Hoops Tonight - Pascal Siakam Raptors-Pacers trade, Embiid dominates Nuggets-76ers, Clippers big win

Jason Timpf reacts to the Toronto Raptors trading Pascal Siakam to the Indiana Pacers. How dangerous has Indiana become with Siakam joining Tyrese Haliburton and a very talented Pacers team? (5:00) Jason also discusses what's next for teams like LeBron James' Lakers and Steph Curry's Warriors as the NBA Trade Deadline approaches (16:45). Later, Jason reacts to Joel Embiid's big night in the Philadelphia 76ers' 126-121 win over Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets (24:00) as well as Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers' 128-117 win over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Where do Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers rank among Jason's NBA Finals contenders? (42:00) #volume

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Episode Transcript

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com slash basketball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and
responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're
at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody, hop all if you

(01:50):
guys are having an incredible week. We got another major
NBA trade today, second one involving the Raptors as well
as Pascal Siakam is headed to the Indiana Pacers. We're
gonna bring that trade down from every angle, including some
of the teams who missed out on Pascal Siakam. Then
we're gonna talk about Joe Lumbiid solidifying his first place
position in the MVP race by out playing Yo Kitchen

(02:12):
beating the Nuggets last night. Specifically, he was incredibly impressive
on the defensive end of the floor. I want to
kind of break that concept down a little bit, and
then at the end of the show, like I said
we would, because the Clippers have made it through the Timberwolves,
and thunder Games. We're gonna place them in our contender tiers.
We're gonna do a deep dive on the Clippers and
talk about where they fit among the list of contenders. Also,

(02:33):
we did talk about doing a mail bag today, but
we're gonna push that one more day because the Siacam
trade kind of threw off my schedule today. So keep
dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. I'll look through
all three shows this week and put together a nice
mail bag for tomorrow's show, and then don't forget that.
Later tonight, after the final buzzer of MAVs Lakers on ABC,
will be going live on YouTube, so I hope to

(02:54):
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All right, let's talk some basketball. So Pascal Siakam headed
to the Indiana Pacers. Bruce Brown is the trade piece
going back from the standpoint of salary filler. And then
there's three first round picks in the deal. That said,
I absolutely love this deal for Indiana on a couple

(04:44):
of different fronts. First of all, the two first round
picks that are coming from Indiana that were Indiana's own picks,
Indiana is gonna be good, Like they're gonna be a
mid to late round first laid to mid to late
first round pick. Those are picks that have a significantly
high miss rate, right, So like that part. And then
I guess the third pick is the worst out of OKC,

(05:06):
the Clippers, the Jazz, and the Rockets, Like that's probably
gonna end up being okac's pick. So that's another late
first rounder. So basically three most likely mid to late
first rounders. And Bruce Brown, who's a good player. Bruce
Brown's a good player, and we're gonna talk abou him
a little because I wouldn't surprised if he gets traded
again or if if they end up moving a different

(05:26):
one of those guys, because the Raptors have a bunch
of players at that position. But that was the position
that the Pacers were, and they have so many guards
Tyre Salliburt and Buddy Heald, Ben Mathren, TJ McConnell, Andrew Demhard,
Aaron E. Smith kind of can function as a two
as well. It does a lot of the same stuff
Bruce Brown does, so like literally, they just had a
redundancy at that position. That's not to say Bruce Brown

(05:47):
is not good or not valuable, but he's less valuable
to the Pacers than Pascal Siakam is to the Pacers, right, Obviously,
not to mention Pascal is just a much better player,
But specifically, Pascal is an awesome basketball fit with the Pacers,
and I want to dive into that concept for a
little bit. Let's start on the offensive end of the floor. So,
as I've said so many times on the show, I
think Tyr Saliburton is a transcendently great offensive engine. I

(06:10):
think he's on that trajectory with the Steph curries. The
Nikolajokich is the Luka. The Luka Dancic is the singularly
transcendent offensive engines that you just put out on the
floor and it's like a guaranteed great shot like ninety
percent of the possessions that he's on the floor. Right, Well,
Pascal Siakam helps him both on and off the ball.

(06:30):
I want to start on the ball first, and in
this case, meaning when Pascal Siakam has the ball, he
gives an additional type of offensive shot creation once you
go past that. Like a lot of the guys on
the pacers are good advantage extenders like Miles Turner can
hit picking pop jump shots, and he can attack close
outs and things along those lines. But he's not a
guy you're just gonna dump the ball to and have

(06:51):
him be an offensive engine. Obi Toppin is almost entirely
a transition runout guy and a back door cutter, right,
That's pretty much what Obi Topin did in this offense. Buddy,
healed a lot of ghost screens going to the three
point line. He's expecting to get set up with high
quality shots. So really isn't another guy on the roster
who's a high level individual shot creator. Not only is
Siakam that, he's a very different version of that. Haliburton

(07:14):
is very much like he can beat switches. He's a
great ISO player, but he's very much like a manipulator
of the defense to generate advantage situations for other players.
That's his best trait. He's a great pull up shooter,
really quick guard with an excellent floater, and great touch
around the rim with his like scooping layups and things
like that. So I don't want to act like I'm

(07:35):
I don't want you guys to think that I'm underplaying
how good Tyres is as an on ball scorer, but
his best trade is his ability to set up people
with advantage situations right well, Pascal Siakam is much more
of that classic mismatch attacking forward right posting up there
are He's getting one point one to two points per

(07:56):
possession in post up situations including passes. Among all the
players in the league who have done it at least
one hundred and fifty times, only Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic,
and Anthony Davis have been better. So he's literally been
one of the very best post up shot creators in
the league this year, the best that's not one of
the three Titan centers that we have in the league.
Right isolation situation, Siakam gets one point zero eight points

(08:19):
per possession. That's twelve out of fifty players in the
league who have run at least seventy five. And then
a lot of talk about the jump shot with Pascal Siakam.
And don't get me wrong, it's not good, but it's
not really all that bad either. Like he's fifty five
percent on in effective field goal percentage on unguarded catch
and shoots. It's really not that bad. That's one point
zero nine points per shot. Like, so if some team

(08:42):
decides to leave him open, like he's gonna be able
to make him at a decent enough clip, right, that's
not a shot that's gonna necessarily hurt your offense. And
he's a solid closeout attacker. Gets one point zero one
points per spot up possession. That's firmly in the middle.
That's firmly average. So again it's it's appropriate to bring
it up in the sense that he's not a flamethrower,

(09:02):
but he's not a guy that's necessarily gonna hurt you
with his lack of shooting either. But where I'm most
excited with Siakam on the Pacers is off the ball.
Pascal Siakam is one of the very best transition players
in the NBA. He's made seventy eight field goals this
year in transition, that's the ninth most in the entire NBA.
And like we all know, Tyree's is an excellent kick

(09:23):
ahead passer. He's constantly That's how Obi Toppin. Obi Toppin
has basically made himself a functional starter for the Pacers
based purely on the fact that he's a good cutter
and a good good a guy that can run out
and transition right and that he provides real vertical spacing right.
That's something Ziakam is going to come in and do
right away at a really high level. Also, a very
good cutter. Scored on a cut thirty four times so

(09:43):
far the season. It's like the thirty second most in
the NBA, I think, which is definitely a lot right,
Like not one of the top cutters in the league,
but a very good cutter. He's also set eighty second
percentile for efficiency cutting and again with Tyre Saliburton running
your lane in transition cut with real vertical spacing out
of the weak side corner. These are things that are
highly highly valuable alongside a passer of his caliber. It's

(10:06):
another form of spacing. When you combine that with the
pretty solid, unguarded catch and shoot shooting, I don't think
he's going to be a bad off player for them
at all. That's it. We haven't even got to the
defensive end of the flour. This is a team that
severely lacked in interior physicality in defense. Right. Miles Turner
is a really really good defensive player as like a

(10:29):
shot blocker right, and he can do a little switching
as well. The thing with Miles, though, is what we've
seen around the league is like it's no longer protecting
the rim with your one guy, like it's that four
or five is so important. The main reason why is
as pull up jump shooting has gotten become more and
more prevalent in the league, your big man's had to
come higher and higher up to the level of the screen,

(10:50):
which creates an opening on that backside right, and that's
where the lowman comes in, the guy that can tag
the roller and pick and roll situations, help at the
rim in the event that your big man has to
step up and help elsewhere, right, cleaning up the defensive glass,
extra efforts. When a guy pump fakes and gets the
big man off the ground, that second wave is typically

(11:13):
the low man rotating back out to the perimeter. You
need an athlete that can bother things on the inside
and then do you know, two steps in a drop
step and close out and get a good contest on
a corner three point shooter. These are all things that
Sam is going to be a massive, massive upgrade for
this team. The entire physical profile of the team changes

(11:35):
with this move. I would presume there. I mean, they
might stay with Buddy Heel that it could be Ben Matherin.
But if it's Haliburton and it ends up being something
along the lines of like a Aaron Nesmith Siakam Turner
front line, that just becomes way more physically imposing than
what we've seen elsewhere this season, right, So like it

(11:58):
just adds a new dynam to the defensive physicality of
the team. By the way, he's great rebounder to average
eight rebounds a game over the last five years. Pascal
Siakam and the Pacers are a bottom five defensive rebounding
team this year. Seacom's also a very good offensive rebounder,
so that'll help them on that end of the floor
as well. But bottom line is like fundamentally increases your

(12:19):
physical profile on both ends of the floor, improves your
defensive rebounding, improves your rimp protection and overall defensive capability,
gives you an additional shot creator that can add some
variety to what you do offensively, not to mention just
making tyrese Aliburton's job easier and then in off ball
situations he is a seamless fit with Tyres Aliburton. Absolutely
loved the move. Didn't really have to give up anything

(12:41):
of real consequence. Round of applause to the Pacers. Really
really well done. Wouldn't be surprised if they're not done either.
I wouldn't be surprised if they look to shore up
that two or that three spot before the deadline as well,
although salary matching is a little tough there, so we'll
see how that goes. On the Raptors front, they already
have RJ. Barrett and Gary Trent Junior, who both like

(13:01):
r J. Barrett, can play the three, can play the two.
But to me from a size perspective, and he's actually
a pretty good point of attack defender. I look at
him more as a two. Gary Trent Junior is a
decent point of attack defenders, a pretty solid offensive player
as well. So different archetype. Bruce Brown obviously different than
both of them, but very good point of attack defender,
guy that can provide some rim pressure and transition, decent

(13:23):
ball handler, really versatile, kind of Swiss army knife type
of player. But they all kind of play that two
to three hybrid type of spot right. And so although
Garry trans Junior is more of a two, So the
question is is like, at that point, do you want
to have, you know, two of those guys making twenty
plus million, you know what I mean? And especially if
you don't plan on playing both of them together. Bruce
is having a little bit of a down shooting year,

(13:44):
and so is RJ. Barrett. So although he's been shooting
really well with the Raptors, is RJ. Barret's been playing
so well with the Raptors that they may kind of
prioritize him. But point being, it might be that Bruce
Brown is available now at the deadline in a way
that he might not have been otherwise if he was
just on the Pacers. Not sure the Pacers would have
got rid of him, but they had to get rid
of him to get Pascal Siakam. The Raptors might have

(14:05):
more need for whatever they could get back from Bruce
Brown than Bruce Brown himself. I personally, as someone who
roots for the Lakers, would absolutely love to have Bruce Brown.
D'Angelo Russell is a redundancy on the Lakers, but he's
actually a good basketball player. He makes an affordable salary,
makes less than twenty million a year, excellent passer, excellent

(14:26):
off ball shooter. He's a guy that could actually kind
of connect provide some connectivity and leadership for that Raptors team.
I think he's a I think Delo is very much
a middle of the ground asset. Like he's a guy that,
like some teams would view as a negative asset and
some teams have view as a positive asset, but only
slightly so in either direction. And no one would really
complain if he was in the trade if they were

(14:46):
getting something else that that's more of like the sweetener, right, So, like,
what if the Lakers were to give him, like you know,
D'Angelo Russell and Jalen Hood Schafino and Maxwell Lewis. That's
like literally a first round pick from last year who
hasn't been able to play for the Lakers, right, And
then Maxwell lewis an interesting little undrafted guy, although I

(15:06):
think you might have been a second round pick if
I remember correctly. And then d Lo a veteran that
could help, and maybe they throw in some second round
picks or something like that, or maybe maybe if it
push comes to shove and the Lakers really want him,
they could throw in a first round pick because they
have one that they could trade. But Bruce Brown, to
me is a guy that like is a really useful
playoff weapon. Specifically, the reason why I'd be so excited

(15:27):
with him on the Lakers is he would just add
an entire physical element to this team that they haven't
had since Alex Crusoe was on the roster. You can
imagine a lineup that hasn't engaged Lebron James in his
playoff mode with Anthony Davis and Bruce Brown on the
floor just being so much more physically imposing than some
of these lineups that we've seen from the Lakers this year,

(15:48):
although his shooting has been a little bit of an issue,
which I you know, obviously would be worried about a
little bit for the lakers sake, But he did make
a lot of threes in the postseason last year. But
Lakers aren't the only team. There are a bunch of
other teams that could potentially look at Bruce Brown as
an option. He's going to be a little bit tough
to match salaries into a Ford, especially if the Raptors
want draft compensation. So it'll be interesting to see if

(16:09):
any team gets in on that race. But he's a
guy keep an eye on the other team I wanted
to look at here is the Golden State Warriors, because
the Golden State Warriors kind of felt like the clubhouse
favorite for Siakam at least that's what it seemed like
a couple of weeks ago. And now he's off the table,
right and I don't think they can afford Lori Markinen
and I've Jeremy Grant. I'm not even sure if he's

(16:31):
going to be available, not even sure if he wants
to go play for a winning team. I'm not even
sure he wants to leave Portland. Under any circumstances. So
I'm not really sure what the deal is there, and
so the options are getting loose. But at the end
of the day, like what I look at with Golden State,
We've talked about this issue before, but to me, you're
trying to make one last run at this thing with

(16:52):
Steph and Draymond as your brackets at the one in five.
I think Clay at the two is fine as long
as you're three and four are really good basketball players.
And so I was actually looking at this today and
I wonder, because there's a specific guy that I have
my eye on here from the Brooklyn Nets. What I
would do is I call Brooklyn and I'd offer them

(17:13):
Andrew Wiggins, and I'd offer them Jonathan Kaminga, and I'd
offer them Moses Moody, and i'd offer them draft compensation,
and I'd ask for mckal bridges and Dorian Finney Smith.
And I know that that we haven't really heard much
about mckail bridges being available, but he's now in his
late twenties, and the Brooklyn Nets thing has been a
pretty clear, you know, description of the fact that mckail

(17:36):
bridges is not going to be like a foundational, franchise
altering type of talent. He's a really, really, really good
role player who makes a lot of money, because really
really good role players cost a lot of money. Jonathan
Kaminga has the potential to be a franchise altering player
right and certainly has a higher ceiling than what we

(17:58):
That's not to say he will reach that secene, but
certainly has a higher ceiling than what McHale Bridges has
been able to reach here heading into his late twenties.
This is a guy that if you've got those two guys,
that's two guys that can both defend on the perimeter
at a really high level, that can both shoot the basketball.
McKale Bridges provides some legitimate second side creation. He's not
an excellent passer, but he's a good pull up jump shooter.

(18:19):
He's a guy that can score when you put him
on an island a little bit. Now we're looking at
a lineup with you're foregoing your future, right, You're moving
on from Moses Moody and Jonathan Kaminga. That's obviously a
significant loss. I think the team is probably done with
Andrew Wiggins at this point. With everything that's gone down
since he left the team last year, he'd be basically
functioning as salary filler in that situation. If you're Brooklyn,

(18:42):
you're getting a legitimate potential future All Star in Jonathan
Kaminga and Andrew Wiggins, who's a starting level NBA wing. Right,
So you're turning two wings into two wings except for
one that you don't really have much use for, but
Jonathan Kaminga, who has legitimate long term potential. It's just
a more of a forward thinking move in terms of

(19:02):
Brooklyn's perspective. Then I'm working out there with Stephan Clay
with two excellent perimeter defenders, an additional shot creator in
Michale Bridges slots, Klay Thompson on easier achievable perimeter defense roles,
and Draymond Grain anchoring things in the front court. That
to me, is an example of a type of deal
that I would make. But I think the Warriors need

(19:23):
to be aggressive. I think they need to make something
significant change here. One of the nice things about that
specific deal too, is it keeps Chris Paul in the fold,
which allows you to kind of maintain your offensive organization
and just kind of steadiness in those non steph minutes
when he gets back from his injury, obviously, But yeah,
that's an example of a ne move that I'd be

(19:44):
looking for. But the options are running out. OG's off
the board, Pascal Siakam's off the board. Options are running out.
The Warriors got to find something, all right. Moving on
to Sixers Nuggets, So weird game because neither guy wanted
to guard each other until the very end. In terms
of jokicen Embiid, I want to start on the defensive

(20:06):
end of the floor though, because really, like I think
if these two teams were to happen to meet in
an NBA Finals series, they would go down guarding each other.
They would that keeping them off each other for the
most part was very much a regular season innings eating
type of thing. And what do you know, push comes
to shoves, tie game late, they both start guarding each other, right.

(20:27):
But I want to start on the defensive end for
Philly because the Sixers made the Nuggets do something last
night that you don't see the Nuggets do very often.
They made them rush and they made them make mistakes.
The Nuggets played seven and a half minutes excuse me
with Jokic on the fourth quarter last night and amounted
a sixty two point five offensive rating, about half worthy.

(20:49):
You'd like to see them be in that situation, right,
force them into five turnovers in the fourth quarter, And
it all comes down to, in my opinion, the job
they did, specifically Patrick Beverley and Joel Embiid guarding the
Jokich Murray actions two on two really quickly. On Patrick
Beverley just did an awesome job on Jamal Murray, specifically
with back pressure. Early in the fourth quarter. He had

(21:13):
a block on Jamal Murray late clock situation where he
kind of stripped him from behind, and that's one of
those plays where like it was a late clock situation too,
Like Jamal probably misses that shot just because it's a
really tough shot, but Pat makes an extra effort and
most importantly plants a seed up here, plants a seed
that says like, you can't see me, but I'm right
behind you and I'm coming. I'm gonna be swiping at

(21:35):
the basketball. I'm gonna be contesting your shot from behind.
I'd like it gets in the ball handler's head. And
what ended up happening is when Jamal was coming off
those ball screens, He's typically a very He's typically a
very methodical shot creator, right, He's typically a guy that's
gonna put you in jail uses size, get to spots

(21:55):
that are like fifteen feet away from the basket. But
in his two man game the end of the game,
he was just going downhill. The reason being he's terrified
that Patrick Beverly's coming from behind, right, because he's just
such a scrappy player with the way that he competes
over the top of screens and can provide that rear view,
you know, that back pressure, right, And he ended up
turning the ball over twice on these bounce passes where

(22:19):
he's just going one hundred miles an hour and just
throwing like a super quick bounce pass at the guy's
knees and like that. That's that. I want to give
Patrick Beverly credit for that, because I just haven't seen
many players kind of speed up Jamal Murray like that,
especially in a high profile game like that. And then
on the embied front, one of the things he was
doing in the fourth quarter that I thought was really
really smart was he was denying him his usual spots

(22:42):
where he catches the ball. We talked about this when
the Clippers played the Lakers a few weeks ago when
Lebron did the same thing to Kawhi Leonard. A lot
of these super strong players, they are really good at
creating easy passing windows. Right Like, if you asked me,
and I'm a relatively big guy, if you asked me
to try to deny Nicole Jokic to basketball, I would
have no chance. I've try to get in front of

(23:03):
him and just push down in my back. He'd create
an easy over the top angle, right like. Or he'd
swim move around and create another angle, and like a
two hundred and thirty pounds right like. He's just so
damn big that he makes other big humans look small.
But the thing is is Joel Embiid's one of the
few guys in the league who's actually big enough to
contend with Jokic physically, and so he was able to

(23:26):
get in front and make it so that there was
no passing angle when he was denying those entries like
to the elbow or on the post. He basically threw
the Nuggets offense off and they bailed out of those
plays and tried to do other things. There was a
play where Jokic was trying to catch the ball at
the elbow and Be denies him, and so Reggie Jackson goes,

(23:48):
oh shit, I gotta do something, and he tries to
drive downhill and ends up and then e Be. This
is the crazy part about it. He would be able
to deny Jokic and then recover to the rint. He didn't.
I Jokic at the elbow, Reggie decides to drive, he
just swim moves off. Jokic gets back and meets him
at the rint, blocks the shot or forces a really

(24:09):
ugly miss. There's another one. He's fronting Jokic in the post,
denies the post entry ball gets worked around. Jokic runs
up to the perimeter and beat just makes an impromptu
switch back onto Aaron Gordon Patrick Beverly rotates back out
to Michael Porter Junior and then he's back at the rim.
And that was one of the ones where Jamal Murray

(24:30):
ended up forcing one of those rushed bounce passes, even
though Jamal turned the corner simply because Embiid was waiting
at the rim. Again. So that concept of denying Jokic's
normal touches and his normal spots on the floor and
then also getting back and protecting the rim that literally
just threw Denver's offense for a loop. And so again

(24:52):
we can talk about the offense and we're going to,
but like, to me, the end of that game came
down to Joel Embiid, specifically with Patrick Beverly's help, just
single handedly throwing a giant wrench into Denver's offensive process,
and that allowed the other three guys to kind of
just like gap and recover, right, so like play kind
of in that middle ground where they feel comfortable closing

(25:14):
out to a shooter while also you know, digging down
and kind of disrupting things inside, and again held the
Nuggets to a sixty two point five offensive rating with
Yokic on the floor over the final seven and a
half minutes of the game. On the other end, continues
to handle doubles really well. Another tennisis night. That's his
third time this year that he's had at least ten assists.
Last year, Joel Embiid had just nine games with at

(25:35):
least seven assists. He already has thirteen this year. Just
halfway through the year, Denver was doubling one pass away
and a lot of Embiid's like face up situations, which
we'll talk about a minute because it's a strategy I
don't necessarily agree with. But he was just taking what
the defense was given him, throwing those quick one handed
passes to the guy one passed away, and they were

(25:56):
playing off of that. And then it really came down
to the face up game. Nuggets down the stretch with
these like face up jab step jumpers. It's a specific shot.
He's been making it a really high clip this year.
He's thirty five for sixty five, so well over fifty
percent on face up no dribble jump shots this year.
And like he just just just absolutely picked him apart

(26:19):
at the end of the game, was doing it there
and Gordon was doing it to nicolea Jokic from three.
It was incredibly dominant. Had a big euro step in
transition around Nikole Jokic for a layup. It was just
an unbelievably dominant game from Joel Embiid. And here's the thing,
like he said after the game to Nicole Jokic, and
I appreciated this because it's a respect to the banner.

(26:39):
You know, you guys know here shout out logan swam
had a content here at the volume. He calls me
a loyalist the banner, but like Embiid was being a
loyalist to the banner, he goes, Jokic is the best player,
and then he said something like I'll see you in
a couple of weeks, which was awesome. It's gonna be
excited to see that matchup in Denver. But here's the thing.

(27:00):
He's by far the best regular season player in the league,
and it's not particularly close. There's nobody in the league
right now impacting winning on a night to night basis
the way that Joel Embiide is over the course of
the eighty two He is far and away the MVP
front runner right now. The next step is go beat
the allegations. He has a reputation of being a playoff underperformer.

(27:23):
It's a combination of two things, in my opinion, injuries
in his jump shot failing him. They probably are connected
to some extent, right and Sixers fans are constantly pointing
that out, like give him a healthy playoff run. He
just hasn't really had a chance to show what he
can do when he's healthy in that phase and that
may or may not be true, but that's the reputation.

(27:46):
The allegations are that he's a playoff underperformer. Go beat them,
Go show everybody that they're wrong, and everything will flip
like that. Go show everyone that they're wrong. It's all
he needs to do. And if it is as simple
as him being injured, take care of yourself. Who cares
about the MVP this year. Do what you gotta do

(28:07):
to make sure you're healthy in April. And then when
he gets there, it's that jump shot because he's shooting
extremely well on those jab step jumpers or the no
dribble jumpers, but the jumper is basically where it was
last year. Overall, last year zero point nine to seven
points per Joel emb jump shot. This year zero point
nine to eight, so he's one percent better than he
was last year. The difference is last year he went

(28:29):
from zero point nine to seven points per jump shot
in the regular season down to zero point five to
nine points per jump shot in the playoffs. This has
been a consistent theme on and Beats longer playoff runs.
Doesn't shoot the jump shot as well as he did
in the regular season, which becomes a cascading effect. Guys
no longer have to stunt and deal with that shot
makes them be able to beat him to the spot better.
When he makes his post moves, it just causes things

(28:52):
to fall apart for him offensively, and that's why he
goes from looking like the MVP to looking like something
significantly worse than that when he gets to that point.
And again, injuries play a big role, but get there,
get their healthy, beat the allegations. That's the next step
for Joel Embid. I thought Tyree s Maxy had another
big night for a high profile game. I always want
to keep an eye on these kinds of games for

(29:13):
the for the young up and coming stars, because they're,
you know, reasonable fac similes of what playoff games look like.
He went for twenty five points and nine assists with
just one turnover, had a big driving layup to tie
the game in the in the fourth quarter when they
weren't matched up in transition. Good showing. And then Tyrese
excuse me, Tobias Harris. The Nuggets without Nikole Jokis were

(29:34):
making a little run there in the early fourth quarter,
and Tobias Harris literally single handedly kept the Sixers in
the game just by attacking the smaller Nuggets players in
the post and hitting little short jump shots and shots
around the rim. That matchup attacking forward is such an
important role in the NBA for that reason, because there
are so many guys on these floor on these courts

(29:55):
most of the time, especially in those like kind of
bridge moments like end of the third, early fourth, end
of the first, early second quarter, where there's like bench
players on the floor, there's lots of these smaller players
on the floor that you can attack if you have
a matchup, a matchup attacking forward that can get a
high quality shot close to the rim or draw double
team and allow you to play out of that. I
thought Tobias Harris did a really, really nice job of

(30:16):
that in the early fourth quarter on the Nuggets front
a lot of really uncharacteristic mistakes that Reggie Jackson drivery
challenged Joel Embiid at the rim. There are twelve seconds
on the shot clock, and when he missed it and
fell on the floor, the Sixers ran out. That was
when Embiid had the euro step for the layup. And specifically,
like I think I saw what Reggie was thinking on

(30:37):
that play, because so think of it like this, if
I'm in a drop coverage, I know even if I
get off of the screen, if they're in a drop coverage.
If I get off the screen, I know this guy
waiting for me. But I think he saw Embiid denying
and was like, oh shit, if I can get around
this screen and beats down at the rim, he's denying,
So all I have to do is get over the
top of the screen and then I'll be at the rim. Well, well,

(31:00):
he underestimated I think Embiid's speed. And what was crazy
is as he kind of turned the corner, Embid was
already there and then he still decided to go into
him with so much time on the shot clock. So
I thought that was bad process, right, he should have
just pulled it out, not to mention it ended in
a switch and Tyree Smacksy was on Jokic, so he
could have just you know, Yokic should have probably crashed
there too, because he probably could have got offensive rebound

(31:21):
put back or you know that how Jamal Murray always
does that thing where he kind of gets really deep
into the lane and then just kind of floats it
up in front of the rim and Yogic will go
grab it and then shoot his little pop shot. Right,
So that was kind of a challenging possession Jamal threw
two really bad bounce passes on plays where Patrick Beverley
was rushing him from behind. On the second one, it

(31:42):
was the play where Embiid was denying yokicch in the
post and the ball got worked around and ended up
in a Jamal Murray Aaron Gordon ball screen. But Joel
Embiid made an impromptu switch back onto Aaron Gordon at
the last second and Patrick Beverly had to rotate out
to Michael Porter Jr. There was like a two second
indo there where they ran to jokicch at the top

(32:02):
of the key and Michael Porter Jr. Was wide open
on the right wing and Jamal Murray just missed him
before he ran in and turned it over. Jokic transitioned possession.
There was a play where Jamal Murray tried to backcut
on I think Tyree s Maxi and Jokic just threw
a really bad bounce pass. First of all, the back
cut wasn't open, and then he also threw a bad
pass and so it just went out of bound. So

(32:24):
that was sloppy again. Five turnovers for the Nuggets in
the fourth quarter, and then the defense wasn't very good
they had two possessions where they didn't get matched up
in transition the first one, Like I clipped both of
these plays. I took this entire stretch run by the
Way and did a clip by clip analysis of it
on my Twitter feed at underscore json lts. You guys
can find that there. But like, because I've had a
lot of people in the comment say, you know, hey,

(32:45):
ja's gonna be really nice if we had video underneath
the clips, and this is what I'm gonna say, I
know that I'd love to have that right now, We're
not set up for that. That's just the reality. So
my counter is every morning when I'm doing a film session,
I catalog this. Not every morning, but most of the
mornings that I do a film session, I'm cataloging these

(33:05):
plays in threads on the feed, and so there you
can go to try to see some more visual examples
of the things I'm talking about. I really hope and
I believe that in the long run, we will be
able to do that on the show. We're just not
at that point right now. So I appreciate the feedback.
I promise you guys, it's something that I really want
to do. It's just a question of logistics at this point,

(33:26):
and we'll see when we get to that point. Anyway, though,
you can see on this particular transition possession, you can
see Yokic screaming to Reggie Jackson, like go pick up
Tyres Maxie, what are you doing? Go pick him up?
And he just didn't get there in time. Reggie Jackson
or Tyris Maxy just shot down the lane and got
a right in a lamp. That was the one that
Michael Porter Junior goaltended. Then there was another one where

(33:46):
this one was Jokic's fault running out in transition. It
was the it was after the Reggie Jackson forced layup
that he missed. Jokic in transition defense is supposed to
run to the rim. Instead he ran out to Patrick
Beverley in the corner and when no one was at
the rim, and so then he had to sprint back
into the play when he saw Embiid coming and it
was like a close out situation in transition. It's just
there's no chance. If he's waiting there, he can probably

(34:09):
force him Bead to pull it out. He wasn't waiting there,
he was sprinting there. That was when embiad hit him
with that eurostep and got to the basket. So two
bad transition defense possessions led to led to easy layups.
It just again and then the jumpers you got to
live with. But like there was, they were just sloppy
on both ends of the floor. It was an uncharacteristic
Nuggets performance. That said, I do want to credit the

(34:30):
Sixers because I thought they kind of played the Nuggets
into those bad tendencies with really really good defense, especially
by Joel Embiid. Here's the reality. The Sixers are a
little bit of a tough matchup for Denver. Embiid is
big enough to challenge Jokic physically, like we mentioned earlier,
in a way that most NBA centers aren't. There were
only two possessions in the game where Yokic actually posted

(34:51):
up Joel Embiid individually, and he got good looks on both.
There's a up and under where he had a left
handed layup that he missed, and then there was a
right handed hook shot that he got that was relatively
easily So hard to say exactly how that matchup would
look in a bigger picture of this phase of their
careers because they didn't guard each other that much. That said, like,
there's no doubt that mb does match up better with

(35:11):
Jokic than most of these centers around the league. And
then on the other end of the floor, there's just
nobody on Denver that can guard Joel Embiid. But the
question is that doesn't matter if Philly's not good enough
to get out of the Eastern Conference, because right now
I would pick Boston and Milwaukee over Philly. So like, yeah,
it's a bad matchup for Denver, but unless Philly makes
some sort of trade to provide some more perimeter talent,

(35:33):
I just don't necessarily think they're good or or unless
Joel emb just goes transcendently great in the postseason, I
don't necessarily see them making the finals, which puts them
in a situation where where Denver might not even have
to see that specific matchup. And outside of that, there's
just like, he doesn't have any problems with Anthony Davis.
I mean, maybe we'll see if Anthony Davis can reverse
that trend this year, but he didn't have any problems

(35:54):
with Anthony Davis, doesn't have any problems with any of
these other centers out West. It's the one guy who's
kind of big enough to kind of challenge him in
that sense. Hopefully we'll get to see more examples of
them on each other one on one when they play
in a couple of weeks. A playoff series would be
fun to see between those two, wouldn't it. They would
get nasty. I think they would end up guarding each

(36:16):
other for the most part. That's a series i'd love
to see. One other note with Denver, if there was
one kind of crack in the armor that's worth calling
attention to, it's Jokic's jump shot down the stretch of
the game. Nicola had I think two wide open threes.
There was at least one in the corner, one at
the top, and then maybe one more. But like he

(36:36):
had some wide open looks and he missed him both.
And here's the thing. Last year, in the regular season,
a Jokic jumper was worth one point one to seven
points per shot. In the playoffs, it was worth one
point two to one points per shot. And as I've
talked so much about on the show, over the Top,
shot making was a huge part of Denver winning, like

(36:58):
the Lakers were in every single game of that Western
Conference Finals. And then Jokic and Murray shot them out
of it at the end. That was a big part
of it. There's a highlight rail going around of Jokic
just bombing crazy jumpers over the top on their way
to winning the title. That was a big part of one,
the only part so much more that Denver does well,
but that is one of the things that helped them
get over the top this year. Or Yokiics jump shot

(37:19):
is worth just one point zero four points per jump shot.
That's in that like Lebron James territory, right for the record,
that's seventeen percent down from where it was last year
in the postseason. Not seventeen percent shooting, but seventeen percent
relative to where it was last year, from one point
two to one down to one point oh four. That's
roughly seventeen percent, right. So there's a significant decline in

(37:42):
Yokic's jump shot, and we saw that the year before
last two, and so I would like to see Jokic
have an extended stretch of hot shooting before the postseason
just to demonstrate that he still has that in his bag,
because I do think it's a very very important thing
to kind of add to that margin and margin of
error that Denver has all right, before we get out here,

(38:03):
it's hot Clippers. Big win against Oklahoma City last night,
as I expected, As I told you guys after this
Minnesota Timberwolves win, my initial kind of interpretation interpretation of
the Clippers is they're kind of matchup dependent, and they're
going to struggle a lot with a lot of these
bigger teams that can kind of bully them. And then
they're going to especially the ones that have good perimeter defenders,
that can make long perimeter defenders that can challenge Paul

(38:23):
George and Qui pull up jump shots. And then I
thought they would kind of throttle the other perimeter teams,
the other finesse teams right, and they kind of handled Okay.
See last night, albeit okay, see on the tail end
of a back to back Paul George was absolutely magnificent
down the stretch. Hit a huge pull up jump shot
over Jaln Williams, a couple of nasty, tough, tight windows,
short opening catch and shoot jump shots at a big

(38:46):
reverse dunk and transition at the end of it. Was
crazy Paul George performance. But as I said before the
Minnesota game, after these two games, I want to add
the Clippers to my contender list, and I just wanted
to see those two games before we got there. In
those two game, Sames kind of legitimize most of my
beliefs about this team at this point in the season.
So let's talk Clippers big picture first, and let's start

(39:07):
with the good. They have diversity of shot creation. That's
a major thing for me. They have a finesse wing,
a power wing, and a pick and roll maestro. Right.
Paul George is your you know, a dribble dribble drible
dribble pull up shooter guy. Kawhi Leonard is your fight
for short range pull up jump shots close to the
basket that are a little more high percentage, super super efficient. Right.
I think James Harden is a guy that can set

(39:29):
them up in advantage situations out of pick and roll.
They also are an excellent shooting team. They get one
point one to two points per spot up possession, which
is the fifth best in the league, and they shoot
thirty nine point six percent from three, which is the
best in the league. And play types, they are the
fourth most efficient post up team in the league. They
are the second most efficient ISO team in the league,

(39:50):
and they are the seventh most efficient pick and roll
team in the league. On the defensive end, they are
fourteenth in defensive rating. But it's kind of confusing because
they're the fourth best half court defense according to Cleaning
the Glass, but they're the third worst transition defense according
to Cleaning and the Glass. So there are a good
half court defense an atrocious transition defense, which combines to

(40:11):
make for an average defense. That said, typically the transition
defense is something that can get cleaned up in the postseason.
They're excellent on the perimeter, they're excellent on help recover situations.
They're just not great in rim protection, but they do
protect the paint reasonably well. They are eleventh in points
in the paint allowed. They are also twelfth and three
pointers made allowed. And again, there are a lot of noise

(40:32):
there in terms of transition defense. Here's the beat. I
have three main concerns, and before we go any further,
every team I have major concerns for except for Denver,
and even with them, I have the Yokics jump shot thing,
which I talked about earlier, which is a little bit
of a concern. Like Boston and Denver, I have little concerns.
I'm a little concerned about Boston's late game decision making

(40:52):
and just overall offensive process. I'm a little bit concerned
about Denver as it pertains to Jokic's jump shooting and
whether or not he can reach the level he did
last year in the postseason. But all the other teams
have major concerns. Like Milwaukee's not as good offensively in
my opinion, as they need to be in order to
make up for their defensive deficiencies, and their pick and
roll or their point of attack defense stuff is a

(41:12):
real problem. The Lakers are just lifeless right now, so
it's hard to even tell what they're good and bad at.
They look terrible one night, awesome the next, and they
certainly need to make a trade. They're weak in overall
offensive skill, They're weak in kind of perimeter speed. They've
got a lot of stuff they got to address at
the deadline right Like the Phoenix Suns, physicality is a
major issue. They fall apart offensively in the fourth quarter

(41:32):
as well. Minnesota is a terrible half court offense, so
they're an excellent defensive team, but they can really struggle
in the chess match stuff at the end of game.
So like or in slow down environments. So like every
team has major issues. So when I talk about these
major issues for the Clippers, don't take it as like
me trying to pick them apart. I'm trying to pick
everybody apart. That's the point. I'm trying to get to
the point where I can have a better understanding of
this when we get to April. Here are my three

(41:55):
concerns for the Clippers. One, they take the second most
pull up jump shots in the league. Two, they're a
bottom ten defensive rebounding team. They give up an offensive
rebound on forty three point three percent of their opponents
misses in clutch situations too, that's second worst in the league.
So there are a bad defensive rebounding team who's incredibly

(42:15):
bad in close game situations late. And Then three, they
do not score in the paint. They're seventeenth in points
in the paint per game. Now, let's elaborate that on
that a little bit. Number one, they take the second
most pull up jump shots in the league. Why does
that matter Because they hunt and depend on difficult shot
making and that's just a tough way to win in
the playoffs. We've seen that with Phoenix, We've seen that

(42:37):
with the nets teams, right, like when you rely on
difficult shot making, not as a counter, not like late
clock situations, you know, being really picky about when you
take pull up jump shots based on the coverage, but
like you lean on interior shot making and advantage creation
and the shots close to the rim and wide open
catch and shoot situations and stuff like that. It should

(43:00):
be the other way around, Like you should rely on
that stuff and then have the pull up shooting be
a counter or something you're more selective with. That, to me,
is the best shot profile for a playoff team. The
Clippers are the other way around. They depend and lean
into and hunt and rely on difficult shot making, and
just what ends up happening a lot of times is
like guys that you see make tough shots in the

(43:22):
regular season gets more physical, guys start to wear down,
the grind of the playoffs takes a toll over two
to three series, and then suddenly it's like he's just
not quite getting as much lyft on that pull up
jump shot and he starts to miss him. Right. So
that's something that's not unique to the Clippers. That's something
I talk about around the league. For example, four of
the five champions since Kevin Durant and Steph Curry were

(43:42):
playing together for the Warriors in one in twenty eighteen,
four of the five champions were low volume pull up
shooting teams. The one high volume pull up shooting team
was Milwaukee, and they had Giannis bulldozing to the rim
throughout the entire playoff run. It was Chris and Drew
taking all the pull up jump shots. So, like NBA

(44:03):
history tells us, typically high volume jump shooting teams aren't
going to be the ones who hoisted the trophy at
the end of the day. Also, Milwaukee wasn't second in
the league in attempts there. Secondly, rebounding, four of the
five teams that won the title since Kevin Durant Steph
hoisted the trophy in twenty eighteen were eleventh or better
in defensive rebounding percentage, and the Clippers are bottom ten

(44:26):
and absolutely atrocious and clutch situations. Like we talked about
the one exception, the one team out of that five
was Toronto with Kawhi Leonard. They were eighteenth in defensive
rebounding and they were a much better defensive rebounding team
than this particular Clippers team. Is. Lastly, lack of paint
scoring is pretty simple. They don't get a lot of
easy shots close to the rim. They depend on guys

(44:48):
making jump shots. There's more variance in jump shooting. You
can control jump shooting for the most part, but there
is a variance element to it. And that variance element
is not there with a round the rim shooting, or
at least to a much much smaller extent. So NBA
history tells us that this kind of team construct typically
doesn't win. That doesn't mean they won't win, doesn't mean

(45:10):
they can't win, just means it's less likely. Right as
far as like the you know, the the other narrative stuff,
like everyone's saying James Harden isn't just called a playoff choker,
you know, as as some sort of caricature of himself
like it's it's a basketball thing. He at this phase
of his career struggles to be people off the dribble

(45:30):
and finish around the rim in a playoff setting when
the intensity and physicality goes up a level. Last year
outside of two games, was downright atrocious in the in
the playoffs. And so that doesn't mean it can't happen.
And again, Philly fans will tell you he was hurt
coming off of an achilles thing that was bothering him
during the regular season. I don't want to deny that,
but we have a long extended sample that when we
get to that level, James's efficacy drops a level it's

(45:53):
worth mentioning. Doesn't not the end all be all, but
it's worth mentioning. So the question is where do they
go in my list of contenders. So right now I've
Denver at one, Boston at two, Milwaukee at three. I've
decided that the teams below that have bigger question marks.
The Lakers have to nail their trade, have to rebuy in.

(46:14):
By tricking off the regular season, they put themselves in
a situation where if Lebron or Anthony Davisucker suffer a
significant injury, they will miss the playoffs, so they've removed
their margin for air. The Warriors same thing, have to
nail a bunch of trades. Minnesota's half court offense, I
think is a real issue. I think they're gonna run
into some problems where they get absolutely shut down at
some phases of the playoffs. So I'm putting the Clippers

(46:35):
in at number four. Also, I want to add Oklahoma
City and Philly to this list eventually, but I want
to do some deep dives on film and some numbers
with them, so I'm gonna wait until further down the
line to do so. But I will be adding Oklahoma
City and Philly to that as well. But Clippers right
now my fourth leading championship contender. All right, guys, that

(46:56):
is all I have for today is always. I sincerely
appreciate you supporting the show. Don't forget. Tonight after Mavericks,
Lakers will be going live on YouTube and then tomorrow
will pick like one or two. But I think I'm
gonna hit I think it's a Bucks Calves tonight too
on ESPN, So I'll hit like Bucks Calves tomorrow and
we'll do a mail bag as well, so I will
see you guys. Then. I appreciate you guys, See you tomorrow.

(47:42):
The volume