November 17, 2025 • 41 mins
Jason reacts to Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun leading the Houston Rockets to an overtime win over Desmond Bane and the Orlando Magic, Jaylen Brown's Boston Celtics surviving a late surge against James Harden and the Los Angeles Clippers, and the Atlanta Hawks getting their fifth straight win over the Phoenix Suns. Then he gives his latest NBA power rankings including some surging teams such as the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Monday, everybody. If all of you guys
had an incredible weekend, you got a jam pack show
for you guys today. We had an incredible night in
(00:24):
the NBA again yesterday. This has been a very entertaining
start to the NBA season, a lot of nights like
last night with a bunch of highly entertaining games. We're
gonna be breaking down three games from last night's slate,
the Houston Rockets winning an overtime epic showdown against the
Orlando Magic. After that, the Boston Celtics got a big
(00:45):
win against the Los Angeles Clippers that James Harden almost
stole with a late display of shot making. I'm gonna
talk about some specific things that the Celtics cleaned up
in that game. And then the Atlanta Hawks come back
from down twenty one points in Phoenix against the Suns
to win their fifth straight games. They're going to be
breaking those games down from last night's slate, and then,
like we usually do on Mondays, we'll have our weekly
(01:07):
power rankings at the tail end of the show, going
quickly through the top ten teams in the NBA. You
guys are the job before we get started. To subscribe
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(01:28):
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for
content throughout the season, and last but not least, if
you want to get questions into our Friday mail bags,
make sure you drop them in our YouTube comments. Find
the full episodes on YouTube. Mail bag colon, drop your
question in there and we'll get to them on Fridays
throughout the remainder of the season and then our playback
streams this week. So I think Lebron might be coming
(01:51):
back tomorrow night against the Jazz. We'll see you did
a bunch of five on five work against the G
League South Bay Lakers over the course of the last week,
and then allegedly he's practicing today with the team. He's
either going to debut Tomorrow night against the Jazz or
Sunday night against the Jazz. Whichever one of those two
games Lebron is in, we're gonna do for playbacks. So
(02:13):
if he's tomorrow, we're gonna go tomorrow. If he sits
out Tomorrow but plays Sunday, we'll do Lebron's debut on Sunday.
The second playback stream this week is going to be
on Friday night what should be a highly entertaining showdown
between two of the teams that have clearly looked to
be in the top tier to start the season, the
(02:34):
Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets. So for sure Friday
for Nuggets Rockets on playback, watch along, and then whenever
Lebron comes back, whether that's Tuesday against the Jazz or
Sunday against the Jazz. So this has been an incredibly
entertaining start to the season. I was thinking about it
when I was watching the Rockets Magic game last night.
(02:54):
The one thing that this season has been missing is
just a little bit more intrigue surrounding the eventual champion.
Like we came into the season thinking like it's just
Denver and Oklahoma City right and Denver Oklahoma City have
both looked fantastic to start the year, the Thunder getting
too absolutely dominant, show stopping wins against the Lakers and
(03:15):
Warriors last week, Denver continuing their win streak, going on
the road to Minnesota and dominating a Wolves team that
has caused them problems over the course of the last
few years. Those two teams still look very much like
the two best teams in the league, but teams like
Houston coming in and providing that actual feeling of another
threat has been huge, and I'd argue we still need
(03:38):
another one or two of those teams. I don't know
if Detroit ends up being that type of team, but
us building a little bit more intrigue surrounding the eventual champion,
US genuinely believing that there's four or five teams that
have a shot to win this thing is what will
get us to really be cooking with gas. But the
actual basketball itself incredibly entertaining to start the season. If
(04:00):
OKC wins again, that's fine, but we need to actually
believe they can lose, otherwise it could feel kind of pointless.
So I'm glad to see some of these other teams
playing extremely high level basketball to start the year to
continue to build that intrigue around the eventual champion. All right,
we're gonna be breaking down those three games from last night.
Let's start with Houston. The Magic actually controlled this one throughout.
(04:23):
They played really good defense. They forced Houston into a
lot of turnovers and did some damage in transition. Desmond
Bain and Fronz Wagner were both really good throughout. But
Houston makes it a run in the fourth quarter and
we ended up with a really fun half court battle
between Franz and Desmond Bain and Kevin Durant and Alprin
Shane Goon and the Magic did some damage there. Desmond
(04:44):
Bain was attacking Jabari Smith and switches and was doing
some damage. They got obviously out in transition off of
some of Houston's mistakes, but Houston looked terrifying down the
stretch at that game. It got a little trickier than
it needed to be because there was this crazy possession
late in the game where it was tied, Houston had
a chance to go win it, and Kevin Durant basically
like trips and falls over himself, which leads to a
(05:06):
turnover run out Anthony Black two handed dunk that actually
put Orlando up by two with less than two seconds left,
So it got tougher for Houston than it needed to be,
but Imai Udoka drew up a beautiful sideline at a
bounds play that tied the game and sent it to overtime.
It got shanegun a really deep post catch versus Jonathan
Isaac where he was able to just catch and immediately
(05:28):
turnover his left shoulder and shoot that little patented hook
shot of his to tie the game and send it
to ot And it was a very interesting kind of
play design because essentially Jabari and Shanegun like go down
to set a screen for Kevin Durant right underneath the
basket so that Kevin Durant can come off towards the
basketball in the left corner, and on the same sequence
(05:50):
you see Jabari Smith run through to the right corner
after kind of fake setting a screen there, and so
basically Katie goes to the left corner, Jabari goes to
the right corner, Shaneguon sits right under the basket, and
so in that like three man action, Orlando essentially decides
to switch everything, which they should do. It's a smart
way to make sure you don't leave somebody wide open
in a situation like that. But when Jonathan Isaac switched
(06:12):
on to alprin Shangun, he was behind him, He was
underneath the basket. And so even though all those switches
were executed well by Orlando, alpron just basically had to
turn around and he was right there, right underneath the
basket for the easy post entry. Beautiful entry pass too
from a men Thompson not an easy pass to make
from the high sideline all the way right underneath the basket,
(06:33):
got it there on a line, hit him right in
the hand so he can go up and finish. So
like effectively, emay Uduka drew up the play so that
Shane Gun could basically walk down like he's set in
a screen and essentially use that screen setting as a
means with which to get deep post position and quick
finish over that left shoulder. But throughout crunch time, including
(06:55):
in overtime where the Rockets took control, the Rockets looked
absolutely fantastic on offense again, and once again in large
part because of how good their top two players are.
We saw it all down the stretch the Rockets were
spamming that KD Shangun two man game with Shangun screening
for KD out on the perimeter. That's become their crunch
(07:15):
time staple. And I don't blame them because they continue
to get great stuff every single time. There is a
possession in overtime where they both kind of lingered on
KD for a second that left Shangoon open in the
short roll, easy little short role read as a men.
Thompson's man steps up a men. Thompson cuts along the baseline,
drops it off two handed reverse dunk. That's that tic
(07:36):
tac toe sequence. We've seen a bunch this year that
when you're getting those kinds of sequences, even in crunch time,
that just goes to show you how difficult that action
is to guard. A lot of switching for Orlando in
the two man game, for it was KD and Shangoun,
but this is once again two of the very best
one on one players in basketball. They beat both ends
(07:57):
of that switch often down the stretch of this game,
like Kevin Durant gets Wendell Carter Junior on a switch
and it's boom left to right crossover, right to left crossover,
just breaks Wendell off and hits a pull up three
that ties the game. Late in regulation, Shane Goon just
with his textbook little deep post ups gets Tristan da
Silva off of KD. Now he's on Shanggoon's back and
(08:20):
he just backs him down, backs him down, backs him down,
little right shoulder, left handed hook. That is an easy,
easy shot for Shangoon. Right he gets bane on a
switch on one of the possessions, backs him down, it
hits a little hook shot over the top of him
and draws a foul. Like the two of those guys
were just destroying in their two man game with every
possible sequence. Two on the ball, Shangoon short roll, drop
(08:43):
off him and Thompson dunk switch. KD beats the big switch,
Shangoon beats the small look just unbelievable one on one
play from those two guys, and then to play that
ice the game in overtime, KD was like, We're not
messing around with this. I don't want any sort of
double team come in my way. I think I can
get a bucket on Tristan de Silva. He waves Albern
(09:04):
Shangun off, he waves a man Thompson off, just goes
one on one, gets to his spot in the mid range,
hits that little short jump shot and ends the game.
And by the way, both of those dudes, KD and
Shanguon were awesome on defense. In crunch time. KD had
a big ISO stop on Franz Wagner where he forced
him into a bad pull up three that he missed.
Shane Goon right at the end of regulation that huge
(09:25):
block on Desmond Bane that ended up where he blocked
it and went out of bounds on Bain and they
ended up having to review it, but it got overturned
on review and the ball got given back to Houston.
Those two guys were just awesome, and I left that
game with continued momentum behind an idea that I've consistently
felt when I've watched the Rockets this year, which is
(09:46):
that this is one of the very best duos in
the NBA. Are either of Kevin or Alburn as good
as Shay or Luca or Jannis or Jokic individually, No,
but they're both just barely below that tier. They're both
right there. And this isn't Lebron and ad in the
late stage Lakers, where they're surrounded by flawed players. These
(10:09):
guys are surrounded by an immense depth of talented, big
and athletic two way role players. They're also super complimentary
with each other. Like KD has always provided that go
get a bucket iso over the top type of offense,
but there's a little bit of variance with that. He's
typically struggled with pressuring the rim with physicality, right, Well,
(10:31):
that's what Shangoon brings to the table. They're perfect compliments
to each other. There's like an aura with them too.
I was watching both of them last night and it's like,
these are just two bad mfforts and they are gonna
be a huge pain in the ass for anybody to
deal with in a playoff series. And there's a lot
of momentum building for me as I watched them this
(10:52):
year on just how good Kevin Durant, Albern Shangun are
and how that represents a legitimate threat in the Western Conference.
And again, like we talked about earlier, I talked before
the season, Denver and nOkc the clear top threats Houston
I viewed in that tier until the Fred van Vliet injury.
I was curious to see how it would look this
year without those guys or without him in particular, and
(11:14):
they've just looked awesome. And now it's looking like Houston
is one of those teams in that top tier, and
we need one or two more of those teams to
add some real intrigue to start the season. Houston's been incredible.
Houston is now nine to one in their last ten games,
and remember their two losses to start the year, both
basically came down to one play. They could easily be
(11:36):
eleven and one. Right now. They're first in offense, eighth
in defense. Defensive rebounding was an issue for them early
in the season, but they've cleaned that up a bit,
their tenth in defensive rebounding percentage in that ten game span,
still grabbing a preposterous forty one percent of their own misses.
Shane gun had a rep last night in overtime where
he got his own offensive rebound like three straight times
(11:56):
on the left side of the basket and then finished
it off with the behind the back past the Steven
Adams for a layup. Just a ridiculous highlight and the
representation of how physically imposing this team is and they
still continue to just shoot the damp seams off the basketball,
which was a big question mark surrounding the team to
start the year. They're leading the NBA in three point
percentage at forty three percent to start the year. Lots
(12:18):
and lots of encouraging trends for the Houston Rockets. Today's
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called one eight hundred Gambler In Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia Boston. It's a huge win over the Clippers
yesterday in the afternoon, a game they basically controlled throughout.
(14:08):
They lost control at various points because their bench units
were bad. Innfony Simons had his worst game of the season.
He put up a bagel. They were struggling to guard
with those units, and then James Harden made it closer
than it looked to or made it look closer than
it actually was at the tail end of the game
by drawing a foul on the three and then hitting
a couple of crazy pull up threes and actually a
really nice play design by Tylo on a baseline out
(14:31):
of bounds where they heave the ball up up the
court to the foul line and then pitch it back
to Harden, kind of trailing the play, and he actually
got a good look at three that could have tied
the game, just barely left it short. So a couple
of weird sequences with the bench unit and then obviously
with James Harden, they made it look close. But honestly,
the starting group for Boston dominated that game from start
to finish. They jumped out the gates early. Jalen Brown
(14:54):
was super athletic on the glass, and scrapping for loose balls.
The team was very locked in on defense. They defending
James Hardenwell, Jordan Walsh did a bunch of work on
the ball, Derek White did some work on the ball.
Peyton Pritchard had thirty in the game and came out
guns blazing. Was a huge part of how they took
control early in the game. And I need a shout
out Jalen Brown here. We talked after their lost a
(15:15):
Philly about how I thought he needed to be part
of the part of the solution for their defensive rebounding issues.
He's one of the best athletes on the team. He
was having one of his worst defensive rebounding seasons in
recent history for him, He's been excellent nineteen rebounds over
the course of the last two games. You grabbed thirteen
rebounds yesterday. Was clearly scrapping in a different way from
(15:38):
the opening tip. We talked about this in that video
the other day, but like he's one of the guys,
one of the few guys on that team that actually
has the tools necessary to address that flaw for this team,
and so him stepping up and taking personal responsibility. I
found out after the video too that Jalen Brown had
actually said in the postgame press or that he had
essentially taken responsibility for what happened on that final sequence.
(16:01):
He also had thirty three points yesterday. He's become one
of the best mid range players in the NBA. He's
hit forty nine pull up mid rangers this year at
fifty five percent. That's the same amount of volume forty
nine makes as Shay Gildas Alexander put on five percent
higher from the field. So some really high level a
(16:21):
shot making from Jalen Brown. And we talked about how
in the Philly game that third quarter run from Derek
White was a sign that he was starting to gain
some momentum and rhythm as a score. There's a lot
of talk early in the season about how, like, oh,
like this is what happens when you slide up on
the depth chart, like teams are gonna be game planning
differently for Derek White. I never bought that, just simply
(16:41):
because Derek White was still very much a featured ball
handler on the Celtics before before the Tatum injury. Like
I argue, he was more involved in their pet actions
alongside Jason Tatum than even Jaln Brown was so like
I never bought that. I just thought he was playing
bad basketball to start the year, not not even even
just was struggling a little bit to start the year,
(17:01):
which is like something that happens with basketball players sometimes.
But following up that Philly game, forty two points in
the last two games, thirteen for twenty eight from the field,
seven for fourteen from three in the two wins. So
a continuation of that momentum for Derek White, starting to
look like the Derek White that we've seen in the
last couple of years. And most importantly, they won a
(17:23):
clutch game. It was a three point game with three
minutes left and the Celtics just promptly went on a
seven to zero run to close the deal. Excellent defense
in that stretch from Nimi kDa. He had two good
drop cover reps where he forced misses at the basket.
He had a play where he was battling Zobots in
the block and he pushed him out with physicality so
that when Zoo went for that left shoulder fade, he
(17:43):
lost his balance a little bit and was like falling
away from the basket and left it very short off
the front of the rim, really good defense from Cada,
and then on the other end of the floor, just
little two man game with Derek White, Nimikyda, a little
drop off for a layup for Cada, Jordan wallsh transition
runout Derek White and hits the dagger, a little pull
up three at the top of the key as his
(18:04):
man kind of sagged off just a little bit. Really
nice clutch play from the Celtics again, a crazy shooting
display from James Harden. All good defense, did you know,
kind of an iffy three point shot foul that could
have gone either way, and then he just hit two
ridiculous step backs. So you got to tip the cap
to James Harden. But I actually just thought they played
really good crunch time basketball. Really nice response from the
(18:25):
Celtics in a couple of key areas where they needed
to improve their rebounding and their execution in the crunch
time situations, and they end up getting a couple of
wins out of it. Moving on to Atlanta, how about
a twenty one point fourth quarter comeback for their fifth
straight win, four of which have been on the road.
They did it with the classic Atlanta Hawks defense to
(18:48):
transition attack. We talked about this before the season, but
it was very important for my basketball worldview for the
Hawks to be good. They had a formula that I
believed in. A bunch of super athletic dudes who can
guard multiple positions, play passing lanes, force turnovers, run their lanes,
and succeed in transition, like generating dunks and threes. And
(19:08):
then a lot of guys that are like pretty high
i Q dribble pass shoot guys, maybe not the best
shooters in the world, but like a group of guys
that can all put the ball on the floor and
make plays for their teammates and play drive and kick.
And then Trey Young obviously would be the piece that
would tie together the half court offense. Now we got
to take the Tray Young piece and set it aside
for now because he's obviously injured. But we're seeing the
(19:29):
defense to transition piece and the whole aggregate dribble shoot, pass,
play making piece come to fruition here. Like the run
against Phoenix was scary to watch. Jalen Johnson, Zachary Rissachet,
and Dyson Daniels all had steals during that run. Like
Jalen Johnson, steals a high post entry, run out the
other way for a score. Dyson Daniels double teams the
(19:50):
high post from behind and pokes the ball away, running
the other way for a score. Colin Gilespie's trying to
throw a post entry and Zachary Rissache gets his long
ass arm out there and gets a defl election. They're
running out the other way for a score. It happened fast, guys.
It was a twenty to zero run to get them
back within one, like it was avalanche, steel run out score,
(20:12):
steel run out score, steel run out score. But the
most impressive part of it is like it slowed down
into a half court game. Like the Suns responded. Devin
Booker and Dylan Brooks got a couple of buckets late
and they actually pushed the lead back to six after
Atlanta had gotten back to one. But the Hawks played
really good on offense in the half court to end
(20:33):
the game. Some brilliant driving kick sequences, Like guys were
hitting gaps and making good kickout reads. They were keeping
the ball movement, ball moving constantly, really good relocations and cuts.
Dyson Daniels and Nikkeile Alexander Walker really led their way
with their playmaking. During that stretch, Dyson had the two
biggest assists of the game that actually put the game away.
(20:53):
A really nice drive off of the left wing. It
was already in a driving kick sequence and they were
in their kind of flow and Nikile aley Xander Walker
was in the right dunker spot and Dyson Daniels caught
on the left wing in a driving kick sequence. He
rips the close out and right when he rips the
close out Nikkeil Alexander Walker again. This is part of
that high IQ driving kick basketball. Nikil Alexander Walker had
(21:16):
been in the dunker spot where he wasn't a threat.
He teas up, he cuts right to the front of
the rim right as Dyson is driving, finds a perfect
little window. Dison shovels it off to him and the
keel makes that little floater in the rain in the lane.
That's super high level drive in kick basketball. They ran
a rep of stack, pick and roll at the end
of the game where Dyson threw a beautiful lob to
(21:39):
Yekakongu who dunked it. In a bunch of really nice
playmaking driving kick like everyone's involved in moving with and
without the basketball type of sequences for the Hawks to
close that game. They remind me of Toronto a bit,
where they don't have like the best catch and shoot
talent in the world, but they have a lot of
athletes who can pressure the rim and play make out
(22:00):
of it. So they're better in the half court than
you would think based on the way their lineups look
on paper. And then just a couple of guys shooting
the ball better. Jalen Johnson shooting the shit out of
the ball from three during this win streak and yekakong
Wu He's literally making forty one percent of his threes
on six point four attempts per game over the five
game streak. Like, just a couple of guys shooting the
(22:22):
ball better. Two to help tie off some of those
sequences with makes, and they're really starting to play some
beautiful basketball in the five game streak. Sixth in offense,
fourth in defense. They're forcing nineteen turnovers per game in
that span and scoring twenty eight points off of turnovers
in that five game span. That twenty eight points per
(22:42):
game off of turnovers ranks first in the NBA. Over
the last five games, they're averaging as a team thirty
seven points per game in transition in that span. That's insane.
They've had two games with over forty five transition points
in the span. They are built to win on the margins,
will win a lot of regular season games in the NBA.
(23:03):
Jalen Johnson in the five games straight, twenty three points,
twelve rebounds, and nine assists, sixty percent from the field
in fifty seven percent from three. Jalen has always been
a very gifted downhill athlete that has has been very
good at like kind of I was referring to him
to the other day on playback as like Yannis reads,
meaning like it's not super high level like surgical Chris
(23:24):
Paul Lukadancic type of reads. But what he's very good
at is reading cutters along the baseline and simple kickout
reads to the three point line. And when you pressure
the rim the way that he does, those raids are available.
That's why I call him the Yiannis reeds. Like Giannis
has just gotten really good at taking the easy reads
that are available when you can pressure the rim the
way that he does. That stuff has always been there
for Jalen. The ceiling raiser for him has been the
(23:47):
three point shot and if he's gonna shoot the basketball
like this. That's what allows him to enter into that
All Star conversation when he becomes a guy that can
average twenty three points over a large sample with nine assists,
with real shot, with real value on the margins. Again,
just really really high level basketball from the Hawks. One
last note here with them. I know the every time
(24:08):
something like this happens, there's a propensity to be like, oh, well,
this means that the guy who's injured doesn't matter anymore. Right.
We've seen this with the Lakers with discussions surrounding Lebron.
We've seen this with the Hawks with this discussion surrounding
Trey Young. You see this around the league, various situations
like this guy's out and we're succeeding, and that means
we don't need it. No, no, no. The idea is, you
(24:30):
want to take the stuff that you've done with this
group and you want to add Trey Young to it,
and you want to see what you can accomplish. I
watched the Hawks before Trey Young got hurt this year.
It wasn't his fault that the defense sucked. Did you
play a role, sure, but there were a lot of
guys in their core lineups, athletes, same guys who were
doing damage to the Suns and to other teams during
this win streak that weren't playing very well on defense.
(24:52):
You want to try to continue this dynamic with the
advantage creation and half court kind of grease the wheels
type of thing that Trey Young can do. I again,
if Trey Young comes back and it feels like you
can't recapture the identity, that's one thing. But I personally
want to see a larger sample size of Trey Young
playing with this group, and I hope they don't do
something like trade him before he actually recovers from his injury.
(25:19):
All right, let's get into our power rankings, and again
we're gonna be reading our championship odds with each team
on this list. All of our lines are presented by
hard rock Bet number ten heading into this week, the
San Antonio Spurs. They are plus three thousand right now
to win the title on hard rock Bet, just four
and four after their five and oh start lost to
(25:42):
some of the better teams. Again, if you look at
their five and oh start, they played a pretty weak schedule.
Things have gotten tougher. There's been some good wins in there.
I want to be clear, like that win against Houston
was a really nice win, but dropping games to Phoenix,
to the Lakers, two games to the Warriors starting to
see some of their flaws come to the surface. Turn
Over issues are the big one. They're turning it over
(26:02):
on seventeen percent of their possessions in that eight game span,
which is the second worst mark in the league over
the course of teams over their last eight games. Back
to back losses to the Warriors this week that showed
a bit of their struggle. They have scoring against high
IQ defenses, teams that have big, physical forwards that they
can deploy on Wemby, and also a game plan built
(26:23):
around getting the basketball out of his hands. And again,
those issues were a continuation of the previous week with
what happened with the Lakers and the Suns. In those
four losses, the Spurs log just a one thirteen offensive ratings,
So first little bit of adversity for this Spurs group
to start the year. One silver lining though, after deeron
Fox had a disastrous end to the second Warriors game
(26:45):
where he kind of co opted the offense and took
some really bad off the dribble jump shots. He responded
very nicely against the Kings last night with an efficient
twenty eight and eleven to get a win in a
game where Victor Wembin Yama sat out, so nice little
sign of building rhythm for Deer and Fox. Number nine.
The Atlanta Hawks also plus three thousand to win the title.
We hit them in a segment earlier in today's show,
(27:07):
so if you're watching a breakout of our power rankings,
make sure you go back to our full episode. We
have a segment where we covered the Hawks in more detail.
But they've won five in a row, top six in
both offense and defense. They're forcing nine top six in
both offense and defense during that five game streak, I
should say, forcing nineteen turnovers per game, scoring twenty eight
points per game off of those turnovers. Jalen Johnson's averaging
(27:29):
twenty three to twelve and nine in their win streak
on sixty percent from the field and fifty seven percent
from three, and Yeka kong Wu blossoming as a spacing
big forty one percent from three on six point four
attempts per game. Again, if you want more Hawks, you
can go a little bit earlier in the episode. Number
eight the Golden State Warriors currently plus fourteen hundred to
win the title. I'm gonna say the same thing about
(27:51):
the Warriors that I said about the Lakers after their
win against the Bucks on Saturday night on playback. I
had a similar kind of line of thinking with them.
I think it applies to Golden State as well. It's
certainly never a good thing to get your ass handed
to you the way that the thunder did on Tuesday.
It's a measuring stick and it looks like you're not
even close right. So I'm not gonna sit here and
(28:12):
say that's a good thing. But in many ways, an
ass kicking can be good for the soul. It can
refocus your group. It can remind them how far they
are away from where their goals actually are and motivate
them in their daily process to get there. And the
Warriors responded to that disaster class with the best three
game stretch they've had all season. Two monster wins on
(28:32):
the road in San Antonio, one resounding team effort in
the second half on Wednesday, excellent defense and contributions down
the roster, and then honestly just a heroic backpack job
by Steph Curry and the Friday night game. They lose
that game by double figures if Steph even just plays
a normal Steph game. But no, how about forty nine
points in every big shot and play down the stretch
(28:53):
to close the deal. Literally willed his team to victory.
There were even a bunch of layups on cuts that
they got down the stretch based on a ten time
that Steph got running off of action. He literally willed
his team to victory in that game on Friday Night.
Unbelievable basketball from Steph Curry. To start the season. Steph
went for ninety five points in the two game set
(29:14):
against San Antonio. Just playing some special basketball. And I'd
be remiss if I didn't mention Moses Moody, who carried
the offense in the first half of the San Antonio
game on Wednesday night and then poured in a career
high thirty two last night in New Orleans. As some
other Warriors had rough nights, he was able to carry
the load in the in the gap there to continue
(29:34):
the three game winning streak number seven. The Cleveland Cavaliers
currently plus seven point fifty to win the title on
hard Rock Bet. It was a rough week for the Cavs.
Dropping a couple games against the Heat, and the Raptors
lost Darius Garland to reaggravation of his toe injury, but
Kenny Atkinson told reporters the other day that he's considered
day to day, so I think we can assume that
means it wasn't a severe re injury of the toe,
(29:57):
but rather just a minor setback. The other guards on
the roster have done an admirable job filling in in
his absence. Lonzo Ball is really starting to find his
groove after a rough shooting start to start the season.
He's ten for seventeen from three over the course of
his last three games, and fifteen assists in those three
games in just sixty one minutes. Craig Porter obviously was
(30:17):
great in the road win against Miami. He's been very
good as one of their depth guards this season. Good
news about Darius Garland coming back. They absolutely need him
at his very best for them to get to where
they need to go this year. Number six the New
York Knicks plus thirteen hundred to win the title on
hard Rock Bet right now. The Orlando Magic. The Atlanto
(30:39):
Magic game was an absolute disaster for the Knicks. A
lot of the fears from last season came to the surface.
Their offense looked stagnant and it looked bad. The magic
killed them in transition in that game, reminiscent of what
happened in the Indiana Pacers series. And then to add
injuried insult, Jalen Brunson sprains his ankle when the game's
basically already over and he leaves in a walking boot.
So obviously a bad night, but they had an incredible
(31:02):
response against the Miami Heat, one of their best offensive
games of the season. They hung a one forty in
that game. How about seventy five points from Karl Anthony
Towns and Landr shaman I had a Knicks fan on
playback that was lamenting that Tom Thibodeau didn't use Landry
Shamitt last year. Kind of one of these smaller subplots
in the larger subplot of Tom Tabodeau not relying on
(31:25):
his bench very much. He's getting an extra six minutes
per game this year and it's paying off. He's scoring
at a rate of seventeen points per thirty six minutes.
Was instrumental in the road win against Miami. But things
are gonna get tougher from here now og And and
Obi's out as well with a hamstring strain. It's going
to test their depth. But this is the investment that
Mike Brown has made throughout this early part of the
(31:46):
season that should allow them a better chance to compete
over that stretch of games number five. The Los Angeles
Lakers currently plus fifteen hundred to win the title on
hard rock Bet, similar to Golden State. A really nice
response to their humiliation at the bands of the Oklahoma
City Thunder, a pair of wins against New Orleans and
Milwaukee in a back to back, just a wire to
wire absolute dominant performance against a very good Milwaukee Bucks
(32:10):
team that had been really tough to beat at home
throughout the start of the season. Luca looked completely unguardable.
He saw a lot of Kyle Kuzma and Gary Harris
as his primary defender in the game, torched them both,
was drawing all sorts of double teams and blitzz that
the Lakers are doing a good job playing quick four
on three basketball out of to score points, and then
the defense was locked in throughout. They did a great
(32:32):
job getting back in transition, basically kept Milwaukee entirely out
of transition in the first half, getting back building the
wall on Giannis throwing contests at three point shooters, one
of their best defensive efforts of the season. And the Lakers,
by the way, are up to fourteenth in defensive rating
on the season. Now, that's an excellent indicator for them.
Obviously you come up short in the measuring stick game.
(32:53):
They have a long way to go to where they
need to go if they want to compete with the
best teams in the Western Conference. But again we talked
about in the Warriors segment, a good ass kicking can
be good for the soul. It can sometimes inspire you
or remind you how far you are away from where
you need to go, and get you more engaged in
the day to day process of getting better. Very nice
response from the Lakers. They are now ten and four,
(33:15):
and when you look at Lebron being out for all
those games, and all the games that all those important
role players have missed, like even ruy Ha Chamura being
out for the Bucks game, that's a huge loss specifically
for the Bucks matchup. And it didn't matter they have
regardless of who's been in the lineup, They've played good basketball,
And if you look at their upcoming schedule, they have
the Jazz on Tuesday and the Jazz on Sunday. That's
(33:36):
it until next Tuesday. So essentially a nine game stretch
for a nine day calendar day stretch where they only
have two games, really nice stretch for them to get
Lebron involved in practice, a couple of easier games on
the schedule to get Lebron game reps without having to
really wear him out. You can keep him in lower
minutes and it's not a big deal in those games, right,
(33:57):
Like really encouraging star to the season, even if you
know that they're not close to their ultimate goal with
the Thunder, they have a clear finish line that they're
aiming for, and they look very locked in and engaged
by the way. It will be covering their Lebron's debut
on playback, depending on whether or not it'll be on
Tuesday or Sunday, which every one of those games is
(34:17):
Lebron's first game, will be covering on playback Number four.
The Houston Rockets currently plus one thousand to win the
title on hard Rock bet. We talked about them in
detail in the opening segment, so I'm not going to
spend too much time here. Again, if you want to
hear more Rockets talk, just go to our full episode
on YouTube and go back to the beginning. It was
actually our first segment in the show. They're nine to
(34:37):
one in their last ten games. First and offense, eighth,
then defense, and like we talked about earlier in the show,
the Kevin Durant Alpernshangun duo is looking at looking like
one of the very best duos in basketball right now.
And then when you combine that with a very deep
roster of big, physical, athletic two way players, it's just
a great formula for winning in the modern NBA. Number
(34:57):
three the Detroit Pistons, currently plus three thousand to win
the title on hard Rock Bet. The Pistons continued their
nine game winning streak with two nice wins against the
Sixers and Bowls, both without Kate Cunningham and Jalen Duraan.
This involved the rise of Danis Jenkins, a rise that
started before Caid went out with a couple of huge
clutch threes that sent the Wizards game to overtime if
(35:19):
you guys remember, and then in the last two games
he switched into a featured on ball roll against the
Sixers in Bowls, where he ran a ton of pick
and roll and was very efficient in doing so. Very
exciting development for a team that is light on ball handling.
They needed something like this. Danis in the last three
games is averaging twenty points, five rebounds, and eight assists
on high efficiency in a couple of big wins for
(35:42):
the Pistons. Really nice contributions down the roster too, to
help maintain winning when Cad and Jalen Duran have been out,
Paul Reid has stepped in admirably into the Jalen Duran role.
He's averaging nineteen points and eleven rebounds over those two games,
ten total stocks over those two wins. And then Dunk
Robinson and Karris Lovert both have stepped up on offense.
Caros got off to a rough start the season, but
(36:04):
he's been very good as of late. Duncan continuing to
provide just more action, relief in the half court and
shot making. How about the eleven and two Detroit Pistons Again,
I talked earlier in the show about how we need
another couple of teams to step up and provide a
real threat to the Denver and Oklahoma City top tier
and Houston and Detroit are providing that for us to
(36:27):
start the season. Very very exciting. Number two the Denver Nuggets.
Seven straight wins and none better than an ass kicking
that they delivered to the Wolves in Minnesota on Saturday night. Again,
this is a team in Minnesota that's had their number
over the last few years, and considering your down two starters,
that's a very discouraging type of situation to find yourself
(36:50):
in on the road in Minnesota. But Tim Hardaway and
Peyton Watson have both done an admirable job stepping into
starting roles. Tim Hardaway just continues to look like a
perfect fit with this te His aggression and his ability
to knock shots down has just been a godsend for
this offense. Peyton Watson has just been to do everything
athlete for them. Good news on the injury front two
(37:11):
with Cam Johnson just a bicep strain, so like not
the more severe injuries that were kind of floating around
as possibilities for Cam, so that's good news. Bad news
is though, a pretty substantial foot injury for Christian Brown
that's going to keep him out for at least six weeks.
So kind of good for Cam because I think Cam
needs to build rhythm, and I think the last thing
(37:32):
he needs right now is to be out of the
lineup for a little bit. But this is where the
depth is going to be tested. This is where all
that investment in the offseason into depth should be able
to help this team. By the way, in that Minnesota game,
yet another performance this year, we talked about how statistically
the Nuggets without Yokic on the floor hadn't been that great.
Statistically better than previous years, for sure, but not that great.
(37:54):
I think coming into the Minnesota game they were like
negative seven points per one hundred possessions with Yokich off
the floor. That number has been like eleven to twelve
in previous season, so certainly better. But one of the
things I talked about was the way it's manifesting is
in good games. They've had multiple games this year where
they were able to blow games open with their bench group,
where they were able to grow the lead rather than
(38:15):
lose the lead with their bench group. Just recently with Sacramento,
right fourth quarter unit comes out there and blows the
game open before Jokic even has to come out to
the floor. This game, yet another example of a very
strong performance for the Nuggets with Jokic off the floor.
A lot of encouraging trends for Denver, none probably as
encouraging as their defense, though they locked Minnesota up in
(38:37):
the second half on Saturday. They are number two in
defensive rating. They were started the season up high, and
they've maintained that. Still number two in defensive rating to
start the season, just completely locked in and on a string,
very clearly committed to their ultimate goals this season. And
then Nikolai Jokich playing like the best player in the
world his last seven games thirty five points, twelve rebounds,
(38:58):
and eleven assists, seventy one from the field in fifty
five percent from three two point six stocks per game
as well over that span. Really encouraging start for the
Denver Nuggets. Number one, as they've been through every single
Power Rankings video we've done to start this season. The
Oklahoma City Thunder currently plus two hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet hard to have a better
(39:20):
week than Oklahoma City just did. How about taking two
of the largest fan bases, two fan bases that have
been very optimistic coming into the season for what they
can accomplish, and just taking out the memories, the measuring
stick and just beating the shit out of them for
the entire world to see. In the middle of last week,
just an unbelievable performance dominating two of the great NBA
(39:44):
franchises on back to back nights, two teams that have
pretty resilient offenses too, led by two of the league's
best offensive engines, and they just completely shut both of
them down to the point where both stars looked bad
and both teams looked absolutely helpless to score the bat
basketball as what is clearly the best defense of this
era just continues adding names to the list of dominance,
(40:08):
and the continuation of their offensive leap has been fun
to watch. Sharp transition to tacks off of missus and turnovers,
good ball in player movement in the half court, excellent
advantage creation from Shae Gills, Alexander and aj Mitchell, and
then chet Holmgren's offensive leap has been a sight to behold.
He's averaging nineteen points per game on seventy percent true
shooting this year, excellent three point shooting, quick little matchup
(40:32):
hunting in the mid to short range with little bits
of shot making and step throughs awesome work out of
the dunker spot where he seemingly dunks everything. Just an
awesome offensive start from Chet Holmgren. They've looked like the
best team in basketball to start the season. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate
you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll
be back tomorrow morning with some game reaction. I'll see
(40:53):
you guys then. Z
The volume. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Monday, everybody. If all of you guys
had an incredible weekend, you got a jam pack show
for you guys today. We had an incredible night in
(00:24):
the NBA again yesterday. This has been a very entertaining
start to the NBA season, a lot of nights like
last night with a bunch of highly entertaining games. We're
gonna be breaking down three games from last night's slate,
the Houston Rockets winning an overtime epic showdown against the
Orlando Magic. After that, the Boston Celtics got a big
(00:45):
win against the Los Angeles Clippers that James Harden almost
stole with a late display of shot making. I'm gonna
talk about some specific things that the Celtics cleaned up
in that game. And then the Atlanta Hawks come back
from down twenty one points in Phoenix against the Suns
to win their fifth straight games. They're going to be
breaking those games down from last night's slate, and then,
like we usually do on Mondays, we'll have our weekly
(01:07):
power rankings at the tail end of the show, going
quickly through the top ten teams in the NBA. You
guys are the job before we get started. To subscribe
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about our podcast feed wheref you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a
rating in a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible
work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
(01:28):
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there for
content throughout the season, and last but not least, if
you want to get questions into our Friday mail bags,
make sure you drop them in our YouTube comments. Find
the full episodes on YouTube. Mail bag colon, drop your
question in there and we'll get to them on Fridays
throughout the remainder of the season and then our playback
streams this week. So I think Lebron might be coming
(01:51):
back tomorrow night against the Jazz. We'll see you did
a bunch of five on five work against the G
League South Bay Lakers over the course of the last week,
and then allegedly he's practicing today with the team. He's
either going to debut Tomorrow night against the Jazz or
Sunday night against the Jazz. Whichever one of those two
games Lebron is in, we're gonna do for playbacks. So
(02:13):
if he's tomorrow, we're gonna go tomorrow. If he sits
out Tomorrow but plays Sunday, we'll do Lebron's debut on Sunday.
The second playback stream this week is going to be
on Friday night what should be a highly entertaining showdown
between two of the teams that have clearly looked to
be in the top tier to start the season, the
(02:34):
Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets. So for sure Friday
for Nuggets Rockets on playback, watch along, and then whenever
Lebron comes back, whether that's Tuesday against the Jazz or
Sunday against the Jazz. So this has been an incredibly
entertaining start to the season. I was thinking about it
when I was watching the Rockets Magic game last night.
(02:54):
The one thing that this season has been missing is
just a little bit more intrigue surrounding the eventual champion.
Like we came into the season thinking like it's just
Denver and Oklahoma City right and Denver Oklahoma City have
both looked fantastic to start the year, the Thunder getting
too absolutely dominant, show stopping wins against the Lakers and
(03:15):
Warriors last week, Denver continuing their win streak, going on
the road to Minnesota and dominating a Wolves team that
has caused them problems over the course of the last
few years. Those two teams still look very much like
the two best teams in the league, but teams like
Houston coming in and providing that actual feeling of another
threat has been huge, and I'd argue we still need
(03:38):
another one or two of those teams. I don't know
if Detroit ends up being that type of team, but
us building a little bit more intrigue surrounding the eventual champion,
US genuinely believing that there's four or five teams that
have a shot to win this thing is what will
get us to really be cooking with gas. But the
actual basketball itself incredibly entertaining to start the season. If
(04:00):
OKC wins again, that's fine, but we need to actually
believe they can lose, otherwise it could feel kind of pointless.
So I'm glad to see some of these other teams
playing extremely high level basketball to start the year to
continue to build that intrigue around the eventual champion. All right,
we're gonna be breaking down those three games from last night.
Let's start with Houston. The Magic actually controlled this one throughout.
(04:23):
They played really good defense. They forced Houston into a
lot of turnovers and did some damage in transition. Desmond
Bain and Fronz Wagner were both really good throughout. But
Houston makes it a run in the fourth quarter and
we ended up with a really fun half court battle
between Franz and Desmond Bain and Kevin Durant and Alprin
Shane Goon and the Magic did some damage there. Desmond
(04:44):
Bain was attacking Jabari Smith and switches and was doing
some damage. They got obviously out in transition off of
some of Houston's mistakes, but Houston looked terrifying down the
stretch at that game. It got a little trickier than
it needed to be because there was this crazy possession
late in the game where it was tied, Houston had
a chance to go win it, and Kevin Durant basically
like trips and falls over himself, which leads to a
(05:06):
turnover run out Anthony Black two handed dunk that actually
put Orlando up by two with less than two seconds left,
So it got tougher for Houston than it needed to be,
but Imai Udoka drew up a beautiful sideline at a
bounds play that tied the game and sent it to overtime.
It got shanegun a really deep post catch versus Jonathan
Isaac where he was able to just catch and immediately
(05:28):
turnover his left shoulder and shoot that little patented hook
shot of his to tie the game and send it
to ot And it was a very interesting kind of
play design because essentially Jabari and Shanegun like go down
to set a screen for Kevin Durant right underneath the
basket so that Kevin Durant can come off towards the
basketball in the left corner, and on the same sequence
(05:50):
you see Jabari Smith run through to the right corner
after kind of fake setting a screen there, and so
basically Katie goes to the left corner, Jabari goes to
the right corner, Shaneguon sits right under the basket, and
so in that like three man action, Orlando essentially decides
to switch everything, which they should do. It's a smart
way to make sure you don't leave somebody wide open
in a situation like that. But when Jonathan Isaac switched
(06:12):
on to alprin Shangun, he was behind him, He was
underneath the basket. And so even though all those switches
were executed well by Orlando, alpron just basically had to
turn around and he was right there, right underneath the
basket for the easy post entry. Beautiful entry pass too
from a men Thompson not an easy pass to make
from the high sideline all the way right underneath the basket,
(06:33):
got it there on a line, hit him right in
the hand so he can go up and finish. So
like effectively, emay Uduka drew up the play so that
Shane Gun could basically walk down like he's set in
a screen and essentially use that screen setting as a
means with which to get deep post position and quick
finish over that left shoulder. But throughout crunch time, including
(06:55):
in overtime where the Rockets took control, the Rockets looked
absolutely fantastic on offense again, and once again in large
part because of how good their top two players are.
We saw it all down the stretch the Rockets were
spamming that KD Shangun two man game with Shangun screening
for KD out on the perimeter. That's become their crunch
(07:15):
time staple. And I don't blame them because they continue
to get great stuff every single time. There is a
possession in overtime where they both kind of lingered on
KD for a second that left Shangoon open in the
short roll, easy little short role read as a men.
Thompson's man steps up a men. Thompson cuts along the baseline,
drops it off two handed reverse dunk. That's that tic
(07:36):
tac toe sequence. We've seen a bunch this year that
when you're getting those kinds of sequences, even in crunch time,
that just goes to show you how difficult that action
is to guard. A lot of switching for Orlando in
the two man game, for it was KD and Shangoun,
but this is once again two of the very best
one on one players in basketball. They beat both ends
(07:57):
of that switch often down the stretch of this game,
like Kevin Durant gets Wendell Carter Junior on a switch
and it's boom left to right crossover, right to left crossover,
just breaks Wendell off and hits a pull up three
that ties the game. Late in regulation, Shane Goon just
with his textbook little deep post ups gets Tristan da
Silva off of KD. Now he's on Shanggoon's back and
(08:20):
he just backs him down, backs him down, backs him down,
little right shoulder, left handed hook. That is an easy,
easy shot for Shangoon. Right he gets bane on a
switch on one of the possessions, backs him down, it
hits a little hook shot over the top of him
and draws a foul. Like the two of those guys
were just destroying in their two man game with every
possible sequence. Two on the ball, Shangoon short roll, drop
(08:43):
off him and Thompson dunk switch. KD beats the big switch,
Shangoon beats the small look just unbelievable one on one
play from those two guys, and then to play that
ice the game in overtime, KD was like, We're not
messing around with this. I don't want any sort of
double team come in my way. I think I can
get a bucket on Tristan de Silva. He waves Albern
(09:04):
Shangun off, he waves a man Thompson off, just goes
one on one, gets to his spot in the mid range,
hits that little short jump shot and ends the game.
And by the way, both of those dudes, KD and
Shanguon were awesome on defense. In crunch time. KD had
a big ISO stop on Franz Wagner where he forced
him into a bad pull up three that he missed.
Shane Goon right at the end of regulation that huge
(09:25):
block on Desmond Bane that ended up where he blocked
it and went out of bounds on Bain and they
ended up having to review it, but it got overturned
on review and the ball got given back to Houston.
Those two guys were just awesome, and I left that
game with continued momentum behind an idea that I've consistently
felt when I've watched the Rockets this year, which is
(09:46):
that this is one of the very best duos in
the NBA. Are either of Kevin or Alburn as good
as Shay or Luca or Jannis or Jokic individually, No,
but they're both just barely below that tier. They're both
right there. And this isn't Lebron and ad in the
late stage Lakers, where they're surrounded by flawed players. These
(10:09):
guys are surrounded by an immense depth of talented, big
and athletic two way role players. They're also super complimentary
with each other. Like KD has always provided that go
get a bucket iso over the top type of offense,
but there's a little bit of variance with that. He's
typically struggled with pressuring the rim with physicality, right, Well,
(10:31):
that's what Shangoon brings to the table. They're perfect compliments
to each other. There's like an aura with them too.
I was watching both of them last night and it's like,
these are just two bad mfforts and they are gonna
be a huge pain in the ass for anybody to
deal with in a playoff series. And there's a lot
of momentum building for me as I watched them this
(10:52):
year on just how good Kevin Durant, Albern Shangun are
and how that represents a legitimate threat in the Western Conference.
And again, like we talked about earlier, I talked before
the season, Denver and nOkc the clear top threats Houston
I viewed in that tier until the Fred van Vliet injury.
I was curious to see how it would look this
year without those guys or without him in particular, and
(11:14):
they've just looked awesome. And now it's looking like Houston
is one of those teams in that top tier, and
we need one or two more of those teams to
add some real intrigue to start the season. Houston's been incredible.
Houston is now nine to one in their last ten games,
and remember their two losses to start the year, both
basically came down to one play. They could easily be
(11:36):
eleven and one. Right now. They're first in offense, eighth
in defense. Defensive rebounding was an issue for them early
in the season, but they've cleaned that up a bit,
their tenth in defensive rebounding percentage in that ten game span,
still grabbing a preposterous forty one percent of their own misses.
Shane gun had a rep last night in overtime where
he got his own offensive rebound like three straight times
(11:56):
on the left side of the basket and then finished
it off with the behind the back past the Steven
Adams for a layup. Just a ridiculous highlight and the
representation of how physically imposing this team is and they
still continue to just shoot the damp seams off the basketball,
which was a big question mark surrounding the team to
start the year. They're leading the NBA in three point
percentage at forty three percent to start the year. Lots
(12:18):
and lots of encouraging trends for the Houston Rockets. Today's
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three to three play wise. In Indiana, If you or
someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help,
call one eight hundred and nine with it gambling problem
called one eight hundred Gambler In Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee,
or Virginia Boston. It's a huge win over the Clippers
yesterday in the afternoon, a game they basically controlled throughout.
(14:08):
They lost control at various points because their bench units
were bad. Innfony Simons had his worst game of the season.
He put up a bagel. They were struggling to guard
with those units, and then James Harden made it closer
than it looked to or made it look closer than
it actually was at the tail end of the game
by drawing a foul on the three and then hitting
a couple of crazy pull up threes and actually a
really nice play design by Tylo on a baseline out
(14:31):
of bounds where they heave the ball up up the
court to the foul line and then pitch it back
to Harden, kind of trailing the play, and he actually
got a good look at three that could have tied
the game, just barely left it short. So a couple
of weird sequences with the bench unit and then obviously
with James Harden, they made it look close. But honestly,
the starting group for Boston dominated that game from start
to finish. They jumped out the gates early. Jalen Brown
(14:54):
was super athletic on the glass, and scrapping for loose balls.
The team was very locked in on defense. They defending
James Hardenwell, Jordan Walsh did a bunch of work on
the ball, Derek White did some work on the ball.
Peyton Pritchard had thirty in the game and came out
guns blazing. Was a huge part of how they took
control early in the game. And I need a shout
out Jalen Brown here. We talked after their lost a
(15:15):
Philly about how I thought he needed to be part
of the part of the solution for their defensive rebounding issues.
He's one of the best athletes on the team. He
was having one of his worst defensive rebounding seasons in
recent history for him, He's been excellent nineteen rebounds over
the course of the last two games. You grabbed thirteen
rebounds yesterday. Was clearly scrapping in a different way from
(15:38):
the opening tip. We talked about this in that video
the other day, but like he's one of the guys,
one of the few guys on that team that actually
has the tools necessary to address that flaw for this team,
and so him stepping up and taking personal responsibility. I
found out after the video too that Jalen Brown had
actually said in the postgame press or that he had
essentially taken responsibility for what happened on that final sequence.
(16:01):
He also had thirty three points yesterday. He's become one
of the best mid range players in the NBA. He's
hit forty nine pull up mid rangers this year at
fifty five percent. That's the same amount of volume forty
nine makes as Shay Gildas Alexander put on five percent
higher from the field. So some really high level a
(16:21):
shot making from Jalen Brown. And we talked about how
in the Philly game that third quarter run from Derek
White was a sign that he was starting to gain
some momentum and rhythm as a score. There's a lot
of talk early in the season about how, like, oh,
like this is what happens when you slide up on
the depth chart, like teams are gonna be game planning
differently for Derek White. I never bought that, just simply
(16:41):
because Derek White was still very much a featured ball
handler on the Celtics before before the Tatum injury. Like
I argue, he was more involved in their pet actions
alongside Jason Tatum than even Jaln Brown was so like
I never bought that. I just thought he was playing
bad basketball to start the year, not not even even
just was struggling a little bit to start the year,
(17:01):
which is like something that happens with basketball players sometimes.
But following up that Philly game, forty two points in
the last two games, thirteen for twenty eight from the field,
seven for fourteen from three in the two wins. So
a continuation of that momentum for Derek White, starting to
look like the Derek White that we've seen in the
last couple of years. And most importantly, they won a
(17:23):
clutch game. It was a three point game with three
minutes left and the Celtics just promptly went on a
seven to zero run to close the deal. Excellent defense
in that stretch from Nimi kDa. He had two good
drop cover reps where he forced misses at the basket.
He had a play where he was battling Zobots in
the block and he pushed him out with physicality so
that when Zoo went for that left shoulder fade, he
(17:43):
lost his balance a little bit and was like falling
away from the basket and left it very short off
the front of the rim, really good defense from Cada,
and then on the other end of the floor, just
little two man game with Derek White, Nimikyda, a little
drop off for a layup for Cada, Jordan wallsh transition
runout Derek White and hits the dagger, a little pull
up three at the top of the key as his
(18:04):
man kind of sagged off just a little bit. Really
nice clutch play from the Celtics again, a crazy shooting
display from James Harden. All good defense, did you know,
kind of an iffy three point shot foul that could
have gone either way, and then he just hit two
ridiculous step backs. So you got to tip the cap
to James Harden. But I actually just thought they played
really good crunch time basketball. Really nice response from the
(18:25):
Celtics in a couple of key areas where they needed
to improve their rebounding and their execution in the crunch
time situations, and they end up getting a couple of
wins out of it. Moving on to Atlanta, how about
a twenty one point fourth quarter comeback for their fifth
straight win, four of which have been on the road.
They did it with the classic Atlanta Hawks defense to
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transition attack. We talked about this before the season, but
it was very important for my basketball worldview for the
Hawks to be good. They had a formula that I
believed in. A bunch of super athletic dudes who can
guard multiple positions, play passing lanes, force turnovers, run their lanes,
and succeed in transition, like generating dunks and threes. And
(19:08):
then a lot of guys that are like pretty high
i Q dribble pass shoot guys, maybe not the best
shooters in the world, but like a group of guys
that can all put the ball on the floor and
make plays for their teammates and play drive and kick.
And then Trey Young obviously would be the piece that
would tie together the half court offense. Now we got
to take the Tray Young piece and set it aside
for now because he's obviously injured. But we're seeing the
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defense to transition piece and the whole aggregate dribble shoot, pass,
play making piece come to fruition here. Like the run
against Phoenix was scary to watch. Jalen Johnson, Zachary Rissachet,
and Dyson Daniels all had steals during that run. Like
Jalen Johnson, steals a high post entry, run out the
other way for a score. Dyson Daniels double teams the
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high post from behind and pokes the ball away, running
the other way for a score. Colin Gilespie's trying to
throw a post entry and Zachary Rissache gets his long
ass arm out there and gets a defl election. They're
running out the other way for a score. It happened fast, guys.
It was a twenty to zero run to get them
back within one, like it was avalanche, steel run out score,
(20:12):
steel run out score, steel run out score. But the
most impressive part of it is like it slowed down
into a half court game. Like the Suns responded. Devin
Booker and Dylan Brooks got a couple of buckets late
and they actually pushed the lead back to six after
Atlanta had gotten back to one. But the Hawks played
really good on offense in the half court to end
(20:33):
the game. Some brilliant driving kick sequences, Like guys were
hitting gaps and making good kickout reads. They were keeping
the ball movement, ball moving constantly, really good relocations and cuts.
Dyson Daniels and Nikkeile Alexander Walker really led their way
with their playmaking. During that stretch, Dyson had the two
biggest assists of the game that actually put the game away.
(20:53):
A really nice drive off of the left wing. It
was already in a driving kick sequence and they were
in their kind of flow and Nikile aley Xander Walker
was in the right dunker spot and Dyson Daniels caught
on the left wing in a driving kick sequence. He
rips the close out and right when he rips the
close out Nikkeil Alexander Walker again. This is part of
that high IQ driving kick basketball. Nikil Alexander Walker had
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been in the dunker spot where he wasn't a threat.
He teas up, he cuts right to the front of
the rim right as Dyson is driving, finds a perfect
little window. Dison shovels it off to him and the
keel makes that little floater in the rain in the lane.
That's super high level drive in kick basketball. They ran
a rep of stack, pick and roll at the end
of the game where Dyson threw a beautiful lob to
(21:39):
Yekakongu who dunked it. In a bunch of really nice
playmaking driving kick like everyone's involved in moving with and
without the basketball type of sequences for the Hawks to
close that game. They remind me of Toronto a bit,
where they don't have like the best catch and shoot
talent in the world, but they have a lot of
athletes who can pressure the rim and play make out
(22:00):
of it. So they're better in the half court than
you would think based on the way their lineups look
on paper. And then just a couple of guys shooting
the ball better. Jalen Johnson shooting the shit out of
the ball from three during this win streak and yekakong
Wu He's literally making forty one percent of his threes
on six point four attempts per game over the five
game streak. Like, just a couple of guys shooting the
(22:22):
ball better. Two to help tie off some of those
sequences with makes, and they're really starting to play some
beautiful basketball in the five game streak. Sixth in offense,
fourth in defense. They're forcing nineteen turnovers per game in
that span and scoring twenty eight points off of turnovers
in that five game span. That twenty eight points per
(22:42):
game off of turnovers ranks first in the NBA. Over
the last five games, they're averaging as a team thirty
seven points per game in transition in that span. That's insane.
They've had two games with over forty five transition points
in the span. They are built to win on the margins,
will win a lot of regular season games in the NBA.
(23:03):
Jalen Johnson in the five games straight, twenty three points,
twelve rebounds, and nine assists, sixty percent from the field
in fifty seven percent from three. Jalen has always been
a very gifted downhill athlete that has has been very
good at like kind of I was referring to him
to the other day on playback as like Yannis reads,
meaning like it's not super high level like surgical Chris
(23:24):
Paul Lukadancic type of reads. But what he's very good
at is reading cutters along the baseline and simple kickout
reads to the three point line. And when you pressure
the rim the way that he does, those raids are available.
That's why I call him the Yiannis reeds. Like Giannis
has just gotten really good at taking the easy reads
that are available when you can pressure the rim the
way that he does. That stuff has always been there
for Jalen. The ceiling raiser for him has been the
(23:47):
three point shot and if he's gonna shoot the basketball
like this. That's what allows him to enter into that
All Star conversation when he becomes a guy that can
average twenty three points over a large sample with nine assists,
with real shot, with real value on the margins. Again,
just really really high level basketball from the Hawks. One
last note here with them. I know the every time
(24:08):
something like this happens, there's a propensity to be like, oh, well,
this means that the guy who's injured doesn't matter anymore. Right.
We've seen this with the Lakers with discussions surrounding Lebron.
We've seen this with the Hawks with this discussion surrounding
Trey Young. You see this around the league, various situations
like this guy's out and we're succeeding, and that means
we don't need it. No, no, no. The idea is, you
(24:30):
want to take the stuff that you've done with this
group and you want to add Trey Young to it,
and you want to see what you can accomplish. I
watched the Hawks before Trey Young got hurt this year.
It wasn't his fault that the defense sucked. Did you
play a role, sure, but there were a lot of
guys in their core lineups, athletes, same guys who were
doing damage to the Suns and to other teams during
this win streak that weren't playing very well on defense.
(24:52):
You want to try to continue this dynamic with the
advantage creation and half court kind of grease the wheels
type of thing that Trey Young can do. I again,
if Trey Young comes back and it feels like you
can't recapture the identity, that's one thing. But I personally
want to see a larger sample size of Trey Young
playing with this group, and I hope they don't do
something like trade him before he actually recovers from his injury.
(25:19):
All right, let's get into our power rankings, and again
we're gonna be reading our championship odds with each team
on this list. All of our lines are presented by
hard rock Bet number ten heading into this week, the
San Antonio Spurs. They are plus three thousand right now
to win the title on hard rock Bet, just four
and four after their five and oh start lost to
(25:42):
some of the better teams. Again, if you look at
their five and oh start, they played a pretty weak schedule.
Things have gotten tougher. There's been some good wins in there.
I want to be clear, like that win against Houston
was a really nice win, but dropping games to Phoenix,
to the Lakers, two games to the Warriors starting to
see some of their flaws come to the surface. Turn
Over issues are the big one. They're turning it over
(26:02):
on seventeen percent of their possessions in that eight game span,
which is the second worst mark in the league over
the course of teams over their last eight games. Back
to back losses to the Warriors this week that showed
a bit of their struggle. They have scoring against high
IQ defenses, teams that have big, physical forwards that they
can deploy on Wemby, and also a game plan built
(26:23):
around getting the basketball out of his hands. And again,
those issues were a continuation of the previous week with
what happened with the Lakers and the Suns. In those
four losses, the Spurs log just a one thirteen offensive ratings,
So first little bit of adversity for this Spurs group
to start the year. One silver lining though, after deeron
Fox had a disastrous end to the second Warriors game
(26:45):
where he kind of co opted the offense and took
some really bad off the dribble jump shots. He responded
very nicely against the Kings last night with an efficient
twenty eight and eleven to get a win in a
game where Victor Wembin Yama sat out, so nice little
sign of building rhythm for Deer and Fox. Number nine.
The Atlanta Hawks also plus three thousand to win the title.
We hit them in a segment earlier in today's show,
(27:07):
so if you're watching a breakout of our power rankings,
make sure you go back to our full episode. We
have a segment where we covered the Hawks in more detail.
But they've won five in a row, top six in
both offense and defense. They're forcing nine top six in
both offense and defense during that five game streak, I
should say, forcing nineteen turnovers per game, scoring twenty eight
points per game off of those turnovers. Jalen Johnson's averaging
(27:29):
twenty three to twelve and nine in their win streak
on sixty percent from the field and fifty seven percent
from three, and Yeka kong Wu blossoming as a spacing
big forty one percent from three on six point four
attempts per game. Again, if you want more Hawks, you
can go a little bit earlier in the episode. Number
eight the Golden State Warriors currently plus fourteen hundred to
win the title. I'm gonna say the same thing about
(27:51):
the Warriors that I said about the Lakers after their
win against the Bucks on Saturday night on playback. I
had a similar kind of line of thinking with them.
I think it applies to Golden State as well. It's
certainly never a good thing to get your ass handed
to you the way that the thunder did on Tuesday.
It's a measuring stick and it looks like you're not
even close right. So I'm not gonna sit here and
(28:12):
say that's a good thing. But in many ways, an
ass kicking can be good for the soul. It can
refocus your group. It can remind them how far they
are away from where their goals actually are and motivate
them in their daily process to get there. And the
Warriors responded to that disaster class with the best three
game stretch they've had all season. Two monster wins on
(28:32):
the road in San Antonio, one resounding team effort in
the second half on Wednesday, excellent defense and contributions down
the roster, and then honestly just a heroic backpack job
by Steph Curry and the Friday night game. They lose
that game by double figures if Steph even just plays
a normal Steph game. But no, how about forty nine
points in every big shot and play down the stretch
(28:53):
to close the deal. Literally willed his team to victory.
There were even a bunch of layups on cuts that
they got down the stretch based on a ten time
that Steph got running off of action. He literally willed
his team to victory in that game on Friday Night.
Unbelievable basketball from Steph Curry. To start the season. Steph
went for ninety five points in the two game set
(29:14):
against San Antonio. Just playing some special basketball. And I'd
be remiss if I didn't mention Moses Moody, who carried
the offense in the first half of the San Antonio
game on Wednesday night and then poured in a career
high thirty two last night in New Orleans. As some
other Warriors had rough nights, he was able to carry
the load in the in the gap there to continue
(29:34):
the three game winning streak number seven. The Cleveland Cavaliers
currently plus seven point fifty to win the title on
hard Rock Bet. It was a rough week for the Cavs.
Dropping a couple games against the Heat, and the Raptors
lost Darius Garland to reaggravation of his toe injury, but
Kenny Atkinson told reporters the other day that he's considered
day to day, so I think we can assume that
means it wasn't a severe re injury of the toe,
(29:57):
but rather just a minor setback. The other guards on
the roster have done an admirable job filling in in
his absence. Lonzo Ball is really starting to find his
groove after a rough shooting start to start the season.
He's ten for seventeen from three over the course of
his last three games, and fifteen assists in those three
games in just sixty one minutes. Craig Porter obviously was
(30:17):
great in the road win against Miami. He's been very
good as one of their depth guards this season. Good
news about Darius Garland coming back. They absolutely need him
at his very best for them to get to where
they need to go this year. Number six the New
York Knicks plus thirteen hundred to win the title on
hard Rock Bet right now. The Orlando Magic. The Atlanto
(30:39):
Magic game was an absolute disaster for the Knicks. A
lot of the fears from last season came to the surface.
Their offense looked stagnant and it looked bad. The magic
killed them in transition in that game, reminiscent of what
happened in the Indiana Pacers series. And then to add
injuried insult, Jalen Brunson sprains his ankle when the game's
basically already over and he leaves in a walking boot.
So obviously a bad night, but they had an incredible
(31:02):
response against the Miami Heat, one of their best offensive
games of the season. They hung a one forty in
that game. How about seventy five points from Karl Anthony
Towns and Landr shaman I had a Knicks fan on
playback that was lamenting that Tom Thibodeau didn't use Landry
Shamitt last year. Kind of one of these smaller subplots
in the larger subplot of Tom Tabodeau not relying on
(31:25):
his bench very much. He's getting an extra six minutes
per game this year and it's paying off. He's scoring
at a rate of seventeen points per thirty six minutes.
Was instrumental in the road win against Miami. But things
are gonna get tougher from here now og And and
Obi's out as well with a hamstring strain. It's going
to test their depth. But this is the investment that
Mike Brown has made throughout this early part of the
(31:46):
season that should allow them a better chance to compete
over that stretch of games number five. The Los Angeles
Lakers currently plus fifteen hundred to win the title on
hard rock Bet, similar to Golden State. A really nice
response to their humiliation at the bands of the Oklahoma
City Thunder, a pair of wins against New Orleans and
Milwaukee in a back to back, just a wire to
wire absolute dominant performance against a very good Milwaukee Bucks
(32:10):
team that had been really tough to beat at home
throughout the start of the season. Luca looked completely unguardable.
He saw a lot of Kyle Kuzma and Gary Harris
as his primary defender in the game, torched them both,
was drawing all sorts of double teams and blitzz that
the Lakers are doing a good job playing quick four
on three basketball out of to score points, and then
the defense was locked in throughout. They did a great
(32:32):
job getting back in transition, basically kept Milwaukee entirely out
of transition in the first half, getting back building the
wall on Giannis throwing contests at three point shooters, one
of their best defensive efforts of the season. And the Lakers,
by the way, are up to fourteenth in defensive rating
on the season. Now, that's an excellent indicator for them.
Obviously you come up short in the measuring stick game.
(32:53):
They have a long way to go to where they
need to go if they want to compete with the
best teams in the Western Conference. But again we talked
about in the Warriors segment, a good ass kicking can
be good for the soul. It can sometimes inspire you
or remind you how far you are away from where
you need to go, and get you more engaged in
the day to day process of getting better. Very nice
response from the Lakers. They are now ten and four,
(33:15):
and when you look at Lebron being out for all
those games, and all the games that all those important
role players have missed, like even ruy Ha Chamura being
out for the Bucks game, that's a huge loss specifically
for the Bucks matchup. And it didn't matter they have
regardless of who's been in the lineup, They've played good basketball,
And if you look at their upcoming schedule, they have
the Jazz on Tuesday and the Jazz on Sunday. That's
(33:36):
it until next Tuesday. So essentially a nine game stretch
for a nine day calendar day stretch where they only
have two games, really nice stretch for them to get
Lebron involved in practice, a couple of easier games on
the schedule to get Lebron game reps without having to
really wear him out. You can keep him in lower
minutes and it's not a big deal in those games, right,
(33:57):
Like really encouraging star to the season, even if you
know that they're not close to their ultimate goal with
the Thunder, they have a clear finish line that they're
aiming for, and they look very locked in and engaged
by the way. It will be covering their Lebron's debut
on playback, depending on whether or not it'll be on
Tuesday or Sunday, which every one of those games is
(34:17):
Lebron's first game, will be covering on playback Number four.
The Houston Rockets currently plus one thousand to win the
title on hard Rock bet. We talked about them in
detail in the opening segment, so I'm not going to
spend too much time here. Again, if you want to
hear more Rockets talk, just go to our full episode
on YouTube and go back to the beginning. It was
actually our first segment in the show. They're nine to
(34:37):
one in their last ten games. First and offense, eighth,
then defense, and like we talked about earlier in the show,
the Kevin Durant Alpernshangun duo is looking at looking like
one of the very best duos in basketball right now.
And then when you combine that with a very deep
roster of big, physical, athletic two way players, it's just
a great formula for winning in the modern NBA. Number
(34:57):
three the Detroit Pistons, currently plus three thousand to win
the title on hard Rock Bet. The Pistons continued their
nine game winning streak with two nice wins against the
Sixers and Bowls, both without Kate Cunningham and Jalen Duraan.
This involved the rise of Danis Jenkins, a rise that
started before Caid went out with a couple of huge
clutch threes that sent the Wizards game to overtime if
(35:19):
you guys remember, and then in the last two games
he switched into a featured on ball roll against the
Sixers in Bowls, where he ran a ton of pick
and roll and was very efficient in doing so. Very
exciting development for a team that is light on ball handling.
They needed something like this. Danis in the last three
games is averaging twenty points, five rebounds, and eight assists
on high efficiency in a couple of big wins for
(35:42):
the Pistons. Really nice contributions down the roster too, to
help maintain winning when Cad and Jalen Duran have been out,
Paul Reid has stepped in admirably into the Jalen Duran role.
He's averaging nineteen points and eleven rebounds over those two games,
ten total stocks over those two wins. And then Dunk
Robinson and Karris Lovert both have stepped up on offense.
Caros got off to a rough start the season, but
(36:04):
he's been very good as of late. Duncan continuing to
provide just more action, relief in the half court and
shot making. How about the eleven and two Detroit Pistons Again,
I talked earlier in the show about how we need
another couple of teams to step up and provide a
real threat to the Denver and Oklahoma City top tier
and Houston and Detroit are providing that for us to
(36:27):
start the season. Very very exciting. Number two the Denver Nuggets.
Seven straight wins and none better than an ass kicking
that they delivered to the Wolves in Minnesota on Saturday night. Again,
this is a team in Minnesota that's had their number
over the last few years, and considering your down two starters,
that's a very discouraging type of situation to find yourself
(36:50):
in on the road in Minnesota. But Tim Hardaway and
Peyton Watson have both done an admirable job stepping into
starting roles. Tim Hardaway just continues to look like a
perfect fit with this te His aggression and his ability
to knock shots down has just been a godsend for
this offense. Peyton Watson has just been to do everything
athlete for them. Good news on the injury front two
(37:11):
with Cam Johnson just a bicep strain, so like not
the more severe injuries that were kind of floating around
as possibilities for Cam, so that's good news. Bad news
is though, a pretty substantial foot injury for Christian Brown
that's going to keep him out for at least six weeks.
So kind of good for Cam because I think Cam
needs to build rhythm, and I think the last thing
(37:32):
he needs right now is to be out of the
lineup for a little bit. But this is where the
depth is going to be tested. This is where all
that investment in the offseason into depth should be able
to help this team. By the way, in that Minnesota game,
yet another performance this year, we talked about how statistically
the Nuggets without Yokic on the floor hadn't been that great.
Statistically better than previous years, for sure, but not that great.
(37:54):
I think coming into the Minnesota game they were like
negative seven points per one hundred possessions with Yokich off
the floor. That number has been like eleven to twelve
in previous season, so certainly better. But one of the
things I talked about was the way it's manifesting is
in good games. They've had multiple games this year where
they were able to blow games open with their bench group,
where they were able to grow the lead rather than
(38:15):
lose the lead with their bench group. Just recently with Sacramento,
right fourth quarter unit comes out there and blows the
game open before Jokic even has to come out to
the floor. This game, yet another example of a very
strong performance for the Nuggets with Jokic off the floor.
A lot of encouraging trends for Denver, none probably as
encouraging as their defense, though they locked Minnesota up in
(38:37):
the second half on Saturday. They are number two in
defensive rating. They were started the season up high, and
they've maintained that. Still number two in defensive rating to
start the season, just completely locked in and on a string,
very clearly committed to their ultimate goals this season. And
then Nikolai Jokich playing like the best player in the
world his last seven games thirty five points, twelve rebounds,
(38:58):
and eleven assists, seventy one from the field in fifty
five percent from three two point six stocks per game
as well over that span. Really encouraging start for the
Denver Nuggets. Number one, as they've been through every single
Power Rankings video we've done to start this season. The
Oklahoma City Thunder currently plus two hundred to win the
title on hard Rock Bet hard to have a better
(39:20):
week than Oklahoma City just did. How about taking two
of the largest fan bases, two fan bases that have
been very optimistic coming into the season for what they
can accomplish, and just taking out the memories, the measuring
stick and just beating the shit out of them for
the entire world to see. In the middle of last week,
just an unbelievable performance dominating two of the great NBA
(39:44):
franchises on back to back nights, two teams that have
pretty resilient offenses too, led by two of the league's
best offensive engines, and they just completely shut both of
them down to the point where both stars looked bad
and both teams looked absolutely helpless to score the bat
basketball as what is clearly the best defense of this
era just continues adding names to the list of dominance,
(40:08):
and the continuation of their offensive leap has been fun
to watch. Sharp transition to tacks off of missus and turnovers,
good ball in player movement in the half court, excellent
advantage creation from Shae Gills, Alexander and aj Mitchell, and
then chet Holmgren's offensive leap has been a sight to behold.
He's averaging nineteen points per game on seventy percent true
shooting this year, excellent three point shooting, quick little matchup
(40:32):
hunting in the mid to short range with little bits
of shot making and step throughs awesome work out of
the dunker spot where he seemingly dunks everything. Just an
awesome offensive start from Chet Holmgren. They've looked like the
best team in basketball to start the season. All right, guys,
It's all I have for today is always sincerely appreciate
you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll
be back tomorrow morning with some game reaction. I'll see
(40:53):
you guys then. Z
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