March 14, 2025 • 25 mins
Jason breaks down the Golden State Warriors getting another win against the Sacramento Kings in a game where Steph Curry became the first NBA player to reach 4,000 made 3-pointers and Jonathan Kuminga returned to pair alongside Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green. Then he discusses the Los Angeles Lakers losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in a game LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, and Jaxson Hayes all missed. He breaks down Luka Doncic having a big game and how Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, and Brook Lopez were too much for LA to handle.
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4:00 - Start
5:00 - Warriors/Kings reaction
24:15 - Lakers/Bucks reaction
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Episode Transcript
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All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume.
Happy Friday, everybody, Hope all of you guys have had
a great end to your week. Got a quick show
for you guys today. We're just hitting the TNT slate
from last night. The Golden State Warriors blow out the
Kings at home. Jonathan Kaminga makes his debut back with
the team. I thought he was fantastic. We're gonna talk
a little bit about that then at the tail end
of the show, the Los Angeles Lakers go on the
(01:58):
road without their starting three, four or five against the
Milwaukee Bucks, and it goes about as you would expect
as the Bucks blow them out. I have some thoughts
about the coverages in the way that Milwaukee beat them,
and then a couple of big picture thoughts about the Lakers.
You guys know the joke before we get started. To
subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
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(02:19):
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We're releasing content throughout the year, and the last but
not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments
so that we can get to them throughout the remainder
of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
one of the most important things that I talk about
(02:40):
in these shows is the idea of like game planning
and how you can defeat a specific game plan. I
talk to these kinds of shots as like coverage beaters, right,
and the Kings went with a defensive game plan against
Steph that is somewhat common around the league. It's a
coverage the Lakers used on the Warriors in the twenty
twenty three playoffs. It's a coverage the Warriors have seen
(03:01):
from other teams around the league, and it's almost certainly
going to be a coverage the Warriors will have to
beat if they make a deep playoff run at some
point this year. And that is top blocking Steph. What
that means is essentially constantly positioning your body as the
on ball defender with Steph, with your back towards the ball,
so they can't ever cut towards the ball. This is
(03:23):
going to force him to cut through to the opposite side.
And then in those situations, they were just constantly ignoring
whichever non shooter they saw as an opportunity to help
off the floor, whether that's Draymond Grain early in the
game with Jonas Valacunis, or it's Kevan Loody helping off,
or it's Gary Payton the second helping off of him.
They were just packing the paint and top blocking Steph
(03:47):
forcing him to backcut into all of that traffic. And so,
as a result, as we talk about all the time,
every game plan, especially game plans that target superstar talent,
are going to require you to give something up to
take something away. And so if you're gonna deny Steph
catches and not let him run up to the ball
by forcing him to back cut into traffic, you're going
(04:08):
to have to help off of guys like Draymond and
Gary Payton, they're gonna be wide open. And they just
made Sacramento pay again again and again. In this game,
Gary Payton and Draymond Green go seven for eleven from three.
The Warriors as a team generated thirteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots in this game. Six of those were
(04:28):
concession threes to Gary Payton and Draymond Five of them
were against the guys on the Warriors that are a
different kind of game plan where it's like, we're willing
to help off this guy. We're not deliberately leaving him open,
but will help and try to recover with a late contest.
These five threes were for Quinton Post, Moses Moody, and
Gie Santos. Those guys went three for five on those
(04:49):
shots as well, so they just consistently knocked down shots
to make Sacramento pay for the coverage that they use
against Steph Curry. So the result was the Kings held
stef to just nine shot attempts and only eleven points,
but the Warriors hung one hundred and thirty points on
them and basically controlled the game throughout. And so you
(05:10):
did your job a slowing down Steph, I guess, but
the Warriors lit you on fire and you lost. So
the game plan backfired on the Sacramento Kings. On defense,
I thought Moses Moody really set the tone with his
ball pressure on Malik Monk. He was in his jersey
the second he crossed half court, bumping in with his chest,
reaching and doing everything he could to disrupt his rhythm
(05:30):
and make him feel uncomfortable and make him feel rushed.
He only got credit for two steals in the game,
but he forced several turnovers and bad decisions just by
rushing Monk into traffic. I talk about this concept a lot,
but when you ball pressure out far from the basket,
the only way to really beat it is to drive
to basically use that aggression as the defender gets out
of position to go downhill. It actually turns into a
(05:53):
way as a defense for you to control dribble penetration,
to essentially have dribble penetration happen on your turn right,
so that you can have a better plan for it. Okay,
like we're gonna have Moses pressure the ball, try to
send him towards the sideline. We have a plan for
that there. And then what ends up happening is when
a guy has to fly downhill against ball pressure and
(06:14):
he ends up getting into the traffic. He's rushed, he's
out of control. That's when you start making mistakes. And
you know. One of the second pieces that you'll see
outside of one on one situations is ball screen coverages, right,
And one of the things I always talk about in
ball screen coverages is a bracket. The idea of the
on ball defender chasing over the top and applying back
(06:36):
pressure while the screen defender or the big man is
applying pressure on the ball handler in his drop coverage,
whether it's a high dropp or a deeper drop, but
meeting the ball handler on the other side of the screen.
When that bracket is loose, meaning the on ball defender
is getting screened and getting separated from the on ball
offensive player, and the screen defender is too far back,
(07:00):
is loose their space to operate there. Ball handlers can
get comfortable and they can start making plays. But when
you stay attached and you apply that back pressure and
you have them bracketed on the other side, even though
you're technically putting two on the ball, you're putting two
on the ball against a driver that now has to
get the ball out against a bunch of active hands.
(07:20):
And I thought they were excellent in their bracket coverages
all night long. Moses Moody more of the same, both
with Malik. Monkey also spent a good amount of time
on Zach Levine in this game, doing some great work there.
Gary Payton second spend time on both guys, did really
great work the screen defenders. Looney. Even Quinton Post who's
had some uneven results on defense this year, I thought
(07:41):
he was really good on defense in this game. Draymond
Green one of the best in the business at it.
They were bracketing those guys, making them get rid of
the ball and forcing a lot of turnovers in those situations.
Malik Monk goes three for thirteen from the field with
four turnovers. They held Zach Levine to just six shot
at tips in five turnover. Now, Jimmy started on Levine,
(08:01):
but like I said, Moody spent a bunch of time
there as well. It was kind of a weird Levine
game because he was uninvolved a lot, where like he's
just standing in the quarter while Malik Monk and Demarta
Rozen go to work. By the way, that's kind of
the diminishing returns effect that you get when you build
your team around three kind of redundant ball handlers. It's
the Bradley Beal problem, right. You start having that guy
(08:21):
just stand around, and suddenly some of his top end
offensive talent is being wasted and you're not getting the
other stuff. That's why I think this sort of team
build is so flawed. But Zach Levine was pretty uninvolved
for a good portion of this game. When he did
get the basketball, that same sort of bracket he had
a turnover against the bracket coverage when Quinton Post got
(08:43):
a deflection on him. Quinn Post forced him into another
miss at the rim, where he the Warrior successfully funneled
him into their size they just strangled all of the
King's shot creators except for Demart Rosen, who was fantastic
in this game. And Damar's just you know, one of
the legendary type space scores in NBA history, right, and
so like he's going to have his success. But they
(09:04):
completely neutralized Malik Monk and Zach Lavine and ended up
being more than enough to slow down the Kings. They
ended up held holding the Kings down to one hundred
and four points in this game. They won the non
steph minutes by eleven. They're really starting to learn how
to like configure their off ball spacing around Jimmy's He
gets these a lot of these like face up ISOs
(09:26):
that are between like the elbow and the short corner
on one side of the floor. And one of the
things they'll do is like a lot of teams will
end up strongside zoning or having a help defender come
over to be right behind the defender guarding Jimmy, and
so there's cutting opportunities. And one of the things they
do they ended up getting a layup for Draymond Green
out of this. In the second half, they'll have a
guy flash to the front of the rim right like
(09:49):
kind of like right outside the charge circle calling for
the ball, and then they'll have another guy positioned himself
in the dunker spot. And so essentially there's two cutters
that are right there around the basket, and so that
helped Fender ends up having to pick one or the other.
And then there's an easy little pass for Jimmy Butler
to make. He just hit Jonathan Kaminga flashing into the
front of the rim, drop off pass to Draymond Green
(10:09):
as the zoned up defender ends up sliding over to
kaminga easy layup for Draymond Green. They ended up looking
really good again in the non Steph minutes, and we
had our return of Jonathan Kaminga. He goes for eighteen
points almost entirely in the flow of the offense. His
first three buckets were ISO stuff, but they were against
good matchups for him, all of them against smaller kings guards.
(10:31):
He gets Malik Munk in a transition cross match just
immediately just goes right through him to the front of
the rim and gets a layup. He runs an inverted
ball screen with Steph, where Steph sets a screen for him.
This is a very common action. You'll see not just
with Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Minga, but even in the
past with Andrew Wiggins. Right, they want to do that
because Steph's man doesn't want to help. Well, they ended
up switching this one. It put Kean Ellis against Jonathan
(10:54):
Kaminga in some space in the middle of the floor.
What did he do? He went right the room and
got to the rim and then in the third court
his third bucket, he ends up beating zach Lavine one
on one. Zach Lavin's giving up a lot of size
and weight in that particular matchup, but the rest of
his buckets were just classic Jonathan Kaminga like I see
your runway and I'm going to the front of the
rim type of buckets. When you give a good athlete
(11:16):
a runway, a long stretch for him to get his
momentum going and take off, he can destroy teams above
the rim. And here's the thing, Like, Jonathan kming is
not the best read and react player I've ever seen,
and that's been some of his issues in Golden State's
offense from time to time. But he is very good
at reading and reacting to those runways when he sees
(11:38):
his man step up into help, and he sees a
bunch of real estate between him and the rim without
any players in front. He has a very quick reaction
to that, and he will just shoot to the front
of the rim and get a lot of easy stuff there.
That is an area in his read and react game
where he's actually very strong. His fourth bucket, a near
turnover out by half court chaos leads to a five
(12:01):
on three. What does Kaminga do. He just turns and
runs to the front of the rim, ends up catching
a pass and getting an easy layup. His fifth bucket
was the textbook Steph Curry blitz sequence Steph Curry ballscreen
out by the right wing. There's a blitz, the ball
gets popped over the top. Malik Monk is the low
man guarding Jonathan Kaminga. The very second that Malik Monk
(12:26):
steps over, Kaminga just shoots along the baseline. He ends
up getting that crazy windmill dunk under the rim. His
sixth bucket, same sort of thing. Throws an inbound pass
to Moses Moody in the corner. His man Jake Lravea,
steps over like kind of lunges over to try to
deny the catch to Moses Moody. It triggers something in Kaminga.
He immediately just cuts to the front of the rim
(12:48):
because he sees his man leave and there's a runway,
easy drop off pass over the top, another dunk, and
then his seventh bucket was a designed play. This is
a play that is known around the league as Finland.
It's basically just a backscreen from a shooter, backscreening for
an athlete, then coming off of a dribble handoff at
the top of the key, Draymond has the ball up
(13:09):
on the left wing. Steph backscreens for Kaminga. Now, the
way that play would normally work is Steph would then
come flying off of Draymon for the dribble handoff. The
way it usually works is Steph's man has to drop
back to help on the backscreen. As he helps on
the backscreen, that creates separation between Steph and his defender
(13:30):
or forces a switch. If there's separation, he can sprint
off and now he has separation coming off the dribble handoff.
If there's a switch, the other defender is standing still
and now Steph can sprint past him and hopefully gets
some extra separation as he comes off of the dribble handoff,
but they didn't even get that far in the sequence
because Keegan murray had no interest in helping off of Steph.
(13:51):
So when Steph set the backscreen, another runway appeared for
Jonathan Kminga right to the front of the rim. Draymond
throws him a perfect pass and he gets a lob dunk.
Easy dunks, easy layups, easy matchup opportunities, a lot of
stuff in there that's pretty exciting. Three things stood out
to me from the Jonathan Kaminga debut with the new
(14:12):
squad that I think are really exciting for Warriors fans. One,
he's gonna get a lot of those runways playing alongside Jimmy,
Steph and Dreymont. They are excellent read and reacts players.
They are going to trigger those help sequences that open
up those runways that Kamingo is good at quickly identifying
and taking advantage of, and he's just such a useful
(14:33):
play finisher in those situations. Two, he's gonna get a
lot of favorable matchups playing alongside Jimmy Butler. I've talked
about this with the Lakers before, with like Lebron and
Ruey in the past. Or Lebron, Anthony Davison, Ruiy and
even now with Luca. When you have multiple big forwards
who can punish Smalls, the defense kind of runs out
(14:54):
of guys who can guard them. Opponents are going to
put their best forward defender on Jimmy Butler. Kaminga used
to get that matchup when he was on the floor
in the past. Now it's Jimmy, He's going to get
a lot more of the second best forward defender on
the floor, which is usually going to be completely physically
overmatched against Jonathan Kaminga. And then three, we talked a
(15:15):
lot in the mail bag yesterday about the idea that
Jonathan Kaminga is a player who's going to be capable
of doing more than the Warriors actually need from him
in this role on this team with real championship aspirations,
and there were some question marks surrounding will Kaminga embraced
that I thought last night was a resounding statement from
him that he's willing to do that type of role
(15:38):
for this team. It's not easy for a player of
his talent level coming into a team that is so
well established without him to just kind of seamlessly fit
in in the flow. I didn't think he took a
single bad shot. He took one three that was kind
of like a hand grenade that Jimmy tossed in with
two seconds on the shot clock. Every single other one
of his nine shot attempts were either substantial size advantage
(16:01):
and what made sense for him to attack in space
or with a runway to the rim where he's going
to finish it one hundred percent of the time. I
just thought he played smart basketball which allowed him to function.
Is what he can be for this team, which is
a ceiling Razor Warriors keep rolling. They have three tougher
games coming up against the Knicks, the Bucks, and the Nuggets,
but they're all at home. They're a big, physical teams,
(16:23):
so this will help us learn specifically about Golden State's
ability to handle some of these bigger, more physical matchups.
I'll be excited to see how those games turn out.
(16:47):
All right, let's move on to Lakers Bucks. We talked
earlier in the show about the concept of coverage beaters.
This game is another excellent example of that concept. JJ Reddick,
what with a very aggressive game plan against and Dame
to try to get this game in the win. Call
him for the Lakers. He went with the Jokic esque
strategy against Giannis, trying to front him, deny him catches
(17:08):
wherever he wanted them, strong side zoning him if he
did catch. Like if he did catch, they just peel off,
funnel him towards the sideline and bring that help on
that baseline side right outside the block. That obviously left
a lot of skip passes open in the Dame ball
screens with brook Lopez, he just had Alex lenn drop
back and focus on Dame and basically concede the pick
(17:32):
and pop three to brook Lopez. And so as a result,
there were a lot of open threes available to Milwaukee
if they just made simple reads kickbacks to brook Lopez
in the pick and pop basically anything skipped to the
weak side from the Janis actions. And then I thought
the Lakers kind of exacerbated the problem by not being
very sharp off the ball. Luca and Austin in particular,
(17:53):
Gabe had some bad reps and Dalton had some bad
reps too, But on the weak side of guys just
like being glued to the floor, not even no man's land,
where they're not really helping on the ball, but they're
also not guarding a shooter a step slow to get
out of that help side position into a close out
to the weak side, not being ready for the skip pass,
turning what should have been like moderately contested catch and
(18:15):
shoot threes into kind of like easy, comfortable catch and
shoot threes. And by the way, JJ's clearly bothered by
these details. He's talking about execution a lot. He's understanding
of the injuries, but he knows this team isn't going
anywhere unless they defend. And even with the personnel weaknesses,
there has been some slippage in their defensive rotations, and
I thought it showed up yesterday. I like that JJ
(18:36):
is using this circumstance as an opportunity to hammer those
points home. But again, anyway, the result was just a
bunch of really great three point looks for Milwaukee and
they just knocked him down. Brook Lopez went three for
four from three. Gary Trent hit four threes. Kevin Porter
Junior first time since returning to the NBA he hit
more than three threes in a game. He hit five
of them in this game. As a team, they end
(18:58):
up hitting forty three percent on forty attempts. They were
better from three, but they were also better at the rim.
They made as many shots in the restricted area as
the Lakers attempted, and they ended up winning comfortably. Now,
Luca had an insane shot making game. This is something
I've talked a lot about, as Luca struggled with shot
making and it's inevitable that he will eventually break through.
And he did, and I thought this was a good matchup,
(19:20):
Like Milwaukee really has no hope of guarding a player
like Luca. They don't have anybody that can even make
him uncomfortable on the ball. I actually looked at this
game as the one game in this back to back
that La could win, just because Luca was always going
to be successful against this defense because they run traditional
coverages instead of switching, and because Torian and Kyle Kuzma
(19:43):
can't make Luca uncomfortable. So I thought if Luca was
awesome and if Milwaukee shot poorly, that the Lakers would
have a chance to steal this one. But Milwaukee ended
up shooting very well and it was all for not right.
But yeah, Luca went on some scoring runs and he
kept things close a couple of times, but the outcome
was never truly in doubt, and after going up seven
(20:03):
to five in the opening minutes, the Bucks never trailed
the rest of the game. I wanted to shout out
brook Lopez. I thought this was one of Brooks's best
games this season on both ends of the floor. We
talked about his shooting and pick and pop as a
coverage beater. He was also beating a couple of switches
in the post against the Lakers, switching looks. I thought
he was phenomenal on defense in this game, super active
(20:24):
in rotation. He blocked a three point shot in this game.
He had twenty three points, four blocks in his steal.
I thought he was excellent and the hospital Lakers ended
up being a nice way for the Bucks to bounce
back from their three game losing streak. On the Lakers front,
I don't see much point at all at overreacting to
any of this. It's the same thing I've been saying
during the losing streak. There's just a lot of injuries,
(20:46):
and dealing with injuries is one thing, but when they're
all in one specific position group, it's just hard to overcome.
Like all their guards are healthy, but the entire starting three, four,
five is out, So like that would be difficult to
manage under any circumstances, but it's possible to manage against
Giannis an Tenna Kupo and Brook Lopez. It's just a
really bad matchup. I did think there was some sloppy
(21:06):
execution stuff like I talked about on the defensive end
of the floor. I love that J. J. Reddick is
using it as an opportunity to hammer on some points
with his team. But you could literally tell, like Austin
and Luca in particular, or just kind of conserving energy
and going through the motions and their defensive rotations, they
know they were overmatched. You could read it in their
body language. They just didn't see the point in doing
(21:29):
it tonight. And again, it's not a big deal, but
I am glad that JJ's harping on it because they
can be much better and they're going to need to
be much better in those rotations for them to have
a chance to get to where they want to go.
I would punt the Denver game tomorrow. You're not going
to be able to win it. And with Luca's back
soreness that he's been dealing with or backspasms or whatever,
(21:50):
and with Austin's calf Like, here's the thing. If if
Austin's feeling good, if he's like, coach, I'm good, I'm
ready to go. I want to get another game in
just as I continue to build my rhythm. That's I'm
cool with that. But if he's hurting at all, I'd
sit him. I'd sit Luca to give him a day off.
The next back to back is much more winnable. You're
at home for Phoenix and San Antonio. San Antonio just
(22:12):
shut down to Aaron Fox for the season, so you
should be able to win that game. And if at
least one of Jackson or Ruey come back, I think
they'll have the horses to beat the Suns at home.
So like you could bounce back and win those two
and make up some of the ground that you just lost,
and who knows, maybe you can get Lebron back for
the Denver Milwaukee back to back that they have at
(22:34):
the tail end of this, and maybe you can start
to make up some ground. Lebron if he came back
for the third back to back in the sequence, that
would give him eleven full days off between the Celtics
game and that game on the twentieth, So it's like
one of those things where like, if Lebron comes back,
I think it's on the table that they could get
out of this six game and eight game stretch or
(22:55):
six game in eight nights stretch at four and two,
which would be like a huge win for them if
they's it Lebron for the whole thing. I think three
and three is probably the best they can hope for
in two and four might be on the table there.
So it's gonna be tough, but I again, I'm not
worried about it. In the big picture. It's far more
important for Lebron to be healthy, and this back to
(23:15):
back was just going to be a really tough one
no matter what. On the road. Last thing, I have
to say, the Lakers have had a one to twenty
defensive rating in the two games since Lebron left the lineup,
and that was against the twenty seventh ranked offense in
Brooklyn in the fourteenth ranked offense in Milwaukee. It's just
amazing how important Lebron has suddenly become for this team defensively.
(23:38):
Ever since ad went out. Lebron is made up for
it by basically becoming the Draymond Green of this team,
communicating coverages, identifying the actions the other team is running,
flying around in rotation, cleaning up the defensive glass. He's
been doing so much to help unlock the defensive ceiling
of this team, which, by the way, like just a
(23:59):
shout out to him in terms of his versatility, this
is a card he has not pulled basically since twenty
twenty one twenty twenty. In that couple of seasons, this
is a role that he's seen as kind of an
inefficient use of his energy resources playing alongside Anthony Davis,
He's been focusing more on the offensive end in this build.
(24:21):
What a luxury to have a player that can be like,
oh you need Draymond, Sure, I'll be your Draymond, and
literally has anchored one of the best defenses in the
league without Anthony Davis, and I think watching the Laker
defense kind of fall apart without him. And again it's
not just him, being without Rui and being without Jackson
makes it hard too. But they still have Dorian Finney Smith,
they still have Gave Vincent, they still have Jared Vanderbilt,
(24:42):
and they've really struggled to get stops. And I think
it's just a testament to the work that Lebron has
done over the course of the last few weeks, the
last few months, I should say, on the defensive back line,
and most importantly, he's going to have to do that
job for them to get to where they want to
go in the playoffs. So it's probably good that he's
getting a little break his body to be ready for
the home stretch. All right, guys, that's all I have
(25:03):
for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. Taking the weekend off,
we'll be back on Monday with our usual kind of
sequence as we work through the week. Next week, I'll
see you guys. Then the volume
The volume. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season?
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All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the Volume.
Happy Friday, everybody, Hope all of you guys have had
a great end to your week. Got a quick show
for you guys today. We're just hitting the TNT slate
from last night. The Golden State Warriors blow out the
Kings at home. Jonathan Kaminga makes his debut back with
the team. I thought he was fantastic. We're gonna talk
a little bit about that then at the tail end
of the show, the Los Angeles Lakers go on the
(01:58):
road without their starting three, four or five against the
Milwaukee Bucks, and it goes about as you would expect
as the Bucks blow them out. I have some thoughts
about the coverages in the way that Milwaukee beat them,
and then a couple of big picture thoughts about the Lakers.
You guys know the joke before we get started. To
subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss
any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at
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(02:19):
about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under
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We're releasing content throughout the year, and the last but
not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments
so that we can get to them throughout the remainder
of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
one of the most important things that I talk about
(02:40):
in these shows is the idea of like game planning
and how you can defeat a specific game plan. I
talk to these kinds of shots as like coverage beaters, right,
and the Kings went with a defensive game plan against
Steph that is somewhat common around the league. It's a
coverage the Lakers used on the Warriors in the twenty
twenty three playoffs. It's a coverage the Warriors have seen
(03:01):
from other teams around the league, and it's almost certainly
going to be a coverage the Warriors will have to
beat if they make a deep playoff run at some
point this year. And that is top blocking Steph. What
that means is essentially constantly positioning your body as the
on ball defender with Steph, with your back towards the ball,
so they can't ever cut towards the ball. This is
(03:23):
going to force him to cut through to the opposite side.
And then in those situations, they were just constantly ignoring
whichever non shooter they saw as an opportunity to help
off the floor, whether that's Draymond Grain early in the
game with Jonas Valacunis, or it's Kevan Loody helping off,
or it's Gary Payton the second helping off of him.
They were just packing the paint and top blocking Steph
(03:47):
forcing him to backcut into all of that traffic. And so,
as a result, as we talk about all the time,
every game plan, especially game plans that target superstar talent,
are going to require you to give something up to
take something away. And so if you're gonna deny Steph
catches and not let him run up to the ball
by forcing him to back cut into traffic, you're going
(04:08):
to have to help off of guys like Draymond and
Gary Payton, they're gonna be wide open. And they just
made Sacramento pay again again and again. In this game,
Gary Payton and Draymond Green go seven for eleven from three.
The Warriors as a team generated thirteen unguarded catch and
shoot jump shots in this game. Six of those were
(04:28):
concession threes to Gary Payton and Draymond Five of them
were against the guys on the Warriors that are a
different kind of game plan where it's like, we're willing
to help off this guy. We're not deliberately leaving him open,
but will help and try to recover with a late contest.
These five threes were for Quinton Post, Moses Moody, and
Gie Santos. Those guys went three for five on those
(04:49):
shots as well, so they just consistently knocked down shots
to make Sacramento pay for the coverage that they use
against Steph Curry. So the result was the Kings held
stef to just nine shot attempts and only eleven points,
but the Warriors hung one hundred and thirty points on
them and basically controlled the game throughout. And so you
(05:10):
did your job a slowing down Steph, I guess, but
the Warriors lit you on fire and you lost. So
the game plan backfired on the Sacramento Kings. On defense,
I thought Moses Moody really set the tone with his
ball pressure on Malik Monk. He was in his jersey
the second he crossed half court, bumping in with his chest,
reaching and doing everything he could to disrupt his rhythm
(05:30):
and make him feel uncomfortable and make him feel rushed.
He only got credit for two steals in the game,
but he forced several turnovers and bad decisions just by
rushing Monk into traffic. I talk about this concept a lot,
but when you ball pressure out far from the basket,
the only way to really beat it is to drive
to basically use that aggression as the defender gets out
of position to go downhill. It actually turns into a
(05:53):
way as a defense for you to control dribble penetration,
to essentially have dribble penetration happen on your turn right,
so that you can have a better plan for it. Okay,
like we're gonna have Moses pressure the ball, try to
send him towards the sideline. We have a plan for
that there. And then what ends up happening is when
a guy has to fly downhill against ball pressure and
(06:14):
he ends up getting into the traffic. He's rushed, he's
out of control. That's when you start making mistakes. And
you know. One of the second pieces that you'll see
outside of one on one situations is ball screen coverages, right,
And one of the things I always talk about in
ball screen coverages is a bracket. The idea of the
on ball defender chasing over the top and applying back
(06:36):
pressure while the screen defender or the big man is
applying pressure on the ball handler in his drop coverage,
whether it's a high dropp or a deeper drop, but
meeting the ball handler on the other side of the screen.
When that bracket is loose, meaning the on ball defender
is getting screened and getting separated from the on ball
offensive player, and the screen defender is too far back,
(07:00):
is loose their space to operate there. Ball handlers can
get comfortable and they can start making plays. But when
you stay attached and you apply that back pressure and
you have them bracketed on the other side, even though
you're technically putting two on the ball, you're putting two
on the ball against a driver that now has to
get the ball out against a bunch of active hands.
(07:20):
And I thought they were excellent in their bracket coverages
all night long. Moses Moody more of the same, both
with Malik. Monkey also spent a good amount of time
on Zach Levine in this game, doing some great work there.
Gary Payton second spend time on both guys, did really
great work the screen defenders. Looney. Even Quinton Post who's
had some uneven results on defense this year, I thought
(07:41):
he was really good on defense in this game. Draymond
Green one of the best in the business at it.
They were bracketing those guys, making them get rid of
the ball and forcing a lot of turnovers in those situations.
Malik Monk goes three for thirteen from the field with
four turnovers. They held Zach Levine to just six shot
at tips in five turnover. Now, Jimmy started on Levine,
(08:01):
but like I said, Moody spent a bunch of time
there as well. It was kind of a weird Levine
game because he was uninvolved a lot, where like he's
just standing in the quarter while Malik Monk and Demarta
Rozen go to work. By the way, that's kind of
the diminishing returns effect that you get when you build
your team around three kind of redundant ball handlers. It's
the Bradley Beal problem, right. You start having that guy
(08:21):
just stand around, and suddenly some of his top end
offensive talent is being wasted and you're not getting the
other stuff. That's why I think this sort of team
build is so flawed. But Zach Levine was pretty uninvolved
for a good portion of this game. When he did
get the basketball, that same sort of bracket he had
a turnover against the bracket coverage when Quinton Post got
(08:43):
a deflection on him. Quinn Post forced him into another
miss at the rim, where he the Warrior successfully funneled
him into their size they just strangled all of the
King's shot creators except for Demart Rosen, who was fantastic
in this game. And Damar's just you know, one of
the legendary type space scores in NBA history, right, and
so like he's going to have his success. But they
(09:04):
completely neutralized Malik Monk and Zach Lavine and ended up
being more than enough to slow down the Kings. They
ended up held holding the Kings down to one hundred
and four points in this game. They won the non
steph minutes by eleven. They're really starting to learn how
to like configure their off ball spacing around Jimmy's He
gets these a lot of these like face up ISOs
(09:26):
that are between like the elbow and the short corner
on one side of the floor. And one of the
things they'll do is like a lot of teams will
end up strongside zoning or having a help defender come
over to be right behind the defender guarding Jimmy, and
so there's cutting opportunities. And one of the things they
do they ended up getting a layup for Draymond Green
out of this. In the second half, they'll have a
guy flash to the front of the rim right like
(09:49):
kind of like right outside the charge circle calling for
the ball, and then they'll have another guy positioned himself
in the dunker spot. And so essentially there's two cutters
that are right there around the basket, and so that
helped Fender ends up having to pick one or the other.
And then there's an easy little pass for Jimmy Butler
to make. He just hit Jonathan Kaminga flashing into the
front of the rim, drop off pass to Draymond Green
(10:09):
as the zoned up defender ends up sliding over to
kaminga easy layup for Draymond Green. They ended up looking
really good again in the non Steph minutes, and we
had our return of Jonathan Kaminga. He goes for eighteen
points almost entirely in the flow of the offense. His
first three buckets were ISO stuff, but they were against
good matchups for him, all of them against smaller kings guards.
(10:31):
He gets Malik Munk in a transition cross match just
immediately just goes right through him to the front of
the rim and gets a layup. He runs an inverted
ball screen with Steph, where Steph sets a screen for him.
This is a very common action. You'll see not just
with Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Minga, but even in the
past with Andrew Wiggins. Right, they want to do that
because Steph's man doesn't want to help. Well, they ended
up switching this one. It put Kean Ellis against Jonathan
(10:54):
Kaminga in some space in the middle of the floor.
What did he do? He went right the room and
got to the rim and then in the third court
his third bucket, he ends up beating zach Lavine one
on one. Zach Lavin's giving up a lot of size
and weight in that particular matchup, but the rest of
his buckets were just classic Jonathan Kaminga like I see
your runway and I'm going to the front of the
rim type of buckets. When you give a good athlete
(11:16):
a runway, a long stretch for him to get his
momentum going and take off, he can destroy teams above
the rim. And here's the thing, Like, Jonathan kming is
not the best read and react player I've ever seen,
and that's been some of his issues in Golden State's
offense from time to time. But he is very good
at reading and reacting to those runways when he sees
(11:38):
his man step up into help, and he sees a
bunch of real estate between him and the rim without
any players in front. He has a very quick reaction
to that, and he will just shoot to the front
of the rim and get a lot of easy stuff there.
That is an area in his read and react game
where he's actually very strong. His fourth bucket, a near
turnover out by half court chaos leads to a five
(12:01):
on three. What does Kaminga do. He just turns and
runs to the front of the rim, ends up catching
a pass and getting an easy layup. His fifth bucket
was the textbook Steph Curry blitz sequence Steph Curry ballscreen
out by the right wing. There's a blitz, the ball
gets popped over the top. Malik Monk is the low
man guarding Jonathan Kaminga. The very second that Malik Monk
(12:26):
steps over, Kaminga just shoots along the baseline. He ends
up getting that crazy windmill dunk under the rim. His
sixth bucket, same sort of thing. Throws an inbound pass
to Moses Moody in the corner. His man Jake Lravea,
steps over like kind of lunges over to try to
deny the catch to Moses Moody. It triggers something in Kaminga.
He immediately just cuts to the front of the rim
(12:48):
because he sees his man leave and there's a runway,
easy drop off pass over the top, another dunk, and
then his seventh bucket was a designed play. This is
a play that is known around the league as Finland.
It's basically just a backscreen from a shooter, backscreening for
an athlete, then coming off of a dribble handoff at
the top of the key, Draymond has the ball up
(13:09):
on the left wing. Steph backscreens for Kaminga. Now, the
way that play would normally work is Steph would then
come flying off of Draymon for the dribble handoff. The
way it usually works is Steph's man has to drop
back to help on the backscreen. As he helps on
the backscreen, that creates separation between Steph and his defender
(13:30):
or forces a switch. If there's separation, he can sprint
off and now he has separation coming off the dribble handoff.
If there's a switch, the other defender is standing still
and now Steph can sprint past him and hopefully gets
some extra separation as he comes off of the dribble handoff,
but they didn't even get that far in the sequence
because Keegan murray had no interest in helping off of Steph.
(13:51):
So when Steph set the backscreen, another runway appeared for
Jonathan Kminga right to the front of the rim. Draymond
throws him a perfect pass and he gets a lob dunk.
Easy dunks, easy layups, easy matchup opportunities, a lot of
stuff in there that's pretty exciting. Three things stood out
to me from the Jonathan Kaminga debut with the new
(14:12):
squad that I think are really exciting for Warriors fans. One,
he's gonna get a lot of those runways playing alongside Jimmy,
Steph and Dreymont. They are excellent read and reacts players.
They are going to trigger those help sequences that open
up those runways that Kamingo is good at quickly identifying
and taking advantage of, and he's just such a useful
(14:33):
play finisher in those situations. Two, he's gonna get a
lot of favorable matchups playing alongside Jimmy Butler. I've talked
about this with the Lakers before, with like Lebron and
Ruey in the past. Or Lebron, Anthony Davison, Ruiy and
even now with Luca. When you have multiple big forwards
who can punish Smalls, the defense kind of runs out
(14:54):
of guys who can guard them. Opponents are going to
put their best forward defender on Jimmy Butler. Kaminga used
to get that matchup when he was on the floor
in the past. Now it's Jimmy, He's going to get
a lot more of the second best forward defender on
the floor, which is usually going to be completely physically
overmatched against Jonathan Kaminga. And then three, we talked a
(15:15):
lot in the mail bag yesterday about the idea that
Jonathan Kaminga is a player who's going to be capable
of doing more than the Warriors actually need from him
in this role on this team with real championship aspirations,
and there were some question marks surrounding will Kaminga embraced
that I thought last night was a resounding statement from
him that he's willing to do that type of role
(15:38):
for this team. It's not easy for a player of
his talent level coming into a team that is so
well established without him to just kind of seamlessly fit
in in the flow. I didn't think he took a
single bad shot. He took one three that was kind
of like a hand grenade that Jimmy tossed in with
two seconds on the shot clock. Every single other one
of his nine shot attempts were either substantial size advantage
(16:01):
and what made sense for him to attack in space
or with a runway to the rim where he's going
to finish it one hundred percent of the time. I
just thought he played smart basketball which allowed him to function.
Is what he can be for this team, which is
a ceiling Razor Warriors keep rolling. They have three tougher
games coming up against the Knicks, the Bucks, and the Nuggets,
but they're all at home. They're a big, physical teams,
(16:23):
so this will help us learn specifically about Golden State's
ability to handle some of these bigger, more physical matchups.
I'll be excited to see how those games turn out.
(16:47):
All right, let's move on to Lakers Bucks. We talked
earlier in the show about the concept of coverage beaters.
This game is another excellent example of that concept. JJ Reddick,
what with a very aggressive game plan against and Dame
to try to get this game in the win. Call
him for the Lakers. He went with the Jokic esque
strategy against Giannis, trying to front him, deny him catches
(17:08):
wherever he wanted them, strong side zoning him if he
did catch. Like if he did catch, they just peel off,
funnel him towards the sideline and bring that help on
that baseline side right outside the block. That obviously left
a lot of skip passes open in the Dame ball
screens with brook Lopez, he just had Alex lenn drop
back and focus on Dame and basically concede the pick
(17:32):
and pop three to brook Lopez. And so as a result,
there were a lot of open threes available to Milwaukee
if they just made simple reads kickbacks to brook Lopez
in the pick and pop basically anything skipped to the
weak side from the Janis actions. And then I thought
the Lakers kind of exacerbated the problem by not being
very sharp off the ball. Luca and Austin in particular,
(17:53):
Gabe had some bad reps and Dalton had some bad
reps too, But on the weak side of guys just
like being glued to the floor, not even no man's land,
where they're not really helping on the ball, but they're
also not guarding a shooter a step slow to get
out of that help side position into a close out
to the weak side, not being ready for the skip pass,
turning what should have been like moderately contested catch and
(18:15):
shoot threes into kind of like easy, comfortable catch and
shoot threes. And by the way, JJ's clearly bothered by
these details. He's talking about execution a lot. He's understanding
of the injuries, but he knows this team isn't going
anywhere unless they defend. And even with the personnel weaknesses,
there has been some slippage in their defensive rotations, and
I thought it showed up yesterday. I like that JJ
(18:36):
is using this circumstance as an opportunity to hammer those
points home. But again, anyway, the result was just a
bunch of really great three point looks for Milwaukee and
they just knocked him down. Brook Lopez went three for
four from three. Gary Trent hit four threes. Kevin Porter
Junior first time since returning to the NBA he hit
more than three threes in a game. He hit five
of them in this game. As a team, they end
(18:58):
up hitting forty three percent on forty attempts. They were
better from three, but they were also better at the rim.
They made as many shots in the restricted area as
the Lakers attempted, and they ended up winning comfortably. Now,
Luca had an insane shot making game. This is something
I've talked a lot about, as Luca struggled with shot
making and it's inevitable that he will eventually break through.
And he did, and I thought this was a good matchup,
(19:20):
Like Milwaukee really has no hope of guarding a player
like Luca. They don't have anybody that can even make
him uncomfortable on the ball. I actually looked at this
game as the one game in this back to back
that La could win, just because Luca was always going
to be successful against this defense because they run traditional
coverages instead of switching, and because Torian and Kyle Kuzma
(19:43):
can't make Luca uncomfortable. So I thought if Luca was
awesome and if Milwaukee shot poorly, that the Lakers would
have a chance to steal this one. But Milwaukee ended
up shooting very well and it was all for not right.
But yeah, Luca went on some scoring runs and he
kept things close a couple of times, but the outcome
was never truly in doubt, and after going up seven
(20:03):
to five in the opening minutes, the Bucks never trailed
the rest of the game. I wanted to shout out
brook Lopez. I thought this was one of Brooks's best
games this season on both ends of the floor. We
talked about his shooting and pick and pop as a
coverage beater. He was also beating a couple of switches
in the post against the Lakers, switching looks. I thought
he was phenomenal on defense in this game, super active
(20:24):
in rotation. He blocked a three point shot in this game.
He had twenty three points, four blocks in his steal.
I thought he was excellent and the hospital Lakers ended
up being a nice way for the Bucks to bounce
back from their three game losing streak. On the Lakers front,
I don't see much point at all at overreacting to
any of this. It's the same thing I've been saying
during the losing streak. There's just a lot of injuries,
(20:46):
and dealing with injuries is one thing, but when they're
all in one specific position group, it's just hard to overcome.
Like all their guards are healthy, but the entire starting three, four,
five is out, So like that would be difficult to
manage under any circumstances, but it's possible to manage against
Giannis an Tenna Kupo and Brook Lopez. It's just a
really bad matchup. I did think there was some sloppy
(21:06):
execution stuff like I talked about on the defensive end
of the floor. I love that J. J. Reddick is
using it as an opportunity to hammer on some points
with his team. But you could literally tell, like Austin
and Luca in particular, or just kind of conserving energy
and going through the motions and their defensive rotations, they
know they were overmatched. You could read it in their
body language. They just didn't see the point in doing
(21:29):
it tonight. And again, it's not a big deal, but
I am glad that JJ's harping on it because they
can be much better and they're going to need to
be much better in those rotations for them to have
a chance to get to where they want to go.
I would punt the Denver game tomorrow. You're not going
to be able to win it. And with Luca's back
soreness that he's been dealing with or backspasms or whatever,
(21:50):
and with Austin's calf Like, here's the thing. If if
Austin's feeling good, if he's like, coach, I'm good, I'm
ready to go. I want to get another game in
just as I continue to build my rhythm. That's I'm
cool with that. But if he's hurting at all, I'd
sit him. I'd sit Luca to give him a day off.
The next back to back is much more winnable. You're
at home for Phoenix and San Antonio. San Antonio just
(22:12):
shut down to Aaron Fox for the season, so you
should be able to win that game. And if at
least one of Jackson or Ruey come back, I think
they'll have the horses to beat the Suns at home.
So like you could bounce back and win those two
and make up some of the ground that you just lost,
and who knows, maybe you can get Lebron back for
the Denver Milwaukee back to back that they have at
(22:34):
the tail end of this, and maybe you can start
to make up some ground. Lebron if he came back
for the third back to back in the sequence, that
would give him eleven full days off between the Celtics
game and that game on the twentieth, So it's like
one of those things where like, if Lebron comes back,
I think it's on the table that they could get
out of this six game and eight game stretch or
(22:55):
six game in eight nights stretch at four and two,
which would be like a huge win for them if
they's it Lebron for the whole thing. I think three
and three is probably the best they can hope for
in two and four might be on the table there.
So it's gonna be tough, but I again, I'm not
worried about it. In the big picture. It's far more
important for Lebron to be healthy, and this back to
(23:15):
back was just going to be a really tough one
no matter what. On the road. Last thing, I have
to say, the Lakers have had a one to twenty
defensive rating in the two games since Lebron left the lineup,
and that was against the twenty seventh ranked offense in
Brooklyn in the fourteenth ranked offense in Milwaukee. It's just
amazing how important Lebron has suddenly become for this team defensively.
(23:38):
Ever since ad went out. Lebron is made up for
it by basically becoming the Draymond Green of this team,
communicating coverages, identifying the actions the other team is running,
flying around in rotation, cleaning up the defensive glass. He's
been doing so much to help unlock the defensive ceiling
of this team, which, by the way, like just a
(23:59):
shout out to him in terms of his versatility, this
is a card he has not pulled basically since twenty
twenty one twenty twenty. In that couple of seasons, this
is a role that he's seen as kind of an
inefficient use of his energy resources playing alongside Anthony Davis,
He's been focusing more on the offensive end in this build.
(24:21):
What a luxury to have a player that can be like,
oh you need Draymond, Sure, I'll be your Draymond, and
literally has anchored one of the best defenses in the
league without Anthony Davis, and I think watching the Laker
defense kind of fall apart without him. And again it's
not just him, being without Rui and being without Jackson
makes it hard too. But they still have Dorian Finney Smith,
they still have Gave Vincent, they still have Jared Vanderbilt,
(24:42):
and they've really struggled to get stops. And I think
it's just a testament to the work that Lebron has
done over the course of the last few weeks, the
last few months, I should say, on the defensive back line,
and most importantly, he's going to have to do that
job for them to get to where they want to
go in the playoffs. So it's probably good that he's
getting a little break his body to be ready for
the home stretch. All right, guys, that's all I have
(25:03):
for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. Taking the weekend off,
we'll be back on Monday with our usual kind of
sequence as we work through the week. Next week, I'll
see you guys. Then the volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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