November 26, 2025 • 21 mins
Jason reacts after the Los Angeles Lakers beating the Los Angeles Clippers behind an elite performance from Luka Doncic, plus great complementary play from LeBron James and Austin Reaves. They were able to overcome another hot start from James Harden to move to 13-4 and take control of their group for the in-season tournament, as they head to the Emirates NBA Cup quarterfinals.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you
guys have had an incredible week with the Lakers keep
(00:22):
their winning ways going as they improved to thirteen and
four with a game where they struggled a little bit
guarding James Harden, but they pull away late for a
comfortable double figure win one thirty five to one eighteen
over the Clippers. It's the only thing we're hitting today,
just going to cover that Lakers win over the Clippers.
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
(00:44):
jsn LTS. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about our podcast few wherever you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight, and it's always super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing
incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there
for more content throughout the season. Last, but not least, no
this week, we will be having a mailbag next Friday.
So if you want to get your questions in for
(01:04):
that mailbag, you can drop them in this episode or
any of our other full episodes on YouTube, and we'll
get to them in our Friday mail bags throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball again.
Not going to go too long tonight, just like ten
twelve minutes or so on the game, just to give
my quick breakdown. Again, we were live on playback. We're
doing two playback streams every single week. We will have
another one on Friday night for the Dallas Mavericks on
(01:26):
the road against the Los Angeles Lakers. Again, you can
follow us on YouTube for that, but you can also
head over to playback playback dot tv slash o hoops tonight.
We can have a game on the screen. It's easier
for me to take callers there. I can still get
questions from the chat from YouTube, but if you want
to actually come up on the stream as a caller,
we got to come over to playback, So make sure
you guys head over there again playback dot tv slash
(01:48):
oops tonight. So this game followed kind of a similar
flow to many of the Lakers games. That we've seen
this year. I've been kind of intrigued by this concept
of the Lakers net rating compared to some of the
other teams around the league. And you know, for a
team that's thirteen and four, you'd expect them to be
near the top of the league in net rating, but
they haven't been. They've been in middle of the pack
(02:09):
type of the type of net rating team. And one
of the reasons for that is that they do not
come out with a ton of intensity and play super passionate,
energetic defense to start games. It seems to kind of
ease their way into games. They try to outscore you.
And this has very much been a team that has
played timely defense. This has very much been a team
that has been about having a brief stretch at the
(02:32):
end of a game where they tighten the screws and
they make the plays that they need to make and
they get out of there with the win. And that
has shown in those net rating numbers. So for instance,
and again these numbers do not reflect what has happened
in these numbers do not reflect previous before tonight, So
anything from tonight's game is not in there. But before tonight,
(02:53):
the Lakers again middle of the pack net rating team
for full games, but in the second half, outscoring teams
by five points per one hundred possessions, which ranks seventh
in the NBA, and the fourth quarter outscoring teams by
seven points per one hundred possessions, which ranks sixth in
the NBA. And in clutch situations, where the Lakers are
now six to zero, obviously not counting tonight, not a
(03:16):
clutch game in this particular instance, but in the six
clutch games they've played this year, they're outscoring teams by
thirty points per one hundred possessions, which is the third
best net rating in the league. So a lot of
the pathway for the Lakers has been They've been kind
of a maddening, frustrating type of defense to watch, but
then consistently throughout this early part of the season, late
(03:42):
third quarter, they start to tighten the screws. Lucas starts
to up his aggression towards the basket. Then they go
into that fourth quarter unit it's Lebron and Austin, they
tighten the screws on defense, and they've been able to
maintain control of games, and that game tonight against the
Clippers followed a very similar low really really struggled to
(04:02):
guard James Harden tonight. We talked about a couple of
specific things that the Lakers would be dealing with with
this matchup matchup with the Clippers before the game started
on playback, if you guys remember, for instance, DeAndre Ayton
being out, I talked about the Lakers needing to handle
if it's the Zubots on the offensive glass for a
couple different problems that could present. So for starters, just
(04:22):
having Jackson on an island versus a guy like Zubots,
that's a problem, right, Like he's giving up a lot
of muscle mass there that's really difficult for him to handle.
But also if you're gonna be switching, if you're going
to allow James Harden to pull Jackson out in a
switch or something along those lines, that could cause problems
for Zubots on the back line battling against smaller defenders
(04:45):
all game long. The Lakers scrapped with Zoo and they
kept him off the offensive glass. They allowed just seven
offensive rebounds in the game. A lot of really good
work there. First of all, not as much switching with
Jackson as you would think. And then anytime that Zoo
had inside position, they were bodying in with somebody and
come and swarming in from around the ball to just
(05:07):
to kind of like gang rebound those situations, to convert
those defensive stops into opportunities to go the other way
and play. But the flip side of that was gonna
be how are they gonna guard James Harden right And
we talked about it before the show. I thought that
they were gonna heavily emphasize funneling James Harden to his
right hand and trying to help off of him, and
it didn't go well like at all for the first
(05:28):
two and a half quarters. On the handful of possessions
where they did a good job funneling James Harden to
his right hand, the Clippers did a really nice job
moving the ball through that and all of the Clippers'
role players were making them play and making them pay
for it. John Collins hitting open catch and shoot threes
out of the corner. Chris Dunn hit a couple of
threes in the first half. Nick Buttoom hit a couple
(05:48):
of threes. Chris Dunn did damage as a cutter in
those situations. They weren't having too hard of a time
scoring out of the possessions where James Harden dribbled to
his right and then way too many times they let
James and get to his left hand, getting into that
little easy finish off the rim. But James Harden is
in such a groove right now that if you let
him get to his left hand, it's a layup, like
(06:09):
every single time. And for the record, I don't want
to be too critical of the Lakers defense here, James
Harden has been frying the entire MBA for like three
weeks now. For eight games coming in, he was averaging
over thirty three points per game on sky high efficiency,
shooting damn near forty percent from three on like eleven
three point attempts per game. James Harden has been on
(06:30):
a vintage heater, and so he was going to be
a difficult challenge under any circumstances. But he was certainly
giving the Lakers problem scoring and then on the possessions
where they did appropriately funnel him, he was making every
read and the Clippers were making him pay. And so
one of the things we saw down the stretch of
this game as the Lakers started to take control, as
(06:51):
the Lakers were like, screw it, let's just start blitzing him,
and they started just essentially getting the ball out of
James Harden's hands, did a really nice job rotating out
of it. The units when James Harden was off the
floor did not score well. Kawhi Leonard, obviously still coming
back from an injury, didn't look like he had much
from his legs, hit a couple of his like pattented
little middies and hit like a wide open transition three
(07:11):
on the left wing, but for the most part was
like leaving things short. Struggling to see double teams. The
Lakers were throwing a lot of doubles, especially with Lebron
in the first half. Just as soon as Kawhi would
turn his back, Lebron would throw a double team, and
so a lot of it fell on James Harden. So
when the Lakers were able to get the ball out
of James Harden's hands to end the game and successfully
rotate out of it, that allowed them to get the
(07:32):
stops that they need. And again, after giving up sixty
six points in the first half, they gave up just
fifty two in the second half. This has been a
Laker defense that has been about timely defense, getting stops
in the stretches of the game when they need to
take control. And then one of the consistent trends that
I've seen, like Luca's been settling for a lot of
(07:53):
tough step back threes this year, and by the way,
we did see a lot of positive regression on that
front tonight. I think he was evan for twelve from three.
He had come into the series, come into this particular
game shooting just twenty nine point nine percent on those
step back threes off of the dribble. He had not
been good with them, and so getting that positive regression
(08:16):
tonight that was a good sign if him starting to
get back to his normal percentages there seven for twelve
from three tonight. But ultimately in that third quarter, as
the Clippers actually briefly took the lead a few times,
Lucas started to go cold. And so when the three
is not going, does he have the ability to bully
his way closer to the basket for easier shots. Well,
one of the consistent trends we've seen through the early
(08:38):
part of the season here is when Luca needs to
as things get tighter towards the end of games, he's
been able to drop his shoulder, get more penetration, get
closer to the basket, gets an and one gets a
short easy floater, gets all the way into the charge circle,
draws two defenders, drops it off to Marcus Smart for
a layup. Nice little flurry from Luka Doncic at the
(08:59):
end end of the third quarter that started the run
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(10:52):
struggle with with the Lakers. It's like, Okay, you weather
the storm with Luca. Here comes the Lebron Austin unit,
which has literally been one one of the best units
in the NBA over the last couple of years. Lebron
and Austin check in to start the fourth quarter. Lakers
still defending really well. They start, they start to get going.
Austin attacking the basket with a ton of force tonight,
(11:14):
did a ton of damage in his drives. Lebron hits
a little mid range jumper off of a Jackson Hayes
ball screen off the left side. He hit two mid
range jumpers off of that specific action in the second half.
Lebron really nice scoring tonight, and I really good to
see that Lebron still has some real scoring pop. Lebron
and Austin provide that little bit of scoring. You see
(11:35):
that two man connectedness with them. Lebron hits Austin on
a beautiful back cut along the baseline in a really
tight window for another layup. They blow the game out
to like fifteen seventeen. Then when Luca comes back in,
now you're dealing with Luca. Now Austin's standing off the
ball in the corner. And this is probably the most
encouraging thing from this entire game out of all the
different things that went the Lakers way. The Lakers ended
(11:58):
up going to that bread pick and roll with Luca
and Jackson off the top down the stretch in that
middle stretch of the fourth quarter, and Austin Reeves was
consistently situated in that right corner. And we talked about
this a lot in the show on Monday, But one
of my concerns with the Lakers to this point in
the season has been, you know, for all to talk
about their shooting woes, like, I'm not sure that there
(12:20):
they have a lot of guys that we would consider
to be knockdown shooters. A lot of these guys are
streaky shooters that are very rhythm based, that can go
cold right, and so it's one of those things where
like a lot of these sequences are ending in the
hands of a guy like Austin on the wing or
ending in the hands of a guy like Gabe Vincent
or a Marcus Smarter, sometimes even Luca, And if you
(12:42):
look at their rotation, it's really Lebron and Ruey that
are like the reliable, you know, stereotypical catch and shoot
guys that you would expect to consistently knock down those
shots at a high clip. And so I have my
eye on specifically with the starters, Luca and Austin's catch
and shoot because bench guys are bench guys are going
to be in and out of the lineup. It's not
(13:03):
that big of a deal. But ultimately for this team
to achieve the level of unguardability that they need to
achieve to compete for a championship, they need every single
sequence to end in the hands of a player who
is going to consistently make you pay. Do I think
they're bigs, whether it's DeAndre Ayten or Jackson Hayes, are
going to finish vertical spacing reps, Yes, they do. Especially
DeAndre Ayton is a healthier or a Deandreyten when he's healthy,
(13:27):
is a much better threat against switching schemes too, because
he can do damage on the offensive glass and he
can catch and hit a short, little hook shot in
the lane, right, But you need every single sequence. If
it ends in a catch and shoot for a Lebron,
that's going to go in, right You. If you have
a catch and shoot for Rue, you feel like it's
going to go in, but you need it to feel
the same for an Austin catch and shoot, or the
same for an Austin or for a Luca catch and shoot. Right.
(13:50):
We talked a lot about that in the Monday show. Well,
Luca was facing some pretty aggressive coverages in that middle
fourth quarter. He got blitzed once. There was an at
the level coverage, and in those seats, one says they
consistently got the ball to Austin in the weak side corner.
One on a Luca skip a very beautiful skip pass
from Luca in another one on a feed to Jackson
(14:11):
in the short roll on a blitz who then fed
it to Austin. In both cases, Austin's man came over
to tag the roller. Austin had an opportunity to tack
out the corner. He knocks down the catch and shoot three.
On the first one, he drives the clothes out on
the second one and hits a little short bang shot.
He had another one later on where he scored on
a back cut just cutting along the baseline end up
(14:34):
getting a wide open layup. Jackson had another short role
read off of a full court pressure sequence where he
hits Ruy Hatchamura for a lob along the baseline as
he gets a dunk. By the way, shout out to
Jackson Hayes. His connective passing there in the middle of
the floor has been a revelation to start this season.
When he catches in those four on threes, he is
consistently making the right read. That improvement as well as
(14:58):
him just getting a little bit stronger in a little
better at defending with verticality without fouling, has been a
big step for this Lakers team getting a better production
out of their center rotation. And then you add Mexic
Leiba and the work that he's done in the last
week or so, Lakers looked like they had a better,
much much much better center rotation than they did last year.
(15:20):
But essentially that was the path of the game and
they ended up blowing it open. So they start to
defend well, they find a coverage that works Okay, we're
blitzing James Harden. That's working. On the other end. Late
third quarter, Luca brings real rim pressure, much more aggression
towards the basket. You go into the third quarter, obviously
at that point James Harden's out of the game. Briefly,
it's a Luca Austin unit. Luca and Austin. Excuse me,
(15:43):
a Lebron and Austin unit. Lebron and Austin bring the
scoring pop. They blow the game open. Here comes Luca back. Now,
it's about your ability to score out of the action
when all three of your stars on the floor, which
they were consistently able to do down the stretch of
the game. Really really impressive game for the Lakers offense.
They hang one hundred and thirty five points on a
(16:03):
pretty bad Clippers defense. I'm going to bring up a stat.
This was for my buddy law Murray who covers the Clippers.
The La Clippers have a lot of one hundred and twenty
plus points ten times the season in eighteen games. They
did not give up their tenth game of one hundred
and twenty plus points last season until March eleventh, the
sixty fifth game of the season. So the Clippers obviously
(16:24):
having some major issues on defense. I had a question
in the chat, someone asked me, is there one thing
that you could say that explains why the Clippers have
struggled so much to start the season. It's their defense.
It's that simple. They've gone to become a bottom five
defense in the NBA, when last season they had a
very similar formula. Right like James Harden, the offensive engine
(16:46):
floor of floor Razer Zubots is the two man game
partner athletes around them that can play with an advantage
and that can defend. The difference is last year they
were defending while James Harden was providing that offensive floor.
This year they're not, and that has been the big
drop off for them. A couple other quick notes. Lebron's
scoring again, and perhaps the most encouraging thing is he
(17:09):
was better on defense in the second half his first
three halves of his first I should say five halves
of defense and the Lakers Jersey were not good. Just
looked like the game was moving a little too fast
for him. He was consistently getting caught out of position,
had a couple of brutal mistakes down the stretch of
the second Jazz game that almost caught them, that cost
them the game. Much much better defensive half in the
(17:29):
second half from Lebron. He won some one on ones
with James Harden. He was flying around in helpside rotations,
forcing some misses. The Lakers as a team forced a
couple of Zubats misses on catches right underneath the basket
late in the game. There were an example of that
swarming to overcome the size of disadvantage that I was
talking about. And again, the defensive rebounding was a revelation
(17:49):
all night. But Lebron's a big part of that. And
I thought he was excellent in that second half defensively,
but also twenty five points, nine for fifteen from the field,
two for five from three, six rebounds and six assists,
plus eighteen and thirty two minutes, got a steal, got
a block, had an offensive rebound, like twenty five, six
and six on super high efficiency. With the like with
(18:11):
the work that he was doing on the glass and
the work that he was doing defensively in that second half,
that's a really nice game from Lebron James. If Lebron
can get to the point where he's routinely hanging out
around that twenty five, six and six kind of range.
That's where we're starting to talk about a guy that's
in the conversation for All NBA. He won't get All
NBA this year because he won't play enough games, but
(18:32):
it's more just in terms of the level that he's reaching.
And we you know, we had someone ask us in
the chat, like, what will the Lakers have to do
in order to justify making a super aggressive win now
type of trade? You know, to me, Lebron is the
hallmark of that. If you get to late January early
February and Lebron doesn't look like he's near that level,
(18:52):
then you have to start taking the long view. But
if Lebron continues to trend upwards and by the time
we get to late January, still healthy and he's playing
at a super high level, now, it becomes a much
more complicated conversation because it's like, when is the next
time you're going to get an All NBA level talent
alongside Luca in this team construct. At that point, it
becomes much more complicated. It becomes much more of a
(19:17):
a a of a decision for this Lakers' front office
in terms of whether or not they want to make
a more aggressive win now type of move. That's where
you have to start considering the Andrew Wiggins type of
contract that is like a little bit bigger in his
early thirties, a little bit more complicated of a decision,
but somebody that you might have to consider if Lebron
clearly looks like he's playing at that level when he
(19:38):
gets to that point. The positive aggression from three in
general from the Lakers, they ended up shooting thirteen for
twenty nine tonight. That's forty five percent. Obviously a strong indicator.
But I do think they're going to be pretty streaky.
I think the key guys again, like when you look
at their actual shot diet, so many of their threes
are Luca tough stepbacks. So like Luca improving on his
(20:02):
step back three in Austin improving on his catch and
shoot three. Those are going to be the two main
kind of swing factors for the Lakers and their jump shooting,
if they're gonna get up into that more in that
middle of the pack range as a shooting team, as
we know they're capable of getting to. All right, guys,
That's all I have for tonight, As always, a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again,
(20:24):
I hope this is all we have for our Wednesday,
so if you guys have a I guess it's technically
Wednesday here in Denver too so, but again, as always,
a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us. I hope
you enjoy the holiday. I pre recorded a show with
the Nerd Sash guys covering contender rankings, so just like
kind of an update on how I feel about the
top the top two tiers of contenders, Carson and Logan
(20:47):
were awesome. We got into some debates, got into some
good stuff there. So make sure you guys meet us
over on the YouTube channel on Friday and then our
next playback stream Friday night, Dallas at LA gonna be
a fun one. The Lakers have a chain to go
four to oh in the play in tournament or in
the in season tournament with a chance to compete for
the inn Season Tournament championship. Should be a fun one.
I will see you guys then
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you
guys have had an incredible week with the Lakers keep
(00:22):
their winning ways going as they improved to thirteen and
four with a game where they struggled a little bit
guarding James Harden, but they pull away late for a
comfortable double figure win one thirty five to one eighteen
over the Clippers. It's the only thing we're hitting today,
just going to cover that Lakers win over the Clippers.
You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore
(00:44):
jsn LTS. You guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget
about our podcast few wherever you get your podcast under
Hoops Tonight, and it's always super helpful if you leave
a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing
incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there
for more content throughout the season. Last, but not least, no
this week, we will be having a mailbag next Friday.
So if you want to get your questions in for
(01:04):
that mailbag, you can drop them in this episode or
any of our other full episodes on YouTube, and we'll
get to them in our Friday mail bags throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball again.
Not going to go too long tonight, just like ten
twelve minutes or so on the game, just to give
my quick breakdown. Again, we were live on playback. We're
doing two playback streams every single week. We will have
another one on Friday night for the Dallas Mavericks on
(01:26):
the road against the Los Angeles Lakers. Again, you can
follow us on YouTube for that, but you can also
head over to playback playback dot tv slash o hoops tonight.
We can have a game on the screen. It's easier
for me to take callers there. I can still get
questions from the chat from YouTube, but if you want
to actually come up on the stream as a caller,
we got to come over to playback, So make sure
you guys head over there again playback dot tv slash
(01:48):
oops tonight. So this game followed kind of a similar
flow to many of the Lakers games. That we've seen
this year. I've been kind of intrigued by this concept
of the Lakers net rating compared to some of the
other teams around the league. And you know, for a
team that's thirteen and four, you'd expect them to be
near the top of the league in net rating, but
they haven't been. They've been in middle of the pack
(02:09):
type of the type of net rating team. And one
of the reasons for that is that they do not
come out with a ton of intensity and play super passionate,
energetic defense to start games. It seems to kind of
ease their way into games. They try to outscore you.
And this has very much been a team that has
played timely defense. This has very much been a team
that has been about having a brief stretch at the
(02:32):
end of a game where they tighten the screws and
they make the plays that they need to make and
they get out of there with the win. And that
has shown in those net rating numbers. So for instance,
and again these numbers do not reflect what has happened
in these numbers do not reflect previous before tonight, So
anything from tonight's game is not in there. But before tonight,
(02:53):
the Lakers again middle of the pack net rating team
for full games, but in the second half, outscoring teams
by five points per one hundred possessions, which ranks seventh
in the NBA, and the fourth quarter outscoring teams by
seven points per one hundred possessions, which ranks sixth in
the NBA. And in clutch situations, where the Lakers are
now six to zero, obviously not counting tonight, not a
(03:16):
clutch game in this particular instance, but in the six
clutch games they've played this year, they're outscoring teams by
thirty points per one hundred possessions, which is the third
best net rating in the league. So a lot of
the pathway for the Lakers has been They've been kind
of a maddening, frustrating type of defense to watch, but
then consistently throughout this early part of the season, late
(03:42):
third quarter, they start to tighten the screws. Lucas starts
to up his aggression towards the basket. Then they go
into that fourth quarter unit it's Lebron and Austin, they
tighten the screws on defense, and they've been able to
maintain control of games, and that game tonight against the
Clippers followed a very similar low really really struggled to
(04:02):
guard James Harden tonight. We talked about a couple of
specific things that the Lakers would be dealing with with
this matchup matchup with the Clippers before the game started
on playback, if you guys remember, for instance, DeAndre Ayton
being out, I talked about the Lakers needing to handle
if it's the Zubots on the offensive glass for a
couple different problems that could present. So for starters, just
(04:22):
having Jackson on an island versus a guy like Zubots,
that's a problem, right, Like he's giving up a lot
of muscle mass there that's really difficult for him to handle.
But also if you're gonna be switching, if you're going
to allow James Harden to pull Jackson out in a
switch or something along those lines, that could cause problems
for Zubots on the back line battling against smaller defenders
(04:45):
all game long. The Lakers scrapped with Zoo and they
kept him off the offensive glass. They allowed just seven
offensive rebounds in the game. A lot of really good
work there. First of all, not as much switching with
Jackson as you would think. And then anytime that Zoo
had inside position, they were bodying in with somebody and
come and swarming in from around the ball to just
(05:07):
to kind of like gang rebound those situations, to convert
those defensive stops into opportunities to go the other way
and play. But the flip side of that was gonna
be how are they gonna guard James Harden right And
we talked about it before the show. I thought that
they were gonna heavily emphasize funneling James Harden to his
right hand and trying to help off of him, and
it didn't go well like at all for the first
(05:28):
two and a half quarters. On the handful of possessions
where they did a good job funneling James Harden to
his right hand, the Clippers did a really nice job
moving the ball through that and all of the Clippers'
role players were making them play and making them pay
for it. John Collins hitting open catch and shoot threes
out of the corner. Chris Dunn hit a couple of
threes in the first half. Nick Buttoom hit a couple
(05:48):
of threes. Chris Dunn did damage as a cutter in
those situations. They weren't having too hard of a time
scoring out of the possessions where James Harden dribbled to
his right and then way too many times they let
James and get to his left hand, getting into that
little easy finish off the rim. But James Harden is
in such a groove right now that if you let
him get to his left hand, it's a layup, like
(06:09):
every single time. And for the record, I don't want
to be too critical of the Lakers defense here, James
Harden has been frying the entire MBA for like three
weeks now. For eight games coming in, he was averaging
over thirty three points per game on sky high efficiency,
shooting damn near forty percent from three on like eleven
three point attempts per game. James Harden has been on
(06:30):
a vintage heater, and so he was going to be
a difficult challenge under any circumstances. But he was certainly
giving the Lakers problem scoring and then on the possessions
where they did appropriately funnel him, he was making every
read and the Clippers were making him pay. And so
one of the things we saw down the stretch of
this game as the Lakers started to take control, as
(06:51):
the Lakers were like, screw it, let's just start blitzing him,
and they started just essentially getting the ball out of
James Harden's hands, did a really nice job rotating out
of it. The units when James Harden was off the
floor did not score well. Kawhi Leonard, obviously still coming
back from an injury, didn't look like he had much
from his legs, hit a couple of his like pattented
little middies and hit like a wide open transition three
(07:11):
on the left wing, but for the most part was
like leaving things short. Struggling to see double teams. The
Lakers were throwing a lot of doubles, especially with Lebron
in the first half. Just as soon as Kawhi would
turn his back, Lebron would throw a double team, and
so a lot of it fell on James Harden. So
when the Lakers were able to get the ball out
of James Harden's hands to end the game and successfully
rotate out of it, that allowed them to get the
(07:32):
stops that they need. And again, after giving up sixty
six points in the first half, they gave up just
fifty two in the second half. This has been a
Laker defense that has been about timely defense, getting stops
in the stretches of the game when they need to
take control. And then one of the consistent trends that
I've seen, like Luca's been settling for a lot of
(07:53):
tough step back threes this year, and by the way,
we did see a lot of positive regression on that
front tonight. I think he was evan for twelve from three.
He had come into the series, come into this particular
game shooting just twenty nine point nine percent on those
step back threes off of the dribble. He had not
been good with them, and so getting that positive regression
(08:16):
tonight that was a good sign if him starting to
get back to his normal percentages there seven for twelve
from three tonight. But ultimately in that third quarter, as
the Clippers actually briefly took the lead a few times,
Lucas started to go cold. And so when the three
is not going, does he have the ability to bully
his way closer to the basket for easier shots. Well,
one of the consistent trends we've seen through the early
(08:38):
part of the season here is when Luca needs to
as things get tighter towards the end of games, he's
been able to drop his shoulder, get more penetration, get
closer to the basket, gets an and one gets a
short easy floater, gets all the way into the charge circle,
draws two defenders, drops it off to Marcus Smart for
a layup. Nice little flurry from Luka Doncic at the
(08:59):
end end of the third quarter that started the run
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Tennessee or Virginia. And then this is the dynamic you
(10:52):
struggle with with the Lakers. It's like, Okay, you weather
the storm with Luca. Here comes the Lebron Austin unit,
which has literally been one one of the best units
in the NBA over the last couple of years. Lebron
and Austin check in to start the fourth quarter. Lakers
still defending really well. They start, they start to get going.
Austin attacking the basket with a ton of force tonight,
(11:14):
did a ton of damage in his drives. Lebron hits
a little mid range jumper off of a Jackson Hayes
ball screen off the left side. He hit two mid
range jumpers off of that specific action in the second half.
Lebron really nice scoring tonight, and I really good to
see that Lebron still has some real scoring pop. Lebron
and Austin provide that little bit of scoring. You see
(11:35):
that two man connectedness with them. Lebron hits Austin on
a beautiful back cut along the baseline in a really
tight window for another layup. They blow the game out
to like fifteen seventeen. Then when Luca comes back in,
now you're dealing with Luca. Now Austin's standing off the
ball in the corner. And this is probably the most
encouraging thing from this entire game out of all the
different things that went the Lakers way. The Lakers ended
(11:58):
up going to that bread pick and roll with Luca
and Jackson off the top down the stretch in that
middle stretch of the fourth quarter, and Austin Reeves was
consistently situated in that right corner. And we talked about
this a lot in the show on Monday, But one
of my concerns with the Lakers to this point in
the season has been, you know, for all to talk
about their shooting woes, like, I'm not sure that there
(12:20):
they have a lot of guys that we would consider
to be knockdown shooters. A lot of these guys are
streaky shooters that are very rhythm based, that can go
cold right, and so it's one of those things where
like a lot of these sequences are ending in the
hands of a guy like Austin on the wing or
ending in the hands of a guy like Gabe Vincent
or a Marcus Smarter, sometimes even Luca, And if you
(12:42):
look at their rotation, it's really Lebron and Ruey that
are like the reliable, you know, stereotypical catch and shoot
guys that you would expect to consistently knock down those
shots at a high clip. And so I have my
eye on specifically with the starters, Luca and Austin's catch
and shoot because bench guys are bench guys are going
to be in and out of the lineup. It's not
(13:03):
that big of a deal. But ultimately for this team
to achieve the level of unguardability that they need to
achieve to compete for a championship, they need every single
sequence to end in the hands of a player who
is going to consistently make you pay. Do I think
they're bigs, whether it's DeAndre Ayten or Jackson Hayes, are
going to finish vertical spacing reps, Yes, they do. Especially
DeAndre Ayton is a healthier or a Deandreyten when he's healthy,
(13:27):
is a much better threat against switching schemes too, because
he can do damage on the offensive glass and he
can catch and hit a short, little hook shot in
the lane, right, But you need every single sequence. If
it ends in a catch and shoot for a Lebron,
that's going to go in, right You. If you have
a catch and shoot for Rue, you feel like it's
going to go in, but you need it to feel
the same for an Austin catch and shoot, or the
same for an Austin or for a Luca catch and shoot. Right.
(13:50):
We talked a lot about that in the Monday show. Well,
Luca was facing some pretty aggressive coverages in that middle
fourth quarter. He got blitzed once. There was an at
the level coverage, and in those seats, one says they
consistently got the ball to Austin in the weak side corner.
One on a Luca skip a very beautiful skip pass
from Luca in another one on a feed to Jackson
(14:11):
in the short roll on a blitz who then fed
it to Austin. In both cases, Austin's man came over
to tag the roller. Austin had an opportunity to tack
out the corner. He knocks down the catch and shoot three.
On the first one, he drives the clothes out on
the second one and hits a little short bang shot.
He had another one later on where he scored on
a back cut just cutting along the baseline end up
(14:34):
getting a wide open layup. Jackson had another short role
read off of a full court pressure sequence where he
hits Ruy Hatchamura for a lob along the baseline as
he gets a dunk. By the way, shout out to
Jackson Hayes. His connective passing there in the middle of
the floor has been a revelation to start this season.
When he catches in those four on threes, he is
consistently making the right read. That improvement as well as
(14:58):
him just getting a little bit stronger in a little
better at defending with verticality without fouling, has been a
big step for this Lakers team getting a better production
out of their center rotation. And then you add Mexic
Leiba and the work that he's done in the last
week or so, Lakers looked like they had a better,
much much much better center rotation than they did last year.
(15:20):
But essentially that was the path of the game and
they ended up blowing it open. So they start to
defend well, they find a coverage that works Okay, we're
blitzing James Harden. That's working. On the other end. Late
third quarter, Luca brings real rim pressure, much more aggression
towards the basket. You go into the third quarter, obviously
at that point James Harden's out of the game. Briefly,
it's a Luca Austin unit. Luca and Austin. Excuse me,
(15:43):
a Lebron and Austin unit. Lebron and Austin bring the
scoring pop. They blow the game open. Here comes Luca back. Now,
it's about your ability to score out of the action
when all three of your stars on the floor, which
they were consistently able to do down the stretch of
the game. Really really impressive game for the Lakers offense.
They hang one hundred and thirty five points on a
(16:03):
pretty bad Clippers defense. I'm going to bring up a stat.
This was for my buddy law Murray who covers the Clippers.
The La Clippers have a lot of one hundred and twenty
plus points ten times the season in eighteen games. They
did not give up their tenth game of one hundred
and twenty plus points last season until March eleventh, the
sixty fifth game of the season. So the Clippers obviously
(16:24):
having some major issues on defense. I had a question
in the chat, someone asked me, is there one thing
that you could say that explains why the Clippers have
struggled so much to start the season. It's their defense.
It's that simple. They've gone to become a bottom five
defense in the NBA, when last season they had a
very similar formula. Right like James Harden, the offensive engine
(16:46):
floor of floor Razer Zubots is the two man game
partner athletes around them that can play with an advantage
and that can defend. The difference is last year they
were defending while James Harden was providing that offensive floor.
This year they're not, and that has been the big
drop off for them. A couple other quick notes. Lebron's
scoring again, and perhaps the most encouraging thing is he
(17:09):
was better on defense in the second half his first
three halves of his first I should say five halves
of defense and the Lakers Jersey were not good. Just
looked like the game was moving a little too fast
for him. He was consistently getting caught out of position,
had a couple of brutal mistakes down the stretch of
the second Jazz game that almost caught them, that cost
them the game. Much much better defensive half in the
(17:29):
second half from Lebron. He won some one on ones
with James Harden. He was flying around in helpside rotations,
forcing some misses. The Lakers as a team forced a
couple of Zubats misses on catches right underneath the basket
late in the game. There were an example of that
swarming to overcome the size of disadvantage that I was
talking about. And again, the defensive rebounding was a revelation
(17:49):
all night. But Lebron's a big part of that. And
I thought he was excellent in that second half defensively,
but also twenty five points, nine for fifteen from the field,
two for five from three, six rebounds and six assists,
plus eighteen and thirty two minutes, got a steal, got
a block, had an offensive rebound, like twenty five, six
and six on super high efficiency. With the like with
(18:11):
the work that he was doing on the glass and
the work that he was doing defensively in that second half,
that's a really nice game from Lebron James. If Lebron
can get to the point where he's routinely hanging out
around that twenty five, six and six kind of range.
That's where we're starting to talk about a guy that's
in the conversation for All NBA. He won't get All
NBA this year because he won't play enough games, but
(18:32):
it's more just in terms of the level that he's reaching.
And we you know, we had someone ask us in
the chat, like, what will the Lakers have to do
in order to justify making a super aggressive win now
type of trade? You know, to me, Lebron is the
hallmark of that. If you get to late January early
February and Lebron doesn't look like he's near that level,
(18:52):
then you have to start taking the long view. But
if Lebron continues to trend upwards and by the time
we get to late January, still healthy and he's playing
at a super high level, now, it becomes a much
more complicated conversation because it's like, when is the next
time you're going to get an All NBA level talent
alongside Luca in this team construct. At that point, it
becomes much more complicated. It becomes much more of a
(19:17):
a a of a decision for this Lakers' front office
in terms of whether or not they want to make
a more aggressive win now type of move. That's where
you have to start considering the Andrew Wiggins type of
contract that is like a little bit bigger in his
early thirties, a little bit more complicated of a decision,
but somebody that you might have to consider if Lebron
clearly looks like he's playing at that level when he
(19:38):
gets to that point. The positive aggression from three in
general from the Lakers, they ended up shooting thirteen for
twenty nine tonight. That's forty five percent. Obviously a strong indicator.
But I do think they're going to be pretty streaky.
I think the key guys again, like when you look
at their actual shot diet, so many of their threes
are Luca tough stepbacks. So like Luca improving on his
(20:02):
step back three in Austin improving on his catch and
shoot three. Those are going to be the two main
kind of swing factors for the Lakers and their jump shooting,
if they're gonna get up into that more in that
middle of the pack range as a shooting team, as
we know they're capable of getting to. All right, guys,
That's all I have for tonight, As always, a sincerely
appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again,
(20:24):
I hope this is all we have for our Wednesday,
so if you guys have a I guess it's technically
Wednesday here in Denver too so, but again, as always,
a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us. I hope
you enjoy the holiday. I pre recorded a show with
the Nerd Sash guys covering contender rankings, so just like
kind of an update on how I feel about the
top the top two tiers of contenders, Carson and Logan
(20:47):
were awesome. We got into some debates, got into some
good stuff there. So make sure you guys meet us
over on the YouTube channel on Friday and then our
next playback stream Friday night, Dallas at LA gonna be
a fun one. The Lakers have a chain to go
four to oh in the play in tournament or in
the in season tournament with a chance to compete for
the inn Season Tournament championship. Should be a fun one.
I will see you guys then
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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