February 23, 2025 • 28 mins
Jason Timpf reacts after the Los Angeles Lakers get a big win against the Denver Nuggets behind an impressive effort from Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and LA’s defense. Nikola Jokic was held in check from a scoring standpoint and the Nuggets couldn’t keep it a game in the fourth quarter.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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b ball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
(01:40):
the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody, If all of you guys
are having a great start to your weekend. Well the
For as long as I can remember, the Denver Nuggets
have completely owned the Los Angeles Lakers. As someone who
roots for that team, I've had to do some pretty
uncomfortable shows over the years, including last year having to
come up onto this stream right after Jamal Murray ended
(02:01):
games with buzzer beaters. As the Nuggets have seemingly won
a million games in a row against the Lakers. The
one that they won was the down three to zero
in the series last year game in Los Angeles. It's
a matchup the Nuggets have dominated, even as recently as
this season, as they blew them out in Los Angeles
in a second half avalanche that they didn't seem to
(02:21):
have any chance to control. We're gonna be breaking that
game down from the perspective of both teams as the
Lakers go into Denver and blow them out tonight. You
guys know the joke before we get started to subscribed
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(02:42):
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YouTube comments. So we can get to them on our
Friday shows throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I want to be clear
front here. I don't think any single regular season matchup
(03:03):
is any sort of sweeping decoration about what two teams
could look like in the postseason. I would even go
as far as to say a dominant entire regular season
series between two teams wouldn't make that much of a difference. Famously,
last year, the Phoenix Suns owned the Minnesota Timberwolves all
regular season. They had a specific game plan that worked
(03:25):
against them in the regular season, and then they got
into the playoffs and got swept because the dynamics can change,
and more often than not, what I'm looking at in
these regular season situations is not so much what can
happen in one single game, but rather the problems that
either team present for each other. Those problems that they
(03:46):
present are the things you can lean on during a
two week long playoff series to try to gain an advantage.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I had a debate with a fellow volume coworker of mine,
Carson Breber from Nerd Sash the other day as we
kind of talked about Denver Vers La and got into
a bunch of different dynamics that in that show, And
one of the things that I was trying to emphasize
was simply that everyone's focused on whether or not the
Lakers can guard Yokic. And there's no doubt that Yokis
(04:13):
presents a huge problem to this team. No one, no
one wearing a Lakers jersey, can guard him one on one.
And we're gonna talk in a little bit about the
defensive game plan the Lakers had, because I actually thought
they did a really nice job on yokicch in this game.
But one of the things that I kept trying to
harp on was, like everyone's focused on whether or not
the Lakers can handle Yokic. Why is no one paying
(04:34):
attention to the simple fact that on the other end
of the floor, how is Denver going to guard the Lakers.
There's a simple dynamic taking place in this game that
was leading to the Nuggets being in rotation constantly and
the Lakers being able to move the ball around for
wide open threes for guys that are all pretty damn
(04:54):
good and knockdown, catch and shoot three point shooters. And
it was a simple fact that when Luka don would
come off of a ball screen. Michael Malone was bringing
the cool of jokicch up to the level of the screen.
This is the coverage that the Nuggets use most frequently.
This is the coverage that the Nuggets are going to
use when they get into the playoffs. This is how
they defend teams. They force you to skip the ball
(05:17):
and then they plan on their rotations trying to funnel
you into shots that they're okay with. Right well, when
you bring Jokic up to the level, when you bring
him up onto Luca out twenty five feet from the
basket behind, that is a four on three. And it
really starts with a simple dynamic, which is Jackson Hayes
(05:40):
rolling to the rim in Denver having to decide whether
they're gonna tag it when they tag him with Gordon,
the skip passes open. They try to play early in
the game where they didn't tag him. Jackson had an easy,
uncontested layup a seven footer under the basket when nobody
within fifteen feet of him on any side because they
(06:01):
didn't tag it. So then Denver started tagging him with Gordon.
Now it's a skip past every single time, and who's
in that corner. It's either Ruy Hatchramura, who's shooting over
fifty percent on catch and shoot threes this year, or
it's Lebron James who can drive it for a dunk
or drive it to make the next play. They when
they used Ruey as a screener on Yokic, when Yokich
(06:23):
was on Ruey instead of Jackson, He's just popping the
pick and pop is always wide open unless you switch
it or you rotate from the weak side. Ruey is
catching up at the top wide open three, or a
rotation moving the ball around someone else is getting a
wide open shot. Luka Doncic has this. He's one of
(06:45):
the very best in the world at this. The Lakers
have had guys like Lebron who can do this in
the past, but because Luka can do it, it puts
Lebron off the ball. And when you're dealing with an
offense that has Jackson, Hayes who can dunk everything under
the back, and Lebron, Ruey and Austin who can all
be knocked down catch and shoot guys but can also
(07:07):
drive closeouts and make plays that can also cut along
the baseline that can also oh you threw a good rotation.
But guess what. Austin's a score. He can get buckets,
Lebron's a score, buckets, Rui's a score. So even when
you rotate well, these guys are in advantages. You're asking
high level offensive players to score with a nugget sprinting
(07:29):
at them from like ten to fifteen feet away. They
tried a bunch of different things in this game. They
tried going to a three to two zone there in
the late third quarter, which was the only thing they
actually did in this game that made the Lakers a
little bit uncomfortable on offense, and it was because Jared
Vanderbilt was in the game and the three to two
kind of forces Van Doh to do a lot of
(07:50):
high level skill stuff in the middle of the floor,
which is not his game, and they were able to
get a couple of stops there, but even then they
just took him out. Then they started screening the top man.
They got a couple buckets against the three to two
to start.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
The fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Then in the fourth quarter they tried switching with Yokic,
but that doesn't work, so they ended up having to
double to help Yokic. They ended up just passing out
of that and getting wide open threes. The Lakers are
built for every single coverage they could possibly face, even
the two primary coverages we didn't talk about. Switching in
a deeper drop coverage come with their own.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Set of issues.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
If you switch, you're now asking Jokic to guard Lebron,
Luca and Austin on the perimeter all series.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How's that gonna work out for you?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
If you try the deep drop coverage that force the
deep drop coverage involves Jokic sitting further back in the
ball screen. When he sits further back in the ball screen,
he can keep the roll man in front. Well, there's
two problems there. If it's Ruey, he's popping, he's still
wide open. But let's say you run that against Jackson.
You've got Jackson running at you. You're keeping the ball
in the front, you're staying out of rotation. But I'd
(08:59):
argue at Reeves, Lebron, James and Luka Doncic is one
of the best personnel groupings you'll find in the league
for attacking a drop coverage. You want to let Lebron
come screaming downhill against Jokic backpedaling towards the rim. Rim
protection's not his strength. You want to let Luca methodically
work downhill. What does he do every single time? He
(09:19):
just drops that shoulder, bumps you off, and hits that
little bank shot from five feet. Austin Reeves is like
a magician in the middle of the floor, hitting little
ten to fifteen footers, drawing fouls, doing all of the
scoring stuff that he can do there in the middle
of the floor. Like, there's a lot of like overthinking
it that I've seen in terms of the way the
(09:40):
Lakers have been covered. Look, I don't leave this game
tonight thinking they're Boston. I don't leave this game tonight
thinking they might be that. But we need to see
a lot more basketball. But there's a simple, basic reality
with this roster now that people need to acknowledge, and
that's that Lebron, Luca, and Austin are as good a
set of shot creators as you find in the league.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
They lean into.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Luca on the ball, which we're gonna get to when
he's on the floor, but Lebron and Austin are so
great playing off the ball, and then they've got all
these guys that are play finishers. Dorian Phinney Smith. He's
a forty percent catch and shoot guy. Ruey Hatcha Murray,
He's a fifty percent catch and shoot guy and a
great baseline cutter and a guy that's got some high
level of scoring moves. Jackson Hayes can finish everything around there.
In even the guys that gave Vincent that you would
look at as a somewhat average shooter, he's been shooting
(10:26):
the ball pretty well. There's not really an answer there, Like,
I don't need to see much more to know that
the Lakers are gonna score. Whether or not they have
the potential to get to the ultimate goal is gonna
come down to their ability to achieve peak unguardability, and
that will require them to show a lot of success
(10:47):
against elite switching teams. Them to show a lot of success.
Like what if it is a team like Dallas and
they sit Anthony Davis down in a big drop coverage
and he's a guy that's sitting around the rim and
that ends up being a problem, Like they'll need to
They'll need to check a lot more boxes to get
to that point. But I absolutely think that they can
achieve that they have the personnel to attack all of
(11:11):
those different things that they can see. The last thing
I want to talk about with the Lakers on offense
before we move on. I loved how when Luca was
on the floor, they leaned into him as the on
ball creator. This is something that we talked about a
lot in the first week after the trade, which is
that Lebron's like turned himself into one of the best
(11:31):
catch and shoot guys in the league. And you saw
what he can do driving clothes outs. He drove that
close out on the baseline and got a dunk. He
drove a close out and dumped all over Mark Williams
last week or earlier this week. I should say the
Lebron can play off the ball, Austin can play off
the ball. All these guys can play off the ball.
(11:53):
Luca can, but it's not like his strength. So I
love the idea of like Luca's on the floor, let's
just give him the ball and he has one job.
Just make the first read. They chase over the top,
they sit back in a deep drop. His read is
to methodically work downhill and get a nice easy shot
(12:14):
closer to the wrint. They bring the screen defender up
to the level. His job is to either is to
read the low man. Okay, they're tagging Jackson, I'm making
the skip pass they don't tag Jackson, or a ball
fake to the skip pass. I'm dropping it to Jackson.
He's got a dumb he just has to make the
first read. Oh they're switching. Okay, Well, I'm gonna get
a lesser defender on me.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Now that I got this lesser defender, I'm going to
work to a place on the floor where I feel comfortable,
and when I get there, I'm either going to take
the easy shot that I can get, or if they
bring a second defender, I'm going to make that next read.
It's a pretty straightforward process from there, and then when
Luca comes out of the game, Lebron and Austin can
(12:56):
scale up their on ball aggression the way they need to,
and then they have just these short windows of time
where they really need to test their bodies to create advantages.
Lebron was super aggressive to the rim tonight. There was
a specific play a late shotcock a late shot clock
play in the early fourth quarter against Zeke Naji where
(13:19):
Lebron kind of had a predicament clock's running down and
he had a triple thread against Naji at the top
of the key before Luca came to town. Lebron's taken
that three. You know why, because he's got a lot
of basketball left, and when you get to five four, three,
two minutes left, He's gonna be the guy that has
(13:40):
to create all the shots. So, like he didn't really
have a choice in times past but to try to
conserve energy by settling from time to time, that's no
longer the case. He can go like it's the early
fourth quarter. I just got to carry this unit till
about seven to six it's left. Then I get to
(14:01):
go sit down, and when I come back, Luca is
the guy that's gonna be able to help me down
the stretch.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
So you know what he does.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He puts his head down and he tries to drive
to the right, and now he does a great job
sliding with him.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
He's being physical and he's.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Holding him up, and Lebron just just keeps backing him down,
backing him down. Plump fake Zeke leaves his feet patiently
waits for him to come down and banks it off
the glass. It's an exertion of energy that Lebron would
not have made in times past because he was trying
to save his legs. One of the most jarring things
about this game is like you're like, okay, Yokic, just
checking out. Let's see who's on the floor now, Well,
(14:37):
it's gonna be Luca and Lebron, or it's gonna be
Lebron in Austin, or it's gonna be Luca in Austin.
It's wave after wave after wave of high level shot creation. Again,
they're gonna have to achieve a level of peak unguardability
from matchup to matchup, and they're gonna have to maintain
this type of defensive game planning that we've seen. But
(14:57):
I think we would all be foolish, even though we
don't know how they're going to be yet, I think
we would be foolish to not consider this team a threat.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Of course, they're a threat. How are you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Gonna stop them from getting good shots? There's this interesting
thing that happens in basketball games where everything is intricately connected.
The offensive end is connected to defense transition. Defense transition
is connected to defense. Defense is connected to offense transition.
Offense transition is connected to offense. If you can create
(15:28):
an advantage, you can play off of that, all four
phases of the game are are attached to each other.
When you continually get great shot after great shot after
great shot, it has an impact on the flow of
the game. It has an impact on the rhythm of
the game. Like, for instance, one of the things that
we're going to talk about when we talk about the
(15:50):
Lakers defensive scheme, they were trying to shade everything towards
Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon making threes just
like I said they would.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That's exactly how.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Teams are to try to guard Denver in the postseason,
and they made eight threes. Those guys made eight threes,
and it still didn't matter because it doesn't become about
making them pay a couple of times. It becomes about
keeping up. You're a you're in a foot race. Now
you're in a shooting contest. It's it's a shootout, and
(16:22):
you're asking Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, and Russell Westbrook to
keep up making shots. When I look back to some
of the most dominant Luca playoff performances ever Game seven
against Phoenix, Game five against Minnesota, many of them come
down to he sucks the life out of the other
team by strangling the flow of the game, by continually
(16:45):
generating fantastic shots, and it allowing you to set your defense.
It leading to the opponent not being confident, because how
how can you be super confident when Luca is like
strangling the game? It becomes very difficult to do. And
there's only a handful of players in the league that
have the ability to go.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Punch for punch with a guy like him, and with.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Luca or with Jokic. JJ had a game plan, So
let's talk about that game plan. One of the things
(17:27):
I talked about is for the record, I actually do
think that in the big picture, Denver will find more
ways to score against the Lakers. They have too big
of an advantage in Yokish. One of the big things
I think they could do is just when they're bringing
that double from the baseline, Jokic has just got to
look to score like he just needs to shoot and
shoot and shoot, and even when he misses, he can
follow it and get the rebound. He's too much bigger
(17:49):
than all those guys. He's got to try to like
try to force his way through. Sometimes I think a
little bit more. But one of the things I talked
about even though Denver presents issue to the Lakers for
seventeen games coming into tonight, and I haven't seen the
updated stats, but I would assume it's tonight. After eighteen
games two, the Lakers have been the very best defense
(18:11):
in all of NBA basketball. That doesn't mean they're gonna
strangle Jokis for a seven game series, but what it
does mean is they're probably gonna get some stomps. The
two things that I talked about when we talked about
the Laker defense were they've got good defensive personnel, better
defensive personnel than people think. Vando's a great defender. Defense
(18:34):
is a good defender, Gabe's a good defender. Lebron when
he's engaged is a good defender. They Austin when he's
engaged as a good defender. They've got good defenders. But
the second piece of it was defensive game planning, which
has been a strength an underdiscussed strength of JJ Reddick's
coaching job this entire season. The game plan with Jokisch
was simple, starting with Ruyanim put Jackson on Aaron Gordon
(18:58):
in help, but regardless of who was on him, because
they were transition cross matches and other different things where
the Lakers would end up with kind of different matchups.
But it started with fronting the post. Anytime anyone else
had the ball, if Jokic was trying to post, the
guy guarding him was getting in front. Funding the post
is a very difficult job. Jokic is good at sealing
(19:19):
people on his backside. You gotta use swim moves, you
gotta use move your feet quickly. You gotta sit low.
You gotta squat down and push him back to force
an over the top pass. What happens with an over
the top pass. The Miami Heat are the best at this.
You bracket it with backside help to shrink the passing window.
Makes it much harder.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
One of the ways that Jokis was countering that was
he was catching the ball further out, which is one
of the upsides of fronting. When you front the post,
a lot of times, it forces the offensive player to
come further and further out so that he has less
traffic behind him that he can create a passing angle.
Once the ball came into Jokich, they did the exact
same thing every time. The guy who was fronting the
post would quick disengage and get behind. Then he would
(20:01):
start playing the inside shoulder, the paint side shoulder of
Jokic and try to force him towards the baseline. As
soon as Jokic spun out of the baseline, he would
spin down towards the baseline and the Lakers would double
off of Aaron Gordon, whoever it was that was in
the dunker spot from the baseline. Then whoever was guarding
the weak side shooter would dig down on Aaron Gordon.
(20:24):
They were packing the paint doubling on that baseline side.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
They did a good.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Job of attacking Jokic with that double, so they got
a lot of deflections. That was a big part of turnovers.
Turnovers were a huge part in this game as Denver
and Jokic tried to solve this problem and kept throwing
the ball into arms as the Lakers would go running
out the other way looking to score. And look, here's
the thing. You gotta concede stuff. If you're gonna front Jokic,
bracket Jokic double him on the baseline side, guys are
(20:50):
gonna get open, and guys made shots. There's a version
of this game where Aaron Gordon, Christian Brown and Russell
Westbrook don't make eight threes and the Lakers are up
twenty five in the first half. They gave up, they
gave up some of those looks, but they never overreacted.
They stuck to their game plan. They stayed disciplined and
(21:12):
did their jobs. They tilted the shots towards other players.
And that's that's the game plan for JJ. What JJ
is saying is, We're gonna have to give up some stuff,
but good luck keeping up with us on the other
end of the floor, because you're gonna have Aaron Gordon
taking jump shots. You're gonna have Christian Brown taking jump shots.
(21:33):
You're gonna have Russell Westbrook taking jump shots. The Lakers
are gonna have Ruy Hatchamuria Lebron, James, Dorian Finney Smith,
Austin Reeves, Luka Doncics reigning threes, and they're all gonna
be pretty open. And all of those guys are forty
plus percent except for Austin. And you tell me how
you feel when you're a fan rooting against Austin Reeves
(21:53):
when he has a wide open look. Tell me if
you think it's going in. I thought it was a really,
really well like secuted game plan. The Lakers battled on
the glass. They did a great job of digging down
and deflecting the ball away from the bigger Nuggets players.
Like that's the other big chess piece here, right, is
like can Denver use their size to dominate the Lakers
(22:15):
on the glass? They had twelve offensive rebounds, the Lakers
had nine. It wasn't a substantial factor in this game.
I want to start on defense for Denver because there's
gonna have to be something they do. Bringing Jokic up
to the level I don't think is going to work.
I don't think they're going to be able to stop
the Lakers from getting wide open threes if they do that.
(22:35):
They were very fortunate in the first half that Gabe
Dfs and Rui were two for eleven from three in all.
Eleven of them were wide open, and eventually they stuck
with that coverage and in the second half they started
going in and it caused problems. So the two potential
routes that we talked about earlier are switching or a
deeper drop coverage. I don't think switching would work. I
(22:59):
think Luka Doncic excuse me, Nikola Jokic to guard on
the perimeter against Lebron, Austin and Luka all night long
would be a terrible mistake. So that really leaves it
to a deeper drop. And I tweeted this at halftime.
I actually think it's possible that Mike Malone is going
to hold this for a potential playoff matchup to try
to like kind of mix things up. What's the difference
(23:21):
between a deeper drop and an at the level coverage
in and at the level coverage when you bring Jokic
up to the level, meaning as the ball handlers coming
off the screen, Yokic is waiting there. When you do that,
the roller gets behind Jokic. If the roller gets behind Jokic,
you're creating a two on one between the skip pass
and the lob pass that Aaron Gordon has to account for.
(23:44):
If you sit Jokic deeper back, then Aaron Gordon can
stay on that skip pass and now Jokic can keep
the roll man in front. There's a way for Jokic
to guard that to where he can force Luka, Doncic,
force Lebron James, force Austin Reeves to make drop covered shots.
(24:06):
That's a lot of shots in the mid range right now.
To be clear, like I mentioned earlier, that might be
the best group of drop coverage attackers that we have
in the league. But at least you're taking You're making
them take contested twos instead of wide open threes when
all those dudes are wide open forty plus percent shooters.
(24:28):
We didn't see much deep drop tonight. There was a
late possession in the late fourth quarter where Austin Reeves
hit a pull up three, but again that's a tough shot.
That's what you gotta ask yourself. Do you want to
watch Austin Reeves take tough, contested pull up threes in
ball screens? Or do you want to watch Dorian Phinney
Smith and and Ruy Hatchamura just standing completely wide open
at the three point line all season long or all
(24:50):
series long. Right, that's the type of decision that they're
going to have to make. I think that's probably their
best bet is to go with a deeper drop. As
for the offensive end of the floor, again, there's certain
things you can do with your spacing to try to
make it so that when Jokic spins, he's got easier reads.
They did some stuff with Russell Westbrook in the second
(25:12):
half where they had him tee up or like basically
cut right in front of the rim, so that Yokic
would have two cutreads. As he's spinning to the baseline,
he has Gordon on the baseline waiting, and he's got
Russ right in front of the rim. Do you remember
that play where Russ got the layup right by Lebron
and then he fell down and slid into camera row.
That's a perfect example of that type of sequence where
(25:34):
you can try to at least attack it with cutting
instead of all of these skip passes to mediocre shooters.
But like, I think Jokic is gonna have to just
start trying to be a bowling ball. He's gonna have
to just pound and spin off of that first defender,
try to go through the double and just get those
arms out wide, start hitting bodies, get offensive rebounds and
(25:56):
put backs. Like Yokic is gonna have to start trying
to attack this as a score. I think that's something
that they're gonna have to look into. They did get
good stuff with Jamal Murray. That was an encouraging piece.
The Lakers were doing a lot of going under actions
with Jamal Murray and just forcing him to make those
mildly contested pull up jump shots, and he was hitting them.
(26:16):
I think he had six threes in this game. Again,
if you're gonna piece together a successful offense, it's gotta
be multiple different things you can do. The Jamal Murray
stuff worked. I thought Michael Porter Junior got some decent
looks coming off of curls that he missed. There's a
version of that where some of more of those go in.
You actually hit quite a few shots with your mediocre shooters.
(26:37):
You're gonna have to get Jokic to provide more scoring pop, though,
and the only way he's gonna do that is if
he looks at the double and says, screw that, I'm
trying to score anyway. Really interesting game. We're gonna see
a lot more from the Lakers and learn a lot
more about them in time. Their schedule is brutal at
this point. They're gonna face a bunch of different types
of teams that are gonna force their offense to try
(26:58):
to shape shift and.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Score different ways.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But I thought that this was kind of a proof
of concepts tonight that like teams that don't have elite
personnel defensively at all, five positions are going to struggle
to guard the Lakers, and if the Lakers score enough,
their defense just has to be good enough. And this
was a Denver offense that had been annihilating everyone for months,
(27:24):
and the Lakers did a great job holding them in
check tonight. After seventeen games of being the number one
defense in the NBA, I think it's time to start
taking this team seriously as a championship contender. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. As always, as
sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
We are taking tomorrow off, but we'd be back on
Monday to cover a jam packed Sunday slate and a
(27:45):
bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I'll see you guys.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Then the volume. What' so, guys, As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting Oops tonight. It would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
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b ball. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at
(01:40):
the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody, If all of you guys
are having a great start to your weekend. Well the
For as long as I can remember, the Denver Nuggets
have completely owned the Los Angeles Lakers. As someone who
roots for that team, I've had to do some pretty
uncomfortable shows over the years, including last year having to
come up onto this stream right after Jamal Murray ended
(02:01):
games with buzzer beaters. As the Nuggets have seemingly won
a million games in a row against the Lakers. The
one that they won was the down three to zero
in the series last year game in Los Angeles. It's
a matchup the Nuggets have dominated, even as recently as
this season, as they blew them out in Los Angeles
in a second half avalanche that they didn't seem to
(02:21):
have any chance to control. We're gonna be breaking that
game down from the perspective of both teams as the
Lakers go into Denver and blow them out tonight. You
guys know the joke before we get started to subscribed
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
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(02:42):
a rating and a review on that front. Don't forget
about our brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook where we release content throughout the year and
last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the
YouTube comments. So we can get to them on our
Friday shows throughout the remainder of the season. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So I want to be clear
front here. I don't think any single regular season matchup
(03:03):
is any sort of sweeping decoration about what two teams
could look like in the postseason. I would even go
as far as to say a dominant entire regular season
series between two teams wouldn't make that much of a difference. Famously,
last year, the Phoenix Suns owned the Minnesota Timberwolves all
regular season. They had a specific game plan that worked
(03:25):
against them in the regular season, and then they got
into the playoffs and got swept because the dynamics can change,
and more often than not, what I'm looking at in
these regular season situations is not so much what can
happen in one single game, but rather the problems that
either team present for each other. Those problems that they
(03:46):
present are the things you can lean on during a
two week long playoff series to try to gain an advantage.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I had a debate with a fellow volume coworker of mine,
Carson Breber from Nerd Sash the other day as we
kind of talked about Denver Vers La and got into
a bunch of different dynamics that in that show, And
one of the things that I was trying to emphasize
was simply that everyone's focused on whether or not the
Lakers can guard Yokic. And there's no doubt that Yokis
(04:13):
presents a huge problem to this team. No one, no
one wearing a Lakers jersey, can guard him one on one.
And we're gonna talk in a little bit about the
defensive game plan the Lakers had, because I actually thought
they did a really nice job on yokicch in this game.
But one of the things that I kept trying to
harp on was, like everyone's focused on whether or not
the Lakers can handle Yokic. Why is no one paying
(04:34):
attention to the simple fact that on the other end
of the floor, how is Denver going to guard the Lakers.
There's a simple dynamic taking place in this game that
was leading to the Nuggets being in rotation constantly and
the Lakers being able to move the ball around for
wide open threes for guys that are all pretty damn
(04:54):
good and knockdown, catch and shoot three point shooters. And
it was a simple fact that when Luka don would
come off of a ball screen. Michael Malone was bringing
the cool of jokicch up to the level of the screen.
This is the coverage that the Nuggets use most frequently.
This is the coverage that the Nuggets are going to
use when they get into the playoffs. This is how
they defend teams. They force you to skip the ball
(05:17):
and then they plan on their rotations trying to funnel
you into shots that they're okay with. Right well, when
you bring Jokic up to the level, when you bring
him up onto Luca out twenty five feet from the
basket behind, that is a four on three. And it
really starts with a simple dynamic, which is Jackson Hayes
(05:40):
rolling to the rim in Denver having to decide whether
they're gonna tag it when they tag him with Gordon,
the skip passes open. They try to play early in
the game where they didn't tag him. Jackson had an easy,
uncontested layup a seven footer under the basket when nobody
within fifteen feet of him on any side because they
(06:01):
didn't tag it. So then Denver started tagging him with Gordon.
Now it's a skip past every single time, and who's
in that corner. It's either Ruy Hatchramura, who's shooting over
fifty percent on catch and shoot threes this year, or
it's Lebron James who can drive it for a dunk
or drive it to make the next play. They when
they used Ruey as a screener on Yokic, when Yokich
(06:23):
was on Ruey instead of Jackson, He's just popping the
pick and pop is always wide open unless you switch
it or you rotate from the weak side. Ruey is
catching up at the top wide open three, or a
rotation moving the ball around someone else is getting a
wide open shot. Luka Doncic has this. He's one of
(06:45):
the very best in the world at this. The Lakers
have had guys like Lebron who can do this in
the past, but because Luka can do it, it puts
Lebron off the ball. And when you're dealing with an
offense that has Jackson, Hayes who can dunk everything under
the back, and Lebron, Ruey and Austin who can all
be knocked down catch and shoot guys but can also
(07:07):
drive closeouts and make plays that can also cut along
the baseline that can also oh you threw a good rotation.
But guess what. Austin's a score. He can get buckets,
Lebron's a score, buckets, Rui's a score. So even when
you rotate well, these guys are in advantages. You're asking
high level offensive players to score with a nugget sprinting
(07:29):
at them from like ten to fifteen feet away. They
tried a bunch of different things in this game. They
tried going to a three to two zone there in
the late third quarter, which was the only thing they
actually did in this game that made the Lakers a
little bit uncomfortable on offense, and it was because Jared
Vanderbilt was in the game and the three to two
kind of forces Van Doh to do a lot of
(07:50):
high level skill stuff in the middle of the floor,
which is not his game, and they were able to
get a couple of stops there, but even then they
just took him out. Then they started screening the top man.
They got a couple buckets against the three to two
to start.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
The fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Then in the fourth quarter they tried switching with Yokic,
but that doesn't work, so they ended up having to
double to help Yokic. They ended up just passing out
of that and getting wide open threes. The Lakers are
built for every single coverage they could possibly face, even
the two primary coverages we didn't talk about. Switching in
a deeper drop coverage come with their own.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Set of issues.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
If you switch, you're now asking Jokic to guard Lebron,
Luca and Austin on the perimeter all series.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How's that gonna work out for you?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
If you try the deep drop coverage that force the
deep drop coverage involves Jokic sitting further back in the
ball screen. When he sits further back in the ball screen,
he can keep the roll man in front. Well, there's
two problems there. If it's Ruey, he's popping, he's still
wide open. But let's say you run that against Jackson.
You've got Jackson running at you. You're keeping the ball
in the front, you're staying out of rotation. But I'd
(08:59):
argue at Reeves, Lebron, James and Luka Doncic is one
of the best personnel groupings you'll find in the league
for attacking a drop coverage. You want to let Lebron
come screaming downhill against Jokic backpedaling towards the rim. Rim
protection's not his strength. You want to let Luca methodically
work downhill. What does he do every single time? He
(09:19):
just drops that shoulder, bumps you off, and hits that
little bank shot from five feet. Austin Reeves is like
a magician in the middle of the floor, hitting little
ten to fifteen footers, drawing fouls, doing all of the
scoring stuff that he can do there in the middle
of the floor. Like, there's a lot of like overthinking
it that I've seen in terms of the way the
(09:40):
Lakers have been covered. Look, I don't leave this game
tonight thinking they're Boston. I don't leave this game tonight
thinking they might be that. But we need to see
a lot more basketball. But there's a simple, basic reality
with this roster now that people need to acknowledge, and
that's that Lebron, Luca, and Austin are as good a
set of shot creators as you find in the league.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
They lean into.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Luca on the ball, which we're gonna get to when
he's on the floor, but Lebron and Austin are so
great playing off the ball, and then they've got all
these guys that are play finishers. Dorian Phinney Smith. He's
a forty percent catch and shoot guy. Ruey Hatcha Murray,
He's a fifty percent catch and shoot guy and a
great baseline cutter and a guy that's got some high
level of scoring moves. Jackson Hayes can finish everything around there.
In even the guys that gave Vincent that you would
look at as a somewhat average shooter, he's been shooting
(10:26):
the ball pretty well. There's not really an answer there, Like,
I don't need to see much more to know that
the Lakers are gonna score. Whether or not they have
the potential to get to the ultimate goal is gonna
come down to their ability to achieve peak unguardability, and
that will require them to show a lot of success
(10:47):
against elite switching teams. Them to show a lot of success.
Like what if it is a team like Dallas and
they sit Anthony Davis down in a big drop coverage
and he's a guy that's sitting around the rim and
that ends up being a problem, Like they'll need to
They'll need to check a lot more boxes to get
to that point. But I absolutely think that they can
achieve that they have the personnel to attack all of
(11:11):
those different things that they can see. The last thing
I want to talk about with the Lakers on offense
before we move on. I loved how when Luca was
on the floor, they leaned into him as the on
ball creator. This is something that we talked about a
lot in the first week after the trade, which is
that Lebron's like turned himself into one of the best
(11:31):
catch and shoot guys in the league. And you saw
what he can do driving clothes outs. He drove that
close out on the baseline and got a dunk. He
drove a close out and dumped all over Mark Williams
last week or earlier this week. I should say the
Lebron can play off the ball, Austin can play off
the ball. All these guys can play off the ball.
(11:53):
Luca can, but it's not like his strength. So I
love the idea of like Luca's on the floor, let's
just give him the ball and he has one job.
Just make the first read. They chase over the top,
they sit back in a deep drop. His read is
to methodically work downhill and get a nice easy shot
(12:14):
closer to the wrint. They bring the screen defender up
to the level. His job is to either is to
read the low man. Okay, they're tagging Jackson, I'm making
the skip pass they don't tag Jackson, or a ball
fake to the skip pass. I'm dropping it to Jackson.
He's got a dumb he just has to make the
first read. Oh they're switching. Okay, Well, I'm gonna get
a lesser defender on me.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Now that I got this lesser defender, I'm going to
work to a place on the floor where I feel comfortable,
and when I get there, I'm either going to take
the easy shot that I can get, or if they
bring a second defender, I'm going to make that next read.
It's a pretty straightforward process from there, and then when
Luca comes out of the game, Lebron and Austin can
(12:56):
scale up their on ball aggression the way they need to,
and then they have just these short windows of time
where they really need to test their bodies to create advantages.
Lebron was super aggressive to the rim tonight. There was
a specific play a late shotcock a late shot clock
play in the early fourth quarter against Zeke Naji where
(13:19):
Lebron kind of had a predicament clock's running down and
he had a triple thread against Naji at the top
of the key before Luca came to town. Lebron's taken
that three. You know why, because he's got a lot
of basketball left, and when you get to five four, three,
two minutes left, He's gonna be the guy that has
(13:40):
to create all the shots. So, like he didn't really
have a choice in times past but to try to
conserve energy by settling from time to time, that's no
longer the case. He can go like it's the early
fourth quarter. I just got to carry this unit till
about seven to six it's left. Then I get to
(14:01):
go sit down, and when I come back, Luca is
the guy that's gonna be able to help me down
the stretch.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
So you know what he does.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He puts his head down and he tries to drive
to the right, and now he does a great job
sliding with him.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
He's being physical and he's.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Holding him up, and Lebron just just keeps backing him down,
backing him down. Plump fake Zeke leaves his feet patiently
waits for him to come down and banks it off
the glass. It's an exertion of energy that Lebron would
not have made in times past because he was trying
to save his legs. One of the most jarring things
about this game is like you're like, okay, Yokic, just
checking out. Let's see who's on the floor now, Well,
(14:37):
it's gonna be Luca and Lebron, or it's gonna be
Lebron in Austin, or it's gonna be Luca in Austin.
It's wave after wave after wave of high level shot creation. Again,
they're gonna have to achieve a level of peak unguardability
from matchup to matchup, and they're gonna have to maintain
this type of defensive game planning that we've seen. But
(14:57):
I think we would all be foolish, even though we
don't know how they're going to be yet, I think
we would be foolish to not consider this team a threat.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Of course, they're a threat. How are you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Gonna stop them from getting good shots? There's this interesting
thing that happens in basketball games where everything is intricately connected.
The offensive end is connected to defense transition. Defense transition
is connected to defense. Defense is connected to offense transition.
Offense transition is connected to offense. If you can create
(15:28):
an advantage, you can play off of that, all four
phases of the game are are attached to each other.
When you continually get great shot after great shot after
great shot, it has an impact on the flow of
the game. It has an impact on the rhythm of
the game. Like, for instance, one of the things that
we're going to talk about when we talk about the
(15:50):
Lakers defensive scheme, they were trying to shade everything towards
Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon making threes just
like I said they would.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That's exactly how.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Teams are to try to guard Denver in the postseason,
and they made eight threes. Those guys made eight threes,
and it still didn't matter because it doesn't become about
making them pay a couple of times. It becomes about
keeping up. You're a you're in a foot race. Now
you're in a shooting contest. It's it's a shootout, and
(16:22):
you're asking Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, and Russell Westbrook to
keep up making shots. When I look back to some
of the most dominant Luca playoff performances ever Game seven
against Phoenix, Game five against Minnesota, many of them come
down to he sucks the life out of the other
team by strangling the flow of the game, by continually
(16:45):
generating fantastic shots, and it allowing you to set your defense.
It leading to the opponent not being confident, because how
how can you be super confident when Luca is like
strangling the game? It becomes very difficult to do. And
there's only a handful of players in the league that
have the ability to go.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Punch for punch with a guy like him, and with.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Luca or with Jokic. JJ had a game plan, So
let's talk about that game plan. One of the things
(17:27):
I talked about is for the record, I actually do
think that in the big picture, Denver will find more
ways to score against the Lakers. They have too big
of an advantage in Yokish. One of the big things
I think they could do is just when they're bringing
that double from the baseline, Jokic has just got to
look to score like he just needs to shoot and
shoot and shoot, and even when he misses, he can
follow it and get the rebound. He's too much bigger
(17:49):
than all those guys. He's got to try to like
try to force his way through. Sometimes I think a
little bit more. But one of the things I talked
about even though Denver presents issue to the Lakers for
seventeen games coming into tonight, and I haven't seen the
updated stats, but I would assume it's tonight. After eighteen
games two, the Lakers have been the very best defense
(18:11):
in all of NBA basketball. That doesn't mean they're gonna
strangle Jokis for a seven game series, but what it
does mean is they're probably gonna get some stomps. The
two things that I talked about when we talked about
the Laker defense were they've got good defensive personnel, better
defensive personnel than people think. Vando's a great defender. Defense
(18:34):
is a good defender, Gabe's a good defender. Lebron when
he's engaged is a good defender. They Austin when he's
engaged as a good defender. They've got good defenders. But
the second piece of it was defensive game planning, which
has been a strength an underdiscussed strength of JJ Reddick's
coaching job this entire season. The game plan with Jokisch
was simple, starting with Ruyanim put Jackson on Aaron Gordon
(18:58):
in help, but regardless of who was on him, because
they were transition cross matches and other different things where
the Lakers would end up with kind of different matchups.
But it started with fronting the post. Anytime anyone else
had the ball, if Jokic was trying to post, the
guy guarding him was getting in front. Funding the post
is a very difficult job. Jokic is good at sealing
(19:19):
people on his backside. You gotta use swim moves, you
gotta use move your feet quickly. You gotta sit low.
You gotta squat down and push him back to force
an over the top pass. What happens with an over
the top pass. The Miami Heat are the best at this.
You bracket it with backside help to shrink the passing window.
Makes it much harder.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
One of the ways that Jokis was countering that was
he was catching the ball further out, which is one
of the upsides of fronting. When you front the post,
a lot of times, it forces the offensive player to
come further and further out so that he has less
traffic behind him that he can create a passing angle.
Once the ball came into Jokich, they did the exact
same thing every time. The guy who was fronting the
post would quick disengage and get behind. Then he would
(20:01):
start playing the inside shoulder, the paint side shoulder of
Jokic and try to force him towards the baseline. As
soon as Jokic spun out of the baseline, he would
spin down towards the baseline and the Lakers would double
off of Aaron Gordon, whoever it was that was in
the dunker spot from the baseline. Then whoever was guarding
the weak side shooter would dig down on Aaron Gordon.
(20:24):
They were packing the paint doubling on that baseline side.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
They did a good.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Job of attacking Jokic with that double, so they got
a lot of deflections. That was a big part of turnovers.
Turnovers were a huge part in this game as Denver
and Jokic tried to solve this problem and kept throwing
the ball into arms as the Lakers would go running
out the other way looking to score. And look, here's
the thing. You gotta concede stuff. If you're gonna front Jokic,
bracket Jokic double him on the baseline side, guys are
(20:50):
gonna get open, and guys made shots. There's a version
of this game where Aaron Gordon, Christian Brown and Russell
Westbrook don't make eight threes and the Lakers are up
twenty five in the first half. They gave up, they
gave up some of those looks, but they never overreacted.
They stuck to their game plan. They stayed disciplined and
(21:12):
did their jobs. They tilted the shots towards other players.
And that's that's the game plan for JJ. What JJ
is saying is, We're gonna have to give up some stuff,
but good luck keeping up with us on the other
end of the floor, because you're gonna have Aaron Gordon
taking jump shots. You're gonna have Christian Brown taking jump shots.
(21:33):
You're gonna have Russell Westbrook taking jump shots. The Lakers
are gonna have Ruy Hatchamuria Lebron, James, Dorian Finney Smith,
Austin Reeves, Luka Doncics reigning threes, and they're all gonna
be pretty open. And all of those guys are forty
plus percent except for Austin. And you tell me how
you feel when you're a fan rooting against Austin Reeves
(21:53):
when he has a wide open look. Tell me if
you think it's going in. I thought it was a really,
really well like secuted game plan. The Lakers battled on
the glass. They did a great job of digging down
and deflecting the ball away from the bigger Nuggets players.
Like that's the other big chess piece here, right, is
like can Denver use their size to dominate the Lakers
(22:15):
on the glass? They had twelve offensive rebounds, the Lakers
had nine. It wasn't a substantial factor in this game.
I want to start on defense for Denver because there's
gonna have to be something they do. Bringing Jokic up
to the level I don't think is going to work.
I don't think they're going to be able to stop
the Lakers from getting wide open threes if they do that.
(22:35):
They were very fortunate in the first half that Gabe
Dfs and Rui were two for eleven from three in all.
Eleven of them were wide open, and eventually they stuck
with that coverage and in the second half they started
going in and it caused problems. So the two potential
routes that we talked about earlier are switching or a
deeper drop coverage. I don't think switching would work. I
(22:59):
think Luka Doncic excuse me, Nikola Jokic to guard on
the perimeter against Lebron, Austin and Luka all night long
would be a terrible mistake. So that really leaves it
to a deeper drop. And I tweeted this at halftime.
I actually think it's possible that Mike Malone is going
to hold this for a potential playoff matchup to try
to like kind of mix things up. What's the difference
(23:21):
between a deeper drop and an at the level coverage
in and at the level coverage when you bring Jokic
up to the level, meaning as the ball handlers coming
off the screen, Yokic is waiting there. When you do that,
the roller gets behind Jokic. If the roller gets behind Jokic,
you're creating a two on one between the skip pass
and the lob pass that Aaron Gordon has to account for.
(23:44):
If you sit Jokic deeper back, then Aaron Gordon can
stay on that skip pass and now Jokic can keep
the roll man in front. There's a way for Jokic
to guard that to where he can force Luka, Doncic,
force Lebron James, force Austin Reeves to make drop covered shots.
(24:06):
That's a lot of shots in the mid range right now.
To be clear, like I mentioned earlier, that might be
the best group of drop coverage attackers that we have
in the league. But at least you're taking You're making
them take contested twos instead of wide open threes when
all those dudes are wide open forty plus percent shooters.
(24:28):
We didn't see much deep drop tonight. There was a
late possession in the late fourth quarter where Austin Reeves
hit a pull up three, but again that's a tough shot.
That's what you gotta ask yourself. Do you want to
watch Austin Reeves take tough, contested pull up threes in
ball screens? Or do you want to watch Dorian Phinney
Smith and and Ruy Hatchamura just standing completely wide open
at the three point line all season long or all
(24:50):
series long. Right, that's the type of decision that they're
going to have to make. I think that's probably their
best bet is to go with a deeper drop. As
for the offensive end of the floor, again, there's certain
things you can do with your spacing to try to
make it so that when Jokic spins, he's got easier reads.
They did some stuff with Russell Westbrook in the second
(25:12):
half where they had him tee up or like basically
cut right in front of the rim, so that Yokic
would have two cutreads. As he's spinning to the baseline,
he has Gordon on the baseline waiting, and he's got
Russ right in front of the rim. Do you remember
that play where Russ got the layup right by Lebron
and then he fell down and slid into camera row.
That's a perfect example of that type of sequence where
(25:34):
you can try to at least attack it with cutting
instead of all of these skip passes to mediocre shooters.
But like, I think Jokic is gonna have to just
start trying to be a bowling ball. He's gonna have
to just pound and spin off of that first defender,
try to go through the double and just get those
arms out wide, start hitting bodies, get offensive rebounds and
(25:56):
put backs. Like Yokic is gonna have to start trying
to attack this as a score. I think that's something
that they're gonna have to look into. They did get
good stuff with Jamal Murray. That was an encouraging piece.
The Lakers were doing a lot of going under actions
with Jamal Murray and just forcing him to make those
mildly contested pull up jump shots, and he was hitting them.
(26:16):
I think he had six threes in this game. Again,
if you're gonna piece together a successful offense, it's gotta
be multiple different things you can do. The Jamal Murray
stuff worked. I thought Michael Porter Junior got some decent
looks coming off of curls that he missed. There's a
version of that where some of more of those go in.
You actually hit quite a few shots with your mediocre shooters.
(26:37):
You're gonna have to get Jokic to provide more scoring pop, though,
and the only way he's gonna do that is if
he looks at the double and says, screw that, I'm
trying to score anyway. Really interesting game. We're gonna see
a lot more from the Lakers and learn a lot
more about them in time. Their schedule is brutal at
this point. They're gonna face a bunch of different types
of teams that are gonna force their offense to try
(26:58):
to shape shift and.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Score different ways.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But I thought that this was kind of a proof
of concepts tonight that like teams that don't have elite
personnel defensively at all, five positions are going to struggle
to guard the Lakers, and if the Lakers score enough,
their defense just has to be good enough. And this
was a Denver offense that had been annihilating everyone for months,
(27:24):
and the Lakers did a great job holding them in
check tonight. After seventeen games of being the number one
defense in the NBA, I think it's time to start
taking this team seriously as a championship contender. All right, guys,
that is all I have for tonight. As always, as
sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
We are taking tomorrow off, but we'd be back on
Monday to cover a jam packed Sunday slate and a
(27:45):
bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I'll see you guys.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Then the volume. What' so, guys, As always, I appreciate
you for listening to and supporting Oops tonight. It would
actually be really helpful for us if you guys would
take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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