November 11, 2025 • 42 mins
Jason reacts to the Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont electing to fire general manager Nico Harrison in the aftermath of the Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis trade with the Los Angeles Lakers. Then he gives his top 10 takeaways from a wild NBA day including Victor Wembanyama getting his groove back in a San Antonio Spurs’ win over the Chicago Bulls, Anthony Edwards and Cade Cunningham delivering huge performances for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Detroit Pistons, Luka Doncic getting LA back on track, Darius Garland's injury impact on the Cleveland Cavaliers, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hipsonight. You're at the
volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having
a great start to your week. We have an absolutely
(00:21):
jam packed show for you guys. This morning. I had
put together ten big takeaways from a wild Monday night
in the NBA. We were going to literally bounce around
to every single game. I watched bits and pieces of
every single game from last night. We had all sorts
of game winners and clutch shots and wild statistical performances
(00:43):
and so many interesting things to get into. And then
right before I was about to press record this morning,
Nico Harrison got fired. So we're going to lead with
my quick thoughts on the Nico Harrison firing, and then
we will finish the show today with ten big takeaways
from a wild Monday Night in the NBA. You guys
know the job before we get started. Subscribe to the
(01:03):
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(01:26):
Full episodes on YouTube, go into the comments, write mail bag, colon,
write your question. We get to them on Fridays throughout
the regular season, and then, last but not least, before
we get started today, we have started a new partnership,
a continuation of our partnership with Playback. This year geared
around watch parties watch alongs. We did our first one
(01:46):
on Saturday night, just kind of a little test run
with Hawks Lakers. Learned a lot. We're gonna make some
tweaks as we move forward, but we are continuing not
tonight with the Showdown or excuse me, that's tomorrow night.
Excuse me, tomorrow night, Wednesday night. We are continuing that
with the Showdown between the Lakers and the Thunder. We'll
have three more watch parties this week. We're doing Lakers
(02:08):
Thunder on Wednesday night, Spurs Warriors on Friday night, and
then Lakers Bucks on Saturday night. But make sure you
make sure you guys come join us on Wednesday night
for watch long. We're gonna be focused on the games.
We're gonna be breaking it down as it all goes down.
We'll be taking callers and stuff along the way. So
make sure you guys come hang out on Wednesday night.
(02:28):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So not too much
to say here about the Nico Harrison firing. I thought
Nico actually did a decent job with the MAVs until
he didn't. Like for a guy who didn't believe in
Luka Doncic, he did know how to build around him.
He basically invented the Luk Adancic team construct that we
(02:49):
all think about today, right. Athletic centers that he can
hit for lobs in a four out one in spacing concept,
a secondary ball handler that can roughly approximate his style,
that doesn't necessarily need to be a superstar, but that
can kind of fit into the same sort of four
out one in iso pick and roll, make the decisions,
(03:09):
make the shots type of system, and then surround him
with athleticism and guys that can knock down open catch
and shoot threes, drive closed out. It's basically athletic three
and d guys, and I mean, come on, they won
five playoff series over the previous three seasons of the
Luca era before the trade. That's not all bad, but
ultimately he just galaxy brained himself out of the perfect situation.
(03:34):
To be clear, I'm not in any way justifying the trade.
It's the dumbest trade in NBA history. There's absolutely no
excuse for it. But I can at least see the
genesis of where his brain started to go. Luca was
clearly leaving a lot of meat on the bone with
his potential. As crazy as that sounds, without good, he
(03:55):
was through the first five to six years of his career.
He wasn't taking care of his body. He was playing
at a weight that was affecting his performance negatively. He
was starting to succumb to nagging injuries that even began
in the twenty twenty four season, as he was banged
up with his knee throughout that playoff run, and he
looked like he hadn't learned his lesson, and he kind
(04:16):
of hit rock bottom last year, right like even after
the Lakers trade. He was soundly outplayed by Anthony Edwards
in that first round playoff series. But the crucial flaw
in Nico's logic and I can't even believe this needs
to be explained, but he failed to realize that Luca
was inevitably going to figure it out at some point.
(04:37):
He failed to account for Luca's best trait, which is
his alpha dog competitiveness. If he was fat and lazy,
and if he was losing ground against his peers, it
would inevitably overtime lead to disappointing losses. Those disappointing losses
(04:58):
would inevitably lead to to Luca getting pissed off, and
if he got pissed off, he would finally eventually look
in the mirror, take accountability, and make the changes he
needed to make to become the best version of himself.
And by the way, he was obviously very close to
(05:19):
reaching that point. He got his butt kicked by Anton
the Wolves he changed last summer. Now he's averaging thirty
seven to nine to nine on sixty three percent true
shooting for an eight to three team in the West,
despite them being pretty light on talent. With the Lebron
James injury and the other injuries they've dealt with this year,
He's looking like the best player in the world, or
at least in the conversation. Nico essentially committed the unforgivable sin.
(05:48):
He took a franchise that was legitimately a perennial championship
contender on the strength of a transcendently great star that
was just barely entering his prime, and he chopped it
off at the knees. And he should be incredibly thankful
(06:08):
that the MAVs won the lottery and that MAVs fans
at least have the tiny glimmer of hope that is
Cooper Flagg, who by the way, had an amazing night
last night against Giannis and the Bucks, because otherwise this
team would be in the dark ages for years to come. Now,
MAVs fans, it's not over. You have a terribly unbalanced roster,
(06:32):
but you have Cooper Flag, a player that I truly
believe in, and you do have the assets to quickly
pivot into an advanced stage of a rebuild. But the
bottom line is you should never have had to make
that pivot to begin with. You should be contending for
the title out West right now, and you're not because
(06:53):
Nico outsmarted himself and made the dumbest trade in NBA history.
I'm sorry that that happened to you, guys. I'm sure
you're all very happy to see Nico finally gone from
the organization. All right, let's dig into our ten big
takeaways from last night's Wild Monday Night NBA Slate. So,
(07:14):
first of all, first takeaway, Caid Cunningham had an all
time empty the clip game last night in a big
win against the Washington Wizards in overtime. The box score
watchers were upset last night Cad missed thirty one shots.
I was seeing all sorts of takes flying around about
the way he was playing and the shot chucking, and
(07:35):
so I was excited to go watch because I obviously,
like I've watched Kate a bunch this year, and he's
been a guy that's been pretty quick to take the reads,
especially as he's faced a lot of blitzes and doubles,
and so I just wanted to see why. I knew that.
It wasn't like Cad just woke up yesterday and was like, shit, guys,
I'm going to be a ballhog today like that. That's
not how basketball works, and that's not how Cad operates.
(07:57):
So I was just curious to see what happened that
caused him to play that style. And here's the thing.
Did I love every single shot that he took last night? No,
there's some tough ones in there, there were some settles,
but literally every star in the NBA takes a half
dozen or so really tough shots every game. What immediately
(08:17):
stood out to me was that the Pistons needed him
to score, and he kept consistently generating great looks for
himself and he was just missing them. The Pistons were
on their third game in four nights. Kars Lavert was out.
That's their backup guard right now. Asar Thompson was out,
Tobias Harris was out, Jade and Ivy obviously still out.
(08:40):
Isaiah Stewart was out. Marcus Sasser is one of the
backup guards. He's out. So many of the guys who
they usually depend on to share the offensive load with
Caid were just out. And again, I thought Caid was
getting good looks. The Wizards, unlike many of Detroit's opponents
as of late, they were playing some pretty passive coverages
with Cak, a lot of drop coverage looks, a lot
(09:02):
of single coverage, so a lot of Caid's shoot pass
reads were skewing towards him shooting the ball. They were
high percentage shots for him. There have been other games
this year where the coverages have dictated He's faced a
lot of blitzes and doubles this year. The coverages have
dictated him to become more of a passer. I've talked
(09:23):
to him, talked about literally yesterday in the show about
how he had essentially made opportunities for himself to be
aggressive in spite of the double team so that he
could stay involved offensively. But he's been a guy who's
been facing super aggressive coverages. He wasn't last night. He
needed to be a score, especially with the way that
(09:44):
the roster shaped up with the three games and four
nights and the injuries they've been dealing with. Clearly Washington
was like, you're gonna have to score a million points.
We don't think you have the legs for it without
the support that you have, And that gamble almost paid
off for Washington. His thirty one misses, there were twenty
or so that were really good looks for him, Like
(10:08):
he missed some tough layups, but he also there were
at least a half dozen that were like super high
percentage layups, like layups he'd make ninety percent of the time,
usually another half dozen layups that were like he probably
is gonna make that fifty to fifty five percent of
the time that all just went out. He got a
(10:29):
ton of good looks on short jumpers and threes that
he just left short, presumably because he was gassed. And
most importantly, they got to win a couple of huge
threes late in regulation from Danis Jenkins, including a buzzer
beater out of the right corner that sent the game
to overtime. There's a really fun crowd pop at ot
as Javonte Green drove along the left along the baseline
(10:52):
out of the left corner and threw down a nasty
tomahawk dunk and the Pistons fans got to go home happy.
So what I saw was a superstar player who was
physically available for his team during a brutal part of
their schedule where much of the roster wasn't and he
absorbed a ton of usage because he had to, And
(11:13):
he dropped forty six, twelve and eleven with just two
turnovers and got to win. And by the way, if
he has the more normal shooting performance on the quality
of shots that he got, he'd had sixty. I think
the pace the Pistons have a good one with Kay Cunningham.
They had the superstar they need to lead their team
through the next era of Pistons basketball. He keeps hitting
(11:33):
every single checkpoint along the way. Second big takeaway from
last night Victor woman Yama has his groove back. The
Bulls were without Josh Giddy last night, but that didn't
stop them from giving the Spurs a really tough battle.
They wrote some hot shooting from Kevin Herder and some
good advantage creation from Trey Jones and Nikola Vusevich, and
they really play fun driving kick hoops, and they played
(11:56):
beautiful basketball, and they gave the Spurs some issues. They
controlled most of the second half, and they led by
as much as thirteen in this game. But Victor wemin
Yama finally woke up from his double team induced slump
in a big way in that second half. Victor had
averaged just seventeen points per game over his previous four games.
(12:16):
He had eighteen points just in the fourth quarter last night.
He got going off of a skip pass from Luke Cornett.
We talked a lot about how deeron. Fox was going
to help victors start generating some easier shots for himself
where he doesn't have to do all the work, but
he can kind of be a beneficiary of the attention
that Dieren draws. Ran a little ball screen on the
left side of the floor, Fox in Cornett, and Fox
(12:40):
hits Cornette in the pocket. The low man had already
stepped over to help. Cornette makes the skip to Wemby.
Wemby gets a wide open three in the right corner
that gets him going. But from there it was a
steady diet of one on one basketball. The Bulls. We've
talked about how the Spurs have faced a lot of
putting a wing on Wemby, who gets up underneath them,
(13:01):
and then aggressive gapping in double teaving right, a lot
of doubles testing Wemby's ability to handle the ball through
physicality and just making him uncomfortable by getting up underneath him.
The Bulls went with a very different approach. They basically
guarded him with centers so Jalen Smith and Nikola Vusovich,
(13:22):
and rather than sending double teams or pressuring the ball,
they were sagging off and they were playing in the gaps.
So basically allowing Victor wembin Yama to work comfortably in
his face up game and in is off the dribble game,
as long as he was willing to settle because the
driving lanes weren't there because they were playing in the gaps.
They were essentially in we're going to just let Wenby
(13:43):
take jump shots mode, and Wemby burned them. He hit
a little face up mid ranger in the middle of
the floor against Jalen Smith. He hit another one over
Nikola Vusovich on the right elbow extended, and then he
basically won the game with two pull up threes over
Nikola Vusovich won in transition and one in the half
court where he waived everybody off and once again Vucevich
was giving him space and he just kind of got
(14:05):
into his bag and got into a little step back
going to his left and knocked it down, all while
doing doing the usual Wemby defensive damage. On the other
end of the floor. There was an interesting play late
in the game where Trey Jones got a really nice
driving lane down the left lane line and Victor was
guarding in the strong side corner. And the general principle
is don't help off the strong side corner. There are
(14:27):
some teams that do it, but generally speaking, you're not
supposed to. And Victor was kind of staying home, like
he was in the driving lane a tiny bit, but
for the most part he wasn't offering help on the drive.
But Trey Jones just panicked because he thought Wemby might
go for it, and so instead of taking the wide
open left handed layup he had on the left lane line,
(14:49):
he went like up and under and tried this super
difficult reverse layup on the right side, and he smoked it.
An example of the defensive impact of Wemby that'll never
show up in the box score. But Wemby again, you
can call it coverage specific because again there wasn't the wing,
the big forward on the ball, there wasn't the aggressive
double teaming. But I thought it was just at the
(15:12):
very least good for his confidence. The coverage challenge remains.
He's going to face teams that put forwards on him,
that get up underneath him, that bring double teams. But
on the one hand, this is a reminder that you
kind of have to guard him that way, Like if
you let him work single coverage against your center. He's
just gonna fry those dudes, and that's what he did.
(15:32):
But on the other hand, it kind of gives Wemby
a little confidence boost as he continues to work through
the challenge that is that coverage and what he's gonna
have to deal with as he continues to develop in
his young career. Today's show is brought to you by
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one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio,
Tennessee or Virginia number three and other spurs takeaway. Steph
Castle is an absurdly gifted interior passer. Another eleven assists
for Stefan Castle last night, his third straight game with
(17:43):
double digit assists. I believe he has thirty seven assists
over the previous three games. He's averaging eight assists per
game on the season. Now. After having some turnover issues
to start the year, we had talked about that earlier,
like last week, he has just three turnovers over his
last two games. And again that's in a stretch where
he has twenty four assists in thirty two field goal
(18:06):
attempt So that's a lot of usage with him mostly
taking care of the ball. So I thought that was
a good step forward for him as well. But the
interior passing is what amazes me. It dawned on me
early in the season with the lob passes. He just
has a really natural gift for timing where and when
to hit a vertical spacer in their jump. He hit
like a half dozen more lobs tonight. It's not just
(18:28):
Wemby either, He's got wonderful chemistry with Luke Cornett. I
think like three or four of the lobs he connected
on last night were just from last night. We're to Cornett,
and obviously it's very nice to have Cornett back. Him
being out of the lineup was definitely a problem for
the Spurs over that little bit of a losing streak
that they had. But it's it's not just the lobs. Like,
(18:48):
he has a lot of touch on his interior passes,
especially on the bounce, Like he hit Cornett on a
couple of beautiful bounce passes last night in the fourth quarter,
a pocket passed that got him one. Another one in
crunch time where like he was on the left block
and the defender was walled up on him and he
saw Cornet and throw a beautiful wrap around bounce past
the Cornet for an easy one right underneath the basket.
(19:11):
He just has a great feel for hitting vertical spacers,
either down low or up high, and in a lot
of ways that makes him the perfect fit for Wemby
and Cornett because there's gonna be a lot of roll
and cut opportunities with the way the spacing works on
this team, and with the team that can struggle to
shoot the basketball from time to time, unlocking vertical spacing
(19:32):
is a huge thing to help with that lack of
shooting that they can show sometimes. I mean, there are
a lot of players in the league that struggle to
pass to vertical spacers, like they can't see the reds,
or they just can't time the passes properly, or they
don't know how to put the appropriate touch on them.
Like I've been watching a lot of the Lakers obviously,
(19:52):
and like with Austin and Luca, Like as great as
Austin is, it's crazy to see the difference in like
the natural passing ability they have to vertical spacers. Austin
had a lob last night that he threw I think
the Jackson that was like way too late and ended
up just going carroning off the backboard. It's like it's
very much a difficult pass to make, and like Steph
(20:14):
Castle is just very naturally good at it, and it's
something that has stood out to me in a big
way over the early part of the season. Again, thirty
seven assists in his last three games and just three
turnovers in his last two games. Big step for steps
forward for Stefan Castle as a playmaker number four. The
Kyle kuz Ma trade is beginning to pay dividends for
(20:36):
the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks won a really fun one
last night against the Mavericks. Cooper Flagg had his best
game of his young NBA career. He poured in twenty
six points, made several huge plays down the stretch and
crunch time, drawing a big foul on like a low
gather step through move against PJ. Washington, and then a
crazy finish off of a nasty spin move on the
right wing where he got into Giannis's chest and just
(20:58):
powered through him and fished off the glass. What for
what was a lead changing shot in the final minute.
Really nice game from Cooper flag Giannis had a big
bounce back. He was kind of disappointing at the end
of the Houston game. He's great statistically throughout the game,
but he kind of fell apart a little bit down
the stretch, and Yanni's just completely made up for it
last night. He picked the MAVs apart in the fourth quarter,
(21:21):
generated a bunch of clean looks on the weak side
from three for guys like Bobby Portis and Kyle Kuzma,
just with the attention he was gathering in the paint
those guys were knocking those shots down, and then just
being his usual indomitable self around the rim. He even
hit a pull up three along the left wing that
was a huge shot in crunch time. Just another magnificent
Giannis performance in a season that's been full of them
(21:41):
so far. And then Ryan Rowlins, who continues to impress
night in and night out the season. He hit what
was essentially the game winner. Kind of a weird sequence
where Cooper Flag ran up to rotate to Ryan Rollins.
Naji Marshall was kind of up on Ryan's right arm
of the right hand side, and then Cooper like bailed out,
and when he bailed out, Naje didn't have time to
(22:04):
get squared up again. He was like still sitting up
on Ryan's right hand. So Ryan just had an easy
driving lane, good read from him, hits the gap, hits
a little left handed layup off the glass that basically
ended up being the game winner. But I wanted to
shout out Kyle Kuzmi here. I was high on the
Kusma trade when it happened. When it happened, if you guys.
(22:24):
Remember I talked a lot about what it was like
when I was rooting for him with the Lakers, like
he was sneaky good at role player stuff for a
guy that was kind of like a good stats, bad
team guy before Lebron came when he when the team
got serious and it became like a Hey, you're not
gonna play over a Danny Green unless you show the
You're not gonna play over any of these guys that
(22:46):
are playing on the wing unless you do these little things,
unless you defensive rebound, unless you play help side defense,
unless you make good reads on cuts and in spot
up situations. And essentially, Kyle Kuzma was forced through trial
by fire to become a good role player, and right
before the trade to Washington he had become that. In
(23:06):
that twenty twenty one season I've haught Kyle Kuzma had
become a very well rounded, dependable role player in the NBA.
But it hadn't been pretty to start in a Bucks jersey.
And I think part of that was he had become
a little mistake prone over the years playing unserious basketball
in Washington, and he had really struggled hitting catch and
(23:26):
shoot threes, and so it just kind of looked like
a poor fit to start with Milwaukee, but he has
blossomed this year into one of the most important players
on the team. In addition to doing all those little
things that we talked about earlier, the defensive rebound in
the helpside defense, the smart cutting and relocating off the ball,
he's actually starting to score the ball consistently now and
(23:47):
with efficiency. He's been in double figures seven games in
a row. He had twenty six again last night. He's
averaging sixteen points per game over the course of that
seven gamespan on fifty six percent from the field, and
he's starting to get his three point shot going. Over
his last four games, on five attempts per game, he's
hitting forty two percent of his three hees hit a
(24:08):
couple of huge ones in the fourth quarter last night,
And like again, there are many guys that have popped
for Milwaukee this year as they've kind of researched from
what looked like a team that was really disappointing on
paper to like kind of out kicking their coverage a
little bit. And there's a lot of different reasons for that,
some basic like basketball fit stuff with the athletes on
(24:29):
the perimeter alongside a more athletics center next to Giannis
and obviously Ryan Rollins and the way that he's blossomed
this year. But a big part of it has been
Kyle Kuzma. He's been one of the guys that has
popped this year and that has helped Milwaukee have perform
better than many of us thought that they would before
the start of their season. Number five. Meanwhile, the John
(24:50):
Collins trade is not looking like it's paying dividends for
the Los Angeles Clippers. Now, this isn't John's fault. He's
been very good for them, and he continues to be
one of their best plus minus guys. Their plus one
on plus one with him on the floor over their
last two losses and minus fifteen with him off the floor.
He's been their second best on off guy points by
(25:12):
points per one hundred possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass
behind James Harden. But they look like as a team
they sorely missed the offensive pop they were getting from
Norman Powell. The idea was Bradley Beal would effectively step
into that role and be able to handle it reasonably
close to as well, with maybe a little bit more
on ball pop in the games where like Kawhi Leonard
(25:34):
can't play. That was the idea, Like, you're not just
trading Norman Power for John Collins. You're trading Norman Paler
for John Collins and Bradley Beal. And when you look
at what happened in the Denver series and how they
needed a little bit more athleticism in their front court
in transition and the ability to play more functional two
big lineups against some bigger teams like Denver, you look
at that and you go, I see what they're thinking.
(25:56):
You'd send out Norm Powell Bradley Beal can roughly approximate
it actually need Bradley to score, unlike what it was
like in Phoenix where he was kind of a redundancy.
Like this should make some sense, and now we have
John Collins to bring that extra athleticism and pop in
the front court. But unfortunately, Bradley Beal has been the
disastrous combination of bad when he's on the court and
(26:18):
generally unavailable. And now he has a weird hip injury
that is allegedly going to keep him out for a while.
So like this is a pretty extended stretch of him
just not being able to play without his body falling apart.
So what was supposed to be a swap of Norman
Powell for a reasonable replacement player and John Collins has
effectively amounted to a one for one swap for John Collins.
(26:42):
And now the Clippers look like they sorely miss Norman
Powell shooting an off ball scoring. There's so many different
things that he did for them. He was an excellent
transition scorer who would run the floor and get quick
little close out opportunities in transition, in semi transition to
hit threes and drive closeouts. He was a guy that
could run balls screen action as like a DHO guy,
also straight up on ball screens, curling off of off
(27:05):
ball screens, and essentially just create basic reads like, oh
you're in a drop, I can hit this shot. Oh
you're chasing me over the top. Well, but you're in
a deeper drop. I can get downhill off the curl.
Oh you show at the level, I can throw the
pocket pass to Zoo or whoever it is that I'm
getting the screen from there. He just had like a
lot of utility in a bunch of parts of their game,
(27:26):
and now you're getting none of that essentially nothing from Beale,
and as much as John has done, he's a guy
that anchors specific lineup groups. And I know ty Low's
planning on starting him for a while and we'll see
if that ends up giving the Clippers a look that
makes some sense. But it just it's really unfortunate because
now he's off in Miami and he's averaging a career
(27:48):
high twenty five points per game on sixty four percent
true shooting, had thirty three points last night against the Calves,
and it's looking like a disaster of a trade. And
when you look at it in the context of all
of the other things that have gone wrong for the
Clippers to start the season, Kawhi coming out looking very
much like a second tier star, then getting hurt tweaking
(28:09):
his ankle. James Harden's been better as of late, but
you know, not quite as sharp as he was to
start the season last year. James was great last night
as he tried to dig that game out, But like,
they just look old now, and they look like they're
missing Pop. They look like they sorely miss that Norman
Powell Pop as an off ball scorer, transition weapon and
a guy that can run some action for them in
(28:31):
the half court, and so that John Collins tray definitely
not looking good for the Clippers. And there was a
risk there with Bradley Beal, and that risk has gone
in the negative direction. Number six, really bad night to
be a Cleveland Cavaliers fan. Darius Garland goes down with
what looked like to be a toe injury, and if
he re injures that toe, that's a disaster for Cleveland.
(28:53):
As I've talked about many times over the course the
last few months, when Darius is healthy, I view the
Cavs as far and away the best team in the East.
Like if Darius was healthy in moving the way he
was during the regular season last year, I'd be legitimately
surprised if any other team came out of the Eastern Conference.
But I've also talked about how Darius has generally struggled
(29:15):
to stay healthy in his career, and that's what makes
the East feel so wide open is they have a
clear best team, but who knows if that team's going
to actually be able to operate at their individual peak
because of the Darius Garland injury history. And here's the thing.
When Darius is not healthy either not on the court
or not as mobile as he needs to be. They're
(29:36):
just firmly in the middle of the pack with the
rest of those Eastern Conference teams now as far as
looking forward, like who cares about the regular season standings?
Keep Darius out as long as it takes to get
him healthy. You just need him one hundred percent in April.
You're gonna beat all these teams even if you don't
have home court as long as you're at one hundred percent.
But it's just super discouraging to see him go down
(29:57):
again after already taking his sweet time I'm getting back
from the injury that took place in the postseason last year.
And then, to make matters worse, the Calves lost in
absolutely heartbreaking fashion last night. It looks kind of dead
in the water, but then Sam Merrill bangs four consecutive threes,
including a bomb like a thirty five footer off of
a drop off pass from Donovan Mitchell at the top
(30:19):
of the key that ties the game, and all of
a sudden they're right in it. And then they look
dead in the water again in the final minute, and
Donovan Mitchell hits like an off an offensive rebound, hits
like an insane running sprinting like people have no idea
how difficult the shot is. He's a right handed shooter
who's sprinting from under the basket at full speed to
the left corner. Plants's left foot spins his whole body around.
(30:42):
Plants's right foot gets squared up into mid air and
chucks it up in the air against the contest and
just drains a three that ties the game. Just an
unbelievable shot from Donovan Mitchell to tie it with four
tenths of a second left, and then Sam Marril and
DeAndre Hunter bought a switch on a sideline. Out of
bounce play, Eric Spoltzer draws up essentially a play where
(31:05):
you've got two guys that are standing there at the
top of the key. Andrew Wiggins is the guy that's
at the top, like by the top of the key essentially,
and then they have a shooter come running off the
two guys, and then a quick backscreen for Wiggins as
he goes towards the basket. So essentially a screen the
screen reaction, and there's a couple of different ways to
(31:26):
defend that. There's only four tenths of a second left,
so the guy who's sprinting out to half court is
essentially not a threat. He's gonna have to catch and
fire in the shortest possible amount of time while sprinting
away from the basket at like thirty five feet, so
he's a non threat, so over considering him makes no sense.
And then with the other two guys involving the little
(31:48):
backscreen for Wiggins, just switch it. There's no worry for
them to be able to turn around and fire. They
basically have to catch already squared up because if they don't,
it'll release will take more than four tenths of a second.
And Sam Merrill basically just I don't even know what
Sam was doing, kind of jumps towards the inbounder guarding nobody,
(32:09):
and DeAndre Hunter gets back picked, and so Andrew Wiggins
the sense of running right to the front of the rim.
Yovic throws a perfect lob and Wiggins dunks it at
the buzzer and the Miami Heat wins. So unfortunate because
Meryl was the only reason they had a chance to
win the game because of the job that he did
knocking down threes at the start of the fourth quarter.
But just an absolutely brutal way to lose a game,
(32:31):
and you lose one of your most important players. Just
a really rough night to be a Cleveland Cavaliers fan.
Number seven, Anthony Edwards is shooting the absolute shit out
of the basketball again. Exploded for twenty one points in
the third quarter against the Jazz last night on his
way to a thirty five point night, hitting all sorts
of jumpers from three and from the top of the
(32:51):
key in the mid range. Twenty three of his thirty
five points last night were on jump shots. And it's
fascinating because last year was the best jump footing season
of his career. He made made five jump shots per
game at one point zero seven points per shot, and
this year that's up to six made jump shots per
(33:14):
game at a preposterous one point two eight points per shot.
And he's been deadly all over the floor. Off of
the catch from three, He's seven for eleven. That's insane.
He's getting one point one seven points per pull up
jump shot. Off the dribble jump shots. He's making forty
five percent of his pull up threes, making three point
(33:39):
one pull up threes per game, which leads the NBA.
He's been okay from the mid range twelve for twenty eight,
still pretty strong. He hit several more of those last night.
He started cold this season, is starting to get it going.
And I mean, here's the thing. He's one of the
league's best athletes, and he's on a long run of
essentially being the best volume jump shooter in the league
not named Steph Curry. Just a ridiculous turn of events
(34:03):
for a guy with his level of athleticism. And by
the way, the Wolves have won five out of six.
They're second in offense over that span, and their defense,
which was brutal to start the year, is tenth in
defensive rating over that six game span. All right, three
more Number eight Palamoncaro and Desmond Bain saved the Magic
(34:24):
from a disaster last night. The Manas have been super
disappointing to start the year relative to the amount of
talent that they have and the expectations that sat over
the team coming in. I talked about how I thought
they were the team that had the best chance to
hang with Cleveland and the standings in the regular season,
and they just underachieved. And they almost continued that disaster
last night another Denny Avdia a late game run the
(34:47):
Magic led the Blazers by nine with two point five
minutes left, and Denny Avdia hits two tough catch and
shoot threes. They run a really cool sideline out of
bounds play kind of similar to what we talked about
with Miam with a backscreen for Jeremy Grant, and Jeremy
Grant finishes a tough lob plus the foul against Palo
Bancaro that ends up putting the Blazers up by two
(35:08):
with ten seconds left. So, after leading by nine with
two and a half minutes left, they trailed by two
with ten seconds left. Palo makes two plays and Bain
makes one play that snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.
So starts with Palo getting Tomani Kamara one on one
out front about thirty feet from the basket at the
top of the key, and I thought Tomani made a
(35:30):
critical mistake here, like Pallo's a guy that, like you
want to give space and try to force to take
a difficult jump shot. But he pressured Palo thirty feet
from the basket, and Palo just blew right by him
and finished through the rim through some contact and got
an and one that ended up putting the Magic that
(35:51):
ended up tying the game. And then Palo defends Drew
Holliday on the very next possession and just rips the
ball away from Drew tries to drive and Pala just
takes it away from him. So huge driving layup, huge
steal on Drew Holiday, then honestly on the sideline out
of bounds on the final play there, the final sequence,
there was like two seconds left. I thought they defended
(36:13):
it really well. Tamani Kamaras switched off onto Desmond Bain,
got a great two handed contest right up in Desmond
Bain's face without fouling, and Baine just drilled a like
thirty foot drifting fading three, moving to his right in
front of that right sideline and ends up stealing the
(36:33):
game for the Magic. So from sitting at four and
seven with another blown lead, sitting outside the play into
what ended up being a huge couple of plays there
from Bain and Pallo to get them back into the
win column at five and six. Long way to go
to get to where they need to go, especially in
the offensive end, but a couple of big plays to
(36:57):
save them from a travesty. Last night, number nine, the
sixth quarter, los Angeles Lakers slumber ended in the third
quarter last night in Charlotte. The Lakers laid an absolute
egg in Atlanta. We talked about that yesterday. I won't
get into more detail now, but they followed it up
with an ugly first half against the short handed Hornets
in Charlotte. They're really struggling to contain the ball. They've
(37:18):
been having issues. This is something I've seen throughout the
last few games. They're really helping off the corner, including
the strong side corner. And one of the things, one
of the reasons why many teams don't help off the
strong side corner is the specific reason having to do
with how easy of a pass that is. So if
someone drives to the right off of the right wing
and you help off of the right corner for a
(37:40):
right handed ball handler, it's like, Okay, there's just the
easiest little kickout pass in the world for a wide
open corner. Three. That's why you want to help off
the weak side corner and stay home on the strong
side corner, because at the very least you're going to
make them make a very difficult kickout pass across the court.
The Lakers have been really gapping, really trying to in
those driving lanes, and so there's a lot of easy
(38:02):
opportunities for teams through basic swing passes to knock down
threes or to drive close outs and get opportunities. And
they were getting burned throughout the last six quarters. And
really it's been a consistent trend over the last couple
of weeks, as the Lakers have dipped down to twenty
third in defensive rating to start the season. But right
before the half, Luca hits a step back three and
(38:22):
then the Lakers get to stop and Ruey makes a
beautiful kick head pass to Austin who gets a layup
at the buzzer, and the Lakers end up going into
the half with a two point lead. And then jjmiss
to chewed them out or something, because they came out
to start that third quarter and looked like the Lakers
that we saw for the first few weeks of the year.
Just completely dominated the third quarter and blew the game open.
The starters went several minutes to start the second half
(38:44):
without giving up a single straight line drive, consistently chesting
up on drives and keeping the ball in front. Their
rotations were sharp, they rebounded the ball well, they ran
for good looks. Ruey paid off several sequences in that
early third quarter with catch and shoot threes that helped
blow things open and the Lakers cruise to double digit win.
One of the things I've talked about with on athletic
teams is you can't afford to be disengaged mentally or
(39:08):
physically if you're not athletic, because you're already behind in
terms of the mobility factor. So if you're also a
step behind mentally and you're also not playing to your
physical peak because you're not playing hard enough, you're really
gonna look bad. And we saw that for six quarters
against Atlanta and against Charlotte. But when they do hang
(39:31):
on to the rope in those areas, they're so good
on offense, so they can be a real problem. Another
sixty two points, eleven rebounds and fourteen assists from Austin
Reeves and Luka Doncic last night, despite going seven for
twenty five from three. They're both cooling off a little
bit from downtown. Big show down with Oklahoma City again
on Wednesday night. We will be watching that on playbacks.
(39:51):
Make sure you guys come hang out with us on
playback to watch that. Showdown lastly today quickly number ten
the Phoenix Sun. They're beginning to look as good on
defense as they looked on paper to start the season.
The Sun's got to blow out win against the Pelicans
last night. Grayson Allen came out guns blazing. He finished
with forty two. The Suns really blew the game open
in the second quarter. They were getting a bunch of stops.
(40:13):
Then on the other end of the floor a good
a unit without Devin Booker, where they were running really
good dribble weave and moving the ball side to side,
and the threat of Grayson Allen, who at that point
already had like eighteen points, had kind of like started
to generate a lot of attention as he was running
off of screening action, and so they generated a lot
of clean looks for Grayson and Verrois O'Neill over that
second quarter stretch, and they kind of blew the game
(40:34):
open in that stretch and they never looked back from there.
But the Sons held the Pelicans to just ninety eight points.
It was the fourth time in the last six games
that they've held their opponents to one hundred and three
points or fewer. They are now the fourth best defense
in the league over the course of their last six games.
I did a preseason pod with Benjamin Garcia covers he
works for. It covers the Phoenix Suns. He also covers
(40:56):
the Arizona Cardinals. Is a bunch of stuff in the
Phoenix air and he asked me a question on that show.
He said, do you think the Suns are capable of
being a top five defense? And one of the things
I talked to him about was like, Hey, it's complicated,
like do they end up tanking, how much of their
young guys do they play, blah blah blah. But one
of the things I said to Benjamin was they certainly
have that capability, and the reason why is because they
(41:17):
have a strong foundation and the key areas you need
to be good on defense. Do you have guys who
can guard the opposing best players? He had, They have
two great ones in the starting lineup between Dylan Brooks
and Ryan Dunn that are kind of different types of players.
Dylan's a little bit more of like a fire hydrant,
like beat you to spots, you can't power through me
kind of guy. Ryan Dunn's got like, certainly a great
(41:39):
deal of strength, but he's got a lot of length
and athleticism at the position. I think that their guards
are all pretty good defenders, like Devin Booker is a
good defender. Grayson Allen is a guy who's gonna do
his job in the defensive game plan and compete on
the defensive end of the four. Royce O'Neil plays physical defense.
And then in the front court. You know, obviously with
Common Molowich you ever protection element, and he hasn't been
(42:01):
in the rotation. But you've got bigs that have some
capability to switch, and that has given them the flexibility
with also a Gadaro to do some switching. Mark Williams
is mistake prone, but he's been okay. Like there is
a good amount of defensive talent with this group, especially
on the perimeter that gives them a fighting chance every
night defensively, and they're showing that over the course of
(42:23):
the last six games. All Right, guys, it's all I
have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back
tomorrow morning with more game reaction and then again tomorrow
night on playback for Lakers Thunder. I will see you guys,
then
The volume. All right, welcome to Hipsonight. You're at the
volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having
a great start to your week. We have an absolutely
(00:21):
jam packed show for you guys. This morning. I had
put together ten big takeaways from a wild Monday night
in the NBA. We were going to literally bounce around
to every single game. I watched bits and pieces of
every single game from last night. We had all sorts
of game winners and clutch shots and wild statistical performances
(00:43):
and so many interesting things to get into. And then
right before I was about to press record this morning,
Nico Harrison got fired. So we're going to lead with
my quick thoughts on the Nico Harrison firing, and then
we will finish the show today with ten big takeaways
from a wild Monday Night in the NBA. You guys
know the job before we get started. Subscribe to the
(01:03):
Hoops to Night YouTube channels you don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter and underscore JCNLT
so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about
our podcast feed, where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and
a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on
our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Keep following us over there for more content throughout the season,
and then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments.
(01:26):
Full episodes on YouTube, go into the comments, write mail bag, colon,
write your question. We get to them on Fridays throughout
the regular season, and then, last but not least, before
we get started today, we have started a new partnership,
a continuation of our partnership with Playback. This year geared
around watch parties watch alongs. We did our first one
(01:46):
on Saturday night, just kind of a little test run
with Hawks Lakers. Learned a lot. We're gonna make some
tweaks as we move forward, but we are continuing not
tonight with the Showdown or excuse me, that's tomorrow night.
Excuse me, tomorrow night, Wednesday night. We are continuing that
with the Showdown between the Lakers and the Thunder. We'll
have three more watch parties this week. We're doing Lakers
(02:08):
Thunder on Wednesday night, Spurs Warriors on Friday night, and
then Lakers Bucks on Saturday night. But make sure you
make sure you guys come join us on Wednesday night
for watch long. We're gonna be focused on the games.
We're gonna be breaking it down as it all goes down.
We'll be taking callers and stuff along the way. So
make sure you guys come hang out on Wednesday night.
(02:28):
All right, let's talk some basketball. So not too much
to say here about the Nico Harrison firing. I thought
Nico actually did a decent job with the MAVs until
he didn't. Like for a guy who didn't believe in
Luka Doncic, he did know how to build around him.
He basically invented the Luk Adancic team construct that we
(02:49):
all think about today, right. Athletic centers that he can
hit for lobs in a four out one in spacing concept,
a secondary ball handler that can roughly approximate his style,
that doesn't necessarily need to be a superstar, but that
can kind of fit into the same sort of four
out one in iso pick and roll, make the decisions,
(03:09):
make the shots type of system, and then surround him
with athleticism and guys that can knock down open catch
and shoot threes, drive closed out. It's basically athletic three
and d guys, and I mean, come on, they won
five playoff series over the previous three seasons of the
Luca era before the trade. That's not all bad, but
ultimately he just galaxy brained himself out of the perfect situation.
(03:34):
To be clear, I'm not in any way justifying the trade.
It's the dumbest trade in NBA history. There's absolutely no
excuse for it. But I can at least see the
genesis of where his brain started to go. Luca was
clearly leaving a lot of meat on the bone with
his potential. As crazy as that sounds, without good, he
(03:55):
was through the first five to six years of his career.
He wasn't taking care of his body. He was playing
at a weight that was affecting his performance negatively. He
was starting to succumb to nagging injuries that even began
in the twenty twenty four season, as he was banged
up with his knee throughout that playoff run, and he
looked like he hadn't learned his lesson, and he kind
(04:16):
of hit rock bottom last year, right like even after
the Lakers trade. He was soundly outplayed by Anthony Edwards
in that first round playoff series. But the crucial flaw
in Nico's logic and I can't even believe this needs
to be explained, but he failed to realize that Luca
was inevitably going to figure it out at some point.
(04:37):
He failed to account for Luca's best trait, which is
his alpha dog competitiveness. If he was fat and lazy,
and if he was losing ground against his peers, it
would inevitably overtime lead to disappointing losses. Those disappointing losses
(04:58):
would inevitably lead to to Luca getting pissed off, and
if he got pissed off, he would finally eventually look
in the mirror, take accountability, and make the changes he
needed to make to become the best version of himself.
And by the way, he was obviously very close to
(05:19):
reaching that point. He got his butt kicked by Anton
the Wolves he changed last summer. Now he's averaging thirty
seven to nine to nine on sixty three percent true
shooting for an eight to three team in the West,
despite them being pretty light on talent. With the Lebron
James injury and the other injuries they've dealt with this year,
He's looking like the best player in the world, or
at least in the conversation. Nico essentially committed the unforgivable sin.
(05:48):
He took a franchise that was legitimately a perennial championship
contender on the strength of a transcendently great star that
was just barely entering his prime, and he chopped it
off at the knees. And he should be incredibly thankful
(06:08):
that the MAVs won the lottery and that MAVs fans
at least have the tiny glimmer of hope that is
Cooper Flagg, who by the way, had an amazing night
last night against Giannis and the Bucks, because otherwise this
team would be in the dark ages for years to come. Now,
MAVs fans, it's not over. You have a terribly unbalanced roster,
(06:32):
but you have Cooper Flag, a player that I truly
believe in, and you do have the assets to quickly
pivot into an advanced stage of a rebuild. But the
bottom line is you should never have had to make
that pivot to begin with. You should be contending for
the title out West right now, and you're not because
(06:53):
Nico outsmarted himself and made the dumbest trade in NBA history.
I'm sorry that that happened to you, guys. I'm sure
you're all very happy to see Nico finally gone from
the organization. All right, let's dig into our ten big
takeaways from last night's Wild Monday Night NBA Slate. So,
(07:14):
first of all, first takeaway, Caid Cunningham had an all
time empty the clip game last night in a big
win against the Washington Wizards in overtime. The box score
watchers were upset last night Cad missed thirty one shots.
I was seeing all sorts of takes flying around about
the way he was playing and the shot chucking, and
(07:35):
so I was excited to go watch because I obviously,
like I've watched Kate a bunch this year, and he's
been a guy that's been pretty quick to take the reads,
especially as he's faced a lot of blitzes and doubles,
and so I just wanted to see why. I knew that.
It wasn't like Cad just woke up yesterday and was like, shit, guys,
I'm going to be a ballhog today like that. That's
not how basketball works, and that's not how Cad operates.
(07:57):
So I was just curious to see what happened that
caused him to play that style. And here's the thing.
Did I love every single shot that he took last night? No,
there's some tough ones in there, there were some settles,
but literally every star in the NBA takes a half
dozen or so really tough shots every game. What immediately
(08:17):
stood out to me was that the Pistons needed him
to score, and he kept consistently generating great looks for
himself and he was just missing them. The Pistons were
on their third game in four nights. Kars Lavert was out.
That's their backup guard right now. Asar Thompson was out,
Tobias Harris was out, Jade and Ivy obviously still out.
(08:40):
Isaiah Stewart was out. Marcus Sasser is one of the
backup guards. He's out. So many of the guys who
they usually depend on to share the offensive load with
Caid were just out. And again, I thought Caid was
getting good looks. The Wizards, unlike many of Detroit's opponents
as of late, they were playing some pretty passive coverages
with Cak, a lot of drop coverage looks, a lot
(09:02):
of single coverage, so a lot of Caid's shoot pass
reads were skewing towards him shooting the ball. They were
high percentage shots for him. There have been other games
this year where the coverages have dictated He's faced a
lot of blitzes and doubles this year. The coverages have
dictated him to become more of a passer. I've talked
(09:23):
to him, talked about literally yesterday in the show about
how he had essentially made opportunities for himself to be
aggressive in spite of the double team so that he
could stay involved offensively. But he's been a guy who's
been facing super aggressive coverages. He wasn't last night. He
needed to be a score, especially with the way that
(09:44):
the roster shaped up with the three games and four
nights and the injuries they've been dealing with. Clearly Washington
was like, you're gonna have to score a million points.
We don't think you have the legs for it without
the support that you have, And that gamble almost paid
off for Washington. His thirty one misses, there were twenty
or so that were really good looks for him, Like
(10:08):
he missed some tough layups, but he also there were
at least a half dozen that were like super high
percentage layups, like layups he'd make ninety percent of the time,
usually another half dozen layups that were like he probably
is gonna make that fifty to fifty five percent of
the time that all just went out. He got a
(10:29):
ton of good looks on short jumpers and threes that
he just left short, presumably because he was gassed. And
most importantly, they got to win a couple of huge
threes late in regulation from Danis Jenkins, including a buzzer
beater out of the right corner that sent the game
to overtime. There's a really fun crowd pop at ot
as Javonte Green drove along the left along the baseline
(10:52):
out of the left corner and threw down a nasty
tomahawk dunk and the Pistons fans got to go home happy.
So what I saw was a superstar player who was
physically available for his team during a brutal part of
their schedule where much of the roster wasn't and he
absorbed a ton of usage because he had to, And
(11:13):
he dropped forty six, twelve and eleven with just two
turnovers and got to win. And by the way, if
he has the more normal shooting performance on the quality
of shots that he got, he'd had sixty. I think
the pace the Pistons have a good one with Kay Cunningham.
They had the superstar they need to lead their team
through the next era of Pistons basketball. He keeps hitting
(11:33):
every single checkpoint along the way. Second big takeaway from
last night Victor woman Yama has his groove back. The
Bulls were without Josh Giddy last night, but that didn't
stop them from giving the Spurs a really tough battle.
They wrote some hot shooting from Kevin Herder and some
good advantage creation from Trey Jones and Nikola Vusevich, and
they really play fun driving kick hoops, and they played
(11:56):
beautiful basketball, and they gave the Spurs some issues. They
controlled most of the second half, and they led by
as much as thirteen in this game. But Victor wemin
Yama finally woke up from his double team induced slump
in a big way in that second half. Victor had
averaged just seventeen points per game over his previous four games.
(12:16):
He had eighteen points just in the fourth quarter last night.
He got going off of a skip pass from Luke Cornett.
We talked a lot about how deeron. Fox was going
to help victors start generating some easier shots for himself
where he doesn't have to do all the work, but
he can kind of be a beneficiary of the attention
that Dieren draws. Ran a little ball screen on the
left side of the floor, Fox in Cornett, and Fox
(12:40):
hits Cornette in the pocket. The low man had already
stepped over to help. Cornette makes the skip to Wemby.
Wemby gets a wide open three in the right corner
that gets him going. But from there it was a
steady diet of one on one basketball. The Bulls. We've
talked about how the Spurs have faced a lot of
putting a wing on Wemby, who gets up underneath them,
(13:01):
and then aggressive gapping in double teaving right, a lot
of doubles testing Wemby's ability to handle the ball through
physicality and just making him uncomfortable by getting up underneath him.
The Bulls went with a very different approach. They basically
guarded him with centers so Jalen Smith and Nikola Vusovich,
(13:22):
and rather than sending double teams or pressuring the ball,
they were sagging off and they were playing in the gaps.
So basically allowing Victor wembin Yama to work comfortably in
his face up game and in is off the dribble game,
as long as he was willing to settle because the
driving lanes weren't there because they were playing in the gaps.
They were essentially in we're going to just let Wenby
(13:43):
take jump shots mode, and Wemby burned them. He hit
a little face up mid ranger in the middle of
the floor against Jalen Smith. He hit another one over
Nikola Vusovich on the right elbow extended, and then he
basically won the game with two pull up threes over
Nikola Vusovich won in transition and one in the half
court where he waived everybody off and once again Vucevich
was giving him space and he just kind of got
(14:05):
into his bag and got into a little step back
going to his left and knocked it down, all while
doing doing the usual Wemby defensive damage. On the other
end of the floor. There was an interesting play late
in the game where Trey Jones got a really nice
driving lane down the left lane line and Victor was
guarding in the strong side corner. And the general principle
is don't help off the strong side corner. There are
(14:27):
some teams that do it, but generally speaking, you're not
supposed to. And Victor was kind of staying home, like
he was in the driving lane a tiny bit, but
for the most part he wasn't offering help on the drive.
But Trey Jones just panicked because he thought Wemby might
go for it, and so instead of taking the wide
open left handed layup he had on the left lane line,
(14:49):
he went like up and under and tried this super
difficult reverse layup on the right side, and he smoked it.
An example of the defensive impact of Wemby that'll never
show up in the box score. But Wemby again, you
can call it coverage specific because again there wasn't the wing,
the big forward on the ball, there wasn't the aggressive
double teaming. But I thought it was just at the
(15:12):
very least good for his confidence. The coverage challenge remains.
He's going to face teams that put forwards on him,
that get up underneath him, that bring double teams. But
on the one hand, this is a reminder that you
kind of have to guard him that way, Like if
you let him work single coverage against your center. He's
just gonna fry those dudes, and that's what he did.
(15:32):
But on the other hand, it kind of gives Wemby
a little confidence boost as he continues to work through
the challenge that is that coverage and what he's gonna
have to deal with as he continues to develop in
his young career. Today's show is brought to you by
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one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio,
Tennessee or Virginia number three and other spurs takeaway. Steph
Castle is an absurdly gifted interior passer. Another eleven assists
for Stefan Castle last night, his third straight game with
(17:43):
double digit assists. I believe he has thirty seven assists
over the previous three games. He's averaging eight assists per
game on the season. Now. After having some turnover issues
to start the year, we had talked about that earlier,
like last week, he has just three turnovers over his
last two games. And again that's in a stretch where
he has twenty four assists in thirty two field goal
(18:06):
attempt So that's a lot of usage with him mostly
taking care of the ball. So I thought that was
a good step forward for him as well. But the
interior passing is what amazes me. It dawned on me
early in the season with the lob passes. He just
has a really natural gift for timing where and when
to hit a vertical spacer in their jump. He hit
like a half dozen more lobs tonight. It's not just
(18:28):
Wemby either, He's got wonderful chemistry with Luke Cornett. I
think like three or four of the lobs he connected
on last night were just from last night. We're to Cornett,
and obviously it's very nice to have Cornett back. Him
being out of the lineup was definitely a problem for
the Spurs over that little bit of a losing streak
that they had. But it's it's not just the lobs. Like,
(18:48):
he has a lot of touch on his interior passes,
especially on the bounce, Like he hit Cornett on a
couple of beautiful bounce passes last night in the fourth quarter,
a pocket passed that got him one. Another one in
crunch time where like he was on the left block
and the defender was walled up on him and he
saw Cornet and throw a beautiful wrap around bounce past
the Cornet for an easy one right underneath the basket.
(19:11):
He just has a great feel for hitting vertical spacers,
either down low or up high, and in a lot
of ways that makes him the perfect fit for Wemby
and Cornett because there's gonna be a lot of roll
and cut opportunities with the way the spacing works on
this team, and with the team that can struggle to
shoot the basketball from time to time, unlocking vertical spacing
(19:32):
is a huge thing to help with that lack of
shooting that they can show sometimes. I mean, there are
a lot of players in the league that struggle to
pass to vertical spacers, like they can't see the reds,
or they just can't time the passes properly, or they
don't know how to put the appropriate touch on them.
Like I've been watching a lot of the Lakers obviously,
(19:52):
and like with Austin and Luca, Like as great as
Austin is, it's crazy to see the difference in like
the natural passing ability they have to vertical spacers. Austin
had a lob last night that he threw I think
the Jackson that was like way too late and ended
up just going carroning off the backboard. It's like it's
very much a difficult pass to make, and like Steph
(20:14):
Castle is just very naturally good at it, and it's
something that has stood out to me in a big
way over the early part of the season. Again, thirty
seven assists in his last three games and just three
turnovers in his last two games. Big step for steps
forward for Stefan Castle as a playmaker number four. The
Kyle kuz Ma trade is beginning to pay dividends for
(20:36):
the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks won a really fun one
last night against the Mavericks. Cooper Flagg had his best
game of his young NBA career. He poured in twenty
six points, made several huge plays down the stretch and
crunch time, drawing a big foul on like a low
gather step through move against PJ. Washington, and then a
crazy finish off of a nasty spin move on the
right wing where he got into Giannis's chest and just
(20:58):
powered through him and fished off the glass. What for
what was a lead changing shot in the final minute.
Really nice game from Cooper flag Giannis had a big
bounce back. He was kind of disappointing at the end
of the Houston game. He's great statistically throughout the game,
but he kind of fell apart a little bit down
the stretch, and Yanni's just completely made up for it
last night. He picked the MAVs apart in the fourth quarter,
(21:21):
generated a bunch of clean looks on the weak side
from three for guys like Bobby Portis and Kyle Kuzma,
just with the attention he was gathering in the paint
those guys were knocking those shots down, and then just
being his usual indomitable self around the rim. He even
hit a pull up three along the left wing that
was a huge shot in crunch time. Just another magnificent
Giannis performance in a season that's been full of them
(21:41):
so far. And then Ryan Rowlins, who continues to impress
night in and night out the season. He hit what
was essentially the game winner. Kind of a weird sequence
where Cooper Flag ran up to rotate to Ryan Rollins.
Naji Marshall was kind of up on Ryan's right arm
of the right hand side, and then Cooper like bailed out,
and when he bailed out, Naje didn't have time to
(22:04):
get squared up again. He was like still sitting up
on Ryan's right hand. So Ryan just had an easy
driving lane, good read from him, hits the gap, hits
a little left handed layup off the glass that basically
ended up being the game winner. But I wanted to
shout out Kyle Kuzmi here. I was high on the
Kusma trade when it happened. When it happened, if you guys.
(22:24):
Remember I talked a lot about what it was like
when I was rooting for him with the Lakers, like
he was sneaky good at role player stuff for a
guy that was kind of like a good stats, bad
team guy before Lebron came when he when the team
got serious and it became like a Hey, you're not
gonna play over a Danny Green unless you show the
You're not gonna play over any of these guys that
(22:46):
are playing on the wing unless you do these little things,
unless you defensive rebound, unless you play help side defense,
unless you make good reads on cuts and in spot
up situations. And essentially, Kyle Kuzma was forced through trial
by fire to become a good role player, and right
before the trade to Washington he had become that. In
(23:06):
that twenty twenty one season I've haught Kyle Kuzma had
become a very well rounded, dependable role player in the NBA.
But it hadn't been pretty to start in a Bucks jersey.
And I think part of that was he had become
a little mistake prone over the years playing unserious basketball
in Washington, and he had really struggled hitting catch and
(23:26):
shoot threes, and so it just kind of looked like
a poor fit to start with Milwaukee, but he has
blossomed this year into one of the most important players
on the team. In addition to doing all those little
things that we talked about earlier, the defensive rebound in
the helpside defense, the smart cutting and relocating off the ball,
he's actually starting to score the ball consistently now and
(23:47):
with efficiency. He's been in double figures seven games in
a row. He had twenty six again last night. He's
averaging sixteen points per game over the course of that
seven gamespan on fifty six percent from the field, and
he's starting to get his three point shot going. Over
his last four games, on five attempts per game, he's
hitting forty two percent of his three hees hit a
(24:08):
couple of huge ones in the fourth quarter last night,
And like again, there are many guys that have popped
for Milwaukee this year as they've kind of researched from
what looked like a team that was really disappointing on
paper to like kind of out kicking their coverage a
little bit. And there's a lot of different reasons for that,
some basic like basketball fit stuff with the athletes on
(24:29):
the perimeter alongside a more athletics center next to Giannis
and obviously Ryan Rollins and the way that he's blossomed
this year. But a big part of it has been
Kyle Kuzma. He's been one of the guys that has
popped this year and that has helped Milwaukee have perform
better than many of us thought that they would before
the start of their season. Number five. Meanwhile, the John
(24:50):
Collins trade is not looking like it's paying dividends for
the Los Angeles Clippers. Now, this isn't John's fault. He's
been very good for them, and he continues to be
one of their best plus minus guys. Their plus one
on plus one with him on the floor over their
last two losses and minus fifteen with him off the floor.
He's been their second best on off guy points by
(25:12):
points per one hundred possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass
behind James Harden. But they look like as a team
they sorely missed the offensive pop they were getting from
Norman Powell. The idea was Bradley Beal would effectively step
into that role and be able to handle it reasonably
close to as well, with maybe a little bit more
on ball pop in the games where like Kawhi Leonard
(25:34):
can't play. That was the idea, Like, you're not just
trading Norman Power for John Collins. You're trading Norman Paler
for John Collins and Bradley Beal. And when you look
at what happened in the Denver series and how they
needed a little bit more athleticism in their front court
in transition and the ability to play more functional two
big lineups against some bigger teams like Denver, you look
at that and you go, I see what they're thinking.
(25:56):
You'd send out Norm Powell Bradley Beal can roughly approximate
it actually need Bradley to score, unlike what it was
like in Phoenix where he was kind of a redundancy.
Like this should make some sense, and now we have
John Collins to bring that extra athleticism and pop in
the front court. But unfortunately, Bradley Beal has been the
disastrous combination of bad when he's on the court and
(26:18):
generally unavailable. And now he has a weird hip injury
that is allegedly going to keep him out for a while.
So like this is a pretty extended stretch of him
just not being able to play without his body falling apart.
So what was supposed to be a swap of Norman
Powell for a reasonable replacement player and John Collins has
effectively amounted to a one for one swap for John Collins.
(26:42):
And now the Clippers look like they sorely miss Norman
Powell shooting an off ball scoring. There's so many different
things that he did for them. He was an excellent
transition scorer who would run the floor and get quick
little close out opportunities in transition, in semi transition to
hit threes and drive closeouts. He was a guy that
could run balls screen action as like a DHO guy,
also straight up on ball screens, curling off of off
(27:05):
ball screens, and essentially just create basic reads like, oh
you're in a drop, I can hit this shot. Oh
you're chasing me over the top. Well, but you're in
a deeper drop. I can get downhill off the curl.
Oh you show at the level, I can throw the
pocket pass to Zoo or whoever it is that I'm
getting the screen from there. He just had like a
lot of utility in a bunch of parts of their game,
(27:26):
and now you're getting none of that essentially nothing from Beale,
and as much as John has done, he's a guy
that anchors specific lineup groups. And I know ty Low's
planning on starting him for a while and we'll see
if that ends up giving the Clippers a look that
makes some sense. But it just it's really unfortunate because
now he's off in Miami and he's averaging a career
(27:48):
high twenty five points per game on sixty four percent
true shooting, had thirty three points last night against the Calves,
and it's looking like a disaster of a trade. And
when you look at it in the context of all
of the other things that have gone wrong for the
Clippers to start the season, Kawhi coming out looking very
much like a second tier star, then getting hurt tweaking
(28:09):
his ankle. James Harden's been better as of late, but
you know, not quite as sharp as he was to
start the season last year. James was great last night
as he tried to dig that game out, But like,
they just look old now, and they look like they're
missing Pop. They look like they sorely miss that Norman
Powell Pop as an off ball scorer, transition weapon and
a guy that can run some action for them in
(28:31):
the half court, and so that John Collins tray definitely
not looking good for the Clippers. And there was a
risk there with Bradley Beal, and that risk has gone
in the negative direction. Number six, really bad night to
be a Cleveland Cavaliers fan. Darius Garland goes down with
what looked like to be a toe injury, and if
he re injures that toe, that's a disaster for Cleveland.
(28:53):
As I've talked about many times over the course the
last few months, when Darius is healthy, I view the
Cavs as far and away the best team in the East.
Like if Darius was healthy in moving the way he
was during the regular season last year, I'd be legitimately
surprised if any other team came out of the Eastern Conference.
But I've also talked about how Darius has generally struggled
(29:15):
to stay healthy in his career, and that's what makes
the East feel so wide open is they have a
clear best team, but who knows if that team's going
to actually be able to operate at their individual peak
because of the Darius Garland injury history. And here's the thing.
When Darius is not healthy either not on the court
or not as mobile as he needs to be. They're
(29:36):
just firmly in the middle of the pack with the
rest of those Eastern Conference teams now as far as
looking forward, like who cares about the regular season standings?
Keep Darius out as long as it takes to get
him healthy. You just need him one hundred percent in April.
You're gonna beat all these teams even if you don't
have home court as long as you're at one hundred percent.
But it's just super discouraging to see him go down
(29:57):
again after already taking his sweet time I'm getting back
from the injury that took place in the postseason last year.
And then, to make matters worse, the Calves lost in
absolutely heartbreaking fashion last night. It looks kind of dead
in the water, but then Sam Merrill bangs four consecutive threes,
including a bomb like a thirty five footer off of
a drop off pass from Donovan Mitchell at the top
(30:19):
of the key that ties the game, and all of
a sudden they're right in it. And then they look
dead in the water again in the final minute, and
Donovan Mitchell hits like an off an offensive rebound, hits
like an insane running sprinting like people have no idea
how difficult the shot is. He's a right handed shooter
who's sprinting from under the basket at full speed to
the left corner. Plants's left foot spins his whole body around.
(30:42):
Plants's right foot gets squared up into mid air and
chucks it up in the air against the contest and
just drains a three that ties the game. Just an
unbelievable shot from Donovan Mitchell to tie it with four
tenths of a second left, and then Sam Marril and
DeAndre Hunter bought a switch on a sideline. Out of
bounce play, Eric Spoltzer draws up essentially a play where
(31:05):
you've got two guys that are standing there at the
top of the key. Andrew Wiggins is the guy that's
at the top, like by the top of the key essentially,
and then they have a shooter come running off the
two guys, and then a quick backscreen for Wiggins as
he goes towards the basket. So essentially a screen the
screen reaction, and there's a couple of different ways to
(31:26):
defend that. There's only four tenths of a second left,
so the guy who's sprinting out to half court is
essentially not a threat. He's gonna have to catch and
fire in the shortest possible amount of time while sprinting
away from the basket at like thirty five feet, so
he's a non threat, so over considering him makes no sense.
And then with the other two guys involving the little
(31:48):
backscreen for Wiggins, just switch it. There's no worry for
them to be able to turn around and fire. They
basically have to catch already squared up because if they don't,
it'll release will take more than four tenths of a second.
And Sam Merrill basically just I don't even know what
Sam was doing, kind of jumps towards the inbounder guarding nobody,
(32:09):
and DeAndre Hunter gets back picked, and so Andrew Wiggins
the sense of running right to the front of the rim.
Yovic throws a perfect lob and Wiggins dunks it at
the buzzer and the Miami Heat wins. So unfortunate because
Meryl was the only reason they had a chance to
win the game because of the job that he did
knocking down threes at the start of the fourth quarter.
But just an absolutely brutal way to lose a game,
(32:31):
and you lose one of your most important players. Just
a really rough night to be a Cleveland Cavaliers fan.
Number seven, Anthony Edwards is shooting the absolute shit out
of the basketball again. Exploded for twenty one points in
the third quarter against the Jazz last night on his
way to a thirty five point night, hitting all sorts
of jumpers from three and from the top of the
(32:51):
key in the mid range. Twenty three of his thirty
five points last night were on jump shots. And it's
fascinating because last year was the best jump footing season
of his career. He made made five jump shots per
game at one point zero seven points per shot, and
this year that's up to six made jump shots per
(33:14):
game at a preposterous one point two eight points per shot.
And he's been deadly all over the floor. Off of
the catch from three, He's seven for eleven. That's insane.
He's getting one point one seven points per pull up
jump shot. Off the dribble jump shots. He's making forty
five percent of his pull up threes, making three point
(33:39):
one pull up threes per game, which leads the NBA.
He's been okay from the mid range twelve for twenty eight,
still pretty strong. He hit several more of those last night.
He started cold this season, is starting to get it going.
And I mean, here's the thing. He's one of the
league's best athletes, and he's on a long run of
essentially being the best volume jump shooter in the league
not named Steph Curry. Just a ridiculous turn of events
(34:03):
for a guy with his level of athleticism. And by
the way, the Wolves have won five out of six.
They're second in offense over that span, and their defense,
which was brutal to start the year, is tenth in
defensive rating over that six game span. All right, three
more Number eight Palamoncaro and Desmond Bain saved the Magic
(34:24):
from a disaster last night. The Manas have been super
disappointing to start the year relative to the amount of
talent that they have and the expectations that sat over
the team coming in. I talked about how I thought
they were the team that had the best chance to
hang with Cleveland and the standings in the regular season,
and they just underachieved. And they almost continued that disaster
last night another Denny Avdia a late game run the
(34:47):
Magic led the Blazers by nine with two point five
minutes left, and Denny Avdia hits two tough catch and
shoot threes. They run a really cool sideline out of
bounds play kind of similar to what we talked about
with Miam with a backscreen for Jeremy Grant, and Jeremy
Grant finishes a tough lob plus the foul against Palo
Bancaro that ends up putting the Blazers up by two
(35:08):
with ten seconds left. So, after leading by nine with
two and a half minutes left, they trailed by two
with ten seconds left. Palo makes two plays and Bain
makes one play that snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.
So starts with Palo getting Tomani Kamara one on one
out front about thirty feet from the basket at the
top of the key, and I thought Tomani made a
(35:30):
critical mistake here, like Pallo's a guy that, like you
want to give space and try to force to take
a difficult jump shot. But he pressured Palo thirty feet
from the basket, and Palo just blew right by him
and finished through the rim through some contact and got
an and one that ended up putting the Magic that
(35:51):
ended up tying the game. And then Palo defends Drew
Holliday on the very next possession and just rips the
ball away from Drew tries to drive and Pala just
takes it away from him. So huge driving layup, huge
steal on Drew Holiday, then honestly on the sideline out
of bounds on the final play there, the final sequence,
there was like two seconds left. I thought they defended
(36:13):
it really well. Tamani Kamaras switched off onto Desmond Bain,
got a great two handed contest right up in Desmond
Bain's face without fouling, and Baine just drilled a like
thirty foot drifting fading three, moving to his right in
front of that right sideline and ends up stealing the
(36:33):
game for the Magic. So from sitting at four and
seven with another blown lead, sitting outside the play into
what ended up being a huge couple of plays there
from Bain and Pallo to get them back into the
win column at five and six. Long way to go
to get to where they need to go, especially in
the offensive end, but a couple of big plays to
(36:57):
save them from a travesty. Last night, number nine, the
sixth quarter, los Angeles Lakers slumber ended in the third
quarter last night in Charlotte. The Lakers laid an absolute
egg in Atlanta. We talked about that yesterday. I won't
get into more detail now, but they followed it up
with an ugly first half against the short handed Hornets
in Charlotte. They're really struggling to contain the ball. They've
(37:18):
been having issues. This is something I've seen throughout the
last few games. They're really helping off the corner, including
the strong side corner. And one of the things, one
of the reasons why many teams don't help off the
strong side corner is the specific reason having to do
with how easy of a pass that is. So if
someone drives to the right off of the right wing
and you help off of the right corner for a
(37:40):
right handed ball handler, it's like, Okay, there's just the
easiest little kickout pass in the world for a wide
open corner. Three. That's why you want to help off
the weak side corner and stay home on the strong
side corner, because at the very least you're going to
make them make a very difficult kickout pass across the court.
The Lakers have been really gapping, really trying to in
those driving lanes, and so there's a lot of easy
(38:02):
opportunities for teams through basic swing passes to knock down
threes or to drive close outs and get opportunities. And
they were getting burned throughout the last six quarters. And
really it's been a consistent trend over the last couple
of weeks, as the Lakers have dipped down to twenty
third in defensive rating to start the season. But right
before the half, Luca hits a step back three and
(38:22):
then the Lakers get to stop and Ruey makes a
beautiful kick head pass to Austin who gets a layup
at the buzzer, and the Lakers end up going into
the half with a two point lead. And then jjmiss
to chewed them out or something, because they came out
to start that third quarter and looked like the Lakers
that we saw for the first few weeks of the year.
Just completely dominated the third quarter and blew the game open.
The starters went several minutes to start the second half
(38:44):
without giving up a single straight line drive, consistently chesting
up on drives and keeping the ball in front. Their
rotations were sharp, they rebounded the ball well, they ran
for good looks. Ruey paid off several sequences in that
early third quarter with catch and shoot threes that helped
blow things open and the Lakers cruise to double digit win.
One of the things I've talked about with on athletic
teams is you can't afford to be disengaged mentally or
(39:08):
physically if you're not athletic, because you're already behind in
terms of the mobility factor. So if you're also a
step behind mentally and you're also not playing to your
physical peak because you're not playing hard enough, you're really
gonna look bad. And we saw that for six quarters
against Atlanta and against Charlotte. But when they do hang
(39:31):
on to the rope in those areas, they're so good
on offense, so they can be a real problem. Another
sixty two points, eleven rebounds and fourteen assists from Austin
Reeves and Luka Doncic last night, despite going seven for
twenty five from three. They're both cooling off a little
bit from downtown. Big show down with Oklahoma City again
on Wednesday night. We will be watching that on playbacks.
(39:51):
Make sure you guys come hang out with us on
playback to watch that. Showdown lastly today quickly number ten
the Phoenix Sun. They're beginning to look as good on
defense as they looked on paper to start the season.
The Sun's got to blow out win against the Pelicans
last night. Grayson Allen came out guns blazing. He finished
with forty two. The Suns really blew the game open
in the second quarter. They were getting a bunch of stops.
(40:13):
Then on the other end of the floor a good
a unit without Devin Booker, where they were running really
good dribble weave and moving the ball side to side,
and the threat of Grayson Allen, who at that point
already had like eighteen points, had kind of like started
to generate a lot of attention as he was running
off of screening action, and so they generated a lot
of clean looks for Grayson and Verrois O'Neill over that
second quarter stretch, and they kind of blew the game
(40:34):
open in that stretch and they never looked back from there.
But the Sons held the Pelicans to just ninety eight points.
It was the fourth time in the last six games
that they've held their opponents to one hundred and three
points or fewer. They are now the fourth best defense
in the league over the course of their last six games.
I did a preseason pod with Benjamin Garcia covers he
works for. It covers the Phoenix Suns. He also covers
(40:56):
the Arizona Cardinals. Is a bunch of stuff in the
Phoenix air and he asked me a question on that show.
He said, do you think the Suns are capable of
being a top five defense? And one of the things
I talked to him about was like, Hey, it's complicated,
like do they end up tanking, how much of their
young guys do they play, blah blah blah. But one
of the things I said to Benjamin was they certainly
have that capability, and the reason why is because they
(41:17):
have a strong foundation and the key areas you need
to be good on defense. Do you have guys who
can guard the opposing best players? He had, They have
two great ones in the starting lineup between Dylan Brooks
and Ryan Dunn that are kind of different types of players.
Dylan's a little bit more of like a fire hydrant,
like beat you to spots, you can't power through me
kind of guy. Ryan Dunn's got like, certainly a great
(41:39):
deal of strength, but he's got a lot of length
and athleticism at the position. I think that their guards
are all pretty good defenders, like Devin Booker is a
good defender. Grayson Allen is a guy who's gonna do
his job in the defensive game plan and compete on
the defensive end of the four. Royce O'Neil plays physical defense.
And then in the front court. You know, obviously with
Common Molowich you ever protection element, and he hasn't been
(42:01):
in the rotation. But you've got bigs that have some
capability to switch, and that has given them the flexibility
with also a Gadaro to do some switching. Mark Williams
is mistake prone, but he's been okay. Like there is
a good amount of defensive talent with this group, especially
on the perimeter that gives them a fighting chance every
night defensively, and they're showing that over the course of
(42:23):
the last six games. All Right, guys, it's all I
have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back
tomorrow morning with more game reaction and then again tomorrow
night on playback for Lakers Thunder. I will see you guys,
then
Host
Jason Timpf
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