shot, puts him up what was it one
thirteen to one twelve? I believe, So it's a one
point game still and they go back to that set
the Spurs do. They just scored on it two times
in a row. And what happens. Jake la Ravia, who's
guarding Dylan Harper on the left wing in that configuration,
digs way down into nail help almost like a double

(08:19):
team on Victor. Very easy kickout pass for Victor to
that left wing to Dylan to Devin Vessel gets a
wide open look above the break and he misses it right.
He misses it. The coverage works for La. The very
next possession is the play where Victor wemen Yama ends
up committing the offensive foul and fouling out of the game.

(08:39):
We go to the other end of the floor. JJ
Reddick very smartly starts running sets to get Luca coming
off of short curls right off of the right lane
line where he gets a double team that leads to
a DeAndre eight and foul, and immediately the Lakers end
up pulling away and closing the deal with Victor wemen
Yama off the floor. So like is something again like

(09:01):
Wemby struggled mightily all game, but we found some stuff
that worked there at the tail end of the game
that I think is interesting. Just something to file away
for the Spurs. Victor hasn't handled double teams well in
the last two games, but one of the things you
can make life easier for him is that elbow set
up out of horns, or you put their two best

(09:21):
shooters one pass away that clears the gaps, or at
the very least, if teams fill the gaps, Victor has
very easy kickout reads for him to try to make
teams pay. You use Steph Castle as more as a
dunker spot threat when he's working off the ball. We'll
talk a little bit more about that later in the show.
I want to get back to the Lakers, though I
thought Luca was fantastic down the stretch. He obviously had

(09:43):
a brutal shooting night with Austin and Lebron out and
with Wemby doing such an amazing job shutting off the
rim while Luca was or while Wemby was on the floor.
Luca had to absorb a lot of usage in the
form of difficult jump shots like really difficult jump shots.
I think in general, all of sant anto Ono's wings
did a good job closing the gaps on Luca and
making life difficult on him, and Luca didn't make many

(10:06):
of them in this game, but I thought he made
a bunch of huge plays late in the game on offense. Obviously,
he hits that step back going to his right that
puts him up one thirteen, one twelve. Again, I think
that's a really strong indicator of where his base is.
For a right handed shooter, stepping back to your right
is the toughest off the dribble jump shot you can make,
because again you're kicking your body weight backwards. But on

(10:27):
that play you need to plant with your right foot
back and square up in mid air. It requires a
lot more to lift than when you're stepping back to
your left and your body is already kind of naturally
oriented in the way a right handed shooter likes to shoot.
So thought that was a good sign. And then he
burned the Spurs twice on double teams late in the
game with Ruey, where he would come off of a

(10:47):
ball screen to the left, double team would come swing
the ball to Rui one pass away. He's wide open
where he hit a three r we also off of
a huge play at Jake Lorava offensive rebound. This is
late in the game after Wemby fouled out. Jake Larravia
gets a huge offensive rebound off the right side swing,
Swing goes back to Luca. Luca attacks, draws the exact
same double team, pitches to Ruey in the left corner.

(11:10):
He racks the closeout, goes up for a dunk and
just gets grabbed and basically thrown down by Julian Champagne.
That was when he went to the foul line and
made it a two possession game. So a couple of
big plays from Luca drawing doubles and a couple of
big plays from Ruey cleaning up those doubles. Also on
that first play when Wemby went out again, jj throw

(11:30):
draws up that really smart set he comes off of.
Luca comes off the right lane line, curling into the middle.
Obviously Steph Castle's chasing him, but Devin Vessel shows on
the other side of the screen, and when he shows
on the other side of the screen, that puts two
on Luca and it created a little two on one
on the weak side with Jake Laavia and DeAndre Ayton

(11:50):
with Harrison Barnes, I believe was the one defender back there.
Harrison Barnes kind of tried to split the difference eight
and cut on the baseline. Luca hit him with a
perfect bounce pass. He gets wrapped up on the foul
goes to the foul line and makes both free throws.
And I want to credit JJ Reddick again here because
I continue to be very impressed by how organized this
team has looked over the last couple of weeks. After

(12:11):
that disaster opening night game against Golden State, I just
thought he was really smart with how he had Luca
attack throughout the game. He kept him off ball a lot,
which saved him from a lot of the ball pressure
he would otherwise need to face. We talked about that
little curl action. There were a lot of plays throughout
this game where Steph Castle was locking and trailing Luca
in off ball situations. And so if there's a lock

(12:32):
and trail, there's an automatic baked in. He's in trail position, right,
So if Luca's stronger, all he has to do is
go shoulder to shoulder with that screen. Steph's going to
be trailing, you hit him in the chest as he's
curling around the screen now instead of having to deal
with ball pressure and set Steph Castle up for the
screen and make contact now because of the lock and

(12:53):
trail in the off ball situation, Luca just has to
catch and he's already downhill with the defender already behind him,
which gives a a bunch of easier opportunities to attack
without having to face as much pressure. The post ups
he posted up five times in this game, which was
a season high by far, as previous season high was three.
We saw this a lot, especially in the first half,
which I liked because again he's got size on Stephan Castle,

(13:16):
so it gets him with his back to the basket
where he doesn't have to deal with as much of
the pressure and he can back down and get to
his spots. He split a double team there, he had
a kick out for a three, and then again as
soon as Wemby fouls out those low curls that got
Luca right into the lane. I just thought it was
really smart offensive approach from the Lakers throughout the game,

(13:36):
and there's like a level of organization that extends far
beyond like let's just play Luca ball high, pick and roll,
everyone stand around. There's a level of organization that I
think JJ Reddick deserves a lot of credit for. And
again on the other side of the floor too, like
the Lakers have looked really connected on defense and they've
been executing their defensive game plans night tonight, which I
think is a testament to the coaching staff. Again, this

(13:59):
is a team that is eighteenth and defense in the
early phase of the season without Lebron James and really
a pretty severe lack of defensive talent that's available to them.
I just want to give JJ credit. I think he's
doing a really nice job to start the season. Some
other Lakers shoutouts Luca's defense. He keeps getting deflections and
steals by just being in the right place off the ball.

(14:21):
He's just a really high off ball defender. He obviously
has his issues containing the ball on ball, and those
are things that the Lakers have to game plan for.
I think it's a big deal that Boston's not in
the equation anymore because I think that Luca's defensive weakness
on the ball could be exploited by those particular Boston
Celtics teams. But when he's off the ball. He's just
so high IQ and good at reading plays and sitting

(14:44):
in passing lanes, and he can get a lot of
defensive playmaking opportunities. He had seven stocks last night. He
had five steals and two blocks. He's averaging two point
six stocks per game to start the season. His two
steals per game right now would be a career high. Obviously,
here in the early going in the season, I thought
Rui was great in this game. He battled Wemby as
the primary matchup most of the night. He hit some

(15:06):
tough self created mid range jumpers in the first half,
one off of an ISO and another off of a
little ball screen action against a drop coverage. He made
some huge plays in spot up situations late in the game.
We talked about those, the racking of the close out
for the dunk where he got fouled, and then the
three that he hit on the left wing. Now again,
when Lebron comes back, this dynamic looks different because right
now Rui's very much playing power forward, and it's very

(15:29):
much Rui's natural position, and he's thriving in it. And
I've seen a lot of like takes about Ruey in
the big picture, and like how he fits into whatever
the team's ultimate goals are in terms of the trade deadline,
and like, look, I'm not sitting here saying go trade Ruie.
I think he's made himself look pretty indispensable here to
start the season. But I am curious to see because

(15:49):
when Lebron comes back, that's going to slot Rui's minutes
more towards like a lot at small forward as well
as some at the power forward, and that's gonna put
more emphasis on him as a perimeter defender. And so
it's it's too early in the season to just be like,
oh my god, Ruy's a home run, we got to
keep him. But at the same time, in this particular

(16:10):
role without Lebron, he's just been amazing to start the
year and he's made himself look pretty indispensable. Marcus mart
continues to be a godsend for this team. I was
talking about this with Jackson before the show. It's just
like playmaking. There's no like specific thing that he's like
spamming to kill teams, Like he's not hitting a bunch
of pull up threes, or picking teams apart and pick

(16:30):
and roll, or like guarding the other team's best player
and just locking him up for thirty six minutes a night.
It's just all of these little plays. It's a big
connective pass here, a random ball screen where he hits
a shot there, a jumping a passing lane here, taking
a charge there. It's just these all these like little

(16:51):
plays on both ends of the forewhere he's just like
winning a possession in like a half dozen different ways
every single night. That level of just high IQ playmaking
has just been huge for this Lakers team to push
them over the top in a lot of these games.
And then lastly, DeAndre Ayton. I heard a lot of
people saying he outplayed Wemby last night. I don't necessarily

(17:12):
agree with that, just because of the possession to possession
impact that Wemby has with his rim protection. And I
mean you saw, especially in the early part of the
game when Wemby was on the floor, the Lakers looked
flummixed on how to even try to attack their defense.
And so I think that part is a little bit
exaggerated in terms of eight and in the one on
one matchup. But Ayton did go toe to toe with

(17:33):
Wenby last night, and he won a lot of battles.
He did a lot of damage to the Spurs on
the offensive glass in this game, some on guards where
there were switches and someone would just get a shot
up and then Ayton would just be, you know, five
six inches taller than everyone standing around him. He'd get
a big offensive rebound. But he also did some damage
to Wemby on the offensive glass where he'd get inside
position in boxing mount. He's just too big for Wemby

(17:56):
in terms of his strength. Jackson Hayes actually drew a
foul on Wemby on the offense of Glass two in
this game, just by getting inside position and when became
hacking over the top and committed a foul. Like definitely
wasn't Wenby's best rebounding game, and he's still young and
thin and can get pushed around a little bit. But
like eighton, won a lot of battles against Wemby last night,
even had a little bit of short range shot making

(18:17):
over the top of Wenby that I thought was important.
And he just continues to be a great finisher as
a cutter and roller, which has been such an important
release valve to this offense. The Lakers have had the
fifth best offense in the NBA to start the season,
despite all of the injuries, and they just keep doing
it to elite defense after elite defense. This is a
very good defense. The Miami Heat very good defense, the

(18:39):
Portland Trailblazers very good defense. These are really good defenses
that the Lakers, missing a bunch of their key offensive talent,
have been scoring the ball against. And then on the
other end of the floor, they've looked a lot more
like we talked about the two different kind of paths
that this Laker team could take on defense. They could
either be bad on defense and just try to outscore everybody,
or they could come pete and try to be average.

(19:01):
And if they're average on defense with a truly elite offense,
that's when you have a chance to compete for a championship.
And they've looked a lot more like the team that's
trying to be an average defense than the team that's
mailing in that end of the floor. And I think
there's a legit possibility for them when Lebron gets back,
that they could hit a good enough level on defense

(19:22):
to be a serious threat this season. And who knows
what they could accomplish at the trade deadline if they
make a move with someone like a Gabe vincenter of
Maxic Kliba's salary to bring in another athlete that could
help them on that end of the floor. I've just
been really impressed by them to start. I was nowhere
near as low as some of the people were on
the Lakers to start the season, Like I had them

(19:43):
fifth in my contender rankings, But then Opening Night happened
and I was wondering if all those people were right.
I ended up dropping them to seventh after seeing training
camp and Opening Night. But I certainly never at any
point even when I was higher on the Lakers on
paper coming into the season, Like one of theason why
I was higher on them coming into the season on
paper was they were a fifty win team last year

(20:06):
who was the three seed, and they had a bad
playoff series, And like a lot of times when a
team has a bad playoff series, people like all of
a sudden poo poo the entire season and it's like, no,
this is one of the best teams in the league
all season. Luca's fat Lebron was hurt, like you're building
this new team, there's no center that you could trust
in the rotation they added a center, they added guys

(20:26):
like Smart and La Ravia at discounted deals over the summer.
Luca comes back in great shape. I just I just
thought people were overthinking it a little bit coming into
the season. But even with how high I was on
them starting the season, meaning like before training camp, I
never at any point thought they'd be as good as

(20:46):
they have been to start the season. They're hitting real checkpoints,
like championship checkpoints. Like what did we talk about when
we were talking about top tier contenders? I listed five things.
I listed having a true Apex superstar, having a truly
elite unit, having the ability to at least be average
with your other unit, having a depth of talent to

(21:08):
be able to survive the regular season, and then do
you have a crippling weakness? Those were the five things
that I listed as like championship checkpoints for a team
that really wants to contend, and it's like, do they
have a true Apex superstar? You bet your ass. Luka
Doncic looks like one of the very best players, if
not the best player in the league to start the season.
Do they have an elite unit? Yeah, they're top five

(21:29):
in offense with everyone being in and out of the lineup,
and Lebron James is coming he got cleared for basketball
activities today. Do they have a depth of talent and
versatility that's been on display as guys have been in
and out of the lineup and dudes are stepping into
roles and they just keep churning out wins. Are they
working hard to be average on the other end of
the floor. Yes, they've got a little ways to go there,

(21:49):
but they are competing on the defensive end and trying
to be average there. They're using lots of different looks.
We've seen quite a bit of zone from them this year.
They've won, They've run forty one possessions of it. They
ran five possessions of zone versus the Spurs last night
and gave up zero points on those five possessions. So, really,
the last checkpoint I would need to see from the

(22:10):
Lakers in order to truly consider them as a contender
is that fifth piece. Right? Do you have a crippling weakness?
And for me, that would be the lack of athleticism right,
And so it's way too early in the season to
just pretend that's not an issue. So for me, I
want to see them a few more times against some
of the better teams in the league, especially some of
the more athletic teams in the league, just to see

(22:33):
how crippling that particular weakness is, especially when Lebron comes back.
But in general, I'm finding myself recalibrating on what this
Lakers team is capable of. I think there's a chance
that all of us were just way too low on
a team that won fifty games last year, added a
bunch of talent a key positions of need, and got

(22:53):
a much better version of their best player. I think
we might have all overthought it a little bit coming
into the season. Coming back to this spurs for a
minute before we move on. This is the reality of
the way teams are going to guard Wemby, So I
think configuring the floor in a way that makes life
easier for Wemby is going to be key, especially considering
this is not a veteran team with a bunch of

(23:15):
really high level ball movers and like refined offensive skill
guys that are going to be able to help Wemby
naturally on the floor. I think Mitch Johnson's going to
have a job on his hands to configure the floor
in a way that makes life easier for Wemby, and
a big part of it is just getting those guys
out of the gaps and taking away the easy doubles

(23:36):
and so having the guys that are one pass away.
Always like put every off ball player in a position
where they can be a threat. If you're the cutting
athlete type that's not a great shooter, So a Jeremy
Sohin or a Keldon Johnson or a Steph Castle, work
the middle of the floor, work the dunker spots. If
you're a knockdown corner three point shooter, Julian Champagnee Harrison Barnes,

(24:00):
be in the corner. If you're a knockdown above the
break shooter, Devin Vessel, be in that position above the break.
Floor configuration is going to be key because everybody in
the league watches the film, they see what you struggle
against and they try to copy it. And teams are
going to copy the coverage that we've seen from Phoenix
and from the Lakers. To start the year against the Spurs,

(24:22):
Steph Castle, I'm still super high on him as a
player in the big picture, but it's becoming clear that
turnovers are a key area of opportunity for him right now.
He had six more last night, and someone like really
basic sequences like just swing passes against ball pressure or
like rifling a kickout pass right into the defender's hands.
He's just kind of sloppy with the ball right now.

(24:43):
As a matter of fact, he's had five or more
turnovers in five of his seven games. That clearly is
one of the big areas of improvement for Steph as
we talk about how exciting he is as a player,
That's one of the key areas of improvement for him
as he heads into this next phase of his career.
Like kind of to put a bow on the Spurs
thing what happened at the beginning of the season against

(25:04):
the light schedule. That was fun in all, but they
really need that talent level that Darren Fox brings to
the table as a veteran ball handler, and like you're
seeing as they've gone up against tougher competition, that processing,
that ability to make life easier for Wemby, the ability
to set Wemby up with advantages instead of constantly having

(25:26):
him work against double teams. That's where Deren Fox is
going to be a big help. And then lastly, they
need to get Cornett back. This has been this has
stood out to me throughout the early part of the
season here since he's gone down, whether they've gone slow
or big with Bismacknambo, or they've gone slow with no
or small with no centers in one hundred and twenty

(25:46):
one possessions. With both we min Yama and Luke Cornett
off the floor, the Spurs are losing those possessions at
thirty five points per one hundred possessions, a negative thirty
five net one hundred and twenty one possessions. Just getting
absolutely bludgeoned in these bench units since Cornet's gone down
with injury. Just something to keep an eye on over

(26:08):
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(27:54):
All right, let's move on to the other ESPN game
from last night, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the New York
Nick so back and forth game. In the first half,
Minnesota had some success against the Knicks with their ball
pressure kind of kept them out of their transition game.
Josh Hart talked a lot about this in his third
quarter end of the third quarter interview on the broadcast,
and he was right. After having just eight transition points

(28:15):
in the first half, they played much faster in the
second half. They got ten transition points just in the
third quarter alone and seventeen total in the second half.
And again, like sometimes transition can be a rhythm thing,
just like half court offense can be a rhythm thing.
It's like starting an engine. Any basketball player who's played

(28:37):
at a serious level will be able to tell you like,
there's like a there's like an internal motor, right and
you get into a game and you're kind of feeling
it out, but you get to a point where the
engine's revving and all the sprinting and the running and
playing hard becomes almost natural and almost second nature. It's
like starting an engine. And the same thing happens in transition,
like once you get in a groove where all the

(28:59):
guys are running every possession and it can get momentum
to it's like an engine that's operating like hot, and
you can start cutting teams to pieces run in the floor.
And we're seeing a lot more of these, like Indiana
Pacer style speed attacks from the Knicks. There was a
play in the early fourth quarter that I thought was
a perfect example of this. Minnesota's at the foul line

(29:21):
off of a make deuce. McBride gets the ball in
the inbounds like kind of a swoop through, So he
starts on the right side and he kind of swoops
by the foul line and grabs the ball on the
run and essentially just attacks at full speed off of
the made free throw. Jalen Clark was there guarding Deuce,
like he was there in the back court ready to

(29:41):
guard Deuce, but Duce had such a head of steam
that Jalen Clark had to backpedal right away. And like
Jalen Clark's a good athlete, a really good perimeter defender,
and Deuce attacked with so much force and speed off
of a made basket that by the time Clark finally
cut him off cut off the drive, he was all
the way at the left block on the other end

(30:01):
of the floor. And that drive was so significant that
Nasried and Julius Randall reacted so aggressively that they were
both by the charge circle by the time Jalen Clark
cut him off. So then Deuce just pitches it back
to the top of the key to a wide open
Og and and Obi Nasried throws like a crazy close
out with no chance. Og just rips through, gets grabbed,

(30:23):
which just powers through the grab and gets a wide
open layup for an and one, like the easiest and
one OG's ever had in his career. And it's like,
there's no reason to run half court offense or to
get into all these sophisticated actions if you don't need to.
And this is what we saw from Indiana last year,
this is what we've seen copycat teams like Miami, like

(30:44):
Portland to start this season, like Chicago to start the season.
You just push the ball at the floor and you
hit a gap, and when you hit a gap, someone's
gonna react and then you can just play basketball off
of that. And it's like, you would be lucky if
you ran a horn set with Michale Bridges and Jalen
Brunson and Karl Anthony Towns to get ogn and Opie

(31:05):
a wide open cut catch on the perimeter, and it's
like just having deuce attack with speed off of a
make ends up generating that type of advantage. And it's
just to me, that's the story of the potential for
the Knicks offense. Right. We all know what Jalen Brunson
can do when things get slow in the half court.
And Jalen was brilliant in the second half, scoring on

(31:27):
Jalen Clark one on one, beating Gobert and switches with jumpers.
I thought he passed the ball super well in the
second half, But how can you generate as many easy
opportunities as possible around those sequences to keep Jalen's usage
lower so that his efficiency is higher. During the three
game losing streak, they weren't as successful in transition. We're
gonna talk about it in a minute. A lot more

(31:48):
Jalen pick and roll, a lot less efficient in these
three games that they won, a lot more success in transition,
Fewer possessions of Jalen Brunson in pick and roll, but
more efficient in those possessions because he's getting to pick
his spots and he doesn't have to do it as often.
And like you just saw a ton of those easy

(32:09):
opportunities that lighten the load on Jalen in that second
half in transition, like og Nanobi quick transition post up,
Jalen feeds him gets an easy layup like a rim
pressure off of a drive that leads to Karl Anthony
Towns for a trailing three at the top of the key.
Og Nanobi in transition trailing the middle smokes a layup,

(32:30):
but he occupies the rim protector. Mitchell Robinson gets an
easy put back dunk. Mikhale Bridges started the second half
run with a big, easy, wide open three on the
right wing on a transition kick ahead. Josh Hart driving
the left wing in transition, gets into Julius Randall's body
and gets a layup. These are all easy baskets that
supplement the tougher offense that we know that Jalen Brunson

(32:52):
can bring to the table. And here's the thing. Like
for all the talk about transition play and speed from
the Nixon training camp, they weren't playing very fast to
start regular season. As a matter of fact, in their
three game losing streak, they averaged just sixteen points in
transition per game. That's not emphasizing transition, But outside of
the first half against Minnesota, in this three game winning streak,

(33:15):
they've been playing in transition a ton. As a matter
of fact, in this three game winning streak, they are
averaging thirty two points per game in transition. That's double
what it was in the losing streak. And again, it's
a rhythm thing. And I'd extend this beyond the context
even of the single game, because they get their transition
rhythm in the second half. I would extend this out

(33:36):
to a season long thing. As a team, the Knicks
need to turn these things into a habit. The running
the kick aheads, the attacking gaps early in semi transition,
all of that needs to become habit like. It needs
to become part of their natural way that they play basketball.
That is what will lead to them having sustained success

(33:57):
in that department. Lots of other knicks contributed in this
second and a half run. Josh Hart was a wrecking
ball with his dribble penetration. Minnesota tried putting go Bear
on him during that run, and he burned that pretty bad.
He had a pull up three at the top of
the key, he burned him on a closeout off the
left wing. His drives were just breaking Minnesota's defense, and
he was again like a part of Minnesota was doing

(34:18):
some chasing him off the three point line, which they
probably shouldn't do, but again like Josh Hart, just slashing
into the paint doing a lot of damage. Duce McBride
was excellent in the fourth quarter run with his dribble
penetration like we talked about earlier in transition, but also
knocking down threes. Oji Hananobi twenty five points, eight rebounds,
and three stocks. I thought he was great in the

(34:39):
third quarter run, especially with his defense. He had a
direct hand in three of their transition buckets, including a
pick six steal out at half court during that run.
And OJ's just off to a great start this year.
As a matter of fact, he's averaging basically career highs across
the board in a Nix jersey, career high in points,
career high, sixty one percent true shooting, career high in rebounds,

(35:00):
nicks high, and assists the highest total he's had in
the Knick Jersey, a career high two point four steals
per game, just hooping his ass off as he's getting
empowered a little bit more in this offense. Jordan Clarkson
sparked that fourth quarter run right when he came in
by hitting the three out of the corner and hitting
a little bank shot, and then Mitchell Robinson just just
downright destructive with his effort. Just in the second half,

(35:21):
Mitchell Robinson had three blocks and five offensive rebounds. It
was just everywhere. He had a block on an Anthony
Edwards pull up three as a help defender, and you
could tell Aunt was shocked, like he just kind of
steps back and rises up and Mitch comes flying and
it blocks his pull of three, and it's just like
kind of a bizarre play. You don't see help defenders
that are off ball block a pull up off the dribble.

(35:45):
Three very often, very unusual type of range that Mitch
has on the defensive end of the floor. Mitch has
always been sneaky good at blocking three point shooters, but
it's usually in like a pick and roll. It's usually
like a guy comes off into a drop look and
he thinks he's got a look. But Mitch is just
closer to the level than he makes you think with
how far that he can sit back. Sometimes. Really strong

(36:07):
metrics from the Knicks in their three game winning streak
one twenty eight offensive rating as they start to gain
some momentum on that end of the four one to
eleven defensive rating, which is solid. They're grabbing seventy seven
percent of opponents misses that's excellent, and thirty six percent
of their own misses, which is really really really good.
Fifty five point three overall rebound percentage in the three

(36:28):
game streak. They're barely turning the ball over it all
in this stretch, just playing really good basketball and starting
to build some momentum the Knicks. On the Wolves front,
I'm not too worried about the offense. You're bringing it back.
He looked pretty out rhythm from being away from the
game a little bit. That's going to change the way
you play to which will disrupt the rhythm of the
way you guys have been playing. I'm actually a bit

(36:49):
higher on the Wolves than I was to start the
season on offense, just because of how good Jada McDaniels
has looked. He's averaging eighteen points per game to start
the season. He's shooting the shit out of the ball
from three, continuing a trend from last year down the
stretch sixty three percent true shooting, which is excellent. He's
had three explosive scoring games already. He's hitting multiple threes
almost every night. It seems that to me, like I

(37:12):
have my big picture concerns about the Wolves as like
a processing team against the best defenses in the league,
you know, fast teams that have high IQ back line
guys or rim protection like those are the things that
worry me a bit. But that's always been the case
to me. They just look like they're going to be
more explosive when they're healthy and in rhythm because Aunt
and Julius and Jayden. It's just a really dynamic set

(37:35):
of scoring talent. The defense doesn't look good at all,
though twenty seventh in defensive rating. Rudy Gobert has looked
bad to start the year. Jada McDaniels has him been
very good on the ball, and I think when your
two foundational defenders get off to rough starts, it's just
really hard to overcome. But I'm never falling forward again.
Last year the Wolves had several stretches where they looked

(37:56):
pretty bad on defense, especially to start the year, and
then last year in the postseason, they just tightened the
screws on the Lakers and Warriors and looked physical and
athletic and just great on defense, and they were in
the Western Conference finals again. So like to me, they
kind of feel like a switch flipping kind of defense
that kind of coasts in the regular season. So I'm
not gonna allow myself to think that they're bad on

(38:16):
that end. And look, here's the thing. Maybe we get
to April and it turns out Rudy's washed and the
Wolves have a problem. I'm just not falling for it
in the regular season. All right, Before we get out
of here today, let's talk a little bit about Heat Nuggets,
and by the way, for you Nuggets fans out there,

(38:37):
we did end up working out a deal with playbacks. So,
and as I talked about last year in the postseason,
this year, we're gonna be focusing on watch parties like
game watch alongs and so twice a week we're gonna
be doing watch alongs of NBA games, and we're gonna
do a lot of Laker games, a lot of major
nationally televised games. And we're starting tomorrow night with Warriors

(38:59):
nugg So that's going to be on playback. It's also
going to be on YouTube. It's going to be simulcasted
on the two platforms. If you want to watch it
with the game video, it'll be on playback. If you
just want to hear the commentary, that'll be on YouTube.
I'll be taking callers throughout the broadcast. You guys can
come up and give your two cents as well. We're

(39:20):
gonna be doing that twice a week throughout the entirety
of the season this year, starting Tomorrow night with Warrior's Nuggets.
To make sure you guys come hang out with us
on playback Tomorrow night in the win against the Heat,
Jokic had his best game of the season in my opinion,
right on the heels of him having what was his
previous best game of the season against Sacramento, as Yokic
starts to build some real momentum here after a not

(39:44):
a shaky start, but a shaky by Jokich's standard kind
of start. Thirty three and sixteen on just eighteen shots
against the Heat. The season high sixteen assists was a
big part of his ability to beat Miami's off ball aggression.
Miami will deploy a lot of really ressive off ball coverages,
like they'll deny in passing lanes. They'll front the post

(40:06):
that opens up cuts, that opens up seals, and over
the top passes if you can make that pass. For instance,
the Nuggets got two easy layups for Aaron Gordon on
the first possession of each half on a set that
they like to run where they'll basically give the ball
to Yokic on the left wing and all four guys.
The other four guys, the other three guys I should

(40:26):
say other than Gordon, will sit high above the foul
line and they basically clear the entire baseline and Aaron
Gordon will then just post his man and they'll just
enter it to him and he'll go to work. Well
Aaron Wiggins or not Aaron Wiggins. Andrew Wiggins was fronting
that post up and they got two layups for Gordon
at the beginning of the first half, in the beginning
of the second half, because Jokic is the kind of

(40:47):
player that can make that very difficult pass over the
top against the front and especially on those ones at
the start of each half, Like Jokic is making that
over the top post entry from like twenty six feet
away from the basket, just ridiculous touch on a ridiculously
difficult pass. But again, like that over the top pass
is a tough pass to make. And for instance, the

(41:09):
Denver bench groups without Jokics really struggled last night. And
this is hasn't been a problem all season, but it's
been a problem in a couple of games. Last night.
They were minus eight with Yokic off the floor, and
a big part of that was their inability to process
and pass when Yokic was off the floor. In the
first half, it was more because of a zone look.

(41:30):
He threw out his own look and Jamal Murray kind
of had a brief stretch where he just kind of
decomposed against against it, took a couple of bad shots
and had a bad turnover live ball turnover that led
to a runout. But in the second half it was
because the Heat were fronting Yonas found Chunis in the
post and the Nuggets were just having a hard time
getting the ball into him. And that's the thing that
Jokic is like the skeleton key for so to speak,

(41:52):
Like he can beat those coverages, whether it be zone
or it be post fronts or whatever, over playing on
the premier, whatever it is, because of his passing ability,
and he beat the Heat on cuts and posts a
ton in this game. As a matter of fact, the
Nuggets scored ten made baskets on cuts in this game,

(42:13):
which matched a season high, and Jokic personally assisted eight
of those ten cuts. Also just as a score, he
took full advantage of Bam exiting the game early with
a foot injury. Hopefully we get some good news on
that front. But he was just bludgeting the Heat on
the inside with quick post up attacks, quick ISO attacks,
and offensive rebounds. He had five offensive rebounds last night,

(42:34):
which was his second five offensive rebound game of the season.
One other random little call out here before we move on.
It's been really fun to watch Jamal Murray and NIKOLEA.
Jokicch built chemistry as two man game partners over the years.
It's a big part of why I talked about Jamal's
value with Denver specifically versus Jamal's value in a vacuum.

(42:55):
But one of the things that Jamal does really well
as a passer in two man games with Jokic as
he leads him towards the basket. And there were two
examples of this last night. An early possession of ball
screen a drop coverage rep where I thought Bam was
actually in good drop position. He had Man and he
had Jamal Murray and the roller Jokic in front. Jokic

(43:17):
was kind of just like a little bit in front
of Bam on his right side, and what Jamal did
is he threw like a higher, further lob pass that
was almost all the way towards the basket, and he
basically passed Jokic open because then Jokic just took a
really hard step towards that pass, and that allowed him
to get behind Bam who was trying to keep the

(43:39):
roller in front of him, and then Yokic was able
to get an easy layup, and I was like, oh, man, Like,
that's a play that, like many guards will just throw
the ball to Jokic and that probably ends up being
a floater over the top of Bam or having to
turn into a post up. But because Jamal Murray led
him towards the basket, he actually passed Jokic open. And
then another one in the second half is kind of
like a deep seal post up. Norman Powell was on

(44:01):
Jokic and he's fronting the post, and it didn't take long.
Yokic just kind of bumped Norman, and Jamal saw the
whole thing coming and he threw the pass high into
the right, which basically allowed Yokic, who was ceiling with
his left arm, to hold his right hand up, catch
the ball with his right arm extended with one hand,
and then just softly feeded into the basket. Another example

(44:23):
of a play that like, that's a difficult pass that
Jokic and Jamal have just kind of like mastered over time.
They have the ability to pass each other open, and
that kind of stuff only comes from thousands and thousands
of reps with the Jokic off stuff again. And this
has mostly been good this year outside of a few games,

(44:45):
and not everyone's the mid heat, right, Like, they do
a great job of mixing up coverages. They throw some
weird things at you that make you think and make
you execute. But to me, what kind of stood out
last night is in each of the bench shifts with
Yokic off the floor, they started fine. Bruce Brown had
a little run in the early fourth quarter, that got
off to a good start in the early second quarter,

(45:06):
But in each of those instances, right before Jokic came back,
they would have like these little short stretches. And this
has been a problem throughout the season where it's like
you have like a three or four possession stretch where
you play bad basketball, you take a couple bad shots,
or you have a couple bad turnovers, and you give
up like a seven to zero run or an eight
to zero run, and it just like undoes all of
the success of the unit. And that ended up happening

(45:27):
twice in this particular game. And like again, they had
stretches last night with Jokich off the floor, they looked fine,
but then they blew it with just short stretches of
bad execution, and this has been an interesting trend with
their transition defense. It's like awful when Jokich is off
the floor versus when he's on, And this to me
is connected to offensive organization and shot selection. A lot

(45:48):
of times your transition defense can be compromised by you
playing bad offense. As a matter of fact, when Yokich
is off the floor, this year, Denver is giving up
one point three points per transition defense possession, which is awful,
and that drops all the way down to zero point
eight two points per transition defense possession when Yokich is
on the floor. And the difference there is just the

(46:09):
quality of offense that they run when Yokic is off
the floor or on the floor that prevents them from
getting into those heavily compromised situations. And I'm pointing this
out because I think it's a fixable problem. Like as
I was watching that game Lesson, I'm like, these are
things that Denver can clean up and they can be
better on offense and on defense when Yokic is off

(46:29):
the floor. On the Cam Johnson front, I know it's
been an ugly start to the year, but I can
feel him starting to gain momentum and game gain confidence.
He get a couple of big threes that helped spark
runs last night, and he had a couple of plays
where his ability to put the ball on the floor
and like a late clock situation led to buckets. He
had a big one where two where he got handed grenades,

(46:49):
one where he came all the way out of the
left corner and dribbled like all the way out on
the perimeter aggressively and got Aaron Gordon a decent look
from three at theright wing that he knocked down. And
then another one where is the late clock situation, he
gets handed to grenade and he gets all the way
to like kind of the right block area and right

(47:10):
right elbow block kind of along the lane line on
the right side, and he gets a decent shot up
on the rim while the clock is running out, which
bought nikolea jokicch an opportunity to clean up the mess
right underneath the basket. And there's just a little bit
of that on ball aggression that I like to see
from him. I know it hasn't been pretty. I remain
fully convinced though, that he's going to be an excellent

(47:32):
fit as he continues to gain rhythm, and I think
the biggest thing that shoot out to me in the
early part of the season that I think is affecting
him is his aggression. And I think one of the
interesting kind of like juxtapositions to explain this is Tim
Hardaway Junior, who's been awesome to start the year, shooting
the shit out of the basketball. But part of the
reason why is like Tim Hardaway Junior's coming out guns blazing.

(47:56):
He's taking even some questionable shots, but that's fine. Like
that's Tim Hardaway Junior's game. He is a hyper aggressive
score off the ball, especially as a shooter. Right. I
think Cam needs to tweak the spectrum of what he
considers to be a good shot just a little bit.
I think he needs to be a little bit more
on the shoot side of the shoot pass decision making

(48:19):
spectrum because in that sort of situation, that will allow
him to gain his confidence back. And I think he's
way too talented to be as marginalized as he's been
in the offense to start the season. And part of
that is his fault by being a little too much
of a ball mover, by not being as aggressive as
he's capable of being and this team is good enough
that they can weather some bad shooting games from him

(48:40):
if that ends up happening along the way. And here's
the thing, in spite of his uneven play, they've been
dominating his shifts over the last four games. There plus
fifty five total while he's on the floor over the
last four games. But I remain optimistic about Cam. I
just want to see him be more aggressive. A couple
other quick shoutouts. Aaron Gordon was just an absolute monster
on the in in this game. We talked about the

(49:01):
post ups, but he did great work off of Jokic
as a cutter all game. He only got credit for
one offensive rebound, but he had several plays where he
got up in the scrum and like tapped at the
basketball and then like Jokic cleaned it up. Those two
just make such a devastating offensive rebounding duo. I thought
he was a problem for Miami on the glass in
this game. And then Peyton Watson. His athletic activity was
huge in this game. He had three or two blocks,

(49:23):
a couple of big blocks in the second half. He
had ten rebounds in this game. A very nice win
for the Nuggets versus a feisty Miami Heat team. One
quick note on the Heat. I've watched each of their
last three games against the Lakers, against the Clippers, and
against the Nuggets, and we've seen different variations of them,
right like we see without Norman pal against the Lakers,
with Norman Palell, and with Bam against the Clippers, and

(49:44):
then obviously with Bam going out with the injury early
in the Nuggets game. And I keep coming back to
like one consistent thing that I'm seeing they are going
to play better than their talent on paper would lead
you to believe through that attacking style, and it's like
legitimate lead crazy to watch. Like you'll see on made
baskets them hand the ball to Taimehawkez coming out out

(50:05):
of the baseline and he just immediately starts to drive
ninety feet from the basket and just doesn't stop until
he gets fouled or gets all the way to the
rim or draws four defenders in so that he can
make a kickout pass. And they do that just possession
after possession after possession, they attack, they attack, they attack
again them. We're seeing this with Chicago, We're seeing this
with Portland. It's a big part of what's driving this

(50:26):
like kind of new age of transition basketball in the NBA.
But one of the things I've noticed with the heat
is like if you cannot turn the ball over and
if you can stop the ball, they actually will settle
for some questionable shots, they'll take some tougher off the
dribble jump shots, and they're not skilled enough to really
beat you over the top that often we'll see if

(50:48):
if Tyler Harrow and bam Adebayo and Norman Powell end
up being enough when they're all healthy to kind of
beat those coverages. When that happens, I shouldn't say coverage,
but beat that execution, like what happens when the team
game plans for you and starts cutting off those early drives,
and we're seeing that lack of refined offensive skill in
those situations. And that's something that's consistently stood out to

(51:11):
me over the course of the last three games. Again,
like shout out Derek Spolsure, they're playing really good basketball,
they're playing better than their talent level would lead you
to believe, But there is that certain over the top
limitation that keeps coming to the surface when defenses really
lock in. All right, guys. That's all I have for
today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting
us and supporting the show. We will be back tomorrow
morning with some game reaction and a mail bag. I

(51:33):
will see you guys then