Reaction to RED HOT Raptors, Amen Thompson BALLING, Tyler Herro's Heat return, Edwards & Wolves lose
November 25, 2025 • 29 mins
Jason reacts to a fun Monday night in the NBA including the Toronto Raptors staying hot with a win over Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Amen Thompson leading the Houston Rockets to a win without Kevin Durant, Tyler Herro's great first game back for the Miami Heat, and Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves blowing another late game lead for the Phoenix Suns.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys
are having a great start to your week. Got a
jam pack show for you guys today. Off the top,
(00:23):
we had a showdown between the second and third seed
in the Eastern Conference, albeit marred by some injuries, especially
on the Cavs front as they were on the tail
end of a back to back down four of their
top six players, but the Toronto Raptors got a big win,
winning their eighth consecutive game. I want to talk about
the dynamic that Brandon Ingram brings to the team as
an over the top shooter, as well as the varied
(00:43):
different types of ways that the Raptors can break down
your defense. After that, I want to get into some
shout outs from some individual performances last night, starting with
the Men Thompson. With Kevin Durant out with dealing with
a personal matter, and Men Thompson stepped into a bigger
role on the ball on the road in Phoenix, the
Rockets held the Suns to just ninety two points and
(01:05):
a Men Thompson goes for twenty eight, seven and eight.
I want to talk about some of the unique ways
that he did that and how it kind of projects
forward for him as an offensive player. We had Tyler
Harrow's debut in the brand new Miami Heat system, and
the question was going to be will he go back
to you know, will Eric Spolstra attempt to try to
incorporate some of the old stuff that Tyler and Bam
(01:27):
used to do in their two man game, or will
they kind of try to stick with their driving kick system.
And that answer was answered in a resounding fashion as
we didn't get a single Tyler Harrowbam at a bio
pick and roll last night, and yet he still gets
twenty four points without making a single three or a
single free throw. Some really interesting stuff from a big
Miami Heat win against the Dallas Mavericks. And then very
(01:49):
briefly at the tail end of the show, I want
to talk a little bit about the blown leads by
the Timberwolves, who once again blew a game that they
should have won against Sacramento last night. It's pretty quick
show today, you guys know the joke before we get
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(02:10):
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(02:32):
bags throughout the remainder of the season. And then our
first playback stream of the of the week is tonight
eight pm Pacific time for Lakers Clippers, So if you
want to come hang out for a watch along, meet
us there. Also, if you want just an instant reaction
to the game, just come after the game to YouTube.
Will still be going for about fifteen minutes at that point.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So a matchup of
the second and third seeds out in the Eastern Conference
(02:54):
marred by injuries. Welcome to the NBA regular season. Cleveland,
on the tail end of a back to back, was
essentially down for their top six players, with DeAndre Hunter,
Darius Garland, Maxtrus, and Jared Allen all out of the lineup.
Toronto obviously down RJ. Barrett, but an advantage for Toronto
in that specific situation in terms of how much of
their top end talent was available. I thought Cleveland actually
(03:15):
played pretty well early. The Raptors were swarming Donovan Mitchell
on his drives for obvious reasons, and he was making
really good kickout passes and generating some clean looks. Evan
Mobley and Nikwon Tomlin went four to four from three
in the first half. Between the two of them, Lonzo
hit a couple of threes. The Cavs actually led by
eight at one point in the second quarter, and the
(03:35):
game really turned in the late second quarter, starting with
Toronto's guards. Actually, we're going to talk a lot about
brandon Ingram today was incredible, obviously, but Toronto's guards actually
started that run that flipped the game. Emmanuel Quickly and
Jamal shed both started getting consistent dribble penetration in the
half court and in transition. And it's just a casual
reminder that like this Raptors team has a lot of
(03:58):
ways to break that first layer of your defense. Like
Scottie Barnes obviously rim pressure and playmaking. RJ. Barrett kind
of brings a similar dynamic obviously when he's healthy. Obviously
Brandon Ingram, he'll do so much scoring around the elbows
that all of a sudden you'll start throwing that extra defender.
Like Brandon Ingram shooting damn near fifty five percent on
pull up twos inside of seventeen feet. That's almost a
(04:20):
one ten offensive rating if he gets a look in there.
So like you end up sending additional defenders that way.
And Brandon's a very good passer and he can pass
out of those situations. But it's their guards too, and
their guards can beat people off the dribble with speed
and they can make the kickout reads and that gets
a lot of those sequences started for Toronto, as a
matter of fact, shed and quickly combined for fourteen assists
(04:44):
last night. But Brandon Ingram was the story. He had
his jumper going all night long. He was really targeting
Cleveland's smaller guards and switches, so a lot of hunting
like Donovan Mitchell around the elbows, a lot of hunting
Lonzo Ball around the elbows. He also looks pretty comfortable
against Jalen Tyson down there because he could just shoot
over the top. He took a lot of jump shots,
twenty six of them, to be exact, but I liked
(05:06):
most of them, Like there were a couple of like
especially at the very final few possessions of the game.
There were a couple like, Okay, he's just dribbling out
the clock and just kind of settling. You don't love those,
But most of them were like late clock grenade where
he'd have the ball with five seconds left and they
needed him to create something, or driving kick sequences where
they needed someone to confidently step into a pull up
(05:28):
three or a quality matchup attack, like Okay, he's got
Lonzo Ball on him, or he's got Donovan Mitchell on him,
it's makes sense for him to go to a little
short jump shot. That's been a really high percentage shot
for us this season, right, And so out of those
twenty six jump shots that he took, he got twenty
nine points out of them, and it ended up being
an efficient play type for Toronto in that game. And
(05:51):
Brandon's jump shooting has been kind of interesting this year
because when he's wide open for three, he's hitting them
like crazy. He's eleven for twenty four on unguarded catch
and shoot threes this season. That's forty six percent is
off the dribble. Jump shooting has been excellent. He's fifty
four percent on pull up twos off the dribble, especially
efficient when he gets inside of that fifteen foot mark,
inside of that seventeen foot mark. Excuse me, six for
(06:13):
seventeen on pull up threes. That's thirty five percent. That's
eighteen points on seventeen shots. That's not bad. That's solid,
and he actually ended up hitting one of the biggest
shots of the games. I Donovan Mitchell went on a
little run late where he hit a couple of threes
that cut a ten point lead to four, and similar
kind of situation. Late clock grenade gets handed to Brandon
Ingram all of a sudden, it's like he's got to
(06:34):
create something, just gets a little step back separation, going
towards his right and barely gets his feet behind the
three point line and knocks down that like one of
the toughest shots for a right handed shooter, step back
three going to your right hits that one that was
a big shot in this game that essentially like stymied
the run and helped Toronto close the deal. It's really
just his contested catch and shoot threes that have been
(06:56):
an issue dragging down his percentages this year. When he
shoots a contested catch and shoot three, he's just nine
for thirty eight or twenty four percent. That's really the
one thing that's dragging his percentages down. He's actually shooting
really well on jump shots and basically every other phase
of the game overall, though, I think what he brings
is just a very valuable CounterPunch. As you know, if
(07:17):
you think of the primary source of Toronto's offense as
like defense to transition, they're one of the best transition
teams in the league. Rim pressure off of the guards
like what we talked about, excuse me, like the guards,
like we talked about Scottie Barnes, like we talked about
brandon Ingram is a counter to that with his over
the top shot making. When things break down, he can
provide that little extra bit of ceiling raising offense with
(07:38):
his ability to hit jump shots over the top. The
Raptors also got going in their transition attack in that
third quarter. They had thirteen transition points just in the
third quarter alone, a lot of nice runouts for dunks
and threes. That was where a couple of brandon Ingram's
threes came from, again trailing the play in transition, just
rising up confidently into that shot. The Raptors had seven
(08:00):
total transition points in the game, which obviously is an
awesome number. They've now moved up to the third best
transition offense in the NBA, averaging thirty points per game,
just two behind Miami and just four behind Chicago's, currently
the best transition offense. A couple other Raptors show shout outs.
Jacoby Walter, he obviously didn't have a big box score game,
(08:21):
but I thought he made some big like momentum plays
filling in for RJ. Barrett in that starting spot. He
had a big like pick six steel in the first
half where Evan Mobley had his back turn, jumped in there,
took the ball, went down and got it done. He
had an offensive rebound scrap of possession that they didn't score,
and he just and Yaka Purtle was not in position
to get the rebound, but Jacoby just came in there
(08:41):
and battled and tipped at it and ended up making
its way over to Yaka Purtle ended up grabbing it
and going up reverse for an and one layup hit
a big kickout three in the third quarter that pushed
the lead to eight. All big momentum plays, again trying
to find a way to impact winning despite not having
the level of talent that a guy like RJ. Barrett has.
Sandro mamukelos Villi had a crazy first half run checked
(09:04):
into the game with the Raptors down twenty three to seventeen,
and like bang bang Bang, scored eight points, hit a
couple of corner threes, and an offensive rebound put back
hit a guy cutting to the basket off of the wing.
Really nice burst offensively that helped Toronto in that first half,
and then all night, I thought their defense was really good.
I know, Cleveland was down most of their offensive talent,
and you know, obviously that's going to force some guys
(09:27):
into some larger roles than they would typically be in.
But you could really tell that Toronto's length was like
an issue for Cleveland's guards like Donovan Mitchell was six
for twenty. He had a lot of like, really tough
shots that he missed. Lonzo Ball was three for fifteen,
a lot of great contests in there. Toronto's now won
eight games in a row, their top three in both
offense and defense in that span. They're sixth in rebounding.
(09:49):
A couple of nice wins in that streak too, a
couple against Cleveland and then one against Philly. They should
push the streak to ten. They got Indiana and Charlotte next,
so my guess is Toronto pushes the streak to ten,
But then they have a big showdown with the New
York Knicks on Sunday in Madison Square Garden, which will
be their next major test on the Cavs front. Not
really a whole lot you can take away from a
(10:10):
game like this. When you're down that much of your offense,
you're gonna see you guys get slotted into outsized roles.
Like Lonzo has never taken more than eight shots in
a game this year. He took fifteen of them last night.
We had a lot of like on ball reps for
Tyres Proctor random possessions where a role player has to
put the ball on the floor, and then obviously for
Mobiley and Mitchell, everything gets tougher. Those dudes were getting
(10:30):
swarmed all over the place. Mobley only got seven shots
up in this game. Turned the ball over a little
bit too, because he was just getting swarmed every time
he got the ball in the middle of the floor.
And then once you start asking Donovan Mitchell to just
make a bunch of tough pull up jumpers against a
team that has the length that Toronto has, it's just
a really tough ask. There were some bright spots though.
Nakwon Tomlin, who started the season zero for fourteen from three,
(10:52):
hit two more threes tonight. He's three or last night,
I should say three for six from three in his
last two games. That's like a nice little development. By
the way, was stepping in confidently into those threes last night.
Jalen Tyson is showing some of his slashing ability. He
had some really tough layups in this game, so I
was digging into his numbers. He's sixty one percent on
layups this season, nineteen for thirty one. Not a lot
(11:14):
of role player like three and D guy type of
players that are that efficient on layups. And then once
again two for three from three from Tyson last night.
He's shooting twenty one for thirty nine on unguarded catch
and shoot threes this year. That's fifty four percent forty
six percent overall on threes. But ultimately, the Cavs are
a little banged up. They were on a tail end
(11:35):
of a back to back. That's a tough one to
get under any circumstances. Okay, I wanted to go over
a couple of big individual performances last night, and then
I just have some quick thoughts on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
So starting with the men, Thompson slotted into a larger
offensive role obviously with Kevin Durant out of the lineup
dealing with the personal matter, and Houston got a nice
road win over the Suns. Their defense was really the
story of the game. They held the Suns to just
(11:56):
ninety two points. Aside from losing control of Dylan Brooks
for a little bit, they pretty much had the game
under control in the defensive end. But a men Thompson
goes for twenty eight points, seven rebounds, and eight assists
just showcase all the stuff that is super exciting about
his game. Did some of the usual damage that he
does as a cutter under the rim. Did a lot
of work as a connective playmaker in the middle of
(12:17):
the floor too, like he'd catch the ball cutting along
the baseline, or he catched the ball in the middle
of the floor and make the next pass like a
really nice drop off pass under the rim for Jabari
Smith dunking, or a kickout to Aaron Holiday up top.
He ended up generating a couple of those Aaron Holiday threes.
And by the way, Aaron Holliday's jump shooting as of
late has been a huge boost to this Houston offense.
(12:38):
He's been just on fire as of late. I think
he's averaging twelve points per game over his last five.
Really nice game last night, obviously, but a men Thompson
did a lot of work of the usual kind of
type that we see in this offense, like along the
baseline in the middle, either scoring with quick little dunks,
cutting along the baseline, or making that next connective pass.
But we saw so much more on ball stuff for
(13:00):
obvious reasons, with kd out a lot of ISOs and
ball screens off the wing, which are becoming a staple
in a men Thompson's game. We've talked about this before,
but he has this amazing ability. It's arguably his best
superstar offensive trait. You know, we think of him as
one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, but
he has this, like if you wanted to point to
(13:20):
a foundational trait that could one day make him an
all star level offensive player, it's the fact that he
can consistently beat people off the dribble and get into
the short range and then from there he can just
pop back up off the ground like either just elevate
over the top or he'll lean back, which takes an
enormous amount of athleticism, and he'll shoot like these little
five foot seven foot jump shots or floaters, like little
(13:43):
bits of short range shot making that are basically impossible
to guard. It's that John Morant type of concept that
I always talk about, Like, the ability to beat people
off the dribble is great because that's going to get
you to the rim a lot, but the ram often
leads to health defense, right, and so that's where it
becomes about playmaking and some sort of over the top
shot making. And it does not necessarily have to be threes,
(14:05):
although that's a ceiling razer for sure, but if you
can at least knock down those little short range shots,
then you have the playmaking ability to balance it out.
That's a foundational superstar trade on the offensive end of
the floor. He had three of those last night where
he just one on one, got into the lane, defended
really well, dude beats him to the spot, doesn't matter,
just rises up over the top and hits like that
(14:25):
little one handed jump shot or a little short jump
shot right. That's kind of one of his foundational types
of traits. He had a play where he ran in
a two man game with Olpriam Shangoon and Dylan Brooks.
Went way under the pick and so he just settled
into like a little jump shot around the foul line
and knocked it down. He hit a very similar shot
like that in the Denver game last week on Friday.
(14:47):
That's one of those ones where if he starts to
hit that like the little foul line pull ups, I
don't know what you do with him. Even hit a
corner three to wrap things up in the late fourth quarter.
Just a really really nice game for a men. Thompson.
He's averaging a career high at eighteen points per game
this year Andy career high five point two assists per game.
Really nice work in a larger than usual role last
(15:08):
night on the road in Phoenix. And once again another
young Rockets star like we talked about with Shanegon, who's
barely scratching the surface of his potential and who knows
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or Virginia. Tyler Harrow made his debut for the Heat
last night. I was really interested to see how he
would look in the new system, like we talked about
off the top, Like would he come in and play
(17:16):
in the Heat system, like drive in, kick, generate, drill,
penetration one on one like everyone else's thriving as a
scorer in off ball situations off of the chaos generated
by the other drivers, Or would Spolster go this is
a great time for us to add a little bit
more variety and run some more like Tyler Bam two
man game. And you know, then I see the box
(17:37):
score from last night and Tyler has twenty four points
with only two three point attempts, both of which he missed,
and I was immediately like, Oh, this is gonna be
super interesting. I was excited to see how like the
actual process with which they got Tyler Harrow to that
twenty four point mark. And the answer is, we got
literally zero reps of the Tyler Bam two man game.
(18:00):
There's a funny possession in the second half where Tyler
caught the ball in the left wing and Bam like
kind of went up like he was gonna set his
screen and you're like, oh, here we go, and then
he ended up just cutting through to the other side.
It's like, Nope, they're not gonna do it now. To
be clear, I would not be surprised. As a matter
of fact, I would be shocked if they didn't eventually
do this. But I do think that over the course
of the season we'll see little bits and pieces of
(18:21):
the Tyler Bam two man game, especially in like late
game situations when they're looking for something to spam. I
don't think they're gonna completely abandon it, but last night
ended up being an opportunity for them to basically just
be like, let's see what it looks like if Tyler
Harrow just plays within this Miami heat system, and it
honestly looked amazing like he he We got zero reps
(18:45):
of the Tyler Bam two man game. We did get
two off ball pinned downs where he came off of
action with kelll Ware and he ended up getting in
that like those off ball pin downs effectively mimic a
ball screen because they're covered the same way, like the
defender usually is gonna chase you over the top and
the big is going to be in some variation of
a drop coverage. And he ended up facing two deeper
drop coverage looks in those off ball pinned downs with
(19:07):
kell al Ware, and he was able to get into
his drop coverage bag, which is like that little floater
in the lane right. He missed his first one in
the first half, and he made his second one that
was actually a huge play in the in the fourth
quarter as the first of a stretch where Miami scored
on five possessions in a row. But everything else outside
of those two two man game reps with kell al Ware,
(19:28):
everything else was like firmly in Miami's driving kick system,
like he was attacking gaps in transition for quick little
driving floaters and things along those lines, attacking closeouts with
just quick drives off of kickouts from heat drives. This
is actually how he hit the game winner. He you know,
the Miami gets a stop, there's a little transition pushhead
Pela Larson's probing kind of along the right lane line
(19:50):
and Max Christi ends up sinking too deep in help,
Pela Larson pitches it back to Tyler Harrow on the
right wing, and Max is closing out hard right on
his right shoulder right. So that's one of those baked
in driving lanes we always talk about. Tyler Harrow just
rips to the left cleanly beats Max. PJ. Washington steps
up and help, but he just shoots this like sky
high floater. Really impressive piece of shot making. But that
(20:12):
ended up being basically the game winner. And that's the
off ball scoring element that I think Tyler's just gonna
absolutely feast on. This is something that Norman Pale has
been doing for the entire start of the season. But
like when you've got guys like Davion Mitchell that can
dribble drive and start the advantage process, Jaime Hawkes that
can dribble drive in post and start the advantage process,
(20:33):
the transition pushes which can in and of themselves start
the drive and kick process. Tyler Harrow is going to
get a lot of opportunities to attack closeouts and he's
just gonna be insanely good at that because that's you know,
his combination of ability to hit catch and shoot threes,
but also to do lots of like kind of countermove
scoring in the middle of the floor. He's just going
(20:54):
to be a really high level player attacking closeouts in
this system. And then every time he caught the ball
out front, like in a clean one on one where
the defense wasn't broke down, he just attacked. No ball screens,
he just attacked one on one. And this is where
it actually got super interesting to me because in theory,
this is not a strength of Tyler Harrow's game. He's
not exactly a slasher, like a guy that's just gonna
(21:14):
just toast people off the dribble one on one, and
he's only an OK one on one player. Like last
year's shooting out of ISO, he was forty fifth percentile,
which is slightly below average. And you can see when
he was ripping on his drives like it wasn't like
he was just clean beating Max Christy off the dribble
on that first attack, although to his credit, he did
have a big one late against Ryan Nemhard off the
(21:35):
left wing where Nemhard was squared up with him and
he just ripped a left and did cleanly beat Ryan
hit a little bank shot. By the way, Ryan Nedmhard
was like the easy target from Miami down the stretch.
Davion Mitchell went right through him for an easy layup.
Tyler Harrow went right through him for an easy layup.
But other than that play against Ryan Nemhard, like Max
Christi in particular, he's too quick for Tyler Harrow to
(21:58):
just cleanly beat off the dribble right and I thought
Tyler did a really nice job of just making aggressive
driving moves in a way that at least forced Max
to take a big backward step before he would try
to cut him off. And so for the most part
he would cut off Tyler, but not until he got
into that short range. And once he got into that
(22:19):
short range, he was able to get into his short
range shot making game. And similar to what we were
talking about with the men Thompson, he would just pop
up off the ground, hit a little righty float, or
hit a little left he float, or hit a little
short jump shot. He hit like a tougher step back
jump shot along the left baseline in the second half
on a play where Max cut him off a little
bit earlier. But you know, honestly, like that's really valuable
(22:40):
over the top scoring for this Miami team, because again,
like there will be stretches where they can start cutting
off these drives, not even just for Tyler, but for
Daveon and for Hime and for any of these guys
that get their one on one opportunities. But Tyler, like
in the one on ones, I think he ended up
running five ISOs last night and getting six points out
of them if I remember correctly, he got a bunch
(23:01):
of those like little easy, little short range jump shots
in his one on ones. And similarly in the quick
little closeouts he'd attack when he would get cut off,
he could at least pop up off the ground in
that short range Like it's really impressive to go for
what was that twenty four points on eighteen shots with
no free throws, Really really impressive work from Tyler Harrow
(23:24):
and kind of like a really nice little taste of
what it will look like when he's scoring within Miami system. Again,
I do think over time, Spolsure will incorporate some more
screening action for him. I think especially in atos too,
I think we'll see a little bit of that kind
of stuff and clutch situations. I think we could see
some more of that kind of stuff, some matchup specific
(23:44):
stuff like teams that are running more deep drop. I
think we could see a little bit more of that
Tyler Bam two man game. But to start, Eric Spolser
is very much like, Hey, Tyler, let's see how you
can play in this new system, and Tyler just looked awesome,
no way or it. And again like only one of
those buckets, only one of his twelve made buckets came
(24:05):
in a screening action, that one little curl off of
kel Aware for the floater in the fourth quarter. Uh,
It's just crazy how consistently these the heat is just
breaking down teams one on one, Like they had a
stretch in the in the Clutch where they scored on
five consecutive possessions. And the first was that little Tyler
Harrow dropped coverage rep off of the kelll War two
(24:26):
man game where he got in the lane off the
wide pin down hit the floater. But the next four
we're all just one on once. Davion Mitchell one on
one through Ryan Demhart, easy too. Jim Hawkins just goes
right at PJ. Washington and draws a foul. Tyler Harrow
goes right through Ryan Demhart for an easy two. Pella
Larson like stares down Cooper flag and just rips through
to the left and beats him cleanly off the tribble
for a layup. It's crazy how consistently they get into
(24:49):
the lane on their one on once and the hot
streak from Miami continues. They've now won five games in
a row. Their bigs were awesome once again. Kellel continues
to put up video game numbers. He had twenty in
eighteen last night. Again. He had been averaging like fifteen
and fifteen in the previous stretch the last like six
or seven games a couple weeks before that. Had a
big lob dunk late too, on similar type of play
(25:12):
where Daveion Mitchell just beat his man off the dribble
to the middle, got kell El's man to step up
just a little bit, just pitched it up in the air,
boom two handed dunk as he gets behind Daniel Gafford
there along the baseline. Bam had seventeen and six and
he made the biggest defensive play of the game. Late.
There's an inbounds pass, guys open in the corner. Bam
(25:33):
is kind of like denying a different catch right there,
right in front, and he closes off the whole passing lane.
They try to throw it over the top to the corner.
He just elevates and steals that pass, one of the
biggest plays of the game. On the defensive end, Head
are playing some really good fun basketball right now again
their fifth consecutive win. And then really quickly some thoughts
on the Timberwolves, and they're blown leads, so many late
(25:55):
game execution errors, Like there's gonna be a lot to
talk about their offense, and yeah, it's not great. There
are some really bad possessions in there. I was like,
there was a possession where like Ant's just dribbling the
air out of the basketball against Russell Westbrook at the
top of the key and ends up just taking a
like ridiculously difficult step back three going to his right.
Just a really bad possession. There's another one where like
he wants to get into a short range game, but
(26:16):
he ended up like driving he was starting too far
on the left wing and then drove left, which there
just wasn't that much space to operate. I think there's
a level of deliberateness with that where it's like, if
you want to turn over your right shoulder for a
fade away. You got to create more space to turn
over that right shoulder, so like slide it a little
bit further up towards the middle, drive closer to the
(26:38):
elbow so that when you spin, you're not in too
much traffic there in the corner. There's like a lot
of like those like little tiny details with ant that
I think are still kind of coming along. But to me,
that's all secondary to the fact that there are blatant
execution errs, Like sometimes shots are going to go in
or they won't. Like for the bad possessions. Aunt also
(26:59):
missed like a wide open layup right at the rim
that he left short, a little bank shot on the
left side. Jade McDaniels had a wide open three at
the top of the key that he missed in crunch time.
Like those one of those goes in. Maybe it makes
up for one of those bad possessions, right, Like to me,
I'm more focused on, like you gave up too easy
transition runouts like a dunk from Alik Monk and another
(27:21):
one for Keegan Murray. It's like that's just your You're
not getting back the game winner for Sacramento. Another bad
transition defense, possession in overtime where Keegan Murray's wide open
on the right wing because you're not running back. There
are two possessions where you just threw the ball away
in transition you get a steal and then you run
a throw a bad kick ahead pass, or you get
a stop and you throw a bad kick ahead pass. Like,
(27:41):
there are blatant execution errors where I think that I
think they can just be better. You know, like there's
a certain element of Minnesota is going to have a
hot and cold offense by nature of what they do.
They're very much a rim and three type of team.
They have a young super star that is still experiencing
some growing pains in his late game execution. Some of
(28:04):
that's going to naturally be hot and cold. What you
can't afford is the controllables going out of your favor.
You can't afford giving up easy kick ahead dunks because
you're not running back in transition. You can afford to
turn the basketball over before you even get into the
front court. And then again, the Phoenix game was the
same way to sloppy turnovers and execution errors. So like,
(28:27):
to me, I don't think this is a talent issue.
You played well enough to beat Phoenix, and you played
well enough to beat Sacramento. You just gotta cut out
some of these execution errors at the end of the game.
You can't afford to make that many mistakes. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again.
We will be back tonight on playback eight pm Pacific
(28:47):
time for Lakers Clippers. Our show tomorrow is actually just
going to be the late game reaction to that, So
Jackson's going to be trimming that and cutting it and
running it tomorrow, So if you want to see it,
it'll be tonight right after the final buzzer of Lakers Clippers.
Otherwise that will show up on our feeds tomorrow morning,
and then after that we're taking the holiday off, but
(29:07):
we will be back on Friday morning with the Nerd Sash. Guys.
We have our I want to about once a month,
I want to touch on contenders, so I have a
couple of tweaks to my contender rankings as well as
a just like a brief check in with all of
those teams, talking with the Nerd Sash guys. That's on Friday,
and then we also have another playback stream on Friday
night for MAVs Lakers. All right, guys, that's all I have.
(29:28):
I will see you guys tonight
The volume. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys
are having a great start to your week. Got a
jam pack show for you guys today. Off the top,
(00:23):
we had a showdown between the second and third seed
in the Eastern Conference, albeit marred by some injuries, especially
on the Cavs front as they were on the tail
end of a back to back down four of their
top six players, but the Toronto Raptors got a big win,
winning their eighth consecutive game. I want to talk about
the dynamic that Brandon Ingram brings to the team as
an over the top shooter, as well as the varied
(00:43):
different types of ways that the Raptors can break down
your defense. After that, I want to get into some
shout outs from some individual performances last night, starting with
the Men Thompson. With Kevin Durant out with dealing with
a personal matter, and Men Thompson stepped into a bigger
role on the ball on the road in Phoenix, the
Rockets held the Suns to just ninety two points and
(01:05):
a Men Thompson goes for twenty eight, seven and eight.
I want to talk about some of the unique ways
that he did that and how it kind of projects
forward for him as an offensive player. We had Tyler
Harrow's debut in the brand new Miami Heat system, and
the question was going to be will he go back
to you know, will Eric Spolstra attempt to try to
incorporate some of the old stuff that Tyler and Bam
(01:27):
used to do in their two man game, or will
they kind of try to stick with their driving kick system.
And that answer was answered in a resounding fashion as
we didn't get a single Tyler Harrowbam at a bio
pick and roll last night, and yet he still gets
twenty four points without making a single three or a
single free throw. Some really interesting stuff from a big
Miami Heat win against the Dallas Mavericks. And then very
(01:49):
briefly at the tail end of the show, I want
to talk a little bit about the blown leads by
the Timberwolves, who once again blew a game that they
should have won against Sacramento last night. It's pretty quick
show today, you guys know the joke before we get
started to subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You
don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on
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Don't forget about our podcast fore you wherever you get
(02:10):
your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpfulf you
leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's
doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
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if you want to get questions into our mail bags.
No mailbag this week, but we'll be back the following Friday.
Get them into our full episodes on YouTube in the
YouTube comments, and we'll get to them in our mail
(02:32):
bags throughout the remainder of the season. And then our
first playback stream of the of the week is tonight
eight pm Pacific time for Lakers Clippers, So if you
want to come hang out for a watch along, meet
us there. Also, if you want just an instant reaction
to the game, just come after the game to YouTube.
Will still be going for about fifteen minutes at that point.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So a matchup of
the second and third seeds out in the Eastern Conference
(02:54):
marred by injuries. Welcome to the NBA regular season. Cleveland,
on the tail end of a back to back, was
essentially down for their top six players, with DeAndre Hunter,
Darius Garland, Maxtrus, and Jared Allen all out of the lineup.
Toronto obviously down RJ. Barrett, but an advantage for Toronto
in that specific situation in terms of how much of
their top end talent was available. I thought Cleveland actually
(03:15):
played pretty well early. The Raptors were swarming Donovan Mitchell
on his drives for obvious reasons, and he was making
really good kickout passes and generating some clean looks. Evan
Mobley and Nikwon Tomlin went four to four from three
in the first half. Between the two of them, Lonzo
hit a couple of threes. The Cavs actually led by
eight at one point in the second quarter, and the
(03:35):
game really turned in the late second quarter, starting with
Toronto's guards. Actually, we're going to talk a lot about
brandon Ingram today was incredible, obviously, but Toronto's guards actually
started that run that flipped the game. Emmanuel Quickly and
Jamal shed both started getting consistent dribble penetration in the
half court and in transition. And it's just a casual
reminder that like this Raptors team has a lot of
(03:58):
ways to break that first layer of your defense. Like
Scottie Barnes obviously rim pressure and playmaking. RJ. Barrett kind
of brings a similar dynamic obviously when he's healthy. Obviously
Brandon Ingram, he'll do so much scoring around the elbows
that all of a sudden you'll start throwing that extra defender.
Like Brandon Ingram shooting damn near fifty five percent on
pull up twos inside of seventeen feet. That's almost a
(04:20):
one ten offensive rating if he gets a look in there.
So like you end up sending additional defenders that way.
And Brandon's a very good passer and he can pass
out of those situations. But it's their guards too, and
their guards can beat people off the dribble with speed
and they can make the kickout reads and that gets
a lot of those sequences started for Toronto, as a
matter of fact, shed and quickly combined for fourteen assists
(04:44):
last night. But Brandon Ingram was the story. He had
his jumper going all night long. He was really targeting
Cleveland's smaller guards and switches, so a lot of hunting
like Donovan Mitchell around the elbows, a lot of hunting
Lonzo Ball around the elbows. He also looks pretty comfortable
against Jalen Tyson down there because he could just shoot
over the top. He took a lot of jump shots,
twenty six of them, to be exact, but I liked
(05:06):
most of them, Like there were a couple of like
especially at the very final few possessions of the game.
There were a couple like, Okay, he's just dribbling out
the clock and just kind of settling. You don't love those,
But most of them were like late clock grenade where
he'd have the ball with five seconds left and they
needed him to create something, or driving kick sequences where
they needed someone to confidently step into a pull up
(05:28):
three or a quality matchup attack, like Okay, he's got
Lonzo Ball on him, or he's got Donovan Mitchell on him,
it's makes sense for him to go to a little
short jump shot. That's been a really high percentage shot
for us this season, right, And so out of those
twenty six jump shots that he took, he got twenty
nine points out of them, and it ended up being
an efficient play type for Toronto in that game. And
(05:51):
Brandon's jump shooting has been kind of interesting this year
because when he's wide open for three, he's hitting them
like crazy. He's eleven for twenty four on unguarded catch
and shoot threes this season. That's forty six percent is
off the dribble. Jump shooting has been excellent. He's fifty
four percent on pull up twos off the dribble, especially
efficient when he gets inside of that fifteen foot mark,
inside of that seventeen foot mark. Excuse me, six for
(06:13):
seventeen on pull up threes. That's thirty five percent. That's
eighteen points on seventeen shots. That's not bad. That's solid,
and he actually ended up hitting one of the biggest
shots of the games. I Donovan Mitchell went on a
little run late where he hit a couple of threes
that cut a ten point lead to four, and similar
kind of situation. Late clock grenade gets handed to Brandon
Ingram all of a sudden, it's like he's got to
(06:34):
create something, just gets a little step back separation, going
towards his right and barely gets his feet behind the
three point line and knocks down that like one of
the toughest shots for a right handed shooter, step back
three going to your right hits that one that was
a big shot in this game that essentially like stymied
the run and helped Toronto close the deal. It's really
just his contested catch and shoot threes that have been
(06:56):
an issue dragging down his percentages this year. When he
shoots a contested catch and shoot three, he's just nine
for thirty eight or twenty four percent. That's really the
one thing that's dragging his percentages down. He's actually shooting
really well on jump shots and basically every other phase
of the game overall, though, I think what he brings
is just a very valuable CounterPunch. As you know, if
(07:17):
you think of the primary source of Toronto's offense as
like defense to transition, they're one of the best transition
teams in the league. Rim pressure off of the guards
like what we talked about, excuse me, like the guards,
like we talked about Scottie Barnes, like we talked about
brandon Ingram is a counter to that with his over
the top shot making. When things break down, he can
provide that little extra bit of ceiling raising offense with
(07:38):
his ability to hit jump shots over the top. The
Raptors also got going in their transition attack in that
third quarter. They had thirteen transition points just in the
third quarter alone, a lot of nice runouts for dunks
and threes. That was where a couple of brandon Ingram's
threes came from, again trailing the play in transition, just
rising up confidently into that shot. The Raptors had seven
(08:00):
total transition points in the game, which obviously is an
awesome number. They've now moved up to the third best
transition offense in the NBA, averaging thirty points per game,
just two behind Miami and just four behind Chicago's, currently
the best transition offense. A couple other Raptors show shout outs.
Jacoby Walter, he obviously didn't have a big box score game,
(08:21):
but I thought he made some big like momentum plays
filling in for RJ. Barrett in that starting spot. He
had a big like pick six steel in the first
half where Evan Mobley had his back turn, jumped in there,
took the ball, went down and got it done. He
had an offensive rebound scrap of possession that they didn't score,
and he just and Yaka Purtle was not in position
to get the rebound, but Jacoby just came in there
(08:41):
and battled and tipped at it and ended up making
its way over to Yaka Purtle ended up grabbing it
and going up reverse for an and one layup hit
a big kickout three in the third quarter that pushed
the lead to eight. All big momentum plays, again trying
to find a way to impact winning despite not having
the level of talent that a guy like RJ. Barrett has.
Sandro mamukelos Villi had a crazy first half run checked
(09:04):
into the game with the Raptors down twenty three to seventeen,
and like bang bang Bang, scored eight points, hit a
couple of corner threes, and an offensive rebound put back
hit a guy cutting to the basket off of the wing.
Really nice burst offensively that helped Toronto in that first half,
and then all night, I thought their defense was really good.
I know, Cleveland was down most of their offensive talent,
and you know, obviously that's going to force some guys
(09:27):
into some larger roles than they would typically be in.
But you could really tell that Toronto's length was like
an issue for Cleveland's guards like Donovan Mitchell was six
for twenty. He had a lot of like, really tough
shots that he missed. Lonzo Ball was three for fifteen,
a lot of great contests in there. Toronto's now won
eight games in a row, their top three in both
offense and defense in that span. They're sixth in rebounding.
(09:49):
A couple of nice wins in that streak too, a
couple against Cleveland and then one against Philly. They should
push the streak to ten. They got Indiana and Charlotte next,
so my guess is Toronto pushes the streak to ten,
But then they have a big showdown with the New
York Knicks on Sunday in Madison Square Garden, which will
be their next major test on the Cavs front. Not
really a whole lot you can take away from a
(10:10):
game like this. When you're down that much of your offense,
you're gonna see you guys get slotted into outsized roles.
Like Lonzo has never taken more than eight shots in
a game this year. He took fifteen of them last night.
We had a lot of like on ball reps for
Tyres Proctor random possessions where a role player has to
put the ball on the floor, and then obviously for
Mobiley and Mitchell, everything gets tougher. Those dudes were getting
(10:30):
swarmed all over the place. Mobley only got seven shots
up in this game. Turned the ball over a little
bit too, because he was just getting swarmed every time
he got the ball in the middle of the floor.
And then once you start asking Donovan Mitchell to just
make a bunch of tough pull up jumpers against a
team that has the length that Toronto has, it's just
a really tough ask. There were some bright spots though.
Nakwon Tomlin, who started the season zero for fourteen from three,
(10:52):
hit two more threes tonight. He's three or last night,
I should say three for six from three in his
last two games. That's like a nice little development. By
the way, was stepping in confidently into those threes last night.
Jalen Tyson is showing some of his slashing ability. He
had some really tough layups in this game, so I
was digging into his numbers. He's sixty one percent on
layups this season, nineteen for thirty one. Not a lot
(11:14):
of role player like three and D guy type of
players that are that efficient on layups. And then once
again two for three from three from Tyson last night.
He's shooting twenty one for thirty nine on unguarded catch
and shoot threes this year. That's fifty four percent forty
six percent overall on threes. But ultimately, the Cavs are
a little banged up. They were on a tail end
(11:35):
of a back to back. That's a tough one to
get under any circumstances. Okay, I wanted to go over
a couple of big individual performances last night, and then
I just have some quick thoughts on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
So starting with the men, Thompson slotted into a larger
offensive role obviously with Kevin Durant out of the lineup
dealing with the personal matter, and Houston got a nice
road win over the Suns. Their defense was really the
story of the game. They held the Suns to just
(11:56):
ninety two points. Aside from losing control of Dylan Brooks
for a little bit, they pretty much had the game
under control in the defensive end. But a men Thompson
goes for twenty eight points, seven rebounds, and eight assists
just showcase all the stuff that is super exciting about
his game. Did some of the usual damage that he
does as a cutter under the rim. Did a lot
of work as a connective playmaker in the middle of
(12:17):
the floor too, like he'd catch the ball cutting along
the baseline, or he catched the ball in the middle
of the floor and make the next pass like a
really nice drop off pass under the rim for Jabari
Smith dunking, or a kickout to Aaron Holiday up top.
He ended up generating a couple of those Aaron Holiday threes.
And by the way, Aaron Holliday's jump shooting as of
late has been a huge boost to this Houston offense.
(12:38):
He's been just on fire as of late. I think
he's averaging twelve points per game over his last five.
Really nice game last night, obviously, but a men Thompson
did a lot of work of the usual kind of
type that we see in this offense, like along the
baseline in the middle, either scoring with quick little dunks,
cutting along the baseline, or making that next connective pass.
But we saw so much more on ball stuff for
(13:00):
obvious reasons, with kd out a lot of ISOs and
ball screens off the wing, which are becoming a staple
in a men Thompson's game. We've talked about this before,
but he has this amazing ability. It's arguably his best
superstar offensive trait. You know, we think of him as
one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, but
he has this, like if you wanted to point to
(13:20):
a foundational trait that could one day make him an
all star level offensive player, it's the fact that he
can consistently beat people off the dribble and get into
the short range and then from there he can just
pop back up off the ground like either just elevate
over the top or he'll lean back, which takes an
enormous amount of athleticism, and he'll shoot like these little
five foot seven foot jump shots or floaters, like little
(13:43):
bits of short range shot making that are basically impossible
to guard. It's that John Morant type of concept that
I always talk about, Like, the ability to beat people
off the dribble is great because that's going to get
you to the rim a lot, but the ram often
leads to health defense, right, and so that's where it
becomes about playmaking and some sort of over the top
shot making. And it does not necessarily have to be threes,
(14:05):
although that's a ceiling razer for sure, but if you
can at least knock down those little short range shots,
then you have the playmaking ability to balance it out.
That's a foundational superstar trade on the offensive end of
the floor. He had three of those last night where
he just one on one, got into the lane, defended
really well, dude beats him to the spot, doesn't matter,
just rises up over the top and hits like that
(14:25):
little one handed jump shot or a little short jump
shot right. That's kind of one of his foundational types
of traits. He had a play where he ran in
a two man game with Olpriam Shangoon and Dylan Brooks.
Went way under the pick and so he just settled
into like a little jump shot around the foul line
and knocked it down. He hit a very similar shot
like that in the Denver game last week on Friday.
(14:47):
That's one of those ones where if he starts to
hit that like the little foul line pull ups, I
don't know what you do with him. Even hit a
corner three to wrap things up in the late fourth quarter.
Just a really really nice game for a men. Thompson.
He's averaging a career high at eighteen points per game
this year Andy career high five point two assists per game.
Really nice work in a larger than usual role last
(15:08):
night on the road in Phoenix. And once again another
young Rockets star like we talked about with Shanegon, who's
barely scratching the surface of his potential and who knows
what level he can reach and what that means for
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or Virginia. Tyler Harrow made his debut for the Heat
last night. I was really interested to see how he
would look in the new system, like we talked about
off the top, Like would he come in and play
(17:16):
in the Heat system, like drive in, kick, generate, drill,
penetration one on one like everyone else's thriving as a
scorer in off ball situations off of the chaos generated
by the other drivers, Or would Spolster go this is
a great time for us to add a little bit
more variety and run some more like Tyler Bam two
man game. And you know, then I see the box
(17:37):
score from last night and Tyler has twenty four points
with only two three point attempts, both of which he missed,
and I was immediately like, Oh, this is gonna be
super interesting. I was excited to see how like the
actual process with which they got Tyler Harrow to that
twenty four point mark. And the answer is, we got
literally zero reps of the Tyler Bam two man game.
(18:00):
There's a funny possession in the second half where Tyler
caught the ball in the left wing and Bam like
kind of went up like he was gonna set his
screen and you're like, oh, here we go, and then
he ended up just cutting through to the other side.
It's like, Nope, they're not gonna do it now. To
be clear, I would not be surprised. As a matter
of fact, I would be shocked if they didn't eventually
do this. But I do think that over the course
of the season we'll see little bits and pieces of
(18:21):
the Tyler Bam two man game, especially in like late
game situations when they're looking for something to spam. I
don't think they're gonna completely abandon it, but last night
ended up being an opportunity for them to basically just
be like, let's see what it looks like if Tyler
Harrow just plays within this Miami heat system, and it
honestly looked amazing like he he We got zero reps
(18:45):
of the Tyler Bam two man game. We did get
two off ball pinned downs where he came off of
action with kelll Ware and he ended up getting in
that like those off ball pin downs effectively mimic a
ball screen because they're covered the same way, like the
defender usually is gonna chase you over the top and
the big is going to be in some variation of
a drop coverage. And he ended up facing two deeper
drop coverage looks in those off ball pinned downs with
(19:07):
kell al Ware, and he was able to get into
his drop coverage bag, which is like that little floater
in the lane right. He missed his first one in
the first half, and he made his second one that
was actually a huge play in the in the fourth
quarter as the first of a stretch where Miami scored
on five possessions in a row. But everything else outside
of those two two man game reps with kell al Ware,
(19:28):
everything else was like firmly in Miami's driving kick system,
like he was attacking gaps in transition for quick little
driving floaters and things along those lines, attacking closeouts with
just quick drives off of kickouts from heat drives. This
is actually how he hit the game winner. He you know,
the Miami gets a stop, there's a little transition pushhead
Pela Larson's probing kind of along the right lane line
(19:50):
and Max Christi ends up sinking too deep in help,
Pela Larson pitches it back to Tyler Harrow on the
right wing, and Max is closing out hard right on
his right shoulder right. So that's one of those baked
in driving lanes we always talk about. Tyler Harrow just
rips to the left cleanly beats Max. PJ. Washington steps
up and help, but he just shoots this like sky
high floater. Really impressive piece of shot making. But that
(20:12):
ended up being basically the game winner. And that's the
off ball scoring element that I think Tyler's just gonna
absolutely feast on. This is something that Norman Pale has
been doing for the entire start of the season. But
like when you've got guys like Davion Mitchell that can
dribble drive and start the advantage process, Jaime Hawkes that
can dribble drive in post and start the advantage process,
(20:33):
the transition pushes which can in and of themselves start
the drive and kick process. Tyler Harrow is going to
get a lot of opportunities to attack closeouts and he's
just gonna be insanely good at that because that's you know,
his combination of ability to hit catch and shoot threes,
but also to do lots of like kind of countermove
scoring in the middle of the floor. He's just going
(20:54):
to be a really high level player attacking closeouts in
this system. And then every time he caught the ball
out front, like in a clean one on one where
the defense wasn't broke down, he just attacked. No ball screens,
he just attacked one on one. And this is where
it actually got super interesting to me because in theory,
this is not a strength of Tyler Harrow's game. He's
not exactly a slasher, like a guy that's just gonna
(21:14):
just toast people off the dribble one on one, and
he's only an OK one on one player. Like last
year's shooting out of ISO, he was forty fifth percentile,
which is slightly below average. And you can see when
he was ripping on his drives like it wasn't like
he was just clean beating Max Christy off the dribble
on that first attack, although to his credit, he did
have a big one late against Ryan Nemhard off the
(21:35):
left wing where Nemhard was squared up with him and
he just ripped a left and did cleanly beat Ryan
hit a little bank shot. By the way, Ryan Nedmhard
was like the easy target from Miami down the stretch.
Davion Mitchell went right through him for an easy layup.
Tyler Harrow went right through him for an easy layup.
But other than that play against Ryan Nemhard, like Max
Christi in particular, he's too quick for Tyler Harrow to
(21:58):
just cleanly beat off the dribble right and I thought
Tyler did a really nice job of just making aggressive
driving moves in a way that at least forced Max
to take a big backward step before he would try
to cut him off. And so for the most part
he would cut off Tyler, but not until he got
into that short range. And once he got into that
(22:19):
short range, he was able to get into his short
range shot making game. And similar to what we were
talking about with the men Thompson, he would just pop
up off the ground, hit a little righty float, or
hit a little left he float, or hit a little
short jump shot. He hit like a tougher step back
jump shot along the left baseline in the second half
on a play where Max cut him off a little
bit earlier. But you know, honestly, like that's really valuable
(22:40):
over the top scoring for this Miami team, because again,
like there will be stretches where they can start cutting
off these drives, not even just for Tyler, but for
Daveon and for Hime and for any of these guys
that get their one on one opportunities. But Tyler, like
in the one on ones, I think he ended up
running five ISOs last night and getting six points out
of them if I remember correctly, he got a bunch
(23:01):
of those like little easy, little short range jump shots
in his one on ones. And similarly in the quick
little closeouts he'd attack when he would get cut off,
he could at least pop up off the ground in
that short range Like it's really impressive to go for
what was that twenty four points on eighteen shots with
no free throws, Really really impressive work from Tyler Harrow
(23:24):
and kind of like a really nice little taste of
what it will look like when he's scoring within Miami system. Again,
I do think over time, Spolsure will incorporate some more
screening action for him. I think especially in atos too,
I think we'll see a little bit of that kind
of stuff and clutch situations. I think we could see
some more of that kind of stuff, some matchup specific
(23:44):
stuff like teams that are running more deep drop. I
think we could see a little bit more of that
Tyler Bam two man game. But to start, Eric Spolser
is very much like, Hey, Tyler, let's see how you
can play in this new system, and Tyler just looked awesome,
no way or it. And again like only one of
those buckets, only one of his twelve made buckets came
(24:05):
in a screening action, that one little curl off of
kel Aware for the floater in the fourth quarter. Uh,
It's just crazy how consistently these the heat is just
breaking down teams one on one, Like they had a
stretch in the in the Clutch where they scored on
five consecutive possessions. And the first was that little Tyler
Harrow dropped coverage rep off of the kelll War two
(24:26):
man game where he got in the lane off the
wide pin down hit the floater. But the next four
we're all just one on once. Davion Mitchell one on
one through Ryan Demhart, easy too. Jim Hawkins just goes
right at PJ. Washington and draws a foul. Tyler Harrow
goes right through Ryan Demhart for an easy two. Pella
Larson like stares down Cooper flag and just rips through
to the left and beats him cleanly off the tribble
for a layup. It's crazy how consistently they get into
(24:49):
the lane on their one on once and the hot
streak from Miami continues. They've now won five games in
a row. Their bigs were awesome once again. Kellel continues
to put up video game numbers. He had twenty in
eighteen last night. Again. He had been averaging like fifteen
and fifteen in the previous stretch the last like six
or seven games a couple weeks before that. Had a
big lob dunk late too, on similar type of play
(25:12):
where Daveion Mitchell just beat his man off the dribble
to the middle, got kell El's man to step up
just a little bit, just pitched it up in the air,
boom two handed dunk as he gets behind Daniel Gafford
there along the baseline. Bam had seventeen and six and
he made the biggest defensive play of the game. Late.
There's an inbounds pass, guys open in the corner. Bam
(25:33):
is kind of like denying a different catch right there,
right in front, and he closes off the whole passing lane.
They try to throw it over the top to the corner.
He just elevates and steals that pass, one of the
biggest plays of the game. On the defensive end, Head
are playing some really good fun basketball right now again
their fifth consecutive win. And then really quickly some thoughts
on the Timberwolves, and they're blown leads, so many late
(25:55):
game execution errors, Like there's gonna be a lot to
talk about their offense, and yeah, it's not great. There
are some really bad possessions in there. I was like,
there was a possession where like Ant's just dribbling the
air out of the basketball against Russell Westbrook at the
top of the key and ends up just taking a
like ridiculously difficult step back three going to his right.
Just a really bad possession. There's another one where like
he wants to get into a short range game, but
(26:16):
he ended up like driving he was starting too far
on the left wing and then drove left, which there
just wasn't that much space to operate. I think there's
a level of deliberateness with that where it's like, if
you want to turn over your right shoulder for a
fade away. You got to create more space to turn
over that right shoulder, so like slide it a little
bit further up towards the middle, drive closer to the
(26:38):
elbow so that when you spin, you're not in too
much traffic there in the corner. There's like a lot
of like those like little tiny details with ant that
I think are still kind of coming along. But to me,
that's all secondary to the fact that there are blatant
execution errs, Like sometimes shots are going to go in
or they won't. Like for the bad possessions. Aunt also
(26:59):
missed like a wide open layup right at the rim
that he left short, a little bank shot on the
left side. Jade McDaniels had a wide open three at
the top of the key that he missed in crunch time.
Like those one of those goes in. Maybe it makes
up for one of those bad possessions, right, Like to me,
I'm more focused on, like you gave up too easy
transition runouts like a dunk from Alik Monk and another
(27:21):
one for Keegan Murray. It's like that's just your You're
not getting back the game winner for Sacramento. Another bad
transition defense, possession in overtime where Keegan Murray's wide open
on the right wing because you're not running back. There
are two possessions where you just threw the ball away
in transition you get a steal and then you run
a throw a bad kick ahead pass, or you get
a stop and you throw a bad kick ahead pass. Like,
(27:41):
there are blatant execution errors where I think that I
think they can just be better. You know, like there's
a certain element of Minnesota is going to have a
hot and cold offense by nature of what they do.
They're very much a rim and three type of team.
They have a young super star that is still experiencing
some growing pains in his late game execution. Some of
(28:04):
that's going to naturally be hot and cold. What you
can't afford is the controllables going out of your favor.
You can't afford giving up easy kick ahead dunks because
you're not running back in transition. You can afford to
turn the basketball over before you even get into the
front court. And then again, the Phoenix game was the
same way to sloppy turnovers and execution errors. So like,
(28:27):
to me, I don't think this is a talent issue.
You played well enough to beat Phoenix, and you played
well enough to beat Sacramento. You just gotta cut out
some of these execution errors at the end of the game.
You can't afford to make that many mistakes. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again.
We will be back tonight on playback eight pm Pacific
(28:47):
time for Lakers Clippers. Our show tomorrow is actually just
going to be the late game reaction to that, So
Jackson's going to be trimming that and cutting it and
running it tomorrow, So if you want to see it,
it'll be tonight right after the final buzzer of Lakers Clippers.
Otherwise that will show up on our feeds tomorrow morning,
and then after that we're taking the holiday off, but
(29:07):
we will be back on Friday morning with the Nerd Sash. Guys.
We have our I want to about once a month,
I want to touch on contenders, so I have a
couple of tweaks to my contender rankings as well as
a just like a brief check in with all of
those teams, talking with the Nerd Sash guys. That's on Friday,
and then we also have another playback stream on Friday
night for MAVs Lakers. All right, guys, that's all I have.
(29:28):
I will see you guys tonight
Host
Jason Timpf
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