March 17, 2025 • 37 mins
Jason breaks down a trio of weekend games including Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns, without LeBron James. He also discusses the Oklahoma City Thunder holding down Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, as well as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having another MVP-level game. Finally he discusses the Orlando Magic with a surprising win over Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Timeline
4:15 - Start
5:30 - Lakers/Suns reaction
21:30 - Thunder/Bucks reaction
41:00 - Magic/Cavs reaction
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Episode Transcript
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All right, well, good hoops, and I here at the
(01:46):
vall you haavy Monday, everybody hopeful. If you guys had
a great weekend, got a jam pack show for you today,
We're hitting three games from the Sunday slate as the
Lakers get off of their four game losing streak by
beating the reeling Phoenix Suns. After that, we're going to
talk about the Olkahoma City Thunder getting revenge on their
n season tournament performance by going into Milwaukee and really
handling the Bucks. I want to focus in on the
(02:09):
some elements of the OKC defense that I think are
separators for them from their peers around the league. And
then after that, the Orlando Magic gets some revenge after
they took a beatdown from Cleveland at home a little
while back. They went into Cleveland and stole a game,
a really interesting game on a bunch of fronts, showed
some of the big picture upside for the Magic, also
revealed some of the weaknesses in that Cleveland roster. We're
(02:31):
going to talk about that game from the perspective of
both teams as well. You guys are the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSONNLTC. You guys don't
miss announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feet wherever you
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helpful if we leave a rating and a review on
that front. We also have brand new social media feeds
on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where Jackson's been doing some
(02:52):
incredible work putting together some film breakdowns and stuff like that.
Make sure you guys follow us there, and the last
but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the
YouTube comments so we can keep hitting those mail bags
throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So the Suns are not a good matchup
for the Lakers in a bunch of different ways. The
(03:12):
big fundamental thing that makes it really difficult for the
Suns to guard this version of this Lakers team is
they don't feel comfortable switching with their fives with their centers.
That puts you in a really tough spot dealing with
Luka Doncic in pick and roll. We've talked about this
a while. JJ Reddick has mentioned it in the postgame
presser like running drop coverage against Luka Doncic is death,
(03:36):
And I look at that as, like, you know, drop
coverage can mean a lot of different things, but basically
all that means is anytime you're chasing Luca over the
top of the screen and the big man is waiting
on the other side, either up at the level and
what they call a high drop or further back and
what they call a deep drop. That sort of coverage
makes for these really easy reads for Luca that he's
been immediately great at in a Lakers jersey. What's been
(03:59):
interesting is like they've struggled a little bit against switching
for a lot of different reasons. Luca wasn't in shape
for a lot of those tough switching teams that they
faced earlier in that stretch, and as a team, they
haven't shot the three ball well in large part because
they're playing super super hard on the defensive end of
the floor and adjusting to the new types of three
point looks that they're getting as part of the Luka
(04:19):
Doncic offense, and so their offense, even in the wins,
has sputtered at times against teams that can switch with
their five man. But again with this Phoenix Suns team
with Nick Richards, with Mason Plumley, they're just not doing
a lot of switching with their five men, and so
that just allows Luca to play read and react basketball
with baked ribble penetration. And we've got over this a
(04:41):
million times, but it's a simple set of reeds. If
the lowman and the screen defender stay back, Luca gets
to just work his way into the lane until he
can take a little floater off the glass. If the
big steps up, it creates a simple read behind it
with the lowman. If the lowman steps over and tags
the roller, he's skipping it to the weak side. If
he doesn't tag the roller that he can hit the
(05:02):
hit Jackson Hayes runnerneath the basket. That was the big
thing that Phoenix kept messing up in this game. They
were running a good mix of high and low drop
and a lot of high drop early in the game,
and they weren't tagging Jackson Hayes. And part of this is,
like I've been talking a lot about how the Suns
lately look to me like a team that is basically
quit trying to be the best basketball team they can be,
(05:23):
in large part because they know that their best isn't
good enough to beat the best teams in the league.
And so there were a lot of weak side possessions
with Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and KD all three of
them where they just didn't bother to tag Jackson Hayes
or some really sloppy tags. I saw both Devin Booker
and Bradley Beal have tags where they just kind of
like ran up to Jackson. So what you're supposed to
(05:45):
do on a tag if they come up to the
level of the screen and Jackson Hayes is rolling hard
to the rim, your jobs, the lowman is to literally
get between the rollman and the rim and hit him
so that he can't throw the lob up to the
basket he has to, and usually some teams will counter
that by posting there or by skipping the ball to
the weak side. Right, You've got to literally put your
(06:07):
body on the line as a small against a rolling big.
It's a hard job, and the Sons just weren't really
interested in doing it last night, and so you'd see
them kind of like run over to Jackson and like
put their hands on him, but they're not really doing
anything to make him feel uncomfortable, and he's just catching
and finishing. Here's an easy little stat to demonstrate that
(06:27):
for you. He had nineteen points. Jackson Ay's nineteen points
in this game, seventeen of which were on cuts and rolls.
He has had nineteen points twice so far with Luca.
He had nineteen points one time total in the entirety
of the rest of his Lakers ten years, and that
goes to show you the benefit of Jackson Hayes in
(06:48):
this system. I have been talking a lot about this
concept lately, but the idea of like, your value as
a basketball player is kind of unique to the system
that you're in, Right Like, there are guys that are
deeply valuable in a certain system that would be less
valuable in another system. Whether it's like Aaron Gordon in
Orlando as like a swing forward star type of player,
(07:08):
looks really underqualified for that job, but you put him
in Denver where he can operate on the back line
because their center kind of inverts their spacing, all of
a sudden, he becomes immensely valuable in that type of role.
Right Like, everybody's value is unique to their individual system,
and Jackson Hayes, specifically, when Luka Doncic is on the Lakers,
(07:29):
is immensely valuable because Luca is one of the best
passers in the league at making teams pay by hitting
a vertical spacer. And I mean, there were a lot
of issues that have gone wrong for the Lakers in
the four game losing streak, most of which have come
down to injuries. I mean, you're down, You're you're starting
front court. Literally, if you're down Lebron, Ruy and Jackson,
it's such a difficult thing to overcome. But it's funny
(07:51):
to say Jackson Hayes is so valuable because it felt
so different in previous iterations of the Lakers, But on
this version of the Lakers, Jackson Hayes is incredibly valuable
to this offense because he is the guy that allows
them to function in four out one in spacing. I've
talked a lot about this concept. When you're running a
lot of motion, ball flowing side to side, everyone's involved
(08:14):
in the action. It's like a five out spacing concept, right.
You got ball handlers on the wings, guys in the corner,
and then a big man at the top of the keys.
Functioning is like this passing folkrum, screening folkrum out at
the top of the key. This Lakers team is very
much going back to the old version of their offense,
way back when they were the Western Conference Finals team
(08:35):
in twenty twenty three, where it's like we're spreading the floor,
running pick and roll like it's a lot of that
sort of thing, and in those situations you don't want
five out spacing because in five out spacing, when the
gaps on the perimeter shrink to get pretty small and
it gets harder to drive as defenders are able to
gap into driving lanes and stuff like that. And so
the way you prefer to set up your spacing when
(08:57):
you're more of a matchup attacking, spread pig roll type
of team is four out one in spacing, and once
your shooters in the corner, you got a shooter on
the wing, and you're basically occupying either the dunker spot
with a dunker or a screen and roll threat where
the roller is occupying that spot when he rolls to
the basket. And so guys like Jemison, guys like Jared
vander Built, even Christian Kaloko he botched two lobs last
(09:20):
night in the first half, where it's just the easy
dunks that he's struggling to make because he's got a
little bit of an issue catching and finishing. Sometimes you
can see just how incredibly valuable Jackson Hayes is to
the Lakers as a vertical spacer. In this version of
the team. They did a lot of damage on that
Sun's back line in this game, and after in the
early third quarter they generated yet another easy lob dunk
(09:44):
for Jackson Hayes kind of like a behind the back
lob a ridiculous pass from Luca, and from that point forward,
the Sun's basically just decided to blitz him and double
team him all over the floor, and so the Lakers
were able to play with an advantage and they were
able to stiff arm the Suns. The rest of the way,
the Suns fought back. They've they've been resilient. This has
been a consistent theme for the Suns in the last month,
(10:04):
is like they'll get off to an ugly start and
then rather than get humiliated, they'll like suddenly start competing
really hard towards the end of the game. And it's
the U. Lakers fans are familiar with this concept from
last year. It's the fake comeback concept, right because that
Laker team used to have a very similar personality last year.
But KD had seventeen points in the second half and
(10:24):
they kind of battled a little bit, but they never
got any closer than eight the rest of the way.
A couple of Laker concepts and I want to hit
before we move on. Luca's rapidly improving as a shot maker.
This is a concept that talked a lot about after
his first few weeks with the Lakers, he just wasn't
shooting as well as he typically is capable of. And
you know, he obviously had that really bad night in Brooklyn,
(10:46):
but even including that game, in his last eight games,
he's averaging thirty two points per game on just twenty
two shot attempts, shooting forty one percent from three on
eleven attempts per game, and he's getting to the foul
line ten times, where he's shooting eighty percent from at
the free throw line. So he's really starting to come
around as an offensive player, which is helping this team
(11:06):
start to have a little bit more resilience on that
end of the floor. He's also averaging over two steals
per game in that span. He's sliding his feet, really
active on the perimeter, active in help side, functioning as
a cog in that defensive system. Austin Reeves is starting
to look like himself again. He commented after the Nets
game that he needed to be better with Lebron out
in order to help his team. He's averaging thirty one,
(11:27):
seven and seven on fifty two percent from the field,
forty four from three to ninety four percent from the
line in his last three games, which is just outrageous.
JJ Reddick talked after the game about Jordan Goodwin and
the tone that he set early. He was spot on
about that. One of the very first I think it
was literally the first possession of the game. KD was
guarding him, he was ball watching, and I think Luca
(11:48):
ended up missing a jump shot short and he just
shot like a cannon into the lane, got the offensive
rebound and put it back in. He was excellent with
his ball pressure and with his back pressure. He had
a couple offensive rebounds. He had a couple of block shit.
Really really impressive game from Jordan go and ended up
getting a start in this game. Nice win for the Lakers.
They got some help over the weekend too. In the standings.
Memphis got crushed at home by the Calves. Denver toasted
(12:12):
off a game to the Wizards on a crazy game
winner from Jordan Poole. He shot like a forty footer
in Russell Westbrook's face that ends up leaving the Lakers
tied in the loss column for the two seed, despite
dropping four consecutive games earlier with an injury ravaged roster.
I think that's a win no matter how you look
at it, to drop four in a row like that
(12:32):
and to still really be in position to potentially get
that two seed, and the Lakers, the Nuggets, the Grizzlies,
and the Rockets, it's a four way tie, are all
tied with twenty five losses in that spot, and I
think the Lakers have a good chance to win that
race and just get the two seed, as long as
they can get healthy soon enough. Allegedly Lebron's about a
week out. Ruly, I would imagine we'll come back not tonight,
but probably in the game on Wednesday night. It shouldn't
(12:55):
be too long before they get healthy. And like, I mean,
we're gonna talk about this a little bit, especially when
we get into our mail Bag, which is releasing on
Wednesday this week. But like, the Lakers might just be
better than all those teams, and so they might end
up coming away with the two seed just because they're better.
And so they're in a good spot now. They made
a good call, a smart call to rest Ruie rest Jackson,
(13:16):
rest Lebron. Make sure those guys get the rest that
they need, and we'll see. I think they have a
chance to end up coming out with the two seed. Anyway,
we'll see how they can close the season. The big thing,
the big swing factor there for me is Denver, and
I just can't get a read on the Nuggets. They
look so bad sometimes they're so so so bad on defense,
but there's this big part of me that just can't
(13:37):
believe that they're actually that bad and that they're just
kind of going through the motions a lot. Now. NBA
history tells us those teams always lose, but it's hard
to say at this point they're They're the team that
that's in that group of four with the Lakers that
I can't really get a read on where they kind
of land among the top teams in the league. All right,
(14:08):
let's talk some thunder Bucks. We've talked a lot this
year about the strength of Oklahoma City being their defense,
and we've got all, like, over all the reasons why.
They have a ton of good perimeter defenders that they
can keep cycling into the game to wear out ball handlers.
They can apply excellent ball pressure for forty eight minutes.
(14:29):
They have these aggressive game plans that suit their team
speed really really well. It's the right type of game
plan to go with with the type of roster that
they have. They're super sharp in rotation on the back
end to make these like perceived openings disappear in a flash.
Their rim protection is legit with chet homeground on the floor.
But I want to zero in specifically on the concept
(14:51):
of defending superstars for a minute, because like superstars are
scheme breakers, they're personnel breakers. Like oh you Anthony Davis. He's,
in my opinion, the best defensive player in the league
when he's healthy and in shape. Well it turns out
he can't guard Nikola Jokic. So the Lakers' greatest defensive
weapon was basically neutralized, and it led to a few
(15:13):
years of dominance. In that matchup. If you guys, remember,
oh you have Jaden McDaniels, he's one of the best
perimeter defenders in the league. Well, it turns out he
can't guard Luka Doncic. So in that matchup in the
Western Conference finals last year, the strength of Minnesota's perimeter
defense was neutralized and the MAVs ended up thrashing the Wolves.
This is a thing that can happen that a superstar
(15:34):
can break a scheme. A superstar can break even personnel strings.
One of the non negotiable barriers that stands between any
great team and a championship is the ability to go
head to head with the best players in the world
and come out on top. For the thunder in the West,
you've got Nikola Jokic, You've got Luka Doncic, Lebron James
(15:56):
before his injury was playing at near that level, not
quite that level, but near that level. Steph Curry is
coming on strong. Anthony Edwards is a type of threat
that you have to face in the Western Conference. In
One of the traits of this OKC defense. Something that
makes them so dangerous is their ability to match up
with the top players in the league. They've had their
(16:17):
issues with Jokic over the years because it seems like
nobody can guard that guy, but he's literally the best
player in the world and Okay, so he can have
success against him on the other end of the floor.
Even the game they dropped to Denver the other day
a week ago or so, it was a weird game.
They played really well in the first half, had a lead,
drop seventy three points. J Dubb gets hurt. They double
(16:39):
team Shay every time he crosses half court. It allows
them to gimmick their way into a win. But like
that's a matchup that they've done pretty well against. They
have one of the best players in the league to
match up against Luca Lebron Kawhi, Jason Tatum, those big,
strong matchup attacking forwards. Lou Dort is literally one of
(16:59):
the very best options in the NBA for that type
of matchup. He's uniquely strong enough to keep his base.
Most of the success that those players have comes down
to bullying and dislodging defenders from their base so they
can get separation and get great shots. Lou Dort in
(17:19):
many cases the guy dislodging them from their base and
forcing them to play off balance and causing them to
miss a lot of shots that they normally make. It's
a huge asset to have, specifically in the Western Conference
with the types of teams that you have to face
coming out of there, and for a potential Boston matchup
with Jason Tatum, and then in this game against Milwaukee,
(17:40):
they demonstrated that they have athletes for two of the
other types of world beating stars. They held Dame and
Yannis to just forty points and held both of them
to below fifty percent from the field. They held Yanis
to his lowest field goal percentage game of this entire season.
Excellent guards to match up with all the different types
(18:02):
of starguards in the league that you can run into
in any playoff matchup or any regular season game. I
thought Cason Wallace and Alex Crusoe were both fantastic in
their reps against Damian Lillard last night, applying ball pressure
up and down the court, staying attached in screening actions
and pressuring the ball from behind, swat and getting hands
on the basketball. Great contests on everything. Dame, of his
(18:26):
nineteen points, managed just seven points on the ball. Twelve
of his nineteen points came off of spot ups, meaning
one of his other teammates made a play that got
oksee in rotation, forced caseon or Alex to help which
allowed Dame to get an open catch and shoot look
or on a random, weird play like there was a
(18:48):
random play where Caruso stripped Damian Lillard clean underneath the
basket and the ball just happened to pop right back
into Dame's hands and he drew a foul, And then
Dame got fouled on a jump ball, and just like
him and Alex wrestling for position off the ball, but
like they had him strapped up in the on ball situations.
If you hold Dame to seven points on the ball,
(19:09):
you're gonna give yourself a really good chance to stop
at Milwaukee offense. And like, that's not just a Dame thing.
Whether it's Steph, it could be any of the great
guards in this league. They are built to handle those
guards really well. And then I thought Isaiah Hartenstein did
about as good a job playing positional defenses against Giannest
(19:29):
as you can. Again, when I say positional defense, to me,
that's positioning yourself between a player in the rim and
at least forcing them to make over the top shots.
Defense against these types of players is very different than
I could think like Palo Boncaro for example, or a
Lebron James for example. These like big bullyball forwards that
(19:49):
aren't super comfortable shooting jump shots. Now Lebron has become
much better at that over the years, so maybe he's
a bad example, but you get the point. Like these
big bullyball players that you kind of want to take
jump shot and floaters and hooks and stuff like that,
just position yourself between that player and the rim, and
you're doing your job. Anytime he got anybody else on him.
In this game, it was a double team easy to
(20:12):
get past in rotation getting great looks. Jannis was able
to consistently generate great stuff against anybody that wasn't Isaiah Hartenstein.
But Hartenstein has that combination of a little bit of
mobility and he's big and strong as a center to
where Yannis isn't looking at him, like I can go
right through him. With Yannis, like he doesn't even really
(20:34):
have to make a move to get by most people
because he's so big and strong. If he just rips through,
even if the defender slides his feet, there's usually just
a tiny bit of an opening, and Giannis is gonna
hit that with physicality and get his shoulder in there.
He has that move too, where he'll gather and like
chicken wing with his arm as he goes to the rim.
Like he's impossible to guard when you're giving up that
(20:56):
much size and weight, because even if you get in
front of him, he's just gonna get his way around
you by using his physicality. Right. But Isaiah Hartenstein, because
he has that mobility and size and strength, Jannis actually
has to make a good enough move to force Isaiah
Hartenstein to lunge out of position in order for him
to get all the way to the basket. And so
(21:18):
that allowed Hartenstein to do a really nice job on
yon Is forcing him into those over the top shots. Again.
In last night's game, Hartenstein and the Thunder as a
team held Giannis to below forty seven percent from the field.
It was literally his least efficient field goal percentage game
of the entire season. And like, and I haven't even
(21:40):
mentioned the fact that Hartenstein had twenty four points last night.
He had twenty two on cuts, he made five of
his patented floaters. He had a great game. Like I've
been consistent on the record that I have concerns about
okc's offense in a playoff context. I do think they
have a tendency to get into these extended stretches of
ugly bass could ball on that into the floor. That
(22:01):
makes them more vulnerable than their record would lead you
to believe. But make no mistake, this defense is legit
and not like cute twenty twenty one Utah Jazz regular
season legit. They are versatile playoff Freddy able to handle
the types of challenges that await them in the Western
Conference playoffs type of legit on the defensive end of
(22:23):
the floor. It's gonna keep them in every series. Like
I don't think even if OKC loses, this isn't gonna
be a sweep or a five game series. Their defense
is so good it's gonna keep them in any series.
They're gonna be very, very difficult to beat four times
in a two week span. A couple other shoutouts from
this game. I thought Kenrich Williams was amazing, kind of
(22:43):
similar to what we talked about with Jordan Goodwin earlier.
I thought he just helped set the defensive tone right
away early, flying around in rotation, making extra efforts. He
was a guy in many cases that was rotating to
Brook Lopez and picking pops, which is a foundational release
valve for the Bucks offense. In one of the hardest
action to guard, but it just requires a good amount
of speed on the weak side. He locked zero points
(23:04):
in this game and only one steal, and I thought
Kenrich was awesome in his minutes. Chet was really great
on offense in this game. He continues to hit threes.
He had two last night. He's made five of his
last ten, and it caused some overreaction from Milwaukee's defense.
Both Torrian Prince and Giannis bit on pump fakes on
kickouts to Chet that led to points. He drove on
Torrian and got a floater on the honest one, he
(23:26):
ended up drawing a foul. He gave up the Thunder
ended up getting an easy dunk on a play where
Chet kind of relocated up to the right wing and
Torrian Prince, who should have been the low man instead
of protecting the rim, overplayed Chet at the three point
line and gave up a dunk. That's all a product
of the fear of Chet's shooting because of how well
(23:47):
he's been shooting the ball over the last couple of games.
He also did some nice work in action too. The
two most common actions they'll run with him is like
a two man game right around the foul line the
middle of the floor with him and Hartenstein trying to
bait trying to force big bodies to guard in screening actions.
And then they'll run a lot of wide pin down
stuff where they'll like set him in the corner and
have a guard screen down for him so that the
team doesn't want to switch and try to see if
(24:08):
they can get him coming downhill with the ball catching
on the move going downhill. He's really starting to blossom
into an incredible player. I thought he was fantastic and
last shout out, SGA is becoming one of the greatest
shows in the league. I've seen a lot of people
complaining about his foul grifting or like shoving people off
(24:29):
with his off arm, and like, the grifting is a
league wide problem, and yeah, Shay is better at it
than most, but like, I'm never gonna judge the players
for that because to me, it's a competitive advantage and
Shaye's just like, imagine being Shay. You're on a team
with a bunch of super young players and so much
of the offensive workload falls on your plate. You got
(24:51):
to find a way to get some easy points in there,
and foul grifting is the way he's doing it. And again,
everyone has access to those moves. He's just better at
it than most. And eventually the league, I hope will
get will legislate it out, but it is part of
the game at this point, the off arm stuff, this
is where I think the complaints from people are ridiculous.
All throughout NBA history, we've had players that use their
(25:13):
physical advantages to dominate, like Shack bullyballs everybody, Lebron bullyballs everybody,
Yannis bullyballs everybody, Luca bullyballs every there's so jokicch is
just rumbling, stumbling to the rim NonStop, like we have
to be okay with it from guards too. And the
thing with Shay is he's really good at getting a
(25:35):
defender out of position to where they're leaning back, and
you see it. He did it against Kuzma a couple
times last night, where it's like he sees Kuzma in
a retreat positional defense stance, and so he just drives
really hard and gets that shoulder into him and bumps
him off a little bit. And by the way, he
does get called for offensive fouls occasionally when he really
extends that arm, but a lot of times he doesn't
(25:56):
extend the arm. A lot of times he just kind
of gets you with his shoulder and he's so strong
on his base that he'll bump you with his shoulder
and get plenty of separation. And I have no problem
with that at all, because that, to me is what
the game of basketball is. It's physical it's a contact sport.
It gets even more physical when you get into the postseason.
And all throughout NBA history, we've allowed these big, strong
(26:17):
dudes to throw people around. I have no problem with
Shaye doing it too. But even if you set that
stuff aside and you just watch him play, he's starting
to break people off with these dribble combinations that are
sending defenders into a different area code. And it's because
he can chain together multiple dribble combinations, multiple pieces of footwork.
(26:38):
I've talked about this concept before. He doesn't go into
a sequence like telegraphing what he's gonna do. He starts
with just a hard drive in one of the directions,
whether it's that hesitation between the legs dribble going left
or the hesitation between the legs drible going right. You
kind of slowly do the between the legs dribble, and
as soon as it hits his driving hand, the hand
that's on the strong side that he's driving to, he'll
(27:00):
just explode forward. He has a lot of that hesitation quickness.
It's like a first step combined with a change of
pace kind of thing. But he's just gonna go. And
then if you cut off that side, he's pulling it
back through the legs and he's going the other way.
And if you cut him off that side, he's pulling
it back through the legs and he's going the other way.
It's all just like a relentless change of direction. But
(27:22):
he's just so good at using that pullback dribble between
his legs and in those situations he's generating contact a
lot of times in bumping guys off that it's kind
of just like, do I need to do it once twice,
three or three times to get to my spot? Well,
regardless of how many times you defend it right, I'm
eventually going to get to my spot. And like, again,
there are some of these guys that he's going up
(27:42):
against and they're biting so hard on one of the
moves that he's getting like ten, twelve, fifteen feet of
separation on that pullback dribble. It's wild to me. And again,
like it's not just fun to watch. There's a lot
of good stuff in there for young basketball players to
emulate that will help you get to the next level.
That getting that shoulder contact and then quick scissor dribble
(28:03):
between your legs is an excellent way to deal with
ball pressure or to get separation when a defender is
pressuring you. It just takes a lot of that contact,
ball handling ability, the ability to dribble while you're dealing
with contact, and again, like it's just all of it
is just super tight handle, super tight footwork, and the
ability to chain every single move together with hesitation dribbles
(28:24):
just ties together. This player that is like entirely unpredictable
and extremely difficult to keep in front. And I've really
really enjoyed watching him over the course of this season.
(28:48):
All right, magic has before we get out of here
for the death, it's bit of a weird game. Both
teams shot catastrophically different than their typical efficiency. Orlando is
by far the worst jump shooting team in the league.
They get seven fewer points per one hundred jump shots
then the twenty ninth ranked Wizards. That gap is the
same as the gap between the twenty ninth ranked Wizards
and the thirteenth ranked Bulls. They are a god awful
(29:10):
jump shooting team and last night they got one point
twenty four points per jump shot. Cleveland is the number
one jump shooting team in the NBA, and they got
zero point seventy five points per jump shot, so it
was kind of just like a weird jump shooting game.
It played a roll down the stretch of the game too,
like it was a shot making game down the stretch,
and a couple of thirty two percent three point shooters
(29:31):
and Anthony Black and Pala Boncaro hit three clutch threes,
and Donovan Mitchell, a player who's hitting forty nine percent
of unguarded catch and shoes a catch and shoots, missed
back to back wide open threes above the break in
the clutch Max Strus hits forty eight percent of unguarded
catch and shoots. He missed an open corner three in
the right corner light. So like obviously it was kind
(29:53):
of a shot variance game. It turned into a fun
little chest match down the stretch two for Palo. The
last two buckets that were like and got or just
inverted ball screen action with Palo and KCP on the
left wing, and it's the exact same sequence of events
that most teams have to deal with in inverted ball screens.
They don't want to switch because they don't want to
leave a smaller player defending a big bullyball player, So
(30:14):
they opt for a hedge and recover to try to
prevent the switch and prevent the drive, but it concedes
a slipping three. So KCP comes up, slips out of
the screen to the left corner. Palo briefly gets two
on the ball, he whips it over the top. KCP
hits the corner three very next possession. They're like, well,
we don't want to give up that open corner three
(30:36):
to KCP, so we might as well switch the action. Now.
DeAndre Hunter is on KCP, but Donovan Mitchell's guarding Paalo,
and Paalo just hard dribbles into the middle of the floor,
just bumps Donovan Mitchell off with that shoulder and then
rises up right there in the middle and knocks down
the huge shot at the elbow that ended up giving
them the lead. And so like a shot making type
(30:58):
of game from the three point line that swung Orlando's favor,
and then a nice little chess match sequence from Orlando
with kcpm palow down the stretch to get the win.
Now here's the thing. I'm never gonna get too worked
up about a regular season result. You guys know that
about me. Weird stuff can happen in basketball games, but
I did think this game was revealing of some of
Orlando's big picture playoff upside and some of the weaknesses
(31:20):
in Cleveland's roster. Orlando's size was a consistent problem for
Cleveland in this game. And I know people are gonna
say Evan Mobley didn't play, but neither did Jalen Suggs,
and I actually thought it manifested mostly with Cleveland's perimeter players.
Mitchell and Garland combined for twenty seven missed shots and
eight turnovers in this game, and a big part of
(31:40):
that was them struggling to shoot over good contests or
trying to pass in traffic. The two main ways this
manifested from Orlando's defense was that bracket that I always
talk about in pick and roll, and then some of
the deal the problems they had was switching focusing on
the bracket. I've talked about this concept a lot. In
a drop coverage, when you've got a guard chasing over
the top and a big up at the level when
(32:02):
you are staying close to the ball handler, you bracket
them appropriately when there's distance. If the guard gets caught
on the screen and the biggest too far back, there's
an open bracket, there's space in there to operate. That's
where guys like Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland can barbecue
you with just comfortable shot making in the mid range. Right,
Orlando had a very tight bracket in this game, but
they had a very tight bracket with size, and that's
(32:25):
where it can become really problematic. And this is one
of the strengths of Orlando's roster. Whether it's Jonathan Isaac,
or it's Anthony Black, or it's Contavious Callwell. Pope is
one of the smaller guys you're dealing with there, but
Palo and Franz front spend some time with the ball.
Wendell Carter Junior and Goga Patadz they are big dudes.
They are huge on the ball, and it made those
guys consistently shoot some tough, contested shots that were over
(32:48):
tight contesting. You could tell they're putting extra arc on
the turnovers we talked about earlier. It caused problems for Cleveland.
This is why it's always way too simplistic to just
attribute a game to shooting. Luck Again, it plays a role.
There is shooting variants in a game, but usually it
is connected in more than one way to the way
the game is being played. For instance, Cleveland only generated
(33:13):
nine unguarded catch shoot jump shots in this game. It's
one of their lowest totals of the season, and it's
not the first time Orlando has done this to them.
Orlando in the blowout game where Cleveland shots super well,
only three of those catch and shoot threes were unguarded
in that game. They typically generate Cleveland fourteen unguarded catch
(33:34):
and shoots per game. This is an issue they've had
in the Orlando matchup. Now again, they missed some looks,
some wide open looks that they normally make at a
high rate. We talked about Mitchell and Struce. Sam Merrill
missed a bunch of great looks in the third corner.
Was kind of bizarre. They were all like wide open
and he was just missing, and they were like not
necessarily close either. But Orlando did help play them into
that kind of night by wearing them down with their size,
(33:57):
making them play in a crowd, and by getting great
contests in rotation. It's also worth mentioning Orlando allows fewer
made threes than any team in the entire NBA. That
is a strength of their defense. A big part of
that is their length on the perimeter in the physicality
they play with all game long. They held Cleveland to
(34:17):
zero point eight five points per half court possession. That
was their third lowest mark of the entire season. So
again shout out to the Orlando defense and focusing on
Orlando for a second. This is their big picture upside.
If their young players ever learn to shoot more consistently,
and if they can continue to improve over the years,
(34:38):
if they can get Jalen Suggs back and get healthy,
they can be a very dangerous playoff team because of
their size and strength and their ability to wear on you.
I notice it with Palo, Like Palo has that really
ugly jump shot that he misses so frequently in the
mid range, and like that part drives me crazy, but
he gets a ton of separation in there. Like if
(35:00):
he ever does put that together to where he becomes
a fifty two to fifty five percent mid range jump shooter,
Like he's gonna feast on teams in that part of
the floor because he's just so big and strong that
he can get to his spots there so easily. There
is a lot of big picture upside with the Orlando
that I thought was on display. There were a couple
of things that stood out to me on the Cleveland
(35:21):
front in this game. Though again I talked about this
a lot with the Lakers during this phase when they
were struggling, even in their wins. No matter how good
you are, even if you happen to win, I always
think there's value in taking a closer look at why
you struggled during games or stretches of games where you struggled.
And again, the two things that I noticed from Cleveland
(35:42):
in this game won the size. Cleveland, even with Mobley,
isn't exceptionally exceptionally big and strong. They can wear down
against size. It happened against New York two years ago,
it happened in the Orlando series last years. They were
trailing big in Game seven. It is something to keep
an eye on. And then switching. There was a switch
look from Orlando in the second quarter where they had
(36:02):
Goga off and Wendell Carter Junior off and that led
to the first big magic run of this game. They
shut off the baked in dribble penetration they got from
ball screens. They forced Cleveland to play a lot of
one on one, and we have seen Cleveland struggled at
times against these kinds of looks in the regular season,
especially against Boston and Oklahoma City. This is why it's
(36:24):
so important to keep an eye on the Boston matchup. Specifically,
Cleveland has a couple of wins this year against a
shorthanded Boston Celtics team. But when they're healthy and they
go Drew Holiday, Derek White, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, and
Al Horford, they're bigger and stronger than Cleveland and they
can switch one through five and again. This is an
incredible Cavs team that's winning at a historic pace, but
(36:46):
the Boston Celtics are like the final boss for them
in a video game. It's gonna attack their biggest weaknesses
and it's gonna be a hell of a show. I
can't wait to see what happens. All right, guys, This
all I have for today, as always is I sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
We are going live tonight on YouTube after the final
buzzer of Nuggets Warriors. I'll see you guys then, and
(37:08):
then our next daytime episode will be coming out on
Wednesday in the form of a mailbag the volume What's
Up 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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All right, well, good hoops, and I here at the
(01:46):
vall you haavy Monday, everybody hopeful. If you guys had
a great weekend, got a jam pack show for you today,
We're hitting three games from the Sunday slate as the
Lakers get off of their four game losing streak by
beating the reeling Phoenix Suns. After that, we're going to
talk about the Olkahoma City Thunder getting revenge on their
n season tournament performance by going into Milwaukee and really
handling the Bucks. I want to focus in on the
(02:09):
some elements of the OKC defense that I think are
separators for them from their peers around the league. And
then after that, the Orlando Magic gets some revenge after
they took a beatdown from Cleveland at home a little
while back. They went into Cleveland and stole a game,
a really interesting game on a bunch of fronts, showed
some of the big picture upside for the Magic, also
revealed some of the weaknesses in that Cleveland roster. We're
(02:31):
going to talk about that game from the perspective of
both teams as well. You guys are the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSONNLTC. You guys don't
miss announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feet wherever you
get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super
helpful if we leave a rating and a review on
that front. We also have brand new social media feeds
on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where Jackson's been doing some
(02:52):
incredible work putting together some film breakdowns and stuff like that.
Make sure you guys follow us there, and the last
but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the
YouTube comments so we can keep hitting those mail bags
throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So the Suns are not a good matchup
for the Lakers in a bunch of different ways. The
(03:12):
big fundamental thing that makes it really difficult for the
Suns to guard this version of this Lakers team is
they don't feel comfortable switching with their fives with their centers.
That puts you in a really tough spot dealing with
Luka Doncic in pick and roll. We've talked about this
a while. JJ Reddick has mentioned it in the postgame
presser like running drop coverage against Luka Doncic is death,
(03:36):
And I look at that as, like, you know, drop
coverage can mean a lot of different things, but basically
all that means is anytime you're chasing Luca over the
top of the screen and the big man is waiting
on the other side, either up at the level and
what they call a high drop or further back and
what they call a deep drop. That sort of coverage
makes for these really easy reads for Luca that he's
been immediately great at in a Lakers jersey. What's been
(03:59):
interesting is like they've struggled a little bit against switching
for a lot of different reasons. Luca wasn't in shape
for a lot of those tough switching teams that they
faced earlier in that stretch, and as a team, they
haven't shot the three ball well in large part because
they're playing super super hard on the defensive end of
the floor and adjusting to the new types of three
point looks that they're getting as part of the Luka
(04:19):
Doncic offense, and so their offense, even in the wins,
has sputtered at times against teams that can switch with
their five man. But again with this Phoenix Suns team
with Nick Richards, with Mason Plumley, they're just not doing
a lot of switching with their five men, and so
that just allows Luca to play read and react basketball
with baked ribble penetration. And we've got over this a
(04:41):
million times, but it's a simple set of reeds. If
the lowman and the screen defender stay back, Luca gets
to just work his way into the lane until he
can take a little floater off the glass. If the
big steps up, it creates a simple read behind it
with the lowman. If the lowman steps over and tags
the roller, he's skipping it to the weak side. If
he doesn't tag the roller that he can hit the
(05:02):
hit Jackson Hayes runnerneath the basket. That was the big
thing that Phoenix kept messing up in this game. They
were running a good mix of high and low drop
and a lot of high drop early in the game,
and they weren't tagging Jackson Hayes. And part of this is,
like I've been talking a lot about how the Suns
lately look to me like a team that is basically
quit trying to be the best basketball team they can be,
(05:23):
in large part because they know that their best isn't
good enough to beat the best teams in the league.
And so there were a lot of weak side possessions
with Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, and KD all three of
them where they just didn't bother to tag Jackson Hayes
or some really sloppy tags. I saw both Devin Booker
and Bradley Beal have tags where they just kind of
like ran up to Jackson. So what you're supposed to
(05:45):
do on a tag if they come up to the
level of the screen and Jackson Hayes is rolling hard
to the rim, your jobs, the lowman is to literally
get between the rollman and the rim and hit him
so that he can't throw the lob up to the
basket he has to, and usually some teams will counter
that by posting there or by skipping the ball to
the weak side. Right, You've got to literally put your
(06:07):
body on the line as a small against a rolling big.
It's a hard job, and the Sons just weren't really
interested in doing it last night, and so you'd see
them kind of like run over to Jackson and like
put their hands on him, but they're not really doing
anything to make him feel uncomfortable, and he's just catching
and finishing. Here's an easy little stat to demonstrate that
(06:27):
for you. He had nineteen points. Jackson Ay's nineteen points
in this game, seventeen of which were on cuts and rolls.
He has had nineteen points twice so far with Luca.
He had nineteen points one time total in the entirety
of the rest of his Lakers ten years, and that
goes to show you the benefit of Jackson Hayes in
(06:48):
this system. I have been talking a lot about this
concept lately, but the idea of like, your value as
a basketball player is kind of unique to the system
that you're in, Right Like, there are guys that are
deeply valuable in a certain system that would be less
valuable in another system. Whether it's like Aaron Gordon in
Orlando as like a swing forward star type of player,
(07:08):
looks really underqualified for that job, but you put him
in Denver where he can operate on the back line
because their center kind of inverts their spacing, all of
a sudden, he becomes immensely valuable in that type of role.
Right Like, everybody's value is unique to their individual system,
and Jackson Hayes, specifically, when Luka Doncic is on the Lakers,
(07:29):
is immensely valuable because Luca is one of the best
passers in the league at making teams pay by hitting
a vertical spacer. And I mean, there were a lot
of issues that have gone wrong for the Lakers in
the four game losing streak, most of which have come
down to injuries. I mean, you're down, You're you're starting
front court. Literally, if you're down Lebron, Ruy and Jackson,
it's such a difficult thing to overcome. But it's funny
(07:51):
to say Jackson Hayes is so valuable because it felt
so different in previous iterations of the Lakers, But on
this version of the Lakers, Jackson Hayes is incredibly valuable
to this offense because he is the guy that allows
them to function in four out one in spacing. I've
talked a lot about this concept. When you're running a
lot of motion, ball flowing side to side, everyone's involved
(08:14):
in the action. It's like a five out spacing concept, right.
You got ball handlers on the wings, guys in the corner,
and then a big man at the top of the keys.
Functioning is like this passing folkrum, screening folkrum out at
the top of the key. This Lakers team is very
much going back to the old version of their offense,
way back when they were the Western Conference Finals team
(08:35):
in twenty twenty three, where it's like we're spreading the floor,
running pick and roll like it's a lot of that
sort of thing, and in those situations you don't want
five out spacing because in five out spacing, when the
gaps on the perimeter shrink to get pretty small and
it gets harder to drive as defenders are able to
gap into driving lanes and stuff like that. And so
the way you prefer to set up your spacing when
(08:57):
you're more of a matchup attacking, spread pig roll type
of team is four out one in spacing, and once
your shooters in the corner, you got a shooter on
the wing, and you're basically occupying either the dunker spot
with a dunker or a screen and roll threat where
the roller is occupying that spot when he rolls to
the basket. And so guys like Jemison, guys like Jared
vander Built, even Christian Kaloko he botched two lobs last
(09:20):
night in the first half, where it's just the easy
dunks that he's struggling to make because he's got a
little bit of an issue catching and finishing. Sometimes you
can see just how incredibly valuable Jackson Hayes is to
the Lakers as a vertical spacer. In this version of
the team. They did a lot of damage on that
Sun's back line in this game, and after in the
early third quarter they generated yet another easy lob dunk
(09:44):
for Jackson Hayes kind of like a behind the back
lob a ridiculous pass from Luca, and from that point forward,
the Sun's basically just decided to blitz him and double
team him all over the floor, and so the Lakers
were able to play with an advantage and they were
able to stiff arm the Suns. The rest of the way,
the Suns fought back. They've they've been resilient. This has
been a consistent theme for the Suns in the last month,
(10:04):
is like they'll get off to an ugly start and
then rather than get humiliated, they'll like suddenly start competing
really hard towards the end of the game. And it's
the U. Lakers fans are familiar with this concept from
last year. It's the fake comeback concept, right because that
Laker team used to have a very similar personality last year.
But KD had seventeen points in the second half and
(10:24):
they kind of battled a little bit, but they never
got any closer than eight the rest of the way.
A couple of Laker concepts and I want to hit
before we move on. Luca's rapidly improving as a shot maker.
This is a concept that talked a lot about after
his first few weeks with the Lakers, he just wasn't
shooting as well as he typically is capable of. And
you know, he obviously had that really bad night in Brooklyn,
(10:46):
but even including that game, in his last eight games,
he's averaging thirty two points per game on just twenty
two shot attempts, shooting forty one percent from three on
eleven attempts per game, and he's getting to the foul
line ten times, where he's shooting eighty percent from at
the free throw line. So he's really starting to come
around as an offensive player, which is helping this team
(11:06):
start to have a little bit more resilience on that
end of the floor. He's also averaging over two steals
per game in that span. He's sliding his feet, really
active on the perimeter, active in help side, functioning as
a cog in that defensive system. Austin Reeves is starting
to look like himself again. He commented after the Nets
game that he needed to be better with Lebron out
in order to help his team. He's averaging thirty one,
(11:27):
seven and seven on fifty two percent from the field,
forty four from three to ninety four percent from the
line in his last three games, which is just outrageous.
JJ Reddick talked after the game about Jordan Goodwin and
the tone that he set early. He was spot on
about that. One of the very first I think it
was literally the first possession of the game. KD was
guarding him, he was ball watching, and I think Luca
(11:48):
ended up missing a jump shot short and he just
shot like a cannon into the lane, got the offensive
rebound and put it back in. He was excellent with
his ball pressure and with his back pressure. He had
a couple offensive rebounds. He had a couple of block shit.
Really really impressive game from Jordan go and ended up
getting a start in this game. Nice win for the Lakers.
They got some help over the weekend too. In the standings.
Memphis got crushed at home by the Calves. Denver toasted
(12:12):
off a game to the Wizards on a crazy game
winner from Jordan Poole. He shot like a forty footer
in Russell Westbrook's face that ends up leaving the Lakers
tied in the loss column for the two seed, despite
dropping four consecutive games earlier with an injury ravaged roster.
I think that's a win no matter how you look
at it, to drop four in a row like that
(12:32):
and to still really be in position to potentially get
that two seed, and the Lakers, the Nuggets, the Grizzlies,
and the Rockets, it's a four way tie, are all
tied with twenty five losses in that spot, and I
think the Lakers have a good chance to win that
race and just get the two seed, as long as
they can get healthy soon enough. Allegedly Lebron's about a
week out. Ruly, I would imagine we'll come back not tonight,
but probably in the game on Wednesday night. It shouldn't
(12:55):
be too long before they get healthy. And like, I mean,
we're gonna talk about this a little bit, especially when
we get into our mail Bag, which is releasing on
Wednesday this week. But like, the Lakers might just be
better than all those teams, and so they might end
up coming away with the two seed just because they're better.
And so they're in a good spot now. They made
a good call, a smart call to rest Ruie rest Jackson,
(13:16):
rest Lebron. Make sure those guys get the rest that
they need, and we'll see. I think they have a
chance to end up coming out with the two seed. Anyway,
we'll see how they can close the season. The big thing,
the big swing factor there for me is Denver, and
I just can't get a read on the Nuggets. They
look so bad sometimes they're so so so bad on defense,
but there's this big part of me that just can't
(13:37):
believe that they're actually that bad and that they're just
kind of going through the motions a lot. Now. NBA
history tells us those teams always lose, but it's hard
to say at this point they're They're the team that
that's in that group of four with the Lakers that
I can't really get a read on where they kind
of land among the top teams in the league. All right,
(14:08):
let's talk some thunder Bucks. We've talked a lot this
year about the strength of Oklahoma City being their defense,
and we've got all, like, over all the reasons why.
They have a ton of good perimeter defenders that they
can keep cycling into the game to wear out ball handlers.
They can apply excellent ball pressure for forty eight minutes.
(14:29):
They have these aggressive game plans that suit their team
speed really really well. It's the right type of game
plan to go with with the type of roster that
they have. They're super sharp in rotation on the back
end to make these like perceived openings disappear in a flash.
Their rim protection is legit with chet homeground on the floor.
But I want to zero in specifically on the concept
(14:51):
of defending superstars for a minute, because like superstars are
scheme breakers, they're personnel breakers. Like oh you Anthony Davis. He's,
in my opinion, the best defensive player in the league
when he's healthy and in shape. Well it turns out
he can't guard Nikola Jokic. So the Lakers' greatest defensive
weapon was basically neutralized, and it led to a few
(15:13):
years of dominance. In that matchup. If you guys, remember,
oh you have Jaden McDaniels, he's one of the best
perimeter defenders in the league. Well, it turns out he
can't guard Luka Doncic. So in that matchup in the
Western Conference finals last year, the strength of Minnesota's perimeter
defense was neutralized and the MAVs ended up thrashing the Wolves.
This is a thing that can happen that a superstar
(15:34):
can break a scheme. A superstar can break even personnel strings.
One of the non negotiable barriers that stands between any
great team and a championship is the ability to go
head to head with the best players in the world
and come out on top. For the thunder in the West,
you've got Nikola Jokic, You've got Luka Doncic, Lebron James
(15:56):
before his injury was playing at near that level, not
quite that level, but near that level. Steph Curry is
coming on strong. Anthony Edwards is a type of threat
that you have to face in the Western Conference. In
One of the traits of this OKC defense. Something that
makes them so dangerous is their ability to match up
with the top players in the league. They've had their
(16:17):
issues with Jokic over the years because it seems like
nobody can guard that guy, but he's literally the best
player in the world and Okay, so he can have
success against him on the other end of the floor.
Even the game they dropped to Denver the other day
a week ago or so, it was a weird game.
They played really well in the first half, had a lead,
drop seventy three points. J Dubb gets hurt. They double
(16:39):
team Shay every time he crosses half court. It allows
them to gimmick their way into a win. But like
that's a matchup that they've done pretty well against. They
have one of the best players in the league to
match up against Luca Lebron Kawhi, Jason Tatum, those big,
strong matchup attacking forwards. Lou Dort is literally one of
(16:59):
the very best options in the NBA for that type
of matchup. He's uniquely strong enough to keep his base.
Most of the success that those players have comes down
to bullying and dislodging defenders from their base so they
can get separation and get great shots. Lou Dort in
(17:19):
many cases the guy dislodging them from their base and
forcing them to play off balance and causing them to
miss a lot of shots that they normally make. It's
a huge asset to have, specifically in the Western Conference
with the types of teams that you have to face
coming out of there, and for a potential Boston matchup
with Jason Tatum, and then in this game against Milwaukee,
(17:40):
they demonstrated that they have athletes for two of the
other types of world beating stars. They held Dame and
Yannis to just forty points and held both of them
to below fifty percent from the field. They held Yanis
to his lowest field goal percentage game of this entire season.
Excellent guards to match up with all the different types
(18:02):
of starguards in the league that you can run into
in any playoff matchup or any regular season game. I
thought Cason Wallace and Alex Crusoe were both fantastic in
their reps against Damian Lillard last night, applying ball pressure
up and down the court, staying attached in screening actions
and pressuring the ball from behind, swat and getting hands
on the basketball. Great contests on everything. Dame, of his
(18:26):
nineteen points, managed just seven points on the ball. Twelve
of his nineteen points came off of spot ups, meaning
one of his other teammates made a play that got
oksee in rotation, forced caseon or Alex to help which
allowed Dame to get an open catch and shoot look
or on a random, weird play like there was a
(18:48):
random play where Caruso stripped Damian Lillard clean underneath the
basket and the ball just happened to pop right back
into Dame's hands and he drew a foul, And then
Dame got fouled on a jump ball, and just like
him and Alex wrestling for position off the ball, but
like they had him strapped up in the on ball situations.
If you hold Dame to seven points on the ball,
(19:09):
you're gonna give yourself a really good chance to stop
at Milwaukee offense. And like, that's not just a Dame thing.
Whether it's Steph, it could be any of the great
guards in this league. They are built to handle those
guards really well. And then I thought Isaiah Hartenstein did
about as good a job playing positional defenses against Giannest
(19:29):
as you can. Again, when I say positional defense, to me,
that's positioning yourself between a player in the rim and
at least forcing them to make over the top shots.
Defense against these types of players is very different than
I could think like Palo Boncaro for example, or a
Lebron James for example. These like big bullyball forwards that
(19:49):
aren't super comfortable shooting jump shots. Now Lebron has become
much better at that over the years, so maybe he's
a bad example, but you get the point. Like these
big bullyball players that you kind of want to take
jump shot and floaters and hooks and stuff like that,
just position yourself between that player and the rim, and
you're doing your job. Anytime he got anybody else on him.
In this game, it was a double team easy to
(20:12):
get past in rotation getting great looks. Jannis was able
to consistently generate great stuff against anybody that wasn't Isaiah Hartenstein.
But Hartenstein has that combination of a little bit of
mobility and he's big and strong as a center to
where Yannis isn't looking at him, like I can go
right through him. With Yannis, like he doesn't even really
(20:34):
have to make a move to get by most people
because he's so big and strong. If he just rips through,
even if the defender slides his feet, there's usually just
a tiny bit of an opening, and Giannis is gonna
hit that with physicality and get his shoulder in there.
He has that move too, where he'll gather and like
chicken wing with his arm as he goes to the rim.
Like he's impossible to guard when you're giving up that
(20:56):
much size and weight, because even if you get in
front of him, he's just gonna get his way around
you by using his physicality. Right. But Isaiah Hartenstein, because
he has that mobility and size and strength, Jannis actually
has to make a good enough move to force Isaiah
Hartenstein to lunge out of position in order for him
to get all the way to the basket. And so
(21:18):
that allowed Hartenstein to do a really nice job on
yon Is forcing him into those over the top shots. Again.
In last night's game, Hartenstein and the Thunder as a
team held Giannis to below forty seven percent from the field.
It was literally his least efficient field goal percentage game
of the entire season. And like, and I haven't even
(21:40):
mentioned the fact that Hartenstein had twenty four points last night.
He had twenty two on cuts, he made five of
his patented floaters. He had a great game. Like I've
been consistent on the record that I have concerns about
okc's offense in a playoff context. I do think they
have a tendency to get into these extended stretches of
ugly bass could ball on that into the floor. That
(22:01):
makes them more vulnerable than their record would lead you
to believe. But make no mistake, this defense is legit
and not like cute twenty twenty one Utah Jazz regular
season legit. They are versatile playoff Freddy able to handle
the types of challenges that await them in the Western
Conference playoffs type of legit on the defensive end of
(22:23):
the floor. It's gonna keep them in every series. Like
I don't think even if OKC loses, this isn't gonna
be a sweep or a five game series. Their defense
is so good it's gonna keep them in any series.
They're gonna be very, very difficult to beat four times
in a two week span. A couple other shoutouts from
this game. I thought Kenrich Williams was amazing, kind of
(22:43):
similar to what we talked about with Jordan Goodwin earlier.
I thought he just helped set the defensive tone right
away early, flying around in rotation, making extra efforts. He
was a guy in many cases that was rotating to
Brook Lopez and picking pops, which is a foundational release
valve for the Bucks offense. In one of the hardest
action to guard, but it just requires a good amount
of speed on the weak side. He locked zero points
(23:04):
in this game and only one steal, and I thought
Kenrich was awesome in his minutes. Chet was really great
on offense in this game. He continues to hit threes.
He had two last night. He's made five of his
last ten, and it caused some overreaction from Milwaukee's defense.
Both Torrian Prince and Giannis bit on pump fakes on
kickouts to Chet that led to points. He drove on
Torrian and got a floater on the honest one, he
(23:26):
ended up drawing a foul. He gave up the Thunder
ended up getting an easy dunk on a play where
Chet kind of relocated up to the right wing and
Torrian Prince, who should have been the low man instead
of protecting the rim, overplayed Chet at the three point
line and gave up a dunk. That's all a product
of the fear of Chet's shooting because of how well
(23:47):
he's been shooting the ball over the last couple of games.
He also did some nice work in action too. The
two most common actions they'll run with him is like
a two man game right around the foul line the
middle of the floor with him and Hartenstein trying to
bait trying to force big bodies to guard in screening actions.
And then they'll run a lot of wide pin down
stuff where they'll like set him in the corner and
have a guard screen down for him so that the
team doesn't want to switch and try to see if
(24:08):
they can get him coming downhill with the ball catching
on the move going downhill. He's really starting to blossom
into an incredible player. I thought he was fantastic and
last shout out, SGA is becoming one of the greatest
shows in the league. I've seen a lot of people
complaining about his foul grifting or like shoving people off
(24:29):
with his off arm, and like, the grifting is a
league wide problem, and yeah, Shay is better at it
than most, but like, I'm never gonna judge the players
for that because to me, it's a competitive advantage and
Shaye's just like, imagine being Shay. You're on a team
with a bunch of super young players and so much
of the offensive workload falls on your plate. You got
(24:51):
to find a way to get some easy points in there,
and foul grifting is the way he's doing it. And again,
everyone has access to those moves. He's just better at
it than most. And eventually the league, I hope will
get will legislate it out, but it is part of
the game at this point, the off arm stuff, this
is where I think the complaints from people are ridiculous.
All throughout NBA history, we've had players that use their
(25:13):
physical advantages to dominate, like Shack bullyballs everybody, Lebron bullyballs everybody,
Yannis bullyballs everybody, Luca bullyballs every there's so jokicch is
just rumbling, stumbling to the rim NonStop, like we have
to be okay with it from guards too. And the
thing with Shay is he's really good at getting a
(25:35):
defender out of position to where they're leaning back, and
you see it. He did it against Kuzma a couple
times last night, where it's like he sees Kuzma in
a retreat positional defense stance, and so he just drives
really hard and gets that shoulder into him and bumps
him off a little bit. And by the way, he
does get called for offensive fouls occasionally when he really
extends that arm, but a lot of times he doesn't
(25:56):
extend the arm. A lot of times he just kind
of gets you with his shoulder and he's so strong
on his base that he'll bump you with his shoulder
and get plenty of separation. And I have no problem
with that at all, because that, to me is what
the game of basketball is. It's physical it's a contact sport.
It gets even more physical when you get into the postseason.
And all throughout NBA history, we've allowed these big, strong
(26:17):
dudes to throw people around. I have no problem with
Shaye doing it too. But even if you set that
stuff aside and you just watch him play, he's starting
to break people off with these dribble combinations that are
sending defenders into a different area code. And it's because
he can chain together multiple dribble combinations, multiple pieces of footwork.
(26:38):
I've talked about this concept before. He doesn't go into
a sequence like telegraphing what he's gonna do. He starts
with just a hard drive in one of the directions,
whether it's that hesitation between the legs dribble going left
or the hesitation between the legs drible going right. You
kind of slowly do the between the legs dribble, and
as soon as it hits his driving hand, the hand
that's on the strong side that he's driving to, he'll
(27:00):
just explode forward. He has a lot of that hesitation quickness.
It's like a first step combined with a change of
pace kind of thing. But he's just gonna go. And
then if you cut off that side, he's pulling it
back through the legs and he's going the other way.
And if you cut him off that side, he's pulling
it back through the legs and he's going the other way.
It's all just like a relentless change of direction. But
(27:22):
he's just so good at using that pullback dribble between
his legs and in those situations he's generating contact a
lot of times in bumping guys off that it's kind
of just like, do I need to do it once twice,
three or three times to get to my spot? Well,
regardless of how many times you defend it right, I'm
eventually going to get to my spot. And like, again,
there are some of these guys that he's going up
(27:42):
against and they're biting so hard on one of the
moves that he's getting like ten, twelve, fifteen feet of
separation on that pullback dribble. It's wild to me. And again,
like it's not just fun to watch. There's a lot
of good stuff in there for young basketball players to
emulate that will help you get to the next level.
That getting that shoulder contact and then quick scissor dribble
(28:03):
between your legs is an excellent way to deal with
ball pressure or to get separation when a defender is
pressuring you. It just takes a lot of that contact,
ball handling ability, the ability to dribble while you're dealing
with contact, and again, like it's just all of it
is just super tight handle, super tight footwork, and the
ability to chain every single move together with hesitation dribbles
(28:24):
just ties together. This player that is like entirely unpredictable
and extremely difficult to keep in front. And I've really
really enjoyed watching him over the course of this season.
(28:48):
All right, magic has before we get out of here
for the death, it's bit of a weird game. Both
teams shot catastrophically different than their typical efficiency. Orlando is
by far the worst jump shooting team in the league.
They get seven fewer points per one hundred jump shots
then the twenty ninth ranked Wizards. That gap is the
same as the gap between the twenty ninth ranked Wizards
and the thirteenth ranked Bulls. They are a god awful
(29:10):
jump shooting team and last night they got one point
twenty four points per jump shot. Cleveland is the number
one jump shooting team in the NBA, and they got
zero point seventy five points per jump shot, so it
was kind of just like a weird jump shooting game.
It played a roll down the stretch of the game too,
like it was a shot making game down the stretch,
and a couple of thirty two percent three point shooters
(29:31):
and Anthony Black and Pala Boncaro hit three clutch threes,
and Donovan Mitchell, a player who's hitting forty nine percent
of unguarded catch and shoes a catch and shoots, missed
back to back wide open threes above the break in
the clutch Max Strus hits forty eight percent of unguarded
catch and shoots. He missed an open corner three in
the right corner light. So like obviously it was kind
(29:53):
of a shot variance game. It turned into a fun
little chest match down the stretch two for Palo. The
last two buckets that were like and got or just
inverted ball screen action with Palo and KCP on the
left wing, and it's the exact same sequence of events
that most teams have to deal with in inverted ball screens.
They don't want to switch because they don't want to
leave a smaller player defending a big bullyball player, So
(30:14):
they opt for a hedge and recover to try to
prevent the switch and prevent the drive, but it concedes
a slipping three. So KCP comes up, slips out of
the screen to the left corner. Palo briefly gets two
on the ball, he whips it over the top. KCP
hits the corner three very next possession. They're like, well,
we don't want to give up that open corner three
(30:36):
to KCP, so we might as well switch the action. Now.
DeAndre Hunter is on KCP, but Donovan Mitchell's guarding Paalo,
and Paalo just hard dribbles into the middle of the floor,
just bumps Donovan Mitchell off with that shoulder and then
rises up right there in the middle and knocks down
the huge shot at the elbow that ended up giving
them the lead. And so like a shot making type
(30:58):
of game from the three point line that swung Orlando's favor,
and then a nice little chess match sequence from Orlando
with kcpm palow down the stretch to get the win.
Now here's the thing. I'm never gonna get too worked
up about a regular season result. You guys know that
about me. Weird stuff can happen in basketball games, but
I did think this game was revealing of some of
Orlando's big picture playoff upside and some of the weaknesses
(31:20):
in Cleveland's roster. Orlando's size was a consistent problem for
Cleveland in this game. And I know people are gonna
say Evan Mobley didn't play, but neither did Jalen Suggs,
and I actually thought it manifested mostly with Cleveland's perimeter players.
Mitchell and Garland combined for twenty seven missed shots and
eight turnovers in this game, and a big part of
(31:40):
that was them struggling to shoot over good contests or
trying to pass in traffic. The two main ways this
manifested from Orlando's defense was that bracket that I always
talk about in pick and roll, and then some of
the deal the problems they had was switching focusing on
the bracket. I've talked about this concept a lot. In
a drop coverage, when you've got a guard chasing over
the top and a big up at the level when
(32:02):
you are staying close to the ball handler, you bracket
them appropriately when there's distance. If the guard gets caught
on the screen and the biggest too far back, there's
an open bracket, there's space in there to operate. That's
where guys like Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland can barbecue
you with just comfortable shot making in the mid range. Right,
Orlando had a very tight bracket in this game, but
they had a very tight bracket with size, and that's
(32:25):
where it can become really problematic. And this is one
of the strengths of Orlando's roster. Whether it's Jonathan Isaac,
or it's Anthony Black, or it's Contavious Callwell. Pope is
one of the smaller guys you're dealing with there, but
Palo and Franz front spend some time with the ball.
Wendell Carter Junior and Goga Patadz they are big dudes.
They are huge on the ball, and it made those
guys consistently shoot some tough, contested shots that were over
(32:48):
tight contesting. You could tell they're putting extra arc on
the turnovers we talked about earlier. It caused problems for Cleveland.
This is why it's always way too simplistic to just
attribute a game to shooting. Luck Again, it plays a role.
There is shooting variants in a game, but usually it
is connected in more than one way to the way
the game is being played. For instance, Cleveland only generated
(33:13):
nine unguarded catch shoot jump shots in this game. It's
one of their lowest totals of the season, and it's
not the first time Orlando has done this to them.
Orlando in the blowout game where Cleveland shots super well,
only three of those catch and shoot threes were unguarded
in that game. They typically generate Cleveland fourteen unguarded catch
(33:34):
and shoots per game. This is an issue they've had
in the Orlando matchup. Now again, they missed some looks,
some wide open looks that they normally make at a
high rate. We talked about Mitchell and Struce. Sam Merrill
missed a bunch of great looks in the third corner.
Was kind of bizarre. They were all like wide open
and he was just missing, and they were like not
necessarily close either. But Orlando did help play them into
that kind of night by wearing them down with their size,
(33:57):
making them play in a crowd, and by getting great
contests in rotation. It's also worth mentioning Orlando allows fewer
made threes than any team in the entire NBA. That
is a strength of their defense. A big part of
that is their length on the perimeter in the physicality
they play with all game long. They held Cleveland to
(34:17):
zero point eight five points per half court possession. That
was their third lowest mark of the entire season. So
again shout out to the Orlando defense and focusing on
Orlando for a second. This is their big picture upside.
If their young players ever learn to shoot more consistently,
and if they can continue to improve over the years,
(34:38):
if they can get Jalen Suggs back and get healthy,
they can be a very dangerous playoff team because of
their size and strength and their ability to wear on you.
I notice it with Palo, Like Palo has that really
ugly jump shot that he misses so frequently in the
mid range, and like that part drives me crazy, but
he gets a ton of separation in there. Like if
(35:00):
he ever does put that together to where he becomes
a fifty two to fifty five percent mid range jump shooter,
Like he's gonna feast on teams in that part of
the floor because he's just so big and strong that
he can get to his spots there so easily. There
is a lot of big picture upside with the Orlando
that I thought was on display. There were a couple
of things that stood out to me on the Cleveland
(35:21):
front in this game. Though again I talked about this
a lot with the Lakers during this phase when they
were struggling, even in their wins. No matter how good
you are, even if you happen to win, I always
think there's value in taking a closer look at why
you struggled during games or stretches of games where you struggled.
And again, the two things that I noticed from Cleveland
(35:42):
in this game won the size. Cleveland, even with Mobley,
isn't exceptionally exceptionally big and strong. They can wear down
against size. It happened against New York two years ago,
it happened in the Orlando series last years. They were
trailing big in Game seven. It is something to keep
an eye on. And then switching. There was a switch
look from Orlando in the second quarter where they had
(36:02):
Goga off and Wendell Carter Junior off and that led
to the first big magic run of this game. They
shut off the baked in dribble penetration they got from
ball screens. They forced Cleveland to play a lot of
one on one, and we have seen Cleveland struggled at
times against these kinds of looks in the regular season,
especially against Boston and Oklahoma City. This is why it's
(36:24):
so important to keep an eye on the Boston matchup. Specifically,
Cleveland has a couple of wins this year against a
shorthanded Boston Celtics team. But when they're healthy and they
go Drew Holiday, Derek White, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, and
Al Horford, they're bigger and stronger than Cleveland and they
can switch one through five and again. This is an
incredible Cavs team that's winning at a historic pace, but
(36:46):
the Boston Celtics are like the final boss for them
in a video game. It's gonna attack their biggest weaknesses
and it's gonna be a hell of a show. I
can't wait to see what happens. All right, guys, This
all I have for today, as always is I sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.
We are going live tonight on YouTube after the final
buzzer of Nuggets Warriors. I'll see you guys then, and
(37:08):
then our next daytime episode will be coming out on
Wednesday in the form of a mailbag the volume What's
Up 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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