December 1, 2025 • 48 mins
Jason reacts to the New York Knicks beating the Toronto Raptors for their fourth straight win and explains how Jalen Brunson embracing their new offensive philosophy is working wonders. Then he discusses the leap Austin Reaves has made this season for the Los Angeles Lakers, how he complements Luka Doncic and LeBron James, and where he ranks among players so far this year. Then he gives his new NBA power rankings including the Knicks, Lakers, Thunder, Nuggets, Rockets, Celtics, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Volume. All right, welcome to him to night here
at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody, hop all of you
guys had an incredible weekend. You got a jam pack
(00:21):
show for you guys today. The New York Knicks won
their fourth consecutive game last night with a wire to
wire dominance of the Toronto Raptors. I want to really
zoom in on their three point shooting this year, as
they have dramatically increased their three point volume as a
big product of the work that Mike Brown has done
revamping this offense. After that, we got to talk about
(00:43):
Austin Reeves. Man. I went through an exercise thinking about
how many players in the NBA have played better basketball
than Austin Reeves to start this season, and it's a
very short list. So I want to talk a little
bit about Austin Reeves, his development, the trajector he's been on,
just how insanely good he has been this season, and
again where he would rank in the NBA if you
(01:05):
ended the season today. And then at the tail end
of the show, like we always do on Mondays, our
weekly power rankings, some new exciting teams that I want
to hit in the bottom part of the top ten.
That middle chunk of the season of standings is really fascinating.
This year's NBA standings picture has looked very different than
(01:26):
recent years. We've had a lot more bad teams, like
really bad teams at the bottom, but there's this very
very deep middle, a bunch of teams right in that
like twelve and eight kind of range that are fighting.
And so the bottom of our power rankings is going
to experience a lot of turnover week to week, but
a lot of interesting stuff to get into there. You
guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to
(01:47):
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
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Tonight it's always. It's also super helpful with you leave
a rating and a review. On that front, Jackson is
doing incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys keep following us
there for content throughout the season, and then we will
be back to our normal mailbag routine. This Friday, we'll
(02:10):
have a mailbag, so if you want to get questions
and the mail bags, go to our full episodes on YouTube,
going too the comments right mail bag with a colon
that helps me find the questions and we'll get to
them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. A
couple other quick notes like this video really helps us
if you could take a second, just a quick scroll down,
hit that like button, and our playback schedule for this week,
we're gonna be hitting a couple of games on the
(02:30):
Lakers road trips, so on Thursday night in Toronto and
then on Friday night a really fun one against the
Boston Celtics. So Lakers Raptors Lakers Celtics on Thursday and
Friday this week on playback. If you guys want to
come hang out, I'm gonna reach out to some guys
who cover those teams too and see if we can't
get someone to come hang out during the stream. All right,
(02:52):
let's talk some basketball. So we're gonna start with the Nicks.
They won their fourth straight game last night, again dominating
the Toronto Raptors on tailing of back to back so
that they were without Yaka Pertl, but obviously the Knicks
without Og and Nanobi. You know, I run into this
issue every single time I cover a game on here.
Everyone's like, well, this guy's out, that guy's out. Just
there's people out all the time. That's just the NBA
(03:13):
regular season, And so more often than not, these are
becoming examples and demonstrations of your team's culture from the
top down, so that you can maintain some semblance of
success with guys in and out of the lineup. And
the Knicks came out absolutely guns blazing from three. Deuce
McBride has been on a special heater over the last
few games. He's fourteen for twenty from three over his
(03:35):
last three games, hit four more of them against the Raptors.
Got hot in the first half. Josh Hart had one
of his best games of the season. Scored twenty points,
hit four threes of his own twelve rebounds, really killed
the Raptors on the offensive glass during their third quarter run.
That was kind of the story of the game in
a lot of ways. The first quarter was Knicks three
point shooting. The third quarter was Knicks offensive rebounding and
(03:58):
getting out in transition, And those were the two kind
of stretches where they assumed control and Toronto made a
couple of runs. Scotty Barnes got randomly super hot and
hit back to back to back threes in the first
half that kind of shrunk the lead. There was another
early third quarter run where Emanuel quickly got super hot
had like an eight to zero run by himself that
dragged Toronto closer. But other than that, the Knicks basically
(04:21):
completely shut down the Raptors offense. McHale Bridges did an
absolute number on brandon Ingram from the opening tip he
got to steal, chasing him over the top of the screen,
and all night long he was fighting him off the spots,
fighting him through screens, making his catches tough, attacking his base,
attacking his dribble. He looked visibly uncomfortable, had some really
(04:42):
ugly misses, had five turnovers, and again in this four
game winning streak, the Knicks have logged a one h
six defensive rating, and it really starts with that defensive
pressure on the perimeter from guys like McHale Bridges, guys
like Deuce McBride, and guys like Josh Hart. Kind of
an old school Nicks win streak. This four game streak
like playing great defense, bludgeoning teams on the offensive glass,
(05:04):
a lot of stuff that became a regular part of
the Knicks identity a few years ago. I want to
zoom in on the three point shooting though for a minute,
there was a big part of why they got their
initial separation against Toronto. Obviously there was multiple runs to
control that game, but it was a big part of
their first quarter run when they went up twenty. And
it's been a major statistical marker for the Knicks this year,
(05:25):
and I personally think it's directly connected to the job
that Mike Brown has done to revamp this offense. For
some basic stats, last year, the Knicks averaged just thirty
four to three point attempts per game that ranked twenty
seventh in the NBA. This year, the Knicks are averaging
forty one three point attempts per game, which ranks fifth
in the NBA, all while increasing their efficiency from running
(05:47):
around thirty six percent as a team to a little
over thirty seven percent, so from bottom five and three
point volume to top five, all while increasing percentage. And
this is where Mike Brown deserves a ton of credit
for changing the team's approach. There is a very intentional
effort to use drives to get the defense in rotation
(06:08):
early in possessions so that they can play drive and kick.
And it's not any just one thing, like, yes, they're
pushing in transition. More it's kind of a game to
game thing. They'll have some games where they just are
flying up and down the floor. They'll have other games
where they're a little bit more stuck in the half court.
But it's a mentality starting with those transition pushes and
then in the half court early action that gets one
(06:30):
of their players downhill. Brunson himself, and I think Brunson
deserves a lot of credit for his leadership and for
his versatility by really not just buying into this style,
but like being one of the driving forces of this style.
You know, one of those early threes for duce McBride
was just Jalen Brunson on the right side of the floor.
I think he had I think it was Scottie Barnes
(06:51):
I remember correctly, on like a transition cross match, just
a really heavy right hand drive early in the possession,
collapse of defense, kick out the duce McBride wide open,
just kind of embracing the emphasis on getting dribble penetration
early in possessions, either through transition, semi transition, or that
first action to just unlock the aggregate talent on the
(07:13):
team with their driving kick play right. As a team,
last year, they were sixteenth in drives per game. According
to NBA dot Com. They're up to seventh in drives
per game this year. More drives means more help. More
help means easier kickouts. Easier kickouts means more kickouts. More
(07:34):
kickouts means more threes. The Knicks are generating thirty five
point four spot up opportunities per game this season. That's
the second most in the entire NBA, behind the Miami Heat.
Last year they generated just twenty six point three, so
more than nine additional spot up opportunities every game compared
(07:57):
to last year. I wanted to dig into the play
type data on Synergy because I wanted to come up
with like a way of kind of expressing the difference
in the approach, the difference and the balance of the
way the Knicks are attacking on offense. So the Knicks
are shooting the ball as the primary ball handler out
of iso, pick and roll or post up situations. Three
(08:21):
point six fewer times per game than they did last year,
and instead they're generating again, we know they're generating nine
more spot ups, which is coming out of all sorts
of different types of actions. But let's zoom in on
those spot ups specifically to unguarded catch and shoot threes.
They are generating as a team an additional three point
(08:44):
one unguarded catch and shoot threes per game compared to
last year. So you're taking, you know, roughly three three
and a half one on one shot attempts and you're
turning them into three to three and a half staying
still unguarded catch and shoots. And to put it very simply,
I don't care if you have Shay or Luca on
(09:04):
your team. There isn't a one on one play in
the league that is going to be nearly as efficient
as an unguarded catch and shoe three. The Knicks as
a team are getting one point two five points per
unguarded catch and shoot attempt this season. So, to put
it very simply, the Knicks are driving the basketball more,
(09:25):
both in transition and in the half court earlier in possessions,
which is helping them to avoid as much one on
one play and it's caused them to completely flip their
shot diet from a bottom five three point volume team
to a top five three point volume team. So as
a result, I mean, this was a Knicks team last
year that had a one to seventeen point three offensive rating,
(09:47):
which was good, but this year their offensive rating is
over one twenty. This year they've gone up a level
from a very good offense to a great offense. And again,
I really they want to shout out Jalen Brunson here,
there's a lot of like, you know, narrative and like
this is the truth. Like the way they were playing
(10:08):
in the past was a lot of Jalen Brunson kind
of dribbling the air out of the basketball. It's not
his fault, just the way the team was put together
and the way that they were playing under Tom Thibodeaux. Right,
But it wasn't a Brunson problem. It was a style problem.
And what Brunson has shown is that he can still
put up the numbers that were accustomed to him putting
(10:29):
up while also playing and buying into this style which
empowers the rest of the group and generates better quality
shots and scores more points per one hundred possessions. This
is a simple stat to demonstrate this. Jalen Brown out
of an ISO, drove and kicked to a player to
knock down a three just fifteen times all season last year.
(10:53):
He's done it eleven times already this year. That's again
sequences like that early kick out to Douce McBride just
beat his man off the dribble draw and help make
the kick pass early in the clock. Brunson has been
not just buying in but a driving force behind the
success of this new offensive approach. Some other good news
(11:15):
for Knicks fans Kat starting to get his footing. Another
nice game from him yesterday, averaging twenty four points and
eleven rebounds in his last eight games. And again, these
four straight wins have moved the Knicks up to number
two in the Eastern Conference, and with Cleveland faltering, I mean,
as you look out at the East, my issues with
(11:35):
the Knicks were things all that over the last couple
of years that put me below teams like Cleveland, or
below teams like Boston, although they ended up beating Boston
as we know. But as Cleveland is faltered, and it
doesn't appear to be like there's this clear best team
in the Eastern Conference. As you start to look around
(11:56):
Orlando pretty young, you know they've improved as a jump
shooting team. Not great, Detroit young, mistake prone, turns the
ball over a lot, Cleveland obviously not looking like the
juggernaut they were last year. You could make the case
that the Knicks are the safest bet out in the
Eastern Conference. With the way things are shaping up out there,
so really really impressive stretch of basketball out in New York,
(12:21):
it's time to have a serious conversation about the player
that Austin Reeves has become in the league. There has
been this incremental improvement with Austin ever since he entered
the league. But the thing is is, every time you
think he's reached his ceiling, you look up and somehow
he's even better yet again. Started with him being kind
(12:44):
of just a capable off ball score, a guy that
could knock down a catching shoot three, drive a close out,
you know, make a playoff the bounce, paying like essentially
benefiting from the attention that Lebron and ad drew. Right
then he started to flash some higher level bucket getting
like a crazy move in the mid range for a
pull up jump shot that would make a highlight reel.
(13:06):
Really started to showcase his ability to get defenders out
of position and get to the foul line. Then there
was Game one against Memphis three years ago down the stretch.
The Lakers were like, you run the offense, spread, pick
and roll, and he closed a playoff game and he
did it. You know, you guys remember screaming I'm him
at the top of his lungs to the rafters as
he literally won a playoff game for the Lakers. Then
(13:28):
you look up and he had eight twenty point games
in that single playoff runt. Then JJ makes him the
starting point guard and it wasn't perfect at first, but
he just kept getting better at it. And then suddenly,
by the middle of last season, he looks like a
bona fide running mate alongside Lebron James and the Lakers
were winning consistently. Then naturally started to get some opportunities
(13:50):
to run the show, whether it was like Luca and
Lebron out last year against the Pacers and he goes
for forty five, seven and seven in a win, or
that road game in Denver which the Lakers ended up losing,
but they were right there. Dan thirty seven points, eight rebounds,
and thirteen assists for Austin in that game. But then again,
doing it every now and then is you know, when
(14:13):
you're surprising teams and you haven't been scouted really all
that well, that's very different from doing it every single night.
Austin is a known commodity. People know that he can hoop.
There is a game plan. Ball pressure him right, try
to rush him with physicality and ball pressure right, like
teams know what to do with him now. And yet
(14:33):
this year, regardless of circumstance, night after night, Austin is
frying everybody in the NBA, No Lebron and Luca. He's
got a forty point game and a fifty point game
this year, getting wins alongside Luca, consistent production alongside Lebron
and Luca. He's played four games with both of them
(14:55):
so far this season. How about twenty nine points per
game on six sixty three percent from the field, forty
two percent from three to ninety two percent from the line.
This is too large of his sample's eyes for us
to ignore anymore, and it's all in a winning context.
Last year, over his last thirty two regular season games,
(15:17):
he averaged a super efficient twenty three points per game,
and the Lakers went twenty one and eleven in those games.
This year twenty nine points, six rebounds, seven assists, sixty
eight percent true shooting for a game. That is for
a team that is currently a half game back of
the second best record in the NBA, and he surgically consistent.
(15:41):
Guess how many times this year Austin hasn't scored twenty
points in sixteen tries once the OKC game. Every other
game he has at least twenty. The shot making is
outrageous seventy five percent at the rim, which is just
stupid for a guard of his build. Four makes per game,
(16:02):
which is thirty sixth in the entire NBA as a guard,
fourteen for eighteen on floaters. One of those was a
game winner. And again, as I've talked, one of the
most important, like pivotal pieces for this Lakers team and
their big picture goals are him knocking down unguarded catch
and shoot threes. He's been deadly on the catch and
(16:23):
shoot threes. In the last week. He's up to forty
six percent this season on unguarded catch and shoots, which,
as we know, was the major weakness that he showed
in the Timberwolve series in particular, and one of the
crazy things is he's not just scoring the basketball. He
showcased extremely high level playmaking ability, especially in the games
(16:44):
where Lebron is out or Luca as well. He can
scale up his shot creation as a passer. His three
games this year with at least eleven assists. You know
how many players in the NBA this season are averaging
at least twenty eight points per game and at least
six and a halfphecists seven total, Lukasha, Giannis Jokich. You're
(17:05):
mount rushmore of the NBA currently, Kay Cunningham, Tyre Smaxy,
and Austin Reeves. That's it. That's the end of the list.
And he's doing it next to Luca in lower usage.
His playtype data is off the charts. There are twenty
two players in the NBA this year to have run
(17:25):
at least two hundred pick and rolls including passes. Austin's
getting one point one seven points per possession. That's second
in the entire NBA at high volume, even ahead of Luca.
Inefficiency there, and he's an incredibly well rounded player. I
was listening to the Laker film room podcast over this
weekend and shout out to Pete and Darius. I think
(17:46):
they do amazing work. And Darius was making a point
comparing Austin to guys like Jimmy Butler, guys who came
up in the league more as role players and then
became stars, essentially forcing them to become well rounded players.
They had to be good at on and off ball defense.
They had to be good rebounders, they had to have
(18:07):
strong fundamentals on the glass. They had to have an
overall willingness to scrap because that's how they stayed on
the floor early in their career. And I think Darius
is dead on with that. Austin isn't like some of
these other high scoring players at the top of the
league who give up a good amount of their production
on the margins. Around the floor. He can guard, He
(18:30):
always knows where to be in the scheme. He rebounds
well for his size. He has some athletic limitations and
they can show up situationally here and there. But because
he's scrapped so hard and because he's got such strong fundamentals,
I think he's overwhelmingly a positive player on the margins.
As a consistent motor plays super hard. This is very
(18:52):
simply one of the best basketball players in the world
right now. I was thinking about it this morning. How
many players in the NBA are playing better basketball than
Austin Reeves right now. So take reputation and set it
aside and just zoom in on this season. Everyone's anonymous
who's playing better basketball than Austin Reeves. The top tier guys,
(19:14):
right Luka sha jokichianis got to put them up there,
the up and coming superstars. Cade's been better. I think
Wemb's been better, Anthony Edwards has been better. Some of
the established guys. Donovan Mitchell has been excellent this season.
Steph Curry still is still with all of the shit
happening with Golden State, the Warriors have a one to
nineteen offensive rating with Steph Curry on the floor per
(19:35):
cleaning the glass, just insane advantage creation still to this day.
After that, though, it's a whole lot of guys that
you would only put over Austin due to their reputation,
Like Austin has been flat out better to start this
season than guys like Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brown, James Harden,
(19:59):
Devin Booker, Kawhi Leonard. Now, to be clear, that doesn't
mean anything with respect to those guys. Those guys have
extended track records of success. It's only been sixteen games.
No one's about to shake up the hierarchy of the league.
I'm just saying Austin has been the tenth best player
in the entire NBA this season through sixteen games. Now
(20:21):
he'll have to maintain that for years in order to
get that established reputation that some of those other guys have.
And yeah, if you ask me, like, do i think
when we get to June that I'm gonna view Austin
as the tenth best player in the NBA. Probably not.
I think he's gonna land somewhere below that, probably somewhere
in that, like, you know, twelve to twenty range, right,
(20:43):
depending on how well he's able to maintain this level
of play. But this is just a truly remarkable development
an NBA star who's currently playing firmly at the level
of a star, and it gives the Lakers a solid
(21:05):
foundation for their future. You have a player in Luca
who's competing for the title of best player in the
world currently, and now you have a bona fide all
NBA caliber running mate that compliments him perfectly. Now, I'll
admit part of me is a bit scarred by the
Minnesota Series. Austin wasn't good in that series. It was
(21:26):
a big part of how the Lakers ended up getting
dominated the way they did, and ultimately Austin will have
to carry that with him until he can get another
shot in this year's postseason. That's the burden of being
as good as he is. He's so good now that
he can have fifty points in a regular season game
and everyone goes like, that's awesome, Let's see you do
it when we get to April. That is the burden
(21:48):
of the expectation that comes with being viewed as a
guy who is a potential All NBA level player. But
I would just bet on this guy figuring things out.
He just keeps getting better and there isn't any sign
of him slowing down. All right, let's get into our
power rankings and again, all of our lines here, our
(22:08):
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in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia
number ten to start the list today, The Orlando Magic
currently plus four thousand to win the title per hard
Rock Bet, they're eleven and four. Since they're one in four,
start starting to rack up some really impressive wins. To
a win against a red hot Pistons team, a complete
(23:59):
and utter distry production of the seventy six ers, fueled
by their defense, just like strangling Philly in the second
quarter as they ran away with that game. Wins against
the Knicks, wins against the Clippers, wins against the Warriors,
and in that fifteen game span. This is easily the
most exciting development of this era of Orlando basketball. They
have a one to twenty offensive rating in this fifteen
(24:20):
game span. They're moving the ball like they never have
before in the last few years. Sixty four percent of
their makes have been assisted. In this fifteen game span,
they're making thirty six percent of their threes. Now, that
may seem like a mediocre number, and it is. It
was like sixteenth in the league over that span. But
let's not forget this was quite literally the very worst
(24:42):
jump shooting team in the entire NBA by a mile
last year. So average is an exciting development in that context.
It's fueled by some leaps from some key players. Tristan
to Silva in his second year, has become a over
forty percent from three type of guy. Wendell Carter Junior
shooting a career high forty five percent from three. Anthony
(25:02):
Black has been shooting it much better as of late.
Jet Howard is hitting forty percent. So they're moving the
ball better than ever and they're paying off more of
those sequences with makes than they ever have before. That's
breeding the one to twenty offensive rating, all while maintaining
the physical dominance that made them so dangerous even when
(25:23):
their offense was limited. Top five in defense, top five
in defensive rebounding over this fifteen game span, and eighth
in offensive rebounding, so really controlling the physicality areas of
the game. I want to zoom in on Anthony Black
for a second. His explosion this season into like a
really devastating two way weapon adds yet another layer of
(25:45):
talent to this team that is already so difficult to
deal with. He's a wrecking ball on defense. In the
Detroit game, did an incredible job on Ky Cunningham, like
legitimately frustrated him, made him look really uncomfortable. Was a
bit part of the eight turnovers they forced him into.
He's got super long arms while also maintaining the strength
so he can absorb the bump, while then also getting
(26:08):
his arm around and attacking the basketball, getting deflections, disrupting
the pocket, disrupting rhythm. He's a really really gifted defensive player,
and he's become a real offensive weapon to counter that.
He's constantly beating teams down the floor in transition for dunks,
just out running people and just you know, has that
(26:28):
vertical pop off two feet and off one foot that
can make him really devastating in the open floor. He's
hitting his open corner threes, especially out of the left
corner this year fifty four percent out of that left corner.
And the on ball stuff. It's not super efficient yet,
but he keeps showing little bits of upside there, like
a crafty drive all the way to the basket, or
(26:50):
like a little floater in the mid range after he
beats a defender over the top of the screen. In action.
It's the kind of like development trajectory that makes you
feel much better if you have to start shedding salary.
And if you look at the Magic's cap sheet, it's
it is. There's a lot of guys who make a
lot of money in there. Someone's gonna get squeezed at
some point here. And you know, let's say, for instance,
(27:13):
you want to move off of a guy like Jalen Suggs,
and Jalen Suggs it's a mixed bag with him, like
the Pistons games classic example, just can't make a shot
all game, but then like makes the pivotal stretch of
the game there in the mid fourth that puts Orlando
up ten, like hits a pull up three, goes down
and gets a steal, hits a pull up three, all
of a sudden, you're like, holy shit, this game looks
(27:34):
very different now. Jalen Suggs still has a lot of talent,
but like, if you had to lose a guy like
Jalen Suggs for salary purposes, you become a lot more
comfortable with that with the development trajectory of a guy
like Anthony Black, especially in the context of having Desmond
Bane as that shooter, since Jalen Suggs was so often
used as that kind of inverted screening partner for Orlando's
(27:55):
big forwards. One last thing, I I know there's this
tendency to jump on the Palo Bancaro like shit talk
fest after the team once again looks great when he's out,
But there are a lot of things that the team
is doing that they started doing when Palo was there,
and they were playing good in that last couple of
(28:18):
weeks before Palo got hurt, and ultimately I think he
can only help this situation as he comes back, So
I wouldn't view this success as some sort of like,
you know, retroactive evaluation of Palo. I didn't like the
way he started the year. I thought he was really
bad in that first couple of weeks. He has been
a contributed or some of their offensive issues over time,
(28:40):
But ultimately I do think he'll buy in when he
comes back, and I want to see what this looks
like with him integrated into the system. In short, though,
a lot of the reasons that I was excited about
with Orlando before the season are coming to fruition. But
it's also coming with this added layer of them being
much better on offense than I expected them to be.
Definitely consider them to be not on the top tier
(29:02):
with obviously the Denver OKSE Houston set out west, but
in that Eastern Conference, I view them as every bit
as good as the other teams at the top of
the conference, like New York, like Cleveland, and like Detroit.
Number nine. The Atlanta Hawks currently plus six thousand to
win the title on hard Rock Bet. Another casual forty one,
fourteen and seven for Jalen Johnson last night in double
(29:25):
overtime in a win over the seventy six ers. Ice
the game with back to back catch and shoot threes,
one off the left wing and one kind of the
high part of the right corner. The Hawks, you know
they've kind of figured out this little offensive sequence that
they can run at the end of games. They've been
a very good late game offense this year. As a
matter of fact, they've been the sixth best clutch offense
in the NBA to start the season, getting a one
(29:47):
to seventeen offensive rating. And basically what they figured out
is and Dakil Alexander Walker, who's really developed into a
decent little pick and role player for them. That's kind
of helped fill the void of having Trey Young out right.
But they can run action, whether it's you know, a
ball screen with a Congou and Nikiel with Jalen spacing
(30:08):
on the opposite wing where teams like to dig down
and he can hit a shot. It's basically what happened
on his first DAG or three last night, or three
man action where all three of them are involved. But
because in Congou and Jalen Johnson are both shooting the
ball better from three, they can pop out of those actions.
Nikkeil can get all the way to the basket and
he can make the passing raads out of it. They've
got a nice little action that they can run at
(30:29):
the end of games that is giving them some success.
Jalen Johnson is now up to twenty three points, ten rebounds,
and seven assists per game for the season. It's not
a short run, that's the entire season. Fifty four percent
from the field, forty percent from three, sixty three percent
true shooting. The team is defending well, continuing to force
(30:50):
turnovers and get out and transition, and as we mentioned,
they have a little bit of a half court set
that they can get into to just you know, give
them some high floor on the offensive end of the floor.
Are really really exciting basketball coming out of Atlanta. A
big showdown with the Pistons in Detroit tonight gonna be
an interesting challenge for them. Number eight, the Boston Celtics
(31:12):
currently plus seventy five hundred to win the title on
hard Rock Bet. They are seven to three in their
last ten games. Some big wins wins against the Cavs,
wins against the Pistons, two against the Orlando Magic. In
that span. The story has been offense. They have a
one twenty two offensive rating in those ten games, third
best mark in the entire NBA over that ten game span.
(31:34):
Jalen Brown has been fantastic, fueled by a deadly mid
range pull up. He's making a league best three mid
range jump shots per game to start this season. He's
the This was actually really surprising to me, you know,
because we think of Shay and KD as the guys
that are typically at the top of this list. But
Jalen's the only player in the NBA this year to
(31:55):
be making at least two mid range jump shots per
game and shooting over fifty percent on them. He's at
fifty one point seven percent. I was surprised. Shay's only
at forty nine percent from mid range and Kevin Durant
is at forty seven percent from mid range according to
NBA dot Com tracking data, so both down a little
bit from where they usually are. But Jalen Brown number
(32:15):
one on that list. He's getting to the rim more
often than he did last year and hitting a higher percentage.
I think he's up from about four rim attempts makes
per game to four and a half and he's up
over sixty percent at the rim this year when he
was below sixty percent last year. We were wondering what
it would look like with Jalen Brown moving to the
top of the scouting report, and how about over twenty
(32:36):
eight points per game on fifty eight percent for shooting
some really really impressive stuff from Jalen Brown. Derek White
and Peyton Pritchard had both found an ice grouve. Peyton
Pritchard was the hero yesterday in the winning Cleveland forty
two points, and then Derek was the hero in the
Pistons game and a massive second half at like fourteen
something like that in the third quarter, hit a bunch
of pull up threes and then hit a couple of
(32:57):
huge threes late in the game. Ended icing that, icing
that one in crunch time. Again, Like Derek White loves
those little kind of switch interchange threes, right, so like
he comes off of like a guard guard screen or
any type of screen, and as the team is switching,
there's like this gap right as the on ball defender
kind of drops back to try to get inside position
(33:17):
to avoid any sort of issue with a slip, and
then the screening defender, you know, closes out to the
shooter and there's a gap in that interchange. And Derek
White loves taking that pull up three right in that gap.
Hit a bunch of those in the Pistons games. He's
really started to find a groove. We also had one
of Baylor Shireman's best games as a pro in the
Pistons game. In particular, he's scoring out of the corner,
(33:39):
hitting catch and shoot threes, driving closeouts, hit a nice
little turnaround over his left shoulder when he got cut
off on a drive in there. Celtics are really starting
to reach a nice groove on the offensive end of
the floor. Nothing dramatically impressive on the margins. They're a
little bit better in their defensive rebounding than they were
to start the season. It's not like they're winning game
(34:00):
with defense that are winning games on the glass. They're
just running extremely high level offense and starting to convert
some of these clutch games into wins that they were
dropping early in the season. The Celtics are playing some
really good basketball. Number seven the Denver Nuggets currently plus
five hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet.
(34:20):
They are just four and three in their last seven games.
Dropped another really frustrating one against the Spurs in a
game where they really struggled to deal with San Antonio's guards,
handling the dribble penetration from Deeran Fox, who picked them
apart as a passer in that game, and then Devin Vessel,
who burned them all night long with those winging threes
off the catch, kept like igniting these quick burst runs
(34:41):
by just hitting a couple of them and burned them
late in the game with a couple more that ended
up giving San Antonio six point lead late that they
did not give up. Big win for San Antonio, But
Denver has a one twenty two point four defensive rating
in that seven game span. Really starting to feel the
loss of Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown on the defensive
(35:02):
end of the floor, and you know, I think they're
capable of defending better than they have been with the
guys that are stepping into those spots. It's a team
wide little bit of slippage there compared to where they
were to start the season. On the bright side, though,
Nikola jokicch and Jamal Murray continue to look literally as
good as they've ever been. Jamal Murray's been on an
absolute heater as of late, and then Cam Johnson, like
(35:26):
over the last couple of weeks, he's been a dependably
good scorer for them, has really found a groove, especially
as a three point shooter, is just really confidently stepping
into that three point shot. He's been hitting like well
over half of them over the course of the last
couple of weeks. And that's again the bright spot I
d if you're looking at a statistical marker, that shows
that Denver's upside is still there. They have a one
(35:48):
twenty six offensive rating in that seven game span despite
them going just four and three. So again, figure out
a way to get some more stops and they'll be
in much better shape. Number six. The San Antonio Spurs
currently plus five thousand to win the title according to
(36:11):
hard Rock Bett. As before mentioned the incredible game from
Devin Vesselle. It's beat Denver, but I want to assume
it on Darren Fox here for a minute. So Wemby
goes down seven games ago, Steph Cassel goes down six
games ago, and in that seven game span the Spurs
are five and two, and Darren Fox is the biggest
reason why, s averaging twenty six points and seven assists
(36:32):
of forty nine percent from the field and thirty nine
percent from three in that seven game span, and he
is just killing teams with his dribble penetration. I always
think he's been a little bit of an underrated passer
he's very good at reading that lowman and making the
skip pass, which is like that pass that is like
there for the taking for most NBA passers, but just
a lot of guys don't see it or they're athletically
(36:54):
incapable of making the pass. But if you can skip
the ball against an engaged lowman, you can just rate
some really high level close out opportunities which are either
going to give you wide open catch and shoot threes
or opportunities for guys to drive closeouts. The driving of
those closeouts can even further compromise the defense. You can
all sorts of really good stuff out of those, right,
but you have to have a guard who can drive
(37:15):
the basketball well enough to effectively engage the low man,
or shoot the ball well enough to effectively bring the
big up to the level, which then engages the low man,
right some sort of scoring dynamic in pick and roll
that will bring that third defender over, but also have
the ability to make the kickout passes that get the
defense in rotation. Darren Fox has run one hundred and
(37:36):
seventy pick and rolls this year, including passes, and he's
generating one hundred and ninety seven points in those one
hundred and seventy pick and rolls. That's one point one
six points per possession. That's extremely good. Devin Ifsel has
been fantastic. Keldon Johnson has been excellent in this run
as well. They continue to be just very athletically imposing,
(37:57):
like they can be very good defensively when they need
because they can just ratchet up with their physicality on
the perimeter. That's helped them win a couple of close
games in this stretch. They're doing damage and transition. Luke
Cornett is back and playing extremely well. Really just a
super impressive stretch of basketball considering the injuries from the
San Antonio Spurs. And I will freely admit we're going
(38:18):
to do an episode at some point over the course
the next couple weeks where I kind of look at
all of my preseason predictions and there are things that
I have been dead on right about. There have been
things that I've been extremely wrong about, and I will
freely admit I was wrong about this Spurs team before
the season. I really underestimated the talent on this roster.
A couple of key leaps from a couple of key
(38:39):
younger guys getting this level of play out of Deer
and Fox. How good Victor webin Yama looked before we
got hurt. How wonderful the Luke Cornett fit has been,
the contributions from key role players like Julian Champagne and
Harrison Barnes. This is a very good basketball team. And
I mean, if they're going to go five and two
with Wemby and Steph Castle down, we would all be
(39:01):
foolish to think that they're just going to suddenly dip
down into being a five hundred basketball team at some point.
They look like one of those established perennial contenders out
in the West already. I was wrong about the Spurs
coming into this season. Number five. The New York Knicks
currently plus seventeen fifty to win the title on Hard
Rock Bet. Not going to spend too much time here
(39:22):
because we just had a Nick segment earlier in the show.
So if you want to hear more Knicks, just go
to our full episode on YouTube. And it's actually our
opening segment in this one. But the Knicks have one
four in a row. The offenses look fantastic. They're generating
way more threes this year with an emphasis on driving
the ball early in possessions transition semi transition that first
action starting those driving kick sequences to unlock their driving
(39:44):
kick talent, of which they have plenty on the roster.
McHale Bridges has spearheaded an impressive stretch of defense in
that span as well guarding the ball again. If you
want to hear more Nicks go earlier in the episode
number four. The Detroit Pistons currently plus twenty five hundred
to win the title on hard Rock. I bet a
couple of tough losses to the Celtics and the magic
turnovers and points allowed off of turnovers were the real
(40:06):
issues in both of those games. Boston also had some
success attacking Duncan Robinson in action late in that game.
Just something to keep an eye on as they get
into some potential playoff circumstances, but a really nice bounce
back win in Miami against the Heat, similarly doing some
damage attacking Tyler Harrow in action. I've watched a lot
of Pistons in the last week as their schedule has
gotten tougher, and I've landed on them being completely legit
(40:30):
as one of the top tier teams in the East. Again,
none of those teams I view in the same tier
as Denver, Houston, Okasee. But in that group there at
the top of the east, Orlando, New York, Cleveland. To me,
Detroit is right up there with them. Kate is only
going to continue to get better. He's obviously had issues
finishing at the rim and had issues with turnovers. Turnovers
(40:50):
were a big problem in the Orlando games. He struggled
with Anthony Black and just some of the swarming that
Orlando was doing. But overall, all those reps are just
going to continue to make Kaid better. There's this idea
that Kaid's like not going to be able to become
a better rim finisher. I watched him on tape and
I see a lot of layups that I think he
can make, and so I get it that it's a
(41:11):
very large sample size of him not being very good
at that. But ultimately it's just to me, he's just
there's like a like just a little bit of slowing
down that he needs to do when he gets all
the way to the rim, where I think he's kind
of rushing stuff and fumbling the basketball a little bit,
And that stuff is going to come as he gets
more and more comfortable with every single type of coverage
that he sees, so like, I ultimately view him as
(41:33):
a guy that's going to be a better than that
type of rim finisher. Like I think he's going to
be able to get up around sixty percent at the
rim as the years go by and the turnovers those are, Like,
he's facing a lot of aggressive coverages this year. That's
more stuff that he's just going to get more reps
dealing with and get better at diagnosing and beating those
types of coverages. And then looking at the team, they're big,
(41:54):
they're physical, they play super hard, They're built for that
postseason environment where you have to be physical. I just
am a believer in this Pistons team. Cade's last eleven
games thirty three points, seven rebounds in nine assists number
three the Los Angeles Lakers currently plus fourteen hundred to
win the title according to hard Rock Bet. We hit
(42:15):
them in the early part of the show as well,
So I'm not going to spend too much time here,
but we focused on Austin, So I briefly wanted to
bring up this kind of hilarious trend that we've seen
over the course of their last few games and something
that's become kind of part of their progression in games
throughout the year. So Luca will come out in the
opening quarter and he'll just abuse whatever the opening scheme is.
And sometimes he's facing doubles. We saw the Dallas game,
(42:36):
they like doubled him behind half court literally right off
of the jump ball. But like, and he's been facing
a ton of double teams, but there's been a lot
of these like first quarters where he's coming out and
he's just looking to score relentlessly. As a matter of fact,
he's averaging thirteen first quarter points this year, which is
far and away the most in the NBA. And what
he's doing is he's like making a point at proving
(42:59):
early in the game, your main on ball guy can't
guard me, and if you cover me in a two
on two pick and roll, I'm gonna pick you apart
scoring the basketball. And then what happens is, like the
rest of the game, he's getting blitzed and doubled all
over the place. And so then the Lakers are just
playing four on three when Luca's on the floor for
(43:20):
like three quarters every single game. And so you know,
it was a little sloppy early in the year, but
with each passing game. They're just getting a little bit
better at it right, Like they're not rolling too hard
out of blitzes and creating turnover situations where Luca has
to make a long pass. They're short rolling in the
short roles. Guys are making reads. Jackson's been fantastic with
(43:40):
it all season. DeAndre Ayton had another monster game last night.
DeAndre Ayden is getting better at those little reads in
the middle of the floor. They're paying off the sequences
on the kickouts. They missed a lot of good looks
last night too. Jake Lreva had a nightmare night struggling
to knock down the wide open kickout threes. But they're
getting good looks out of those sequences consistently, a lot
of opportunity for guys like Lebron and Austin to attack
(44:02):
with an advantage out of those four on threes, and again,
they're gonna just continue to get reps there, similar to
what we were talking about with Detroit, because ultimately the
Lakers have to beat Oklahoma City. That's their their big,
you know, goal, the big measuring stick that they have
to reach at some point this season, right, And what
is okayc gonna do they're gonna blitz, they're gonna double,
(44:24):
they're gonna pressure the ball, they're gonna try to speed
you up. And the more reps that the Lakers get
against blitzes and doubles and aggressive coverages throughout the season,
the better chance they're gonna have to navigate that Okay
Oklahoma City problem when they get there. I personally am
very glad that the Lakers and the Thunder ended up
making it to the nd season Tournament. I did not
(44:44):
want to wait till February to see Oka See versus
the Lakers again. If the Lakers can take care of
business against Phoenix, and if oka See can take care
of business, I think against San Antonio if I remember correctly,
or there might be inverted. Actually I think Phoenix plays
okay See, san Antonio plays the Lakers. But as long
as though those two teams can take care of business,
and San Antonio could very easily beat the Lakers. So
I don't want to sit there and pretend like that's
(45:06):
a done deal, but like would love to see the
Lakers get a shot against OKAC again in a couple
of weeks. Here as an opportunity to kind of take
that measuring stick as they've won I think like seven
in a row since that destructive blowout to Oka se
number two. The Houston Rockets currently plus nine hundred to
win the title on hard rock Bet didn't miss a
beat without KD as he missed a little bit of
(45:27):
time with a personal issue strangled Phoenix and Golden State
with their defense played Steph into one of his worst
games of the season, and set's been fantastic against just
about everybody. In that Golden State game and then in
each of the two games, high level shot creation from
one of their two young stars. In the Phoenix game
in particular, it was a men Thompson doing damage off
(45:48):
of those slot drives in those slot pick and rolls,
showing that short range shot making, getting into the seven
to ten foot range, popping up off the ground for
little floaters, hitting you know, mid range pull ups against
drop coverage, doing a ton of damage in the middle
of the floor as a play finisher and as a
play connector. Hit a corner three in that game as well,
right like dominant performance from Amn Thompson, and then in
(46:09):
the Golden State game, Reach shepperd as one of his
best games as a pro, probably his probably his very
best game as a pro to this point, thirty one points,
nine rebounds, and five assists, doing a lot of damage
to the Warriors in pick and roll. And then Kevin
Durant comes back against Utah and pours in like the
easiest twenty five points you'll ever see in a blowout win.
(46:31):
The Golden State game was funny too because Alburn Schangun
didn't have an impressive statistical game, but he had like
three or four plays where he went right at Draymond
and scored on him one on one that were just
examples of just what an absurd offensive talent Shangun continues
to demonstrate himself to be, again still in his early twenties.
Nice little three game win streak in response to the
disappointing loss to Denver from the Houston Rockets and then
(46:54):
number one the Oklahoma City Thunder currently plus one eighty
to win the title. According to hard Rock bet I
only had a couple of games against above five hundred
teams last week against Phoenix and Minnesota, and both were
actually super interesting and super competitive games. In both cases,
Shay once again just absolutely brilliant down the stretch, refusing
(47:15):
to allow his teams to lose running the offense. His
step back three is becoming a super reliable look for
him to go to at the end of games, and
he's like getting hyped on it. He's hitting these tough
step backs and he's running back to the bench showing
like a level of emotion that reveals that he very
clearly has put in a ton of work behind the
(47:36):
scenes to add that to his game. And it's literally
helping the Thunder continue to rack up wins here and
the chet Holm runs right there with him at the
end of these games making big shots. They just look
unbeatable right now. And now j dub is back so
and look, look he's been sloppy a little bit in
the early going, which is to be expected, but he's
getting to the rim like crazy in his two games
(47:57):
nineteen shot attempts at the rim, which is an exciting
continuation of the trend we saw in the second half
of last year's playoff run when he was getting to
the rim consistently. So much tougher schedule in December from
Oklahoma City, they're gonna have at least two showdowns with
San Antonio, maybe a third of the San Antonio if
the Spurs beat the Lakers. If the Lakers get them,
(48:17):
they'll get another shot against that team. A lot of
tougher games in this month, and I'm just honestly really
excited to see if they can run that gauntlet, because
they're certainly capable of it. All right, guys, It's all
I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will
be back tomorrow with some game reaction to the Monday
Night Slate. I will see you guys then,
The Volume. All right, welcome to him to night here
at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody, hop all of you
guys had an incredible weekend. You got a jam pack
(00:21):
show for you guys today. The New York Knicks won
their fourth consecutive game last night with a wire to
wire dominance of the Toronto Raptors. I want to really
zoom in on their three point shooting this year, as
they have dramatically increased their three point volume as a
big product of the work that Mike Brown has done
revamping this offense. After that, we got to talk about
(00:43):
Austin Reeves. Man. I went through an exercise thinking about
how many players in the NBA have played better basketball
than Austin Reeves to start this season, and it's a
very short list. So I want to talk a little
bit about Austin Reeves, his development, the trajector he's been on,
just how insanely good he has been this season, and
again where he would rank in the NBA if you
(01:05):
ended the season today. And then at the tail end
of the show, like we always do on Mondays, our
weekly power rankings, some new exciting teams that I want
to hit in the bottom part of the top ten.
That middle chunk of the season of standings is really fascinating.
This year's NBA standings picture has looked very different than
(01:26):
recent years. We've had a lot more bad teams, like
really bad teams at the bottom, but there's this very
very deep middle, a bunch of teams right in that
like twelve and eight kind of range that are fighting.
And so the bottom of our power rankings is going
to experience a lot of turnover week to week, but
a lot of interesting stuff to get into there. You
guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to
(01:47):
the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jcnlt
so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about
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Tonight it's always. It's also super helpful with you leave
a rating and a review. On that front, Jackson is
doing incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys keep following us
there for content throughout the season, and then we will
be back to our normal mailbag routine. This Friday, we'll
(02:10):
have a mailbag, so if you want to get questions
and the mail bags, go to our full episodes on YouTube,
going too the comments right mail bag with a colon
that helps me find the questions and we'll get to
them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. A
couple other quick notes like this video really helps us
if you could take a second, just a quick scroll down,
hit that like button, and our playback schedule for this week,
we're gonna be hitting a couple of games on the
(02:30):
Lakers road trips, so on Thursday night in Toronto and
then on Friday night a really fun one against the
Boston Celtics. So Lakers Raptors Lakers Celtics on Thursday and
Friday this week on playback. If you guys want to
come hang out, I'm gonna reach out to some guys
who cover those teams too and see if we can't
get someone to come hang out during the stream. All right,
(02:52):
let's talk some basketball. So we're gonna start with the Nicks.
They won their fourth straight game last night, again dominating
the Toronto Raptors on tailing of back to back so
that they were without Yaka Pertl, but obviously the Knicks
without Og and Nanobi. You know, I run into this
issue every single time I cover a game on here.
Everyone's like, well, this guy's out, that guy's out. Just
there's people out all the time. That's just the NBA
(03:13):
regular season, And so more often than not, these are
becoming examples and demonstrations of your team's culture from the
top down, so that you can maintain some semblance of
success with guys in and out of the lineup. And
the Knicks came out absolutely guns blazing from three. Deuce
McBride has been on a special heater over the last
few games. He's fourteen for twenty from three over his
(03:35):
last three games, hit four more of them against the Raptors.
Got hot in the first half. Josh Hart had one
of his best games of the season. Scored twenty points,
hit four threes of his own twelve rebounds, really killed
the Raptors on the offensive glass during their third quarter run.
That was kind of the story of the game in
a lot of ways. The first quarter was Knicks three
point shooting. The third quarter was Knicks offensive rebounding and
(03:58):
getting out in transition, And those were the two kind
of stretches where they assumed control and Toronto made a
couple of runs. Scotty Barnes got randomly super hot and
hit back to back to back threes in the first
half that kind of shrunk the lead. There was another
early third quarter run where Emanuel quickly got super hot
had like an eight to zero run by himself that
dragged Toronto closer. But other than that, the Knicks basically
(04:21):
completely shut down the Raptors offense. McHale Bridges did an
absolute number on brandon Ingram from the opening tip he
got to steal, chasing him over the top of the screen,
and all night long he was fighting him off the spots,
fighting him through screens, making his catches tough, attacking his base,
attacking his dribble. He looked visibly uncomfortable, had some really
(04:42):
ugly misses, had five turnovers, and again in this four
game winning streak, the Knicks have logged a one h
six defensive rating, and it really starts with that defensive
pressure on the perimeter from guys like McHale Bridges, guys
like Deuce McBride, and guys like Josh Hart. Kind of
an old school Nicks win streak. This four game streak
like playing great defense, bludgeoning teams on the offensive glass,
(05:04):
a lot of stuff that became a regular part of
the Knicks identity a few years ago. I want to
zoom in on the three point shooting though for a minute,
there was a big part of why they got their
initial separation against Toronto. Obviously there was multiple runs to
control that game, but it was a big part of
their first quarter run when they went up twenty. And
it's been a major statistical marker for the Knicks this year,
(05:25):
and I personally think it's directly connected to the job
that Mike Brown has done to revamp this offense. For
some basic stats, last year, the Knicks averaged just thirty
four to three point attempts per game that ranked twenty
seventh in the NBA. This year, the Knicks are averaging
forty one three point attempts per game, which ranks fifth
in the NBA, all while increasing their efficiency from running
(05:47):
around thirty six percent as a team to a little
over thirty seven percent, so from bottom five and three
point volume to top five, all while increasing percentage. And
this is where Mike Brown deserves a ton of credit
for changing the team's approach. There is a very intentional
effort to use drives to get the defense in rotation
(06:08):
early in possessions so that they can play drive and kick.
And it's not any just one thing, like, yes, they're
pushing in transition. More it's kind of a game to
game thing. They'll have some games where they just are
flying up and down the floor. They'll have other games
where they're a little bit more stuck in the half court.
But it's a mentality starting with those transition pushes and
then in the half court early action that gets one
(06:30):
of their players downhill. Brunson himself, and I think Brunson
deserves a lot of credit for his leadership and for
his versatility by really not just buying into this style,
but like being one of the driving forces of this style.
You know, one of those early threes for duce McBride
was just Jalen Brunson on the right side of the floor.
I think he had I think it was Scottie Barnes
(06:51):
I remember correctly, on like a transition cross match, just
a really heavy right hand drive early in the possession,
collapse of defense, kick out the duce McBride wide open,
just kind of embracing the emphasis on getting dribble penetration
early in possessions, either through transition, semi transition, or that
first action to just unlock the aggregate talent on the
(07:13):
team with their driving kick play right. As a team,
last year, they were sixteenth in drives per game. According
to NBA dot Com. They're up to seventh in drives
per game this year. More drives means more help. More
help means easier kickouts. Easier kickouts means more kickouts. More
(07:34):
kickouts means more threes. The Knicks are generating thirty five
point four spot up opportunities per game this season. That's
the second most in the entire NBA, behind the Miami Heat.
Last year they generated just twenty six point three, so
more than nine additional spot up opportunities every game compared
(07:57):
to last year. I wanted to dig into the play
type data on Synergy because I wanted to come up
with like a way of kind of expressing the difference
in the approach, the difference and the balance of the
way the Knicks are attacking on offense. So the Knicks
are shooting the ball as the primary ball handler out
of iso, pick and roll or post up situations. Three
(08:21):
point six fewer times per game than they did last year,
and instead they're generating again, we know they're generating nine
more spot ups, which is coming out of all sorts
of different types of actions. But let's zoom in on
those spot ups specifically to unguarded catch and shoot threes.
They are generating as a team an additional three point
(08:44):
one unguarded catch and shoot threes per game compared to
last year. So you're taking, you know, roughly three three
and a half one on one shot attempts and you're
turning them into three to three and a half staying
still unguarded catch and shoots. And to put it very simply,
I don't care if you have Shay or Luca on
(09:04):
your team. There isn't a one on one play in
the league that is going to be nearly as efficient
as an unguarded catch and shoe three. The Knicks as
a team are getting one point two five points per
unguarded catch and shoot attempt this season. So, to put
it very simply, the Knicks are driving the basketball more,
(09:25):
both in transition and in the half court earlier in possessions,
which is helping them to avoid as much one on
one play and it's caused them to completely flip their
shot diet from a bottom five three point volume team
to a top five three point volume team. So as
a result, I mean, this was a Knicks team last
year that had a one to seventeen point three offensive rating,
(09:47):
which was good, but this year their offensive rating is
over one twenty. This year they've gone up a level
from a very good offense to a great offense. And again,
I really they want to shout out Jalen Brunson here,
there's a lot of like, you know, narrative and like
this is the truth. Like the way they were playing
(10:08):
in the past was a lot of Jalen Brunson kind
of dribbling the air out of the basketball. It's not
his fault, just the way the team was put together
and the way that they were playing under Tom Thibodeaux. Right,
But it wasn't a Brunson problem. It was a style problem.
And what Brunson has shown is that he can still
put up the numbers that were accustomed to him putting
(10:29):
up while also playing and buying into this style which
empowers the rest of the group and generates better quality
shots and scores more points per one hundred possessions. This
is a simple stat to demonstrate this. Jalen Brown out
of an ISO, drove and kicked to a player to
knock down a three just fifteen times all season last year.
(10:53):
He's done it eleven times already this year. That's again
sequences like that early kick out to Douce McBride just
beat his man off the dribble draw and help make
the kick pass early in the clock. Brunson has been
not just buying in but a driving force behind the
success of this new offensive approach. Some other good news
(11:15):
for Knicks fans Kat starting to get his footing. Another
nice game from him yesterday, averaging twenty four points and
eleven rebounds in his last eight games. And again, these
four straight wins have moved the Knicks up to number
two in the Eastern Conference, and with Cleveland faltering, I mean,
as you look out at the East, my issues with
(11:35):
the Knicks were things all that over the last couple
of years that put me below teams like Cleveland, or
below teams like Boston, although they ended up beating Boston
as we know. But as Cleveland is faltered, and it
doesn't appear to be like there's this clear best team
in the Eastern Conference. As you start to look around
(11:56):
Orlando pretty young, you know they've improved as a jump
shooting team. Not great, Detroit young, mistake prone, turns the
ball over a lot, Cleveland obviously not looking like the
juggernaut they were last year. You could make the case
that the Knicks are the safest bet out in the
Eastern Conference. With the way things are shaping up out there,
so really really impressive stretch of basketball out in New York,
(12:21):
it's time to have a serious conversation about the player
that Austin Reeves has become in the league. There has
been this incremental improvement with Austin ever since he entered
the league. But the thing is is, every time you
think he's reached his ceiling, you look up and somehow
he's even better yet again. Started with him being kind
(12:44):
of just a capable off ball score, a guy that
could knock down a catching shoot three, drive a close out,
you know, make a playoff the bounce, paying like essentially
benefiting from the attention that Lebron and ad drew. Right
then he started to flash some higher level bucket getting
like a crazy move in the mid range for a
pull up jump shot that would make a highlight reel.
(13:06):
Really started to showcase his ability to get defenders out
of position and get to the foul line. Then there
was Game one against Memphis three years ago down the stretch.
The Lakers were like, you run the offense, spread, pick
and roll, and he closed a playoff game and he
did it. You know, you guys remember screaming I'm him
at the top of his lungs to the rafters as
he literally won a playoff game for the Lakers. Then
(13:28):
you look up and he had eight twenty point games
in that single playoff runt. Then JJ makes him the
starting point guard and it wasn't perfect at first, but
he just kept getting better at it. And then suddenly,
by the middle of last season, he looks like a
bona fide running mate alongside Lebron James and the Lakers
were winning consistently. Then naturally started to get some opportunities
(13:50):
to run the show, whether it was like Luca and
Lebron out last year against the Pacers and he goes
for forty five, seven and seven in a win, or
that road game in Denver which the Lakers ended up losing,
but they were right there. Dan thirty seven points, eight rebounds,
and thirteen assists for Austin in that game. But then again,
doing it every now and then is you know, when
(14:13):
you're surprising teams and you haven't been scouted really all
that well, that's very different from doing it every single night.
Austin is a known commodity. People know that he can hoop.
There is a game plan. Ball pressure him right, try
to rush him with physicality and ball pressure right, like
teams know what to do with him now. And yet
(14:33):
this year, regardless of circumstance, night after night, Austin is
frying everybody in the NBA, No Lebron and Luca. He's
got a forty point game and a fifty point game
this year, getting wins alongside Luca, consistent production alongside Lebron
and Luca. He's played four games with both of them
(14:55):
so far this season. How about twenty nine points per
game on six sixty three percent from the field, forty
two percent from three to ninety two percent from the line.
This is too large of his sample's eyes for us
to ignore anymore, and it's all in a winning context.
Last year, over his last thirty two regular season games,
(15:17):
he averaged a super efficient twenty three points per game,
and the Lakers went twenty one and eleven in those games.
This year twenty nine points, six rebounds, seven assists, sixty
eight percent true shooting for a game. That is for
a team that is currently a half game back of
the second best record in the NBA, and he surgically consistent.
(15:41):
Guess how many times this year Austin hasn't scored twenty
points in sixteen tries once the OKC game. Every other
game he has at least twenty. The shot making is
outrageous seventy five percent at the rim, which is just
stupid for a guard of his build. Four makes per game,
(16:02):
which is thirty sixth in the entire NBA as a guard,
fourteen for eighteen on floaters. One of those was a
game winner. And again, as I've talked, one of the
most important, like pivotal pieces for this Lakers team and
their big picture goals are him knocking down unguarded catch
and shoot threes. He's been deadly on the catch and
(16:23):
shoot threes. In the last week. He's up to forty
six percent this season on unguarded catch and shoots, which,
as we know, was the major weakness that he showed
in the Timberwolve series in particular, and one of the
crazy things is he's not just scoring the basketball. He
showcased extremely high level playmaking ability, especially in the games
(16:44):
where Lebron is out or Luca as well. He can
scale up his shot creation as a passer. His three
games this year with at least eleven assists. You know
how many players in the NBA this season are averaging
at least twenty eight points per game and at least
six and a halfphecists seven total, Lukasha, Giannis Jokich. You're
(17:05):
mount rushmore of the NBA currently, Kay Cunningham, Tyre Smaxy,
and Austin Reeves. That's it. That's the end of the list.
And he's doing it next to Luca in lower usage.
His playtype data is off the charts. There are twenty
two players in the NBA this year to have run
(17:25):
at least two hundred pick and rolls including passes. Austin's
getting one point one seven points per possession. That's second
in the entire NBA at high volume, even ahead of Luca.
Inefficiency there, and he's an incredibly well rounded player. I
was listening to the Laker film room podcast over this
weekend and shout out to Pete and Darius. I think
(17:46):
they do amazing work. And Darius was making a point
comparing Austin to guys like Jimmy Butler, guys who came
up in the league more as role players and then
became stars, essentially forcing them to become well rounded players.
They had to be good at on and off ball defense.
They had to be good rebounders, they had to have
(18:07):
strong fundamentals on the glass. They had to have an
overall willingness to scrap because that's how they stayed on
the floor early in their career. And I think Darius
is dead on with that. Austin isn't like some of
these other high scoring players at the top of the
league who give up a good amount of their production
on the margins. Around the floor. He can guard, He
(18:30):
always knows where to be in the scheme. He rebounds
well for his size. He has some athletic limitations and
they can show up situationally here and there. But because
he's scrapped so hard and because he's got such strong fundamentals,
I think he's overwhelmingly a positive player on the margins.
As a consistent motor plays super hard. This is very
(18:52):
simply one of the best basketball players in the world
right now. I was thinking about it this morning. How
many players in the NBA are playing better basketball than
Austin Reeves right now. So take reputation and set it
aside and just zoom in on this season. Everyone's anonymous
who's playing better basketball than Austin Reeves. The top tier guys,
(19:14):
right Luka sha jokichianis got to put them up there,
the up and coming superstars. Cade's been better. I think
Wemb's been better, Anthony Edwards has been better. Some of
the established guys. Donovan Mitchell has been excellent this season.
Steph Curry still is still with all of the shit
happening with Golden State, the Warriors have a one to
nineteen offensive rating with Steph Curry on the floor per
(19:35):
cleaning the glass, just insane advantage creation still to this day.
After that, though, it's a whole lot of guys that
you would only put over Austin due to their reputation,
Like Austin has been flat out better to start this
season than guys like Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brown, James Harden,
(19:59):
Devin Booker, Kawhi Leonard. Now, to be clear, that doesn't
mean anything with respect to those guys. Those guys have
extended track records of success. It's only been sixteen games.
No one's about to shake up the hierarchy of the league.
I'm just saying Austin has been the tenth best player
in the entire NBA this season through sixteen games. Now
(20:21):
he'll have to maintain that for years in order to
get that established reputation that some of those other guys have.
And yeah, if you ask me, like, do i think
when we get to June that I'm gonna view Austin
as the tenth best player in the NBA. Probably not.
I think he's gonna land somewhere below that, probably somewhere
in that, like, you know, twelve to twenty range, right,
(20:43):
depending on how well he's able to maintain this level
of play. But this is just a truly remarkable development
an NBA star who's currently playing firmly at the level
of a star, and it gives the Lakers a solid
(21:05):
foundation for their future. You have a player in Luca
who's competing for the title of best player in the
world currently, and now you have a bona fide all
NBA caliber running mate that compliments him perfectly. Now, I'll
admit part of me is a bit scarred by the
Minnesota Series. Austin wasn't good in that series. It was
(21:26):
a big part of how the Lakers ended up getting
dominated the way they did, and ultimately Austin will have
to carry that with him until he can get another
shot in this year's postseason. That's the burden of being
as good as he is. He's so good now that
he can have fifty points in a regular season game
and everyone goes like, that's awesome, Let's see you do
it when we get to April. That is the burden
(21:48):
of the expectation that comes with being viewed as a
guy who is a potential All NBA level player. But
I would just bet on this guy figuring things out.
He just keeps getting better and there isn't any sign
of him slowing down. All right, let's get into our
power rankings and again, all of our lines here, our
(22:08):
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in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia
number ten to start the list today, The Orlando Magic
currently plus four thousand to win the title per hard
Rock Bet, they're eleven and four. Since they're one in four,
start starting to rack up some really impressive wins. To
a win against a red hot Pistons team, a complete
(23:59):
and utter distry production of the seventy six ers, fueled
by their defense, just like strangling Philly in the second
quarter as they ran away with that game. Wins against
the Knicks, wins against the Clippers, wins against the Warriors,
and in that fifteen game span. This is easily the
most exciting development of this era of Orlando basketball. They
have a one to twenty offensive rating in this fifteen
(24:20):
game span. They're moving the ball like they never have
before in the last few years. Sixty four percent of
their makes have been assisted. In this fifteen game span,
they're making thirty six percent of their threes. Now, that
may seem like a mediocre number, and it is. It
was like sixteenth in the league over that span. But
let's not forget this was quite literally the very worst
(24:42):
jump shooting team in the entire NBA by a mile
last year. So average is an exciting development in that context.
It's fueled by some leaps from some key players. Tristan
to Silva in his second year, has become a over
forty percent from three type of guy. Wendell Carter Junior
shooting a career high forty five percent from three. Anthony
(25:02):
Black has been shooting it much better as of late.
Jet Howard is hitting forty percent. So they're moving the
ball better than ever and they're paying off more of
those sequences with makes than they ever have before. That's
breeding the one to twenty offensive rating, all while maintaining
the physical dominance that made them so dangerous even when
(25:23):
their offense was limited. Top five in defense, top five
in defensive rebounding over this fifteen game span, and eighth
in offensive rebounding, so really controlling the physicality areas of
the game. I want to zoom in on Anthony Black
for a second. His explosion this season into like a
really devastating two way weapon adds yet another layer of
(25:45):
talent to this team that is already so difficult to
deal with. He's a wrecking ball on defense. In the
Detroit game, did an incredible job on Ky Cunningham, like
legitimately frustrated him, made him look really uncomfortable. Was a
bit part of the eight turnovers they forced him into.
He's got super long arms while also maintaining the strength
so he can absorb the bump, while then also getting
(26:08):
his arm around and attacking the basketball, getting deflections, disrupting
the pocket, disrupting rhythm. He's a really really gifted defensive player,
and he's become a real offensive weapon to counter that.
He's constantly beating teams down the floor in transition for dunks,
just out running people and just you know, has that
(26:28):
vertical pop off two feet and off one foot that
can make him really devastating in the open floor. He's
hitting his open corner threes, especially out of the left
corner this year fifty four percent out of that left corner.
And the on ball stuff. It's not super efficient yet,
but he keeps showing little bits of upside there, like
a crafty drive all the way to the basket, or
(26:50):
like a little floater in the mid range after he
beats a defender over the top of the screen. In action.
It's the kind of like development trajectory that makes you
feel much better if you have to start shedding salary.
And if you look at the Magic's cap sheet, it's
it is. There's a lot of guys who make a
lot of money in there. Someone's gonna get squeezed at
some point here. And you know, let's say, for instance,
(27:13):
you want to move off of a guy like Jalen Suggs,
and Jalen Suggs it's a mixed bag with him, like
the Pistons games classic example, just can't make a shot
all game, but then like makes the pivotal stretch of
the game there in the mid fourth that puts Orlando
up ten, like hits a pull up three, goes down
and gets a steal, hits a pull up three, all
of a sudden, you're like, holy shit, this game looks
(27:34):
very different now. Jalen Suggs still has a lot of talent,
but like, if you had to lose a guy like
Jalen Suggs for salary purposes, you become a lot more
comfortable with that with the development trajectory of a guy
like Anthony Black, especially in the context of having Desmond
Bane as that shooter, since Jalen Suggs was so often
used as that kind of inverted screening partner for Orlando's
(27:55):
big forwards. One last thing, I I know there's this
tendency to jump on the Palo Bancaro like shit talk
fest after the team once again looks great when he's out,
But there are a lot of things that the team
is doing that they started doing when Palo was there,
and they were playing good in that last couple of
(28:18):
weeks before Palo got hurt, and ultimately I think he
can only help this situation as he comes back, So
I wouldn't view this success as some sort of like,
you know, retroactive evaluation of Palo. I didn't like the
way he started the year. I thought he was really
bad in that first couple of weeks. He has been
a contributed or some of their offensive issues over time,
(28:40):
But ultimately I do think he'll buy in when he
comes back, and I want to see what this looks
like with him integrated into the system. In short, though,
a lot of the reasons that I was excited about
with Orlando before the season are coming to fruition. But
it's also coming with this added layer of them being
much better on offense than I expected them to be.
Definitely consider them to be not on the top tier
(29:02):
with obviously the Denver OKSE Houston set out west, but
in that Eastern Conference, I view them as every bit
as good as the other teams at the top of
the conference, like New York, like Cleveland, and like Detroit.
Number nine. The Atlanta Hawks currently plus six thousand to
win the title on hard Rock Bet. Another casual forty one,
fourteen and seven for Jalen Johnson last night in double
(29:25):
overtime in a win over the seventy six ers. Ice
the game with back to back catch and shoot threes,
one off the left wing and one kind of the
high part of the right corner. The Hawks, you know
they've kind of figured out this little offensive sequence that
they can run at the end of games. They've been
a very good late game offense this year. As a
matter of fact, they've been the sixth best clutch offense
in the NBA to start the season, getting a one
(29:47):
to seventeen offensive rating. And basically what they figured out
is and Dakil Alexander Walker, who's really developed into a
decent little pick and role player for them. That's kind
of helped fill the void of having Trey Young out right.
But they can run action, whether it's you know, a
ball screen with a Congou and Nikiel with Jalen spacing
(30:08):
on the opposite wing where teams like to dig down
and he can hit a shot. It's basically what happened
on his first DAG or three last night, or three
man action where all three of them are involved. But
because in Congou and Jalen Johnson are both shooting the
ball better from three, they can pop out of those actions.
Nikkeil can get all the way to the basket and
he can make the passing raads out of it. They've
got a nice little action that they can run at
(30:29):
the end of games that is giving them some success.
Jalen Johnson is now up to twenty three points, ten rebounds,
and seven assists per game for the season. It's not
a short run, that's the entire season. Fifty four percent
from the field, forty percent from three, sixty three percent
true shooting. The team is defending well, continuing to force
(30:50):
turnovers and get out and transition, and as we mentioned,
they have a little bit of a half court set
that they can get into to just you know, give
them some high floor on the offensive end of the floor.
Are really really exciting basketball coming out of Atlanta. A
big showdown with the Pistons in Detroit tonight gonna be
an interesting challenge for them. Number eight, the Boston Celtics
(31:12):
currently plus seventy five hundred to win the title on
hard Rock Bet. They are seven to three in their
last ten games. Some big wins wins against the Cavs,
wins against the Pistons, two against the Orlando Magic. In
that span. The story has been offense. They have a
one twenty two offensive rating in those ten games, third
best mark in the entire NBA over that ten game span.
(31:34):
Jalen Brown has been fantastic, fueled by a deadly mid
range pull up. He's making a league best three mid
range jump shots per game to start this season. He's
the This was actually really surprising to me, you know,
because we think of Shay and KD as the guys
that are typically at the top of this list. But
Jalen's the only player in the NBA this year to
(31:55):
be making at least two mid range jump shots per
game and shooting over fifty percent on them. He's at
fifty one point seven percent. I was surprised. Shay's only
at forty nine percent from mid range and Kevin Durant
is at forty seven percent from mid range according to
NBA dot Com tracking data, so both down a little
bit from where they usually are. But Jalen Brown number
(32:15):
one on that list. He's getting to the rim more
often than he did last year and hitting a higher percentage.
I think he's up from about four rim attempts makes
per game to four and a half and he's up
over sixty percent at the rim this year when he
was below sixty percent last year. We were wondering what
it would look like with Jalen Brown moving to the
top of the scouting report, and how about over twenty
(32:36):
eight points per game on fifty eight percent for shooting
some really really impressive stuff from Jalen Brown. Derek White
and Peyton Pritchard had both found an ice grouve. Peyton
Pritchard was the hero yesterday in the winning Cleveland forty
two points, and then Derek was the hero in the
Pistons game and a massive second half at like fourteen
something like that in the third quarter, hit a bunch
of pull up threes and then hit a couple of
(32:57):
huge threes late in the game. Ended icing that, icing
that one in crunch time. Again, Like Derek White loves
those little kind of switch interchange threes, right, so like
he comes off of like a guard guard screen or
any type of screen, and as the team is switching,
there's like this gap right as the on ball defender
kind of drops back to try to get inside position
(33:17):
to avoid any sort of issue with a slip, and
then the screening defender, you know, closes out to the
shooter and there's a gap in that interchange. And Derek
White loves taking that pull up three right in that gap.
Hit a bunch of those in the Pistons games. He's
really started to find a groove. We also had one
of Baylor Shireman's best games as a pro in the
Pistons game. In particular, he's scoring out of the corner,
(33:39):
hitting catch and shoot threes, driving closeouts, hit a nice
little turnaround over his left shoulder when he got cut
off on a drive in there. Celtics are really starting
to reach a nice groove on the offensive end of
the floor. Nothing dramatically impressive on the margins. They're a
little bit better in their defensive rebounding than they were
to start the season. It's not like they're winning game
(34:00):
with defense that are winning games on the glass. They're
just running extremely high level offense and starting to convert
some of these clutch games into wins that they were
dropping early in the season. The Celtics are playing some
really good basketball. Number seven the Denver Nuggets currently plus
five hundred to win the title on hard Rock Bet.
(34:20):
They are just four and three in their last seven games.
Dropped another really frustrating one against the Spurs in a
game where they really struggled to deal with San Antonio's guards,
handling the dribble penetration from Deeran Fox, who picked them
apart as a passer in that game, and then Devin Vessel,
who burned them all night long with those winging threes
off the catch, kept like igniting these quick burst runs
(34:41):
by just hitting a couple of them and burned them
late in the game with a couple more that ended
up giving San Antonio six point lead late that they
did not give up. Big win for San Antonio, But
Denver has a one twenty two point four defensive rating
in that seven game span. Really starting to feel the
loss of Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown on the defensive
(35:02):
end of the floor, and you know, I think they're
capable of defending better than they have been with the
guys that are stepping into those spots. It's a team
wide little bit of slippage there compared to where they
were to start the season. On the bright side, though,
Nikola jokicch and Jamal Murray continue to look literally as
good as they've ever been. Jamal Murray's been on an
absolute heater as of late, and then Cam Johnson, like
(35:26):
over the last couple of weeks, he's been a dependably
good scorer for them, has really found a groove, especially
as a three point shooter, is just really confidently stepping
into that three point shot. He's been hitting like well
over half of them over the course of the last
couple of weeks. And that's again the bright spot I
d if you're looking at a statistical marker, that shows
that Denver's upside is still there. They have a one
(35:48):
twenty six offensive rating in that seven game span despite
them going just four and three. So again, figure out
a way to get some more stops and they'll be
in much better shape. Number six. The San Antonio Spurs
currently plus five thousand to win the title according to
(36:11):
hard Rock Bett. As before mentioned the incredible game from
Devin Vesselle. It's beat Denver, but I want to assume
it on Darren Fox here for a minute. So Wemby
goes down seven games ago, Steph Cassel goes down six
games ago, and in that seven game span the Spurs
are five and two, and Darren Fox is the biggest
reason why, s averaging twenty six points and seven assists
(36:32):
of forty nine percent from the field and thirty nine
percent from three in that seven game span, and he
is just killing teams with his dribble penetration. I always
think he's been a little bit of an underrated passer
he's very good at reading that lowman and making the
skip pass, which is like that pass that is like
there for the taking for most NBA passers, but just
a lot of guys don't see it or they're athletically
(36:54):
incapable of making the pass. But if you can skip
the ball against an engaged lowman, you can just rate
some really high level close out opportunities which are either
going to give you wide open catch and shoot threes
or opportunities for guys to drive closeouts. The driving of
those closeouts can even further compromise the defense. You can
all sorts of really good stuff out of those, right,
but you have to have a guard who can drive
(37:15):
the basketball well enough to effectively engage the low man,
or shoot the ball well enough to effectively bring the
big up to the level, which then engages the low man,
right some sort of scoring dynamic in pick and roll
that will bring that third defender over, but also have
the ability to make the kickout passes that get the
defense in rotation. Darren Fox has run one hundred and
(37:36):
seventy pick and rolls this year, including passes, and he's
generating one hundred and ninety seven points in those one
hundred and seventy pick and rolls. That's one point one
six points per possession. That's extremely good. Devin Ifsel has
been fantastic. Keldon Johnson has been excellent in this run
as well. They continue to be just very athletically imposing,
(37:57):
like they can be very good defensively when they need
because they can just ratchet up with their physicality on
the perimeter. That's helped them win a couple of close
games in this stretch. They're doing damage and transition. Luke
Cornett is back and playing extremely well. Really just a
super impressive stretch of basketball considering the injuries from the
San Antonio Spurs. And I will freely admit we're going
(38:18):
to do an episode at some point over the course
the next couple weeks where I kind of look at
all of my preseason predictions and there are things that
I have been dead on right about. There have been
things that I've been extremely wrong about, and I will
freely admit I was wrong about this Spurs team before
the season. I really underestimated the talent on this roster.
A couple of key leaps from a couple of key
(38:39):
younger guys getting this level of play out of Deer
and Fox. How good Victor webin Yama looked before we
got hurt. How wonderful the Luke Cornett fit has been,
the contributions from key role players like Julian Champagne and
Harrison Barnes. This is a very good basketball team. And
I mean, if they're going to go five and two
with Wemby and Steph Castle down, we would all be
(39:01):
foolish to think that they're just going to suddenly dip
down into being a five hundred basketball team at some point.
They look like one of those established perennial contenders out
in the West already. I was wrong about the Spurs
coming into this season. Number five. The New York Knicks
currently plus seventeen fifty to win the title on Hard
Rock Bet. Not going to spend too much time here
(39:22):
because we just had a Nick segment earlier in the show.
So if you want to hear more Knicks, just go
to our full episode on YouTube. And it's actually our
opening segment in this one. But the Knicks have one
four in a row. The offenses look fantastic. They're generating
way more threes this year with an emphasis on driving
the ball early in possessions transition semi transition that first
action starting those driving kick sequences to unlock their driving
(39:44):
kick talent, of which they have plenty on the roster.
McHale Bridges has spearheaded an impressive stretch of defense in
that span as well guarding the ball again. If you
want to hear more Nicks go earlier in the episode
number four. The Detroit Pistons currently plus twenty five hundred
to win the title on hard Rock. I bet a
couple of tough losses to the Celtics and the magic
turnovers and points allowed off of turnovers were the real
(40:06):
issues in both of those games. Boston also had some
success attacking Duncan Robinson in action late in that game.
Just something to keep an eye on as they get
into some potential playoff circumstances, but a really nice bounce
back win in Miami against the Heat, similarly doing some
damage attacking Tyler Harrow in action. I've watched a lot
of Pistons in the last week as their schedule has
gotten tougher, and I've landed on them being completely legit
(40:30):
as one of the top tier teams in the East. Again,
none of those teams I view in the same tier
as Denver, Houston, Okasee. But in that group there at
the top of the east, Orlando, New York, Cleveland. To me,
Detroit is right up there with them. Kate is only
going to continue to get better. He's obviously had issues
finishing at the rim and had issues with turnovers. Turnovers
(40:50):
were a big problem in the Orlando games. He struggled
with Anthony Black and just some of the swarming that
Orlando was doing. But overall, all those reps are just
going to continue to make Kaid better. There's this idea
that Kaid's like not going to be able to become
a better rim finisher. I watched him on tape and
I see a lot of layups that I think he
can make, and so I get it that it's a
(41:11):
very large sample size of him not being very good
at that. But ultimately it's just to me, he's just
there's like a like just a little bit of slowing
down that he needs to do when he gets all
the way to the rim, where I think he's kind
of rushing stuff and fumbling the basketball a little bit,
And that stuff is going to come as he gets
more and more comfortable with every single type of coverage
that he sees, so like, I ultimately view him as
(41:33):
a guy that's going to be a better than that
type of rim finisher. Like I think he's going to
be able to get up around sixty percent at the
rim as the years go by and the turnovers those are, Like,
he's facing a lot of aggressive coverages this year. That's
more stuff that he's just going to get more reps
dealing with and get better at diagnosing and beating those
types of coverages. And then looking at the team, they're big,
(41:54):
they're physical, they play super hard, They're built for that
postseason environment where you have to be physical. I just
am a believer in this Pistons team. Cade's last eleven
games thirty three points, seven rebounds in nine assists number
three the Los Angeles Lakers currently plus fourteen hundred to
win the title according to hard Rock Bet. We hit
(42:15):
them in the early part of the show as well,
So I'm not going to spend too much time here,
but we focused on Austin, So I briefly wanted to
bring up this kind of hilarious trend that we've seen
over the course of their last few games and something
that's become kind of part of their progression in games
throughout the year. So Luca will come out in the
opening quarter and he'll just abuse whatever the opening scheme is.
And sometimes he's facing doubles. We saw the Dallas game,
(42:36):
they like doubled him behind half court literally right off
of the jump ball. But like, and he's been facing
a ton of double teams, but there's been a lot
of these like first quarters where he's coming out and
he's just looking to score relentlessly. As a matter of fact,
he's averaging thirteen first quarter points this year, which is
far and away the most in the NBA. And what
he's doing is he's like making a point at proving
(42:59):
early in the game, your main on ball guy can't
guard me, and if you cover me in a two
on two pick and roll, I'm gonna pick you apart
scoring the basketball. And then what happens is, like the
rest of the game, he's getting blitzed and doubled all
over the place. And so then the Lakers are just
playing four on three when Luca's on the floor for
(43:20):
like three quarters every single game. And so you know,
it was a little sloppy early in the year, but
with each passing game. They're just getting a little bit
better at it right, Like they're not rolling too hard
out of blitzes and creating turnover situations where Luca has
to make a long pass. They're short rolling in the
short roles. Guys are making reads. Jackson's been fantastic with
(43:40):
it all season. DeAndre Ayton had another monster game last night.
DeAndre Ayden is getting better at those little reads in
the middle of the floor. They're paying off the sequences
on the kickouts. They missed a lot of good looks
last night too. Jake Lreva had a nightmare night struggling
to knock down the wide open kickout threes. But they're
getting good looks out of those sequences consistently, a lot
of opportunity for guys like Lebron and Austin to attack
(44:02):
with an advantage out of those four on threes, and again,
they're gonna just continue to get reps there, similar to
what we were talking about with Detroit, because ultimately the
Lakers have to beat Oklahoma City. That's their their big,
you know, goal, the big measuring stick that they have
to reach at some point this season, right, And what
is okayc gonna do they're gonna blitz, they're gonna double,
(44:24):
they're gonna pressure the ball, they're gonna try to speed
you up. And the more reps that the Lakers get
against blitzes and doubles and aggressive coverages throughout the season,
the better chance they're gonna have to navigate that Okay
Oklahoma City problem when they get there. I personally am
very glad that the Lakers and the Thunder ended up
making it to the nd season Tournament. I did not
(44:44):
want to wait till February to see Oka See versus
the Lakers again. If the Lakers can take care of
business against Phoenix, and if oka See can take care
of business, I think against San Antonio if I remember correctly,
or there might be inverted. Actually I think Phoenix plays
okay See, san Antonio plays the Lakers. But as long
as though those two teams can take care of business,
and San Antonio could very easily beat the Lakers. So
I don't want to sit there and pretend like that's
(45:06):
a done deal, but like would love to see the
Lakers get a shot against OKAC again in a couple
of weeks. Here as an opportunity to kind of take
that measuring stick as they've won I think like seven
in a row since that destructive blowout to Oka se
number two. The Houston Rockets currently plus nine hundred to
win the title on hard rock Bet didn't miss a
beat without KD as he missed a little bit of
(45:27):
time with a personal issue strangled Phoenix and Golden State
with their defense played Steph into one of his worst
games of the season, and set's been fantastic against just
about everybody. In that Golden State game and then in
each of the two games, high level shot creation from
one of their two young stars. In the Phoenix game
in particular, it was a men Thompson doing damage off
(45:48):
of those slot drives in those slot pick and rolls,
showing that short range shot making, getting into the seven
to ten foot range, popping up off the ground for
little floaters, hitting you know, mid range pull ups against
drop coverage, doing a ton of damage in the middle
of the floor as a play finisher and as a
play connector. Hit a corner three in that game as well,
right like dominant performance from Amn Thompson, and then in
(46:09):
the Golden State game, Reach shepperd as one of his
best games as a pro, probably his probably his very
best game as a pro to this point, thirty one points,
nine rebounds, and five assists, doing a lot of damage
to the Warriors in pick and roll. And then Kevin
Durant comes back against Utah and pours in like the
easiest twenty five points you'll ever see in a blowout win.
(46:31):
The Golden State game was funny too because Alburn Schangun
didn't have an impressive statistical game, but he had like
three or four plays where he went right at Draymond
and scored on him one on one that were just
examples of just what an absurd offensive talent Shangun continues
to demonstrate himself to be, again still in his early twenties.
Nice little three game win streak in response to the
disappointing loss to Denver from the Houston Rockets and then
(46:54):
number one the Oklahoma City Thunder currently plus one eighty
to win the title. According to hard Rock bet I
only had a couple of games against above five hundred
teams last week against Phoenix and Minnesota, and both were
actually super interesting and super competitive games. In both cases,
Shay once again just absolutely brilliant down the stretch, refusing
(47:15):
to allow his teams to lose running the offense. His
step back three is becoming a super reliable look for
him to go to at the end of games, and
he's like getting hyped on it. He's hitting these tough
step backs and he's running back to the bench showing
like a level of emotion that reveals that he very
clearly has put in a ton of work behind the
(47:36):
scenes to add that to his game. And it's literally
helping the Thunder continue to rack up wins here and
the chet Holm runs right there with him at the
end of these games making big shots. They just look
unbeatable right now. And now j dub is back so
and look, look he's been sloppy a little bit in
the early going, which is to be expected, but he's
getting to the rim like crazy in his two games
(47:57):
nineteen shot attempts at the rim, which is an exciting
continuation of the trend we saw in the second half
of last year's playoff run when he was getting to
the rim consistently. So much tougher schedule in December from
Oklahoma City, they're gonna have at least two showdowns with
San Antonio, maybe a third of the San Antonio if
the Spurs beat the Lakers. If the Lakers get them,
(48:17):
they'll get another shot against that team. A lot of
tougher games in this month, and I'm just honestly really
excited to see if they can run that gauntlet, because
they're certainly capable of it. All right, guys, It's all
I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you
guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will
be back tomorrow with some game reaction to the Monday
Night Slate. I will see you guys then,
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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