April 16, 2025 • 23 mins
Jason breaks down the first round NBA playoff series between Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves including how Luka Doncic and LeBron James will attack the Wolves defense, how Rudy Gobert can be effective or potentially get played off the floor, why Anthony Edwards needs to make a playmaking jump, and more.
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(01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy Wednesday, everybody of ball. If you guys are having
a great week. We are covering our next series today,
the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Minnesota Timberwolves, same format
that we've been doing the season series, off the top,
the odds on DraftKings right now, what it looks like
with the Lakers on offense, what it looks like with
the Wolves on offense, the swing factors I see in
(02:19):
the series, and then at the very end, the pick
that I am making for who will win? You guys
know the drill before we get started. It's subscribed to
the Hoops and OT YouTube channels. You don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
json LTCs. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
a review. On that front. We also have brand new
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(02:41):
doing some great work this year. Make sure you guys
follow us there, and the last but not least, keep
dropping mailback 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 the season series
went tow to two between these two teams. Once again,
not a lot of useful data there. Luca only played
in one of those games, and the Wolves were missing
basically their entire starting front court at the time, so
(03:04):
not a whole lot to gather there as Ironically, when
it came to film, I spent a lot of time
watching the Western Conference Finals today, and a lot of
footage of Luca attacking specific types of defenders and just
how he looked against all those different types of defenders.
The odds, again, all of our odds are provided by DraftKings.
The Lakers are a minus two hundred favorite. That line
(03:25):
has moved a lot. It opened closer to like minus
one sixty if I remember correctly. I think this is
a little too big of a line. I think that
the Lakers are a better team than the Wolves, and
as I've mentioned, I'm going to pick the Lakers to
beat the Wolves. I'll explain all the reasons why, but
I kind of thought it made more sense as a
gambling line closer down to one sixty. So there's some
(03:47):
value there on the Wolves the Lakers on offense. As
far as matchups go, again, I went back this morning
and I watched every single Luka Danchid shot attempt from
the Western Conference Finals, and even though Luca is very
comfortable against Jaden McDaniels, and he has a clear size
and strength advantage there. Jaden did log a lot of
(04:10):
good reps over the course of that series, and yeah,
there were good reps from Ant as well. There are
some good reps from Kyle Anderson, who's no longer on
the team, But I still think Jaden is probably your
best bet. So my guess is that we're gonna see
Jayden on Luca. We'll see Connley start on Austin Reeves.
That's gonna be a huge part of this matchup is
(04:30):
whether or not Austin can play Mike Conley off the floor.
We'll talk about that in a little bit, but I
do think we'll see a lot of Dante DiVincenzo, a
lot of Nikhil Alexander Walker in that two spot. I
think we'll see Anthony Edwards on Rui. I thought he
might spend some time on Lebron, and I'm not saying
that he won't, but I think with the job that
Ant's gonna have on offense in this game, it almost
makes more sense for him to guard Rui and can
(04:52):
be a little like Lackaday's agal off ball tracking shooters,
which could be a little bit of an issue in
that matchup, but it will save his legs considered versus
trying to battle Lebron all over the floor. That would
mean Julius would guard Lebron, which we'll see how that
would end up going. And then Rudy Gobert on Jackson
Hayes to start. But again the Lakers will go small,
something we'll talk about right now. So the go Beart problem,
(05:15):
I've seen a ton of people on Twitter talking about
and debating the Lakers and their ability to play Rudy
Gobert off the floor, and I've seen a lot of
Timberwolves fans come back and play at point out the
obvious fact that Rudy Gobert is a very good switch defender,
and for the record, I agree with Wolves fans about that.
(05:36):
To me, the go beart problem has nothing to do
about with hunting ISOs against Rudy Gobert. I think if
the Lakers fall into that trap, it could actually backfire
on them. Looking back at the Western Conference Finals, we
didn't really see a lot of Luca attacking Gobert. We
really only saw that in Game two. The Wolves mostly
(05:58):
ran rock coverages with Gobert. In that series, they just
went to the switching in crunch time of Game two,
and yeah, Luca did score on Gobert once on a
step back three to win the game. But it's not
a matchup that I think the Lakers should get obsessed
with hunting. The advantages that Luca and Lebron have in
this series are against the smalls, Luca attacking a skinnier
(06:20):
Jaden McDaniels, attacking into Keile, Alexander Walker, attacking in Anthony
Edwards attacking the smaller defenders that are on the floor.
Lebron as well. If Lebron, especially if he gets into
hunting Gobert, I don't think that's gonna go super well.
So like that is not the right focus point for
me as far as how Gobert fits into this series.
(06:41):
Where the Lakers can really hurt go Beart is in
his off ball defense. And then on the other end
of the floor. What I mean by off ball defense,
So when you go to your five out spacing groups,
so take Jackson Hayes out, put in a either a
Dorianfinny Smith or a Gabe Vincent, You're gonna see a
lot of Dorian Finney Smith. That's the line. That's the Lakers'
(07:02):
clear best five that you're going to see a ton
of in the series, Austin Lebron, Luco, Dorian Phinney, Smith
and Ruy Hachimura. All of those guys, if left open,
are going to hit a high percentage of their threes.
So with that being the case, I'm more concerned about
Gobert when Luca and Lebron are hunting Smalls, being put
in a position where he has to either help at
(07:22):
the rim where his rim protection value is very high,
but he's going to have to concede wide open threes,
or him having to track shooters on the perimeter off
the ball, which dramatically mitigates his defensive value. Either way,
his rim protection is less valuable if it's conceding open threes,
and him tracking shooters on the perimeter is way less
(07:45):
valuable because the Lakers just won't even go that way.
They'll look to score at the rim or in other
spots on the floor. And so that's where I look
at Gobart on defense being minimized by the Lakers five
out lineups not hunting him and switches mitigating his rim protection.
And then on the other end of the floor, when
Gobert is out there, You're going to see a ton
(08:06):
of defensive game planning from JJ Reddick. When it comes
to the dynamic of like playing guys off the floor,
it actually, to me comes down to a little bit
of Gobert and Conley. If Austin Reeves can score effectively
against Mike Conley, that Chris Finch goes away from Mike Conley,
Gobert's offensive value sinks considerably. Mike Conley is the only
(08:29):
player on the Wolves over this era that's been able
to successfully weaponize Gobert as an offensive threat. They're timing
in ball screens in the way they go Beart can
free Conley up in screens, the timing of when Gobert
slips out into his roles. Conley's just kind of chemistry
with him over the years from when they played together
on the Jazz that was the dynamic where they could
(08:52):
actually use Gobert as a successful role man. But if
Austin can score successfully enough against Conley to get Conley
off the floor to where it's more Nikhil, Alexander Walker
or Dante DiVincenzo, those guys are much better defensive players,
and obviously both of them are knocked down three point shooters,
but those two guys don't have the playmaking talent that
Conley does. If you can play Conley off the floor
(09:14):
and space Gobert away from the rim on the other
end of the floor, then Gobert becomes basically an offensive
rebounder and a screen setter, and a screen setter that
can't score on the other side of the screen. And
so that's where I could see the Gobert problem being
an issue if they can play Conley off the floor
and if instead of just hunting him and switches, they
(09:35):
space him away from the rim in their five out groups.
Right where I could see Gobert being a benefit to
the Wolves defense in this matchup is in the other lineups,
like when Jordan goodwins on the floor, when Jared Vanderbilt's
on the floor. Jackson as it's a little tricky because
he's a vertical spacer, and as we saw in the
Western Conference finals last year, Luca did a really nice
(09:55):
job of kind of baiting Gobert into no man's land
between Luca and the lie threat so that he could
get those lobs as he was attacking downhill against his
matchup and running into Gobert. So it's less about Jackson,
But when Vanda's on the floor, I think Gobert could
be devastating. When Jordan Goodwin's on the floor, I think
Gobert could be really devastating. And then just like all
(10:19):
of the usual stuff that he does on offense, he's
just got to be really impactful there. He's got a
offensive rebound like crazy and set really good screens as
best as he can. But that's gonna be the dynamic
in this series that's going to be really interesting. It's
just how much can Mike Conley play and how effective
can Rudy Gobert be In the context of the Lakers
five out groups. Lebron attacking Smalls, I think Anthony Edwards
(10:43):
on Lebron is going to be an interesting type of
matchup because ant is so quick laterally and so big
and strong and like a fire hydrant that I think
he can actually force Lebron to shoot over the top.
But the other Smalls, Nikhil, Alexander Walker, Mike Conley, Dante DiVincenzo,
Lebron's gonna have some opportunity to attack there. Lebron's been
a good amount of time attacking nas Reid in switches,
(11:05):
in their regular season matchup most recently, and Nas defended
him really well there. In general, I don't really like
Lebron attacking centers as much as I like him attacking smalls.
He did have a game recently, I think it was
the Dallas game if I remember correctly, where he over
and over again just started going at I think it
was gafferd down the stretch and getting stuff at the rim.
(11:28):
He's had some good reps there, but I don't think
it would work particularly well against Nas Reed and Rigobert,
So keeping an eye on where Lebron looks to attack
the Timberwolves. Ball pressure I've used an important factor in
the series. If you guys remember in their last matchup,
the one that Luca played in, the Lakers really controlled
the early part of the game, but there was a
second half run for Minnesota in there where they just
(11:50):
picked up full court and wore down Austin, Lebron and Luca,
and they lost control of the game for a little bit.
They did regain control in the fourth quarter, but there
was a stretch there on the game chart where you
saw that lead shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and it
was a lot of that ball pressure from the Timberwolves,
forcing turnovers, getting out in transition. I'm a little worried
(12:10):
for the Lakers about the Wolves overall athleticism and physicality,
not so much their size. Everyone talks about like how
much bigger the Wolves are than the Lakers. I actually
don't see them as much of a bigger team, because
they're bigger at every other position, Like if you're looking
at guard, like Austin's bigger than Mike Conley, Luca's bigger
than Anthony Edwards. Ruy Hachimura is bigger than Jayden McDaniels.
(12:34):
Lebron James is every bit as big, if not a
little bit bigger than Julius Randall. It's really just the
center position and when they play two bigs that they
have a little bit of a size advantage in the
front court. But I don't look at it as a
size advantage to me. It's more of just like an
overall athleticism advantage than Minnesota has that can manifest with
their ball pressure and with them making like really hard closeouts.
(12:58):
That spooks some of the Laker role players if Ruy
gets a little spooked, if you know Dorian Phinney Smith
gets spooked, if some of these guys in their spot
up situations just don't look comfortable because of the Minnesota closeouts.
That's where it could get a little tricky, and Minnesota
could start getting away with devoting more attention towards Lebron
and Lucas. So keep an eye on just the Laker
(13:20):
role players and how comfortable they are in this particular matchup.
So keys for the Lakers. When the Lakers are on offense, Luca, Lebron,
Austin handling ball pressure, not turning the ball over, punishing
smalls instead of hunting bigs, and switches again in one
last note, Well, actually we'll get to that when we
get to the Wolves. And then three their role players
just being confident and comfortable as the intensity picks up
(13:43):
defensively from the Wolves. Keys for the Wolves, ball pressure
like crazy, Gotta try to disrupt their offense, slow down
their offense, force turnovers you can get out transition. And
then secondly, I would switch with their fives again when
they ran all that drop in the Western Conference finals.
It allowed Luca to constantly operate with a size advantage
and to get those kind of baked in driving lanes
(14:03):
that he gets from ball screens. I would switch with
my fives with Nasried especially, but also with Gobert, because
that is where you can bait Lebron and Luca into
making the mistake of strictly hunting fives. We've seen that
happen before. They did it against Al Horford and the
Celtics game and at backfired. That is where you have
a game plan advantage. You can bait Lebron and Luca
into some bad process by switching with your fives, moving
(14:26):
to the wolves on the offensive side of the floor.
JJ's defensive game plan in the regular season with Ant
was similar to what he used against all the athletic
guards that they faced. He would funnel them towards the
sideline with a strong side zone, meaning the defender who's
guarding the next closest player on the weakside is skipping
all the way to the other side of the paint,
basically just waiting for Aunt. There were some downsides there
(14:48):
because it had a baked in runway. As you open
up your stants, Ant can really just drive and when
he gets ahead of steam, it doesn't really matter if
someone's in front of him. If it's not a rim
protector like Ant struggles with rimp protect at the rim.
He doesn't struggle with really anything else at the rim.
So one of the things I think JJ will do is,
after watching the game tape from that game, I think
(15:09):
he'll do a little bit more forward aggression. So with
that strong side zone, I think he'll bring the defender
further up, and I think he'll close the stance just
a little bit more, try to make it for the
on ball guy to try to make it so that
ant just can't cleanly get a runway to take off.
But in general, I think it's gonna be like literally
a chess match type of game between JJ and Anthony Edwards.
(15:29):
A lot of mixing up of coverages, that strong side zone.
I talked about, blitzes, high drops, gapping in ISOs, late
double teams, after he puts the ball on the floor,
I think we're gonna see a ton of that stuff
geared towards targeting ants, inconsistent playmaking ANTS. Playmaking is arguably
the biggest swing factor in this series. If he can
(15:50):
take JJ's game plan and use it as a consistent
method to get the Lakers in rotation, they can win
this series. There as long as they get the ball
out to an advantage and they incrementally break down the
Lakers defense with playmaking, they can win this series. It's
just not a strong suit for this team. Aggregate playmaking
(16:12):
falls off of a cliff when Mike Conley's off the floor.
It is not a strength of this team. But if
they can swing that factor in their favor, it could
be the difference. Julius post mismatch hunting, I hope the
Lakers start with Lebron on him instead of Ruy, but
I don't think they're going to. I think they're gonna
start Lebron on Jaden McDaniels. My guess is the matchups
(16:34):
look like this. I think we'll see Ruey on Julius.
I think we'll see Austin on Ant. I think we'll
see Luca on Conley. I think we'll see Lebron on
Jaden McDaniels. And I think we'll see Jackson Hayes on
Rudy Gobert. Now, when Dorian Phinney Smith comes in and
they go to that core lineup, I think Dorian Phinney
Smith will go to Ant. I think Austin will move
over to the off guard, whether that's Conley or Dante
or Nikiel and then I think Luco will guard either
(16:55):
Jaden or Rudy Gobert, but that's going to leave Ruey
on Julie, and Julius has had his way with Ruy
over the years. As a matter of fact, I can
almost guarantee you that Julius Randall at some point in
the time since Sunday has thought to himself, Ruy Hachamura
cannot guard me. He has had a lot of success
in that matchup over the years. Ruy struggles specifically with
(17:19):
holding his ground and understanding that he has a huge
strength advantage. Ruy's a big, strong dude, and sometimes he
just doesn't use that on defense. And I think Julius
has a gift for like finding those weak points in
a defender's defensive stance and just attacking it with power
and dislodging the player and getting to his spots on
the floor. Julius is a better passer than Anthony Edwards,
(17:42):
so I am curious to see how much doubling jj
Reddick will do there. He may go an opposite route
and go, let's see if Julius just plays hero ball
on all series and see if that actually benefits us
more than trying to send extra defenders there. I think
that'll be interesting. Jaden McDaniels is going to be a
huge swing factor in the series, obviously, his shooting ability,
his ability to knock down the open threes. He's been
(18:03):
shooting much better post All Star Break, but the Lakers
are going to concede some shots to him. His crashing
and cutting. He can be a really devastating athlete going
towards the rim that the Lakers are going to have
to contend with. Nas Reed was actually a non factor
in the Lakers game that Luca actually played in. Lebron
guarded him and Lebron did an excellent job on him
and basically removed him from the game. Lebron will likely
(18:26):
get that job again in this series at times. That'll
be an interesting matchup to watch keys from Minnesota when
they're on offense. A's playmaking, as we mentioned earlier, got
to take advantage of the game plan as an opportunity
to get the defense in rotation nas Reed, Julius Randall,
and Dante DiVincenzo supporting scoring. This is a Lakers team
that's been scoring a lot of points lately. They're gonna
(18:47):
need guys that can score the basketball. Jady McDaniel's three
point shooting again. He shot well after the All Star break,
but that's going to be something he's going to have
to continue to do really, really well. And can Rudy
Gobert do enough damage as a screener as an offensive
rebounder to stay a net positive with some of his
defensive value getting mitigated by the Lakers five out groups.
(19:10):
That's going to be an important factor in the series
for the Lakers. Game plan discipline. When the Lakers let
go of the rope a little bit on defense, they
look super unathletic and the bottom can fall out for him.
That's why they look so bad against bad teams after
the Luca trade. That's why they're susceptible to some really
long runs for the opponent as they let go of
(19:30):
their defensive focus. Them staying focused on defense, to the
game plan and doing their job on a possession by
possession basis is vital to their ability to guard this team.
Aggressive coverages, pray on Minnesota's lack of playmaking talent forced
them to beat you with the pass, and then lastly,
the boxing out and gang rebounding against Gobar and Jaden McDaniels.
(19:52):
There's going to be a lot of offensive rebounds that
Gobar and Jaden are going to be going for. It's
going to be about multiple efforts from multiple guys getting
bodies him to box out, and then other dudes come
and flying in against better athletes to try to meet
them up top. When you box them out on the ground,
they can't jump. When they can't jump, that allows another
player to beat them over the top to the rebound.
(20:13):
It's going to be a team effort to survive on
the glass. Swing factors in this series Jaden McDaniels defense
on Luca. One of the biggest factors in the Western
Conference Finals last year was the simple fact that Jaden
was too skinny to manage Luca. He did log some
good reps, but overall in this series, Luca was very
(20:33):
comfortable and it basically caused the base defensive scheme for
Minnesota in their pick and roll coverage to crack and
to not work. That's going to be important factor in
the series is is Jaden gonna hold up better against
Luca than he did last year? Ants playmaking. As we've
mentioned multiple times in the show, I'm gonna say role
players shooting for both teams. Specifically, for the Wolves, it's
(20:54):
gonna be off ball shooting from guys like Jaden McDaniels
and guys like Julius Randall. But for the Lake it's
more about good shooters who are proven shooters, but that
might struggle a little bit under the intensity of the
environment as the Wolves are so athletic. So I'm just
gonna say role player shooting for both teams. Julius Randall
is a player that has played very poorly in the
playoffs in his career. I think it's a little more
(21:14):
complicated than that because of some of the injuries he's
been dealing with or recovering from in some of those situations.
But Julius Randalls play in this series. Him getting up
to the player he was when he was an All
NBA guy could be a huge factor for the Wolves.
And then Lebron. This is a big physical defense that
Minnesota has. Lebron killed the Wolves in their last regular
(21:35):
season matchup. I think he had thirty three points and
seventeen rebounds. Lebron's ability to leverage himself to that extent
is going to be a big factor in this series.
If you look back at that at that point in time,
that was before Lebron's groin injury, when he was playing
like a literally like an MVP candidate every single night,
really hasn't gotten to that level since the level since
(21:56):
he came back from the injury. A lesser version of
Lebron could obviously be a swing factor in Minnesota's favorite
A favor as we head into the series. My pick,
I think this is a very favorable matchup for the Lakers.
I think Minnesota's greatest defensive strength, which is the combination
of perimeter defense, talent and rim protection, is neutralized by
Luca because none of those perimeter defenders can really bother Luca.
(22:19):
And then on the other side of the floor, I
think the strength of the Laker defense, which is game planning,
loading up, and swarming, lines up with the weakness of
the Wolves, which is their playmaking talent and just their
overall decision making. So as I see on both ends
of the floor, the strengths and weakness line up, this
is going to be my first five game prediction. I
think the Lakers are going to beat the Timberwolves in
(22:41):
five games in this series, So we'll see what ends
up happening. Obviously a lot that can go either way,
but this is a matchup that I think lines up
really well for the Lakers. All right, guys, that's all
I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be
back with our two seven matchups tomorrow. I will see
you guys there. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate
(23:02):
you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They 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. The volume
The volume. The NBA eighty two game grind is done,
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(00:21):
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(00:41):
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(01:57):
All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy Wednesday, everybody of ball. If you guys are having
a great week. We are covering our next series today,
the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Minnesota Timberwolves, same format
that we've been doing the season series, off the top,
the odds on DraftKings right now, what it looks like
with the Lakers on offense, what it looks like with
the Wolves on offense, the swing factors I see in
(02:19):
the series, and then at the very end, the pick
that I am making for who will win? You guys
know the drill before we get started. It's subscribed to
the Hoops and OT YouTube channels. You don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
json LTCs. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight.
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
a review. On that front. We also have brand new
social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's
(02:41):
doing some great work this year. Make sure you guys
follow us there, and the last but not least, keep
dropping mailback 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 the season series
went tow to two between these two teams. Once again,
not a lot of useful data there. Luca only played
in one of those games, and the Wolves were missing
basically their entire starting front court at the time, so
(03:04):
not a whole lot to gather there as Ironically, when
it came to film, I spent a lot of time
watching the Western Conference Finals today, and a lot of
footage of Luca attacking specific types of defenders and just
how he looked against all those different types of defenders.
The odds, again, all of our odds are provided by DraftKings.
The Lakers are a minus two hundred favorite. That line
(03:25):
has moved a lot. It opened closer to like minus
one sixty if I remember correctly. I think this is
a little too big of a line. I think that
the Lakers are a better team than the Wolves, and
as I've mentioned, I'm going to pick the Lakers to
beat the Wolves. I'll explain all the reasons why, but
I kind of thought it made more sense as a
gambling line closer down to one sixty. So there's some
(03:47):
value there on the Wolves the Lakers on offense. As
far as matchups go, again, I went back this morning
and I watched every single Luka Danchid shot attempt from
the Western Conference Finals, and even though Luca is very
comfortable against Jaden McDaniels, and he has a clear size
and strength advantage there. Jaden did log a lot of
(04:10):
good reps over the course of that series, and yeah,
there were good reps from Ant as well. There are
some good reps from Kyle Anderson, who's no longer on
the team, But I still think Jaden is probably your
best bet. So my guess is that we're gonna see
Jayden on Luca. We'll see Connley start on Austin Reeves.
That's gonna be a huge part of this matchup is
(04:30):
whether or not Austin can play Mike Conley off the floor.
We'll talk about that in a little bit, but I
do think we'll see a lot of Dante DiVincenzo, a
lot of Nikhil Alexander Walker in that two spot. I
think we'll see Anthony Edwards on Rui. I thought he
might spend some time on Lebron, and I'm not saying
that he won't, but I think with the job that
Ant's gonna have on offense in this game, it almost
makes more sense for him to guard Rui and can
(04:52):
be a little like Lackaday's agal off ball tracking shooters,
which could be a little bit of an issue in
that matchup, but it will save his legs considered versus
trying to battle Lebron all over the floor. That would
mean Julius would guard Lebron, which we'll see how that
would end up going. And then Rudy Gobert on Jackson
Hayes to start. But again the Lakers will go small,
something we'll talk about right now. So the go Beart problem,
(05:15):
I've seen a ton of people on Twitter talking about
and debating the Lakers and their ability to play Rudy
Gobert off the floor, and I've seen a lot of
Timberwolves fans come back and play at point out the
obvious fact that Rudy Gobert is a very good switch defender,
and for the record, I agree with Wolves fans about that.
(05:36):
To me, the go beart problem has nothing to do
about with hunting ISOs against Rudy Gobert. I think if
the Lakers fall into that trap, it could actually backfire
on them. Looking back at the Western Conference Finals, we
didn't really see a lot of Luca attacking Gobert. We
really only saw that in Game two. The Wolves mostly
(05:58):
ran rock coverages with Gobert. In that series, they just
went to the switching in crunch time of Game two,
and yeah, Luca did score on Gobert once on a
step back three to win the game. But it's not
a matchup that I think the Lakers should get obsessed
with hunting. The advantages that Luca and Lebron have in
this series are against the smalls, Luca attacking a skinnier
(06:20):
Jaden McDaniels, attacking into Keile, Alexander Walker, attacking in Anthony
Edwards attacking the smaller defenders that are on the floor.
Lebron as well. If Lebron, especially if he gets into
hunting Gobert, I don't think that's gonna go super well.
So like that is not the right focus point for
me as far as how Gobert fits into this series.
(06:41):
Where the Lakers can really hurt go Beart is in
his off ball defense. And then on the other end
of the floor. What I mean by off ball defense,
So when you go to your five out spacing groups,
so take Jackson Hayes out, put in a either a
Dorianfinny Smith or a Gabe Vincent, You're gonna see a
lot of Dorian Finney Smith. That's the line. That's the Lakers'
(07:02):
clear best five that you're going to see a ton
of in the series, Austin Lebron, Luco, Dorian Phinney, Smith
and Ruy Hachimura. All of those guys, if left open,
are going to hit a high percentage of their threes.
So with that being the case, I'm more concerned about
Gobert when Luca and Lebron are hunting Smalls, being put
in a position where he has to either help at
(07:22):
the rim where his rim protection value is very high,
but he's going to have to concede wide open threes,
or him having to track shooters on the perimeter off
the ball, which dramatically mitigates his defensive value. Either way,
his rim protection is less valuable if it's conceding open threes,
and him tracking shooters on the perimeter is way less
(07:45):
valuable because the Lakers just won't even go that way.
They'll look to score at the rim or in other
spots on the floor. And so that's where I look
at Gobart on defense being minimized by the Lakers five
out lineups not hunting him and switches mitigating his rim protection.
And then on the other end of the floor, when
Gobert is out there, You're going to see a ton
(08:06):
of defensive game planning from JJ Reddick. When it comes
to the dynamic of like playing guys off the floor,
it actually, to me comes down to a little bit
of Gobert and Conley. If Austin Reeves can score effectively
against Mike Conley, that Chris Finch goes away from Mike Conley,
Gobert's offensive value sinks considerably. Mike Conley is the only
(08:29):
player on the Wolves over this era that's been able
to successfully weaponize Gobert as an offensive threat. They're timing
in ball screens in the way they go Beart can
free Conley up in screens, the timing of when Gobert
slips out into his roles. Conley's just kind of chemistry
with him over the years from when they played together
on the Jazz that was the dynamic where they could
(08:52):
actually use Gobert as a successful role man. But if
Austin can score successfully enough against Conley to get Conley
off the floor to where it's more Nikhil, Alexander Walker
or Dante DiVincenzo, those guys are much better defensive players,
and obviously both of them are knocked down three point shooters,
but those two guys don't have the playmaking talent that
Conley does. If you can play Conley off the floor
(09:14):
and space Gobert away from the rim on the other
end of the floor, then Gobert becomes basically an offensive
rebounder and a screen setter, and a screen setter that
can't score on the other side of the screen. And
so that's where I could see the Gobert problem being
an issue if they can play Conley off the floor
and if instead of just hunting him and switches, they
(09:35):
space him away from the rim in their five out groups.
Right where I could see Gobert being a benefit to
the Wolves defense in this matchup is in the other lineups,
like when Jordan goodwins on the floor, when Jared Vanderbilt's
on the floor. Jackson as it's a little tricky because
he's a vertical spacer, and as we saw in the
Western Conference finals last year, Luca did a really nice
(09:55):
job of kind of baiting Gobert into no man's land
between Luca and the lie threat so that he could
get those lobs as he was attacking downhill against his
matchup and running into Gobert. So it's less about Jackson,
But when Vanda's on the floor, I think Gobert could
be devastating. When Jordan Goodwin's on the floor, I think
Gobert could be really devastating. And then just like all
(10:19):
of the usual stuff that he does on offense, he's
just got to be really impactful there. He's got a
offensive rebound like crazy and set really good screens as
best as he can. But that's gonna be the dynamic
in this series that's going to be really interesting. It's
just how much can Mike Conley play and how effective
can Rudy Gobert be In the context of the Lakers
five out groups. Lebron attacking Smalls, I think Anthony Edwards
(10:43):
on Lebron is going to be an interesting type of
matchup because ant is so quick laterally and so big
and strong and like a fire hydrant that I think
he can actually force Lebron to shoot over the top.
But the other Smalls, Nikhil, Alexander Walker, Mike Conley, Dante DiVincenzo,
Lebron's gonna have some opportunity to attack there. Lebron's been
a good amount of time attacking nas Reid in switches,
(11:05):
in their regular season matchup most recently, and Nas defended
him really well there. In general, I don't really like
Lebron attacking centers as much as I like him attacking smalls.
He did have a game recently, I think it was
the Dallas game if I remember correctly, where he over
and over again just started going at I think it
was gafferd down the stretch and getting stuff at the rim.
(11:28):
He's had some good reps there, but I don't think
it would work particularly well against Nas Reed and Rigobert,
So keeping an eye on where Lebron looks to attack
the Timberwolves. Ball pressure I've used an important factor in
the series. If you guys remember in their last matchup,
the one that Luca played in, the Lakers really controlled
the early part of the game, but there was a
second half run for Minnesota in there where they just
(11:50):
picked up full court and wore down Austin, Lebron and Luca,
and they lost control of the game for a little bit.
They did regain control in the fourth quarter, but there
was a stretch there on the game chart where you
saw that lead shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and it
was a lot of that ball pressure from the Timberwolves,
forcing turnovers, getting out in transition. I'm a little worried
(12:10):
for the Lakers about the Wolves overall athleticism and physicality,
not so much their size. Everyone talks about like how
much bigger the Wolves are than the Lakers. I actually
don't see them as much of a bigger team, because
they're bigger at every other position, Like if you're looking
at guard, like Austin's bigger than Mike Conley, Luca's bigger
than Anthony Edwards. Ruy Hachimura is bigger than Jayden McDaniels.
(12:34):
Lebron James is every bit as big, if not a
little bit bigger than Julius Randall. It's really just the
center position and when they play two bigs that they
have a little bit of a size advantage in the
front court. But I don't look at it as a
size advantage to me. It's more of just like an
overall athleticism advantage than Minnesota has that can manifest with
their ball pressure and with them making like really hard closeouts.
(12:58):
That spooks some of the Laker role players if Ruy
gets a little spooked, if you know Dorian Phinney Smith
gets spooked, if some of these guys in their spot
up situations just don't look comfortable because of the Minnesota closeouts.
That's where it could get a little tricky, and Minnesota
could start getting away with devoting more attention towards Lebron
and Lucas. So keep an eye on just the Laker
(13:20):
role players and how comfortable they are in this particular matchup.
So keys for the Lakers. When the Lakers are on offense, Luca, Lebron,
Austin handling ball pressure, not turning the ball over, punishing
smalls instead of hunting bigs, and switches again in one
last note, Well, actually we'll get to that when we
get to the Wolves. And then three their role players
just being confident and comfortable as the intensity picks up
(13:43):
defensively from the Wolves. Keys for the Wolves, ball pressure
like crazy, Gotta try to disrupt their offense, slow down
their offense, force turnovers you can get out transition. And
then secondly, I would switch with their fives again when
they ran all that drop in the Western Conference finals.
It allowed Luca to constantly operate with a size advantage
and to get those kind of baked in driving lanes
(14:03):
that he gets from ball screens. I would switch with
my fives with Nasried especially, but also with Gobert, because
that is where you can bait Lebron and Luca into
making the mistake of strictly hunting fives. We've seen that
happen before. They did it against Al Horford and the
Celtics game and at backfired. That is where you have
a game plan advantage. You can bait Lebron and Luca
into some bad process by switching with your fives, moving
(14:26):
to the wolves on the offensive side of the floor.
JJ's defensive game plan in the regular season with Ant
was similar to what he used against all the athletic
guards that they faced. He would funnel them towards the
sideline with a strong side zone, meaning the defender who's
guarding the next closest player on the weakside is skipping
all the way to the other side of the paint,
basically just waiting for Aunt. There were some downsides there
(14:48):
because it had a baked in runway. As you open
up your stants, Ant can really just drive and when
he gets ahead of steam, it doesn't really matter if
someone's in front of him. If it's not a rim
protector like Ant struggles with rimp protect at the rim.
He doesn't struggle with really anything else at the rim.
So one of the things I think JJ will do is,
after watching the game tape from that game, I think
(15:09):
he'll do a little bit more forward aggression. So with
that strong side zone, I think he'll bring the defender
further up, and I think he'll close the stance just
a little bit more, try to make it for the
on ball guy to try to make it so that
ant just can't cleanly get a runway to take off.
But in general, I think it's gonna be like literally
a chess match type of game between JJ and Anthony Edwards.
(15:29):
A lot of mixing up of coverages, that strong side zone.
I talked about, blitzes, high drops, gapping in ISOs, late
double teams, after he puts the ball on the floor,
I think we're gonna see a ton of that stuff
geared towards targeting ants, inconsistent playmaking ANTS. Playmaking is arguably
the biggest swing factor in this series. If he can
(15:50):
take JJ's game plan and use it as a consistent
method to get the Lakers in rotation, they can win
this series. There as long as they get the ball
out to an advantage and they incrementally break down the
Lakers defense with playmaking, they can win this series. It's
just not a strong suit for this team. Aggregate playmaking
(16:12):
falls off of a cliff when Mike Conley's off the floor.
It is not a strength of this team. But if
they can swing that factor in their favor, it could
be the difference. Julius post mismatch hunting, I hope the
Lakers start with Lebron on him instead of Ruy, but
I don't think they're going to. I think they're gonna
start Lebron on Jaden McDaniels. My guess is the matchups
(16:34):
look like this. I think we'll see Ruey on Julius.
I think we'll see Austin on Ant. I think we'll
see Luca on Conley. I think we'll see Lebron on
Jaden McDaniels. And I think we'll see Jackson Hayes on
Rudy Gobert. Now, when Dorian Phinney Smith comes in and
they go to that core lineup, I think Dorian Phinney
Smith will go to Ant. I think Austin will move
over to the off guard, whether that's Conley or Dante
or Nikiel and then I think Luco will guard either
(16:55):
Jaden or Rudy Gobert, but that's going to leave Ruey
on Julie, and Julius has had his way with Ruy
over the years. As a matter of fact, I can
almost guarantee you that Julius Randall at some point in
the time since Sunday has thought to himself, Ruy Hachamura
cannot guard me. He has had a lot of success
in that matchup over the years. Ruy struggles specifically with
(17:19):
holding his ground and understanding that he has a huge
strength advantage. Ruy's a big, strong dude, and sometimes he
just doesn't use that on defense. And I think Julius
has a gift for like finding those weak points in
a defender's defensive stance and just attacking it with power
and dislodging the player and getting to his spots on
the floor. Julius is a better passer than Anthony Edwards,
(17:42):
so I am curious to see how much doubling jj
Reddick will do there. He may go an opposite route
and go, let's see if Julius just plays hero ball
on all series and see if that actually benefits us
more than trying to send extra defenders there. I think
that'll be interesting. Jaden McDaniels is going to be a
huge swing factor in the series, obviously, his shooting ability,
his ability to knock down the open threes. He's been
(18:03):
shooting much better post All Star Break, but the Lakers
are going to concede some shots to him. His crashing
and cutting. He can be a really devastating athlete going
towards the rim that the Lakers are going to have
to contend with. Nas Reed was actually a non factor
in the Lakers game that Luca actually played in. Lebron
guarded him and Lebron did an excellent job on him
and basically removed him from the game. Lebron will likely
(18:26):
get that job again in this series at times. That'll
be an interesting matchup to watch keys from Minnesota when
they're on offense. A's playmaking, as we mentioned earlier, got
to take advantage of the game plan as an opportunity
to get the defense in rotation nas Reed, Julius Randall,
and Dante DiVincenzo supporting scoring. This is a Lakers team
that's been scoring a lot of points lately. They're gonna
(18:47):
need guys that can score the basketball. Jady McDaniel's three
point shooting again. He shot well after the All Star break,
but that's going to be something he's going to have
to continue to do really, really well. And can Rudy
Gobert do enough damage as a screener as an offensive
rebounder to stay a net positive with some of his
defensive value getting mitigated by the Lakers five out groups.
(19:10):
That's going to be an important factor in the series
for the Lakers. Game plan discipline. When the Lakers let
go of the rope a little bit on defense, they
look super unathletic and the bottom can fall out for him.
That's why they look so bad against bad teams after
the Luca trade. That's why they're susceptible to some really
long runs for the opponent as they let go of
(19:30):
their defensive focus. Them staying focused on defense, to the
game plan and doing their job on a possession by
possession basis is vital to their ability to guard this team.
Aggressive coverages, pray on Minnesota's lack of playmaking talent forced
them to beat you with the pass, and then lastly,
the boxing out and gang rebounding against Gobar and Jaden McDaniels.
(19:52):
There's going to be a lot of offensive rebounds that
Gobar and Jaden are going to be going for. It's
going to be about multiple efforts from multiple guys getting
bodies him to box out, and then other dudes come
and flying in against better athletes to try to meet
them up top. When you box them out on the ground,
they can't jump. When they can't jump, that allows another
player to beat them over the top to the rebound.
(20:13):
It's going to be a team effort to survive on
the glass. Swing factors in this series Jaden McDaniels defense
on Luca. One of the biggest factors in the Western
Conference Finals last year was the simple fact that Jaden
was too skinny to manage Luca. He did log some
good reps, but overall in this series, Luca was very
(20:33):
comfortable and it basically caused the base defensive scheme for
Minnesota in their pick and roll coverage to crack and
to not work. That's going to be important factor in
the series is is Jaden gonna hold up better against
Luca than he did last year? Ants playmaking. As we've
mentioned multiple times in the show, I'm gonna say role
players shooting for both teams. Specifically, for the Wolves, it's
(20:54):
gonna be off ball shooting from guys like Jaden McDaniels
and guys like Julius Randall. But for the Lake it's
more about good shooters who are proven shooters, but that
might struggle a little bit under the intensity of the
environment as the Wolves are so athletic. So I'm just
gonna say role player shooting for both teams. Julius Randall
is a player that has played very poorly in the
playoffs in his career. I think it's a little more
(21:14):
complicated than that because of some of the injuries he's
been dealing with or recovering from in some of those situations.
But Julius Randalls play in this series. Him getting up
to the player he was when he was an All
NBA guy could be a huge factor for the Wolves.
And then Lebron. This is a big physical defense that
Minnesota has. Lebron killed the Wolves in their last regular
(21:35):
season matchup. I think he had thirty three points and
seventeen rebounds. Lebron's ability to leverage himself to that extent
is going to be a big factor in this series.
If you look back at that at that point in time,
that was before Lebron's groin injury, when he was playing
like a literally like an MVP candidate every single night,
really hasn't gotten to that level since the level since
(21:56):
he came back from the injury. A lesser version of
Lebron could obviously be a swing factor in Minnesota's favorite
A favor as we head into the series. My pick,
I think this is a very favorable matchup for the Lakers.
I think Minnesota's greatest defensive strength, which is the combination
of perimeter defense, talent and rim protection, is neutralized by
Luca because none of those perimeter defenders can really bother Luca.
(22:19):
And then on the other side of the floor, I
think the strength of the Laker defense, which is game planning,
loading up, and swarming, lines up with the weakness of
the Wolves, which is their playmaking talent and just their
overall decision making. So as I see on both ends
of the floor, the strengths and weakness line up, this
is going to be my first five game prediction. I
think the Lakers are going to beat the Timberwolves in
(22:41):
five games in this series, So we'll see what ends
up happening. Obviously a lot that can go either way,
but this is a matchup that I think lines up
really well for the Lakers. All right, guys, that's all
I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be
back with our two seven matchups tomorrow. I will see
you guys there. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate
(23:02):
you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They 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. The volume
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