Jason reacts to a fun Thursday night NBA slate including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander making history to break Wilt Chamberlain’s consecutive 20-point game streak in a fun OKC Thunder win over Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray leading the Denver Nuggets to a win over the San Antonio Spurs without Victor Wembanyama, and Luka Doncic scoring 51 points in a Los Angeles Lakers win over the Chicago Bulls in the return of LeBron James.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, well go to him tonight here
at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you
guys are having a great end to your week.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have a jam pack show for you guys. Today.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We were originally gonna do contender rankings, but we looked
at the slate and the slate was insane. We get
a Celtic's Thunder show down, we have a Nugget Spurs showdown. Luka,
Doncic goes for fifty one points. I wanted to focus
on some games this morning instead, so Jackson and I
took a look at the calendar and next Tuesday night
as the next time. We have like a relatively weak slate.
So next Wednesday we'll have our contender rankings. I'm really
(00:46):
kind of parsing out which teams and which tiers. I'm
really gonna start to refine it into some smaller tiers.
We're gonna talk a little bit about that in today's show.
So Contender rankings moving to next Wednesday. Today, we're gonna
hit Celtics Thunder, Nugget Spur as well as Lakers Bowls.
And again I'm sorry about my voice, guys, bear with me.
I'm finally starting to feel better from this flu, but
(01:08):
of course it's got the lingering effects that I'll be
dealing with for a little while. You guys are the
job before we got started. Subscribe to the Hoops Sent
Out YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos.
Make sure you like this video and sign up for
post notifications. That helps us a lot in the last
but not at least if you do want to get
in mail back questions. No mail bag this week, obviously
under the circumstances, but we'll have one next Friday, so
drop them in the comments and we'll get to them
(01:28):
on Fridays throughout the rest of the season.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So Celtics Thunder a showdown of two of the most
impressive organizations in the NBA right now, front offices with
an extended track record of not only having a basketball
philosophy that they believe in that is consistent, but finding
quality talent at every level of the draft and even
in free agency around the league to find players that
(01:52):
fit into that basketball philosophy. Elite head coaches. I was
texting with Jackson after the or during the game yesterday.
Omasoula in particular is entering into a discussion for me
with like, I think you could absolutely make the case
that he's the best coach in the league in terms
of the level of detail that he's built into their
driving kick offense and the kinds of the kinds of
(02:15):
buying that he gets from his players and executing that
offense as well as defending the way that they defend.
I just think Missoula is amazing. Mark Degnold is also
an amazing coach.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
In this league.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And then talented rosters that are bought in to the
goal of what the team is trying to accomplish. It's
a synergy throughout the organization that has manifested in those
crazy net ratings that we've talked about. You know that,
Like when you list all the players in the league
that have the top net ratings, it's a bunch of
Celtics and Thunder players. And I think it has a
(02:46):
lot to do with that culture from the top down
in these organizations. The defensive intensity for both teams was
immediately apparent in this one. At any given moment, there
were like a half dozen awesome defensive players on the floor.
The level of ball pressure, the speed on the perimeter,
and rotation, the way the teams were executing their schemes
(03:06):
on both ends, the force really really high level basketball.
I really really enjoyed watching this game. I think it's
a Finals preview potentially as well. Like if you were
to ask a random group of one hundred people what
their five most likely potential Finals matchups would be, I'm
pretty sure this one would make the list for everyone.
And I was trying to do a deep dive in
it with that as the focus. The Celtics put up
(03:28):
a hell of a fight without Tatum and without Derek
White obviously, the thunder Down a couple of key players
as well Isah Hartenstein and Jalen Williams. Boston's Wings did
a fantastic job keeping the game close with their corner
crash crashes. They won a lot of fifty to fifty balls,
getting to like long rebounds, things along those lines. The
Celtics had a twenty three to thirteen second chance points
(03:50):
advantage in this battle, and that's one thing that we
have seen, like especially when you have bigger athletes, and
you know, when we're talking about Baylor Shireman, when we're
talking about Jordan Walls or Hugo Gonzalez like there's a
lot of like taller, bigger types of perimeter players than
what Oklahoma City has, and so when even when both
(04:10):
teams are playing really hard, Boston is gonna get to
a lot of those fifty to fifty balls with the
types of athletes that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
On the floor.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That twenty three to thirteen second chance points advantage was
a big thing that made up for the gap in
the efficiency between like Jylen Brown and Shake kild As Alexander,
for example. I didn't think Jalen had the most efficient
game ever. That's obvious, but that's not really his game.
Like he's never been a sixty percent true shooting player
at any point in his NBA career.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He's a volume score.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
He gets him up, And I thought he did a
great job against Oklahoma City last night of attacking with physicality,
like okay, see, he did a really nice job of
avoiding precarious switches they were fighting through screens. They did
some pre switching too, or like they'd be attacking a
defender but then like a third defender would come in
and switch on to Jalen instead, And so he ended
up getting a lot of like Lou Dort and Alex
Caruso on an island, and like somehow Jalen just kept
(04:59):
plow going through those guys to get to his spots.
It honestly was a super impressive and casual reminder that
Jalen is an APEX athlete amongst APEX athletes.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I said this on the show before. Jason Tatum is
a more.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Complete offensive player than Jalen, but Jalen is an absolute
monster to handle one on one on an island, and
he might be like substantially better than Tatum in that
regard and one of the best players in the league
specifically at that skill. And again, like you're talking about big,
strong defenders in Lou Dort and Alex Cruz, so in Jalen.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I talk about this a lot on drives.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You know you're not going to cleanly beat great defenders
typically anyway, but you get a defender very slightly out
of position, it becomes like a shoulder leverage contest. I'm driving,
if I'm driving left, I'm dropping that right shoulder. I'm
trying to get lower than you and I'm trying to
blow through that gap. And if I'm the defender as
I'm sliding, same exact thing. I'm trying to hold this
shoulder as best as I can to stop you from
(05:59):
turning the corner, and Jalen was just blowing through that
shoulder and like getting to where he needed again. It
was the most efficient thing in the world. And there
were a lot of like plays where you thought Jalen
was like hunting for contact in there and wasn't getting calls.
But like, I was just impressed generally by how physically
aggressive Jalen was and how successful he was getting to
(06:19):
his spots. Mark Degnell had a very impressive decision. So
Jalen ends up hitting this tough little right shoulder fade.
He's a very similar sequence to what I was talking about,
where he's trying to get a switch, can't get the switch,
has no choice put to attack lou Dort one on one,
loses his balance somehow regains his balance and then fades
over his right shoulder, gets great lift, shoots a moon
(06:41):
ball that goes into the basket and ties the game.
Really really impressive shot from Jalen Brown, and Mark Degnell
makes this very impressive, like split second decision after Jalen's
bucket to let shake Gilds as Alexander go to work
without a timeout, so Shaye brings Abo off the floor.
The Celtics had gone small for that offensive possession, so
they had no center on the floor to match up
(07:01):
with Chet. The Celtics finally send a hard double team
at Shay. I say finally because it felt like for
the last two weeks teams were just content to let
Shay go one on one, even though he seems to
never miss. Most teams were letting him go one on one,
including the Celtics on several possessions leading into that possession.
So Joe Mazula finally says, screw that, We're gonna get
(07:23):
the ball out of Shay's hands. They send a hard
double team. They pre rotate over from the weak side corner.
Shaye makes a very nice read to skip past Alex Caruso.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
In the left corner.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Alex gets a good look, he puts it up and
he misses. But the problem is no big on the floor,
so Chet has a massive size advantage underneath the basket.
Skies for the rebound, draws a foul and ends that game.
So very impressive win for the Thunder off of that
snap decision for Mark Deagnall on that final possession. I
want to come back to Shae for a minute here,
(07:52):
though I did not view this as an MVP showdown.
Jlen Brown could have gone for fifty and Shay could
have been bad.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And it wouldn't have changed anything for me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I think Jalen's had a very impressive season, but I
don't view Jalen as a legitimate MVP candidate. I've been
surprised at some of the discussion that I've seen in
the national media surrounding that there are some obvious things
with the on off numbers that show he's not having
as large of an impact on winning as the other candidates.
But you know me, I don't like to lean solely
on the numbers. I want to look at what I'm
seeing with my eyes, and for me, it's even simpler
(08:24):
than that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Like, he's a.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Great scorer, but he's nowhere near the volume and efficiency
scorer that the top scorers in the league are. He's
shown growth as a playmaker, but he's still deeply flawed
as a playmaker, and again, the rest of the stars
at the top of the league are just way better
at it. And he's probably the best perimeter defender of
all of the top ten players in the NBA. But
with the increased usage, it hasn't been his best defensive season.
(08:46):
I don't think that's been like a huge feather in
his cap this year. So Jalen's great. Super impressed by him.
I think he's proven a lot of things about himself
this season, and I even really enjoyed watching him last night.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I was very impressed by him last night.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
But I just don't think he's an m VP type
of basketball player, at least not yet. I think there's
another leap that he would have to take to get
to that level. But Shay once again was absolutely unbelievable
down the stretch. He was seven for eight from the field.
Fourteen points was zero turnover. Excuse me, fourteen points in
just the fourth quarter was zero turnovers. He's now up
(09:19):
to forty six made clutch field goals this season. That's
one back of Anthony Edwards for the most in the league.
If you know how, I always use per thirty six
as like a kind of like a way to scale
up or down based on the amount of minutes a
guy's playing. Shay is scoring at a rate of forty
nine points per thirty six minutes in clutch situations that
is completely insane. Just in these last four clutch games
(09:41):
against Golden State, New York, Denver, and Boston, he's eight
for thirteen on clutch shots, four for seven on clutch
threes in the Thunder are plus sixteen in those clutch minutes.
When he's on the floor, you literally can't stop this
guy from getting to his spot for a pull up
jump shot, and he's just not miss seeing them. Right now,
a close game against the Thunder is kind of a
(10:03):
terrifying experience because as Shay has the ball, especially when
he's working one on one, you're basically sitting there powerless,
and you feel like there's almost no chance you're going
to be able to stop him from getting to a
shot he can hit a very high percentage of the time.
Shae's on a special run. Again, I've been in the
frame of mind thinking about contenders again and I'm trying
to parse them into more refined tiers, and again that'll
(10:24):
be coming out next Wednesday. I'm very tempted right now
to put Oklahoma City in a tier of their own,
specifically because of how good Shay has been looking as
a blade. I just think when you pair an unstoppable
scorer like him with the best defense in the NBA
and enough play finishing off of it, like again like
aj Mitchell, huge corner three out of the right corner
(10:45):
chet the ability to that's a form of play finishing
when you have a size finish, a size advantage underneath
the basket, and you get offensive rebounding. Like the combination
of play finishing, Shae is an unstoppable scorer in that
elite defense. I just think that's really really difficult to
beat four times in two weeks. And so we'll see
how I end up landing mentally when I finally put
the list together for Wednesday, but I'm strongly considering just
(11:06):
putting them on a tier by themselves. That combination of
how great Shay is right now and how good this
defense is is really really tough to imagine somebody beating. Lastly,
before we move on just big picture with the Celtics
and the Thunder, I do there was a time when
I would have thought that Boston was kind of like
out of their depth in this matchup for a playoff series,
(11:27):
just because Oklahoma City, in many ways is just a
better version of what Boston likes to do. A driving
kick team, but with better ability to generate dribble penetration
because aj Mitchell and j dub are better drivers than
guys like Tatum and Derek White, for example, and you
Shay is just a better basketball player than both Jaylen
Brown and Jason Tatum, and I actually feel differently about
(11:48):
that now. I actually think Boston. I would pick Oklahoma
City to beat Boston in a playoff series, to be clear,
if they were to meet in the finals, but I
think Boston has a better chance to hang physically. They're
just a little bit on the perimeter, and I think
that that is a consistent thing that I've seen that
has given Oklahoma City some issues, that combination of being
big and physical in the perimeter while also having the
ability to protect the rim with that Niemi kay to
(12:10):
look for example. So again like I would pick Oklahoma
City in a series against Boston, but if I was
a Celtic span I would feel good about having a
puncher's chance in that type of matchup after what I
saw last night, because of how they were able to
physically cause problems for Oklahoma City at various spots on
the floor. And again like Jalen Brown being able to
stare down guys like Alex Cruso and Lou Dort and
(12:31):
get two feet in the paint. I think is a
real asset in a playoff series when you get into
a static half court environment. So impressive showing for Boston,
even more impressive for Oklahoma City. I just can't get
enough of this run from Shay. I've just been super,
super impressed by him. I'm super excited to tell you
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(12:52):
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Speaker 2 (14:24):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Nuggets Spurs another game where I left impressed by both teams.
The Spurs were without Victor Women Yama, so of course
their guards went nuclear. The Nuggets couldn't guard Steph Castle
all night long. He was getting into the paint seemingly
at will and consistently had the Nuggets out of position,
so he's getting to the line. A ton thirty point
triple double for Steph as he continues to be one
of the most impressive young players in the league. Dearon
(14:46):
Fox was killing it with the nugget or killing the
Nuggets with his usual mix of like downhill speed and
jump shooting over the top. Devin Vessel hit four threes.
Dylan Harper had yet another impressive game attacking the rim.
The Spurs deployed a small ball look when Cornett was
off the floor with Victor Woman Yama out for the game,
and it was flat out terrifying.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They went for it in.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
The late first quarter, and then they went for it
again in the late third quarter. In the early fourth quarter,
and it just is an insane amount of speed and
ball handling on the floor that Denver really struggled with.
They were getting stops and getting out in transition and
getting easy ones there. They were spacing the floor and
just cutting the Nuggets to pieces in the half court.
The Nuggets did finally have some success against their small
(15:28):
ball look in the mid fourth quarter. We'll get to
that in a minute, but it was a really successful
unit for San Antonio. They were plus six last night
in their centerless groups. Carter Bryant had a really fun
first half shift. He just looks like that prototypical Swiss
army knife forward and I have a feeling he's going
to be a super important player for the Spurs in
the long run. What a great pickup for them to
(15:50):
find a guy like that in the draft last year,
and it will be fun for me to root for
a guy from the University of Arizona. During this Wembe
era sequence in the first half where he was kind
of battling with Yokic on the right block and he's
putting his elbow in his back and really shoving him
off his spot, rebound comes in long and he holds
Jokic down and is able to actually extend and beat
(16:12):
Yolkic to the rebound outlets it sprints up the floor
and ends up hitting a three. It's a massive sequence
during that first half run for them, and I was like,
first of all, that's an incredibly impressive physical play and
beating Jokic to an offensive rebound, But also like, when
you want to run small ball looks, you gotta have
big forwards that can guard even bigger players hang on
the glass, but that also have the ability to capitalize
(16:35):
with the speed advantage. And I think Carter Bryant represents
the guy that can help unlock that look for them.
I think the Spurs are going to use that as
one of their primary looks here as they continue to
build it out in the coming years. The Spurs really
had this under control for the most part until the
start of the fourth quarter. The Nuggets starters made a
nice run to start the second half, so early third quarter,
(16:55):
the cornet groups right in the middle of the third
quarter made a nice little push that pushed it just
out to like nine or eleven points or so. Then
the small ball group comes back in for the Spurs
and causes the same problems that that they caused the
Nuggets in the first half, they pushed the lead back
out to sixteen. But then to start the fourth quarter,
one coach didn't make an adjustment. One coach did. Mitch
(17:19):
Johnson goes back to Mason Plumbley to start the fourth quarter.
Mason Plumbley actually had a decent That unit had a
decent first half shift. It was in the start of
the second quarter, but it was against a Yonis Valancunis
led group where they were positive. David Adaman makes the adjustment.
He goes away from that plumb Lee group or from
that ye Valentunis group, and he goes to a small
(17:41):
ball group. So in the early fourth quarter we get
that inverse of that effect that the Spurs were using
against Denver, we have a small ball unit for Denver
up against this Mason Plumley led group for San Antonio.
Mason Plumbley, because of the small ball look, ends up
having to guard a perimeter player. He ends up guarding
Spencer Jones. Jamal Murray just immediately starts attacking Mason Plumley
(18:04):
and ball screens over and over and over again, and
Spencer what does a brilliant job of just beating Plumbley
with basic play finishing against drop coverage. So set a
couple of picking pops where he hits a couple of threes,
has one where he rolls to the middle of the
floor and hits a floater in the middle of the lane.
Spencer was phenomenal. He had nineteen points in this game,
but him burning that plumbly drop coverage over and over
(18:25):
again in that fourth quarter because again all it is
is Jamal comes off the screen, Jamal's man is chasing
Plumbley is engaged in the drops two on the ball.
Very simple set of play finishing sequences like the one
where Jamal came way off to the right. He ends
up hitting Spencer right in the middle of the lane.
That's when he hits the floater, but a couple easy
pick and pops as well. The lead immediately evaporates, and
(18:48):
as the lead ev operates all of a sudden, Mitch
Johnson's in a tough position. He ends up pulling the
plug pretty quickly unplumbly. It's about nine minutes left in
the fourth quarter, so in a three minute span, Denver
completely erases the lead. Mitch Johnson goes back to his
small ball group and it kind of stabilizes for just
a couple of minutes. They push the lead back up
to like four San Antonio. In that middle fourth quarter,
it looks like they're in a strong position. Then Jokic
(19:11):
comes back and Denver finally plays a good stretch against
that small ball group, finally want to shift against them.
I thought it was their team defense in the fourth
quarter that was really impressive. Again, it's the speed that
was really cutting them apart. And so there has to
be a level of intensity. I'm gonna talk about this
when we talk Lakers, But you can't be big and
also not playing as hard because then you're just gonna
(19:32):
get cut to pieces by speed. When you're big and
playing against a small ball group, you gotta run, you
gotta run, and you gotta be flying around, especially the
faster players that you do have on the floor.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And I thought.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Jokic had this like possessed stretch of defense in the
second half when he was trying to reassertain control, about
as aggressive as I've ever seen him be going for
blocks and deflections. He had five stocks last night, three
steals and two blocks to go with a casual thirty
twenty and ten and insane to call a Jokic game.
Everyone else on the floor was flying around. I thought
Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones in particular were great flying around,
(20:04):
like helping recover situations during that run. They were finally
able to get the stops that they needed, and then
Jamal murray shot making.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Carried them home late in the game. Jamal goes five
to seven in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
He has three assists, all to Spencer Jones to start
the quarter, zero turnovers in the whole quarter, a wide
array of difficult shots, A tough pull up three at
the top of the key off of a step back,
a crazy one handed like leaning fade away over Luke
Cornette off of a spin move on the left block,
this like drifting pull up two on the right baseline,
just unbelievable shot.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Making, over and over again.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
He had this shot that helped ice the game in
the final minutes where he's going against a drop coverage
look and he goes into his spin move into a
right handed floater and the Spurs defended did extremely well.
He was sandwiched on both sides and he barely had
the tiniest window to sneak this little floater up that
he made, and it was a classic example of this
dynamic that I always talk about when I talk about
(20:58):
like high level scoring. When I talk about high level scoring,
I always say it's a combination of Like there's the
skill piece, like you got to have the touch and
the ball handling and the jump shooting ability and all
those different things. Then there's like an audacity element. There's
got to be like this absurd confidence to be able
to take difficult shots. You know, like the shot that
(21:19):
Jamal Murray made on that spin move. It's not a
good read technically he's not open, right, But great scorers
have to be taking shots on occasion that are not
necessarily the best reads because great defenses don't necessarily leave openings.
Sometimes against great defense, a tough shot is the best
thing you can hope for. But you got to have
guys that can actually hit those shots. But the third
(21:40):
piece of it, there's a skill piece, and there's an
audacity piece. There's always been like a creativity piece, like
an improvisation piece. So much of that really high level
scoring is in the moment, purely on instinct against an
elite defense, to be able to unleash something that's maybe
a little unorthodox, a different relief angle on a shot,
(22:01):
maybe a little bit funky footwork on a shot, maybe
a type of like you know, in this particular case
like this, like spinning right handed floater going across your body,
Like it's just a very unorthodox type of shot. But again,
it's like when you have that creativity, so you're able
because if you think of your skills, it's not as
(22:22):
like there's like robotics skill, which is like the stuff
that you work on in drills, right, like a.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Wonderable pull up going left, a wonderable.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Pull up going right, like different little things like pump,
fake rip, a close out, like really fundamental robotic stuff.
But generally speaking, when you're in those like really tight
space environments, the robotic stuff doesn't work. Sometimes you have
to pick and choose from your skills and piece together
like three or four different things that you're good at
in like some creative combination to make like a bizarre,
(22:50):
difficult shot. And it's just something that I think Jamal
Murray is fantastic at. He's just having an unbelievable season.
He's averaging twenty six four and seven on sixty two
percent true shooting. He's one of the most gifted, tough
shot makers I've ever seen, which is such a perfect
skill to pair with Jokic and his overall offensive brilliance.
I think he deserves all NBA conversation, and I would
(23:12):
be of a miss if I did not mention yet
another great two way performance from Cam Johnson. I thought
he was great on defense in the fourth quarter. He
puts up fifteen points on just eight shots, hit two
massive jump shots late in the game. It's this left
wing three if I remember correctly, I think it was
Dylan Harper helps off of him. Brilliant pass from Yokic
if you watch, not really that open, but Jokic throws
(23:34):
the pass and it quite literally lands perfectly in Cam's
shooting pocket. So immediately when the ball touches his hands,
he's rising up into the shot, knocks that one down,
hits like a tough little mid range pull up too,
so like some nice release valve scoring down the stretch,
and then all game long, I thought he did a
nice job of attacking with speed off of the dribble
(23:55):
handoffs with Jokic. When you look at Cam Johnson's athleticism,
and this is actually one of the re is why
he slipped down in the draft. He was always a
very good straight line athlete, so like when he's running
fast or when he's jumping straight up and down, he
actually is a pretty good leaper, and when he's running
straight he can get a good amount of speed.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
He's just not.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Necessarily the best first step athlete, and he's not necessarily
the best lateral athlete, although I think he's actually better
laterally than I think people thought, which is why he's
been a plus defender for the majority part for the
majority of his career. But when he can get a runway,
when he comes running from off the ball into an
action with Jokic, gets it and then turns the corner,
he's actually a pretty difficult athlete to deal with in
(24:33):
those cases. And he had a couple of really nice
driving finishes in this game, curling off of those actions.
I think that's a big one that they need from
Cam to more closely replicate the scoring pop that Michael
Porter Junior brought to the table again fifteen and four
this season the Nuggets. When Cam Johnson scores more than
ten points, I don't care that Wenby was out. I
(24:54):
thought that was really a really tough Spurs team to
beat in San Antonio even without him. Press of road
wind for the Nuggets, and again they desperately need those
because they're in danger of slipping behind Phoenix and the standings. Really,
everybody in the middle portion of the West is in
danger of slipping into the play in with how well
Phoenix is playing. And then lastly, I did leave that
game feeling super impressed by San Antonio and how good
(25:15):
they looked without Wemby, and I think that that small
ball look will continue to accentuate their overall speed and
skill on the perimeter. I think it's something they should
keep building out in the coming years. Today's show is
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called one eight hundred gambler In Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan,
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Speaker 2 (26:43):
Or Virginia.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
All right, before we get out of here today, I
want to talk briefly about Lakers Bulls. Marcus Smart was out,
so the Lakers ended up starting Ruby hot Chimura. That
lineup was plus seventeen last night in fourteen minutes against
a very fast Bulls team that should theoretically caused them
some problems. To be clear, everyone was right that that
should not be their starting lineup when healthy, when it's healthy,
(27:07):
when they're healthy, it should be Marcus Smart, and I
agree with that, and I don't think anybody there hasn't
been too much debate there. I think most people just
agree the rue thing and needed to change. But if
you guys remember at the time, I kept saying like, yeah,
this is probably not the right starting lineup, but they're
also just kind of playing shitty, like the net rating
(27:28):
numbers that were thrown around, Like I think going into
last night there was something crazy like minus twenty two
net or something like that to start the season, so
like the numbers were terrifyingly bad, but like I just
kept saying, like, yeah, maybe not the best fit. I'd
probably go with Marcus s martinstead. I would go with
Marcus martinstead, but they were obviously not playing very well
and they were obviously capable of playing a lot better
(27:49):
than they had. They just need to be active and
connected on defense. Again, like I said with Denver, you
can't be big and slow and also not playing hard.
Teams will just run circles around you. The biggest difference
is one Luca has been playing great defense for a while.
He's been a much better defender than he was when
that lineup was running, and I thought Lebron was fantastic
(28:09):
on defense last night. If two of your big, slow
guys are being slow and lazy, that unit's gonna get
cut to pieces, especially when ruiy Hatchamura is kind of
known to take on the personality of the team around
him and he is not a great defender. But when
Lebron and Luca are playing defense, that lineup absolutely can
be a problem to deal with because there's a ton
of offensive skill. Ruy's a knockdown three point shooter, right.
(28:32):
So like when it actually when that unit played more
to their capability, I don't think you should run that
lineup against really good teams when you're healthy. That goes
without saying for all the reasons why we've talked about,
but I'm just saying we knew they were capable of
playing better. Last night was an example of them playing better.
(28:53):
Lebron came back and basically functioned entirely off the ball.
I want to dig more into that in a minute,
But Austin and Luca orbit the majority of the usage.
This is something I've been calling for, Like Luca and
Austin should be the number one and number two options.
The team should be leaning into those guys in ball
screen action and in there when they're running sets, running
sets for those guys as much as humanly possible. It's
(29:14):
exactly what they did. Lebron just let that happen willingly.
Again I mentioned this earlier, but like, Austin was scoring
just fine with Lebron on the floor before his calf injuries.
So like, I don't know why everyone was assuming that
Lebron was just going to strangle the usage and take
the ball away from those guys. He was just waiting
for Austin to get it going. Now he has it going,
Luca goes for fifty one, Austin goes for thirty. I've
(29:38):
said this at several points this season. When Luca has
his step back three going, he's the best player in
the world, And boy did he have it going. Last
night he had nine of them. And Luca's been on
a tear lately after struggling for a few weeks around
the All Star break. There's a ten game span from
February third to March fifth where Luca played in ten
games in that span and he only scored thirty points
(30:00):
twice in those ten games. It's very unlike Luca, especially
at the amount of usage that he has right in
his last four games forty points, ten rebounds, and seven
assists on fifty one percent from the field, forty five
percent from three on massive volume, and eighty six percent
from the foul line, to go with three point five
stocks per game two and a half steals per game.
(30:23):
He's been a brilliant back line defender in this stretch,
reading plays before they happen, jumping interior passes, getting deflections
and hands on skips, and getting steals off of those.
This is the version of Luca that is every bit
as good as Shay and Jokic, and possibly even better
than them. I can't say enough about how amazing Luca's
(30:43):
been during this stretch, and most importantly, he's been very
fun to watch in this stretch. There's a level of
intensity and focus to him right now, that's tangible.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
He was talking shit last night.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Remember a few weeks back when I was lamenting that
he used to talk more trash to the opponent than
he would to the refs, and that dynamics seem to
have like flipped. Well, him being one tech away from
the suspension has caused him to chill a little bit
with the refs, and last night he was jawing at
modest bizells like crazy. I want to add the layer
of Luca's personal situation to this discussion. I said, Luca's
(31:15):
been playing with crazy focus and intensity to do that
with everything he's got going on, with the separation from
his fiance, being forced to be away from his daughters
as much as he has been. I just think his
leadership has been really impressive this season. And I want
to add this season long point with his postgame pressers.
Even when Luca has had bad stretches this season, and
(31:36):
there's been two, and I say bad relative to his talent.
A lot of this stuff with the with Luca stan
culture is stand culture. People get really upset. It's just
how it goes. I'm pretty consistent with this stuff. You
guys know, like Jo Kich had a stretch where he
played really poorly after his knee injury, and we called
it out on the show. We talked about the percentages.
I talked about how he wasn't playing good on defense
(31:56):
and he needed to be better. Like when it comes
to the very best players in the league, that that tier,
the Yannis, Luca, Jokic, Shay, I hold them to a
different standard because we're talking about guys that are in
that top tier of basketball players in the world, that
are in contention for best player in the world status.
The reason why I have him been super critical of
Shaye this year is he hasn't had a stretch where
(32:19):
he's looked bad. Shae has just been amazing almost every
single night that he's gone out and played. So he's
been a little bit immune to criticism this year, right.
Jokicch just had some up and downs, so he's been
criticized some, He's been praised some. Lucas had some up
and down, so he's been criticized some, He's been praised some. Right,
But even when Luca was having one of those stretches
(32:39):
where he struggled relatives to his talent and There's like
two distinct stretches like that surrounding his trip to Slovenia,
and then this stretch that I just talked about surrounding
the All Star Break where he scored thirty points just twice.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
In ten games.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
He's always been a damn professional in front of the mic,
accepting personal responsibility, keeping his and the team's focus on
big picture goals. I've had my frustrations with Luca this year,
but I've gained a lot of respect for him as
a franchise leader along the way. This is the version
of Luca that is capable of taking the Lakers to
(33:11):
the Promised Land, and he is a welcome sight at
this point in the season as the Lakers look pretty
hell bent on ramping up for a postseason run. Austin's
in full rhythm now last three games, twenty nine points,
five rebounds, seven assists, fifty five percent from the field,
forty eight percent from three to eighty one percent from
the line. It's become abundantly clear that Austin has put
(33:31):
in a ton of work on his three point shot.
He started really cold this season, but he's forty three
percent on six threes a game over his last twenty
seven games. Twenty seven games. It's a large sample that
has given him this awesome counter to his downhill scoring.
He's always been very gifted at shifting defender's side to
side and hitting gaps with downhill speed. Now that he
(33:53):
can counter that with a deadly over the top three
point shot, it's given him a level of reliability night
tonight as an offensive player. It's allowed him to pump
his scoring average the way that he has this season,
and again he obviously can score next to Lebron.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I thought that, like I've it's been.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Hard because like there actually was like a nuanced discussion
to have about Lebron and like some of his waxing
and waning defensive effort and some of the stuff where
like off the ball, he like just has struggled to
knock down catch and shoot threes, Like there was a
discussion to have about Lebron, and instead all I heard
was really stupid stuff like oh, like this is a
(34:31):
like like Chris Finch saying it's a usage puzzle. Lebron
has had historically lost usage, and every single time Austin
and Luca have been healthy, he's been playing primarily a
tertiary role. The only time Lebron has absorbed usage really
has been one Austin has been out or when Luke's
been out, and so like, so much of the discussion
(34:52):
surrounding Lebron has been like straight up aimed in the
wrong direction, like there's actually an interesting discussion to have
about how Lebron fits with the team, and instead all
the Lebron haters are just saying stupid shit that makes
no sense, like, oh, he's hurting Austin and Luca. What
that doesn't even make sense and that's not what's happening
when you watch the games, and so predictably, like I said,
(35:13):
I said that what's really happening is Austin is finally
finding his rhythm, and I said, Lebron will come back
and allow that to continue, just like he did when
he started the season. When Lebron came back. Austin was
averaging thirty points over the first like six or seven
games after Lebron came back. So there was like obviously
(35:35):
an evidence that Austin can cook next to Lebron, that
Luca can cook next to Lebron, and they cooked next
to Lebron last night. Now he was a little gun
shy in the first half. I didn't think he was
that great. In the first half. He looked a little rusty,
looked a little out of shape. He got a back
cut out of the left corner or out of the
right corner by Leonard Miller on one play, had a
couple of ugly turnovers. Not a great first half, But
(35:56):
I thought Lebron was insanely good in his second half
shift monster of a role player.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
He started to act like again.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This is the thing where I think the valid conversation
surrounding Lebron was is like, Okay, now that Austin and
Luca are in rhythm, we need you to play defense. Man,
Like now that we don't need you to do a
ton with the basketball. You are one of the smartest
and most physically equipped players on our team to be
(36:24):
a great defender, you can't be mailing in that end of.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The floor, right.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That was a valid discussion to have surrounding Lebron and
his fit with the team. In that second half, Lebron
was a monster defensively. Literally looked like Draymond with the
types of rotations he was making on the back line,
the way he was snuffing out plays and getting deflections
and steals. Lebron was awesome in that second half defensively
and then on offense, getting out in transition and playing
(36:49):
with speed. That was the second thing, another interesting valid
conversation to have with Lebron, which is like, hey, dude,
we're slow. You're one of our best athletes. We need
you to run up and down the floor. Lebron is
running all night last night in transition on both ends
and transition defense and transition offense, the offensive rebounds, like
him just being like, I'm bigger than all you guys.
I'm just gonna get these offensive rebounds. Guess what, Lebron
(37:11):
is absolutely capable of being a monster on the offensive glass.
Like he is one of the most physically imposing players
in the league. Still he absolutely can do that. Had
a bunch of success on the offensive glass in the
second half, the bulley ball stuff under the rim, Like
my whole thing is, like the discussion should be now
that this is the first time, guys, since literally early December,
(37:35):
that Luca and Austin have.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Both been healthy and in rhythm.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Everything between early December and now has been about piecing
together with guys out of the lineup or with guys
hurt now that Austin and lucarran rhythm. Look, the Lakers
need Lebron to be this kick ass role player. We
know he's capable of doing it. He did it last night.
I expect his focus to be headed in that direct
(38:00):
and I expect him he'll have I do think it's
a regular season, right so I do think in the
last sixteen games, there'll be four or five nights where
Lebron's not great in effort, and I'm sure it'll be
a huge talking point when it is. But like, as
long as Lebron is engaged in those areas, he's not
just helpful, he's a ceiling razor for this team, a
massive ceiling razor for the team. He was a big
(38:21):
part of that second half run last night. The only
thing that I would get on him about. There were
two plays in particular, one in the first half, one
in the second half where he was situated on the
wing and Ruey Haschimurro was situated in the corner and
a kickout pass went to Lebron and he was open
to shoot a three, and Ruey's man kind of stayed
home and instead of shooting the three, he like rifled
(38:42):
one time or quick swing passes to Ruey in the
corner and then the play died. And so the one thing,
and I've been consistent with Lebron all season on this,
He's got to take open.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Catch and shoot threes. He just has to take them.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
If he does that, he doesn't even have to shoot
amazing on him if he just does that and shoots
like thirty five percent on him, which we know he can.
If he does that and then does all the little
things that I just talked about defensively and offensive rebounding,
connective playmaking, all those different things, that's going to be
a devastating role player in this group. So that's just
the play the way he's got to stay focused. Lastly,
(39:14):
Deandrayton Deandrayton, I was texting with Pete about this during
the game because I found it really fascinating. Aytan was
playing angry last night, and he's been playing kind of
angry for the last several games, and at first I
was like, it's this kind of weird attitude kind of thing,
but he had a postgame comment that I want to
highlight before we get back into the actual basketball stuff.
(39:38):
Dan Woykee asked Deandretan about the team's recent uptick in
intensity and attention to detail what he's an ate and
responded quote, it felt like I picked up my energy
and my focus, and you know, I finally caught up
with the team.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
That's about it.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
And I thought that was a really impressive show of
self awareness from Deandrayton for him to look at the
situation and be like, no, it's not their fault, it's
not the coach's fault. It's not anybody's fault that I
keep getting pulled out of these games that they keep
closing with different players, that my minutes have been plummeting.
Apex in that Denver game, right, he has a bad
(40:13):
first shift, He's kind of asleep on a lob pass
from Luca. One really his fault, but he was kind
of asleep on a lob from Luca. He had a
bad defensive rap against Julian Strather and a dribble handoff.
He wasn't engaged in focused to start the game. He
gets the hook. He wasn't the only guy in that
lineup that wasn't engaged. But guess what those guys are
Luca and Lebron and Austin they're going to get.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
A longer leash.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It was he got pulled because he wasn't playing well ultimately,
and at first he was angry. May or may not
have quit on the team that night, who knows. But
since he's come back, he's been angry, physically aggressive, super
high motor, and he's been a fucking monster. And I
appreciated him acknowledging that it wasn't a them problem, that
(41:01):
it was a me problem, that he needed to look
in the mirror and meet the moment, meet the intensity,
meet the mission that the Lakers were trying to accomplish. Now,
does this mean that I'm buying a bunch of Ayton
stock and I think suddenly he's gonna go on a run.
I'm not gonna jump on that bandwagon from just a
small handful of games. But I will say, at least
(41:22):
in my time rooting for eight in this season, I
haven't seen a three game stretch like this where he's
been both dominant with his natural ability but also playing
with a consistent level of physical aggression and anger around
the basket and motor. And I do think if Ayton,
this is what I'll say, because I'm not gonna say
I think it's gonna keep happening if Ayton can bottle
(41:44):
that up and understand that that specifically is what will
drive him to get a big contract in the future
and not anything else, just him playing physically aggressive and
angry and doing his job. That if he does that,
it drely increases the ceiling of this team, and it
dramatically increases the possibility.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Of him getting another long term deal in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I've talked about this, This recent run from the Lakers
really impressive. Right They've won I think seven out of eight.
They've been very good on defense in that span, elite
on offense. Up to the third seed in the West.
The Lakers are the sixth best team in the entire
league right now, which is unbelievable. At a couple of
signature wins last week against Minnesota and New York, there's
a lot or this week, I should say, there's a
lot of like really impressive stuff building, But it really
(42:31):
comes down to just a handful of things. Austin getting
back into rhythm like the player he was to start
the year, Luka Doncic upping his level of play to
that true MVP level, DeAndre Ayton, DeAndre Ayton waking up
makes this a different basketball team, and so that's an
encouraging trend against small sample. But if Ayton can just
(42:52):
bottle that up, it means a lot for this particular team.
All Right, guys, that's all I have for today. As
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us, in
supporting the show. Hopefully when I come back a Monday,
I can talk again that that's been brutal.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I appreciate you guys bearing with me.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Got a fun slate of games over the weekend to
we'll have plenty to cover when we get to Monday.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I'll see you guys then
The volume. All right, well go to him tonight here
at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you
guys are having a great end to your week.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have a jam pack show for you guys. Today.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We were originally gonna do contender rankings, but we looked
at the slate and the slate was insane. We get
a Celtic's Thunder show down, we have a Nugget Spurs showdown. Luka,
Doncic goes for fifty one points. I wanted to focus
on some games this morning instead, so Jackson and I
took a look at the calendar and next Tuesday night
as the next time. We have like a relatively weak slate.
So next Wednesday we'll have our contender rankings. I'm really
(00:46):
kind of parsing out which teams and which tiers. I'm
really gonna start to refine it into some smaller tiers.
We're gonna talk a little bit about that in today's show.
So Contender rankings moving to next Wednesday. Today, we're gonna
hit Celtics Thunder, Nugget Spur as well as Lakers Bowls.
And again I'm sorry about my voice, guys, bear with me.
I'm finally starting to feel better from this flu, but
(01:08):
of course it's got the lingering effects that I'll be
dealing with for a little while. You guys are the
job before we got started. Subscribe to the Hoops Sent
Out YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos.
Make sure you like this video and sign up for
post notifications. That helps us a lot in the last
but not at least if you do want to get
in mail back questions. No mail bag this week, obviously
under the circumstances, but we'll have one next Friday, so
drop them in the comments and we'll get to them
(01:28):
on Fridays throughout the rest of the season.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So Celtics Thunder a showdown of two of the most
impressive organizations in the NBA right now, front offices with
an extended track record of not only having a basketball
philosophy that they believe in that is consistent, but finding
quality talent at every level of the draft and even
in free agency around the league to find players that
(01:52):
fit into that basketball philosophy. Elite head coaches. I was
texting with Jackson after the or during the game yesterday.
Omasoula in particular is entering into a discussion for me
with like, I think you could absolutely make the case
that he's the best coach in the league in terms
of the level of detail that he's built into their
driving kick offense and the kinds of the kinds of
(02:15):
buying that he gets from his players and executing that
offense as well as defending the way that they defend.
I just think Missoula is amazing. Mark Degnold is also
an amazing coach.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
In this league.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
And then talented rosters that are bought in to the
goal of what the team is trying to accomplish. It's
a synergy throughout the organization that has manifested in those
crazy net ratings that we've talked about. You know that,
Like when you list all the players in the league
that have the top net ratings, it's a bunch of
Celtics and Thunder players. And I think it has a
(02:46):
lot to do with that culture from the top down
in these organizations. The defensive intensity for both teams was
immediately apparent in this one. At any given moment, there
were like a half dozen awesome defensive players on the floor.
The level of ball pressure, the speed on the perimeter,
and rotation, the way the teams were executing their schemes
(03:06):
on both ends, the force really really high level basketball.
I really really enjoyed watching this game. I think it's
a Finals preview potentially as well. Like if you were
to ask a random group of one hundred people what
their five most likely potential Finals matchups would be, I'm
pretty sure this one would make the list for everyone.
And I was trying to do a deep dive in
it with that as the focus. The Celtics put up
(03:28):
a hell of a fight without Tatum and without Derek
White obviously, the thunder Down a couple of key players
as well Isah Hartenstein and Jalen Williams. Boston's Wings did
a fantastic job keeping the game close with their corner
crash crashes. They won a lot of fifty to fifty balls,
getting to like long rebounds, things along those lines. The
Celtics had a twenty three to thirteen second chance points
(03:50):
advantage in this battle, and that's one thing that we
have seen, like especially when you have bigger athletes, and
you know, when we're talking about Baylor Shireman, when we're
talking about Jordan Walls or Hugo Gonzalez like there's a
lot of like taller, bigger types of perimeter players than
what Oklahoma City has, and so when even when both
(04:10):
teams are playing really hard, Boston is gonna get to
a lot of those fifty to fifty balls with the
types of athletes that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
On the floor.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
That twenty three to thirteen second chance points advantage was
a big thing that made up for the gap in
the efficiency between like Jylen Brown and Shake kild As Alexander,
for example. I didn't think Jalen had the most efficient
game ever. That's obvious, but that's not really his game.
Like he's never been a sixty percent true shooting player
at any point in his NBA career.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He's a volume score.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
He gets him up, And I thought he did a
great job against Oklahoma City last night of attacking with physicality,
like okay, see, he did a really nice job of
avoiding precarious switches they were fighting through screens. They did
some pre switching too, or like they'd be attacking a
defender but then like a third defender would come in
and switch on to Jalen instead, And so he ended
up getting a lot of like Lou Dort and Alex
Caruso on an island, and like somehow Jalen just kept
(04:59):
plow going through those guys to get to his spots.
It honestly was a super impressive and casual reminder that
Jalen is an APEX athlete amongst APEX athletes.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I said this on the show before. Jason Tatum is
a more.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Complete offensive player than Jalen, but Jalen is an absolute
monster to handle one on one on an island, and
he might be like substantially better than Tatum in that
regard and one of the best players in the league
specifically at that skill. And again, like you're talking about big,
strong defenders in Lou Dort and Alex Cruz, so in Jalen.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
I talk about this a lot on drives.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
You know you're not going to cleanly beat great defenders
typically anyway, but you get a defender very slightly out
of position, it becomes like a shoulder leverage contest. I'm driving,
if I'm driving left, I'm dropping that right shoulder. I'm
trying to get lower than you and I'm trying to
blow through that gap. And if I'm the defender as
I'm sliding, same exact thing. I'm trying to hold this
shoulder as best as I can to stop you from
(05:59):
turning the corner, and Jalen was just blowing through that
shoulder and like getting to where he needed again. It
was the most efficient thing in the world. And there
were a lot of like plays where you thought Jalen
was like hunting for contact in there and wasn't getting calls.
But like, I was just impressed generally by how physically
aggressive Jalen was and how successful he was getting to
(06:19):
his spots. Mark Degnell had a very impressive decision. So
Jalen ends up hitting this tough little right shoulder fade.
He's a very similar sequence to what I was talking about,
where he's trying to get a switch, can't get the switch,
has no choice put to attack lou Dort one on one,
loses his balance somehow regains his balance and then fades
over his right shoulder, gets great lift, shoots a moon
(06:41):
ball that goes into the basket and ties the game.
Really really impressive shot from Jalen Brown, and Mark Degnell
makes this very impressive, like split second decision after Jalen's
bucket to let shake Gilds as Alexander go to work
without a timeout, so Shaye brings Abo off the floor.
The Celtics had gone small for that offensive possession, so
they had no center on the floor to match up
(07:01):
with Chet. The Celtics finally send a hard double team
at Shay. I say finally because it felt like for
the last two weeks teams were just content to let
Shay go one on one, even though he seems to
never miss. Most teams were letting him go one on one,
including the Celtics on several possessions leading into that possession.
So Joe Mazula finally says, screw that, We're gonna get
(07:23):
the ball out of Shay's hands. They send a hard
double team. They pre rotate over from the weak side corner.
Shaye makes a very nice read to skip past Alex Caruso.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
In the left corner.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Alex gets a good look, he puts it up and
he misses. But the problem is no big on the floor,
so Chet has a massive size advantage underneath the basket.
Skies for the rebound, draws a foul and ends that game.
So very impressive win for the Thunder off of that
snap decision for Mark Deagnall on that final possession. I
want to come back to Shae for a minute here,
(07:52):
though I did not view this as an MVP showdown.
Jlen Brown could have gone for fifty and Shay could
have been bad.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And it wouldn't have changed anything for me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I think Jalen's had a very impressive season, but I
don't view Jalen as a legitimate MVP candidate. I've been
surprised at some of the discussion that I've seen in
the national media surrounding that there are some obvious things
with the on off numbers that show he's not having
as large of an impact on winning as the other candidates.
But you know me, I don't like to lean solely
on the numbers. I want to look at what I'm
seeing with my eyes, and for me, it's even simpler
(08:24):
than that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Like, he's a.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Great scorer, but he's nowhere near the volume and efficiency
scorer that the top scorers in the league are. He's
shown growth as a playmaker, but he's still deeply flawed
as a playmaker, and again, the rest of the stars
at the top of the league are just way better
at it. And he's probably the best perimeter defender of
all of the top ten players in the NBA. But
with the increased usage, it hasn't been his best defensive season.
(08:46):
I don't think that's been like a huge feather in
his cap this year. So Jalen's great. Super impressed by him.
I think he's proven a lot of things about himself
this season, and I even really enjoyed watching him last night.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I was very impressed by him last night.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
But I just don't think he's an m VP type
of basketball player, at least not yet. I think there's
another leap that he would have to take to get
to that level. But Shay once again was absolutely unbelievable
down the stretch. He was seven for eight from the field.
Fourteen points was zero turnover. Excuse me, fourteen points in
just the fourth quarter was zero turnovers. He's now up
(09:19):
to forty six made clutch field goals this season. That's
one back of Anthony Edwards for the most in the league.
If you know how, I always use per thirty six
as like a kind of like a way to scale
up or down based on the amount of minutes a
guy's playing. Shay is scoring at a rate of forty
nine points per thirty six minutes in clutch situations that
is completely insane. Just in these last four clutch games
(09:41):
against Golden State, New York, Denver, and Boston, he's eight
for thirteen on clutch shots, four for seven on clutch
threes in the Thunder are plus sixteen in those clutch minutes.
When he's on the floor, you literally can't stop this
guy from getting to his spot for a pull up
jump shot, and he's just not miss seeing them. Right now,
a close game against the Thunder is kind of a
(10:03):
terrifying experience because as Shay has the ball, especially when
he's working one on one, you're basically sitting there powerless,
and you feel like there's almost no chance you're going
to be able to stop him from getting to a
shot he can hit a very high percentage of the time.
Shae's on a special run. Again, I've been in the
frame of mind thinking about contenders again and I'm trying
to parse them into more refined tiers, and again that'll
(10:24):
be coming out next Wednesday. I'm very tempted right now
to put Oklahoma City in a tier of their own,
specifically because of how good Shay has been looking as
a blade. I just think when you pair an unstoppable
scorer like him with the best defense in the NBA
and enough play finishing off of it, like again like
aj Mitchell, huge corner three out of the right corner
(10:45):
chet the ability to that's a form of play finishing
when you have a size finish, a size advantage underneath
the basket, and you get offensive rebounding. Like the combination
of play finishing, Shae is an unstoppable scorer in that
elite defense. I just think that's really really difficult to
beat four times in two weeks. And so we'll see
how I end up landing mentally when I finally put
the list together for Wednesday, but I'm strongly considering just
(11:06):
putting them on a tier by themselves. That combination of
how great Shay is right now and how good this
defense is is really really tough to imagine somebody beating. Lastly,
before we move on just big picture with the Celtics
and the Thunder, I do there was a time when
I would have thought that Boston was kind of like
out of their depth in this matchup for a playoff series,
(11:27):
just because Oklahoma City, in many ways is just a
better version of what Boston likes to do. A driving
kick team, but with better ability to generate dribble penetration
because aj Mitchell and j dub are better drivers than
guys like Tatum and Derek White, for example, and you
Shay is just a better basketball player than both Jaylen
Brown and Jason Tatum, and I actually feel differently about
(11:48):
that now. I actually think Boston. I would pick Oklahoma
City to beat Boston in a playoff series, to be clear,
if they were to meet in the finals, but I
think Boston has a better chance to hang physically. They're
just a little bit on the perimeter, and I think
that that is a consistent thing that I've seen that
has given Oklahoma City some issues, that combination of being
big and physical in the perimeter while also having the
ability to protect the rim with that Niemi kay to
(12:10):
look for example. So again like I would pick Oklahoma
City in a series against Boston, but if I was
a Celtic span I would feel good about having a
puncher's chance in that type of matchup after what I
saw last night, because of how they were able to
physically cause problems for Oklahoma City at various spots on
the floor. And again like Jalen Brown being able to
stare down guys like Alex Cruso and Lou Dort and
(12:31):
get two feet in the paint. I think is a
real asset in a playoff series when you get into
a static half court environment. So impressive showing for Boston,
even more impressive for Oklahoma City. I just can't get
enough of this run from Shay. I've just been super,
super impressed by him. I'm super excited to tell you
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Speaker 2 (14:24):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Nuggets Spurs another game where I left impressed by both teams.
The Spurs were without Victor Women Yama, so of course
their guards went nuclear. The Nuggets couldn't guard Steph Castle
all night long. He was getting into the paint seemingly
at will and consistently had the Nuggets out of position,
so he's getting to the line. A ton thirty point
triple double for Steph as he continues to be one
of the most impressive young players in the league. Dearon
(14:46):
Fox was killing it with the nugget or killing the
Nuggets with his usual mix of like downhill speed and
jump shooting over the top. Devin Vessel hit four threes.
Dylan Harper had yet another impressive game attacking the rim.
The Spurs deployed a small ball look when Cornett was
off the floor with Victor Woman Yama out for the game,
and it was flat out terrifying.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They went for it in.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
The late first quarter, and then they went for it
again in the late third quarter. In the early fourth quarter,
and it just is an insane amount of speed and
ball handling on the floor that Denver really struggled with.
They were getting stops and getting out in transition and
getting easy ones there. They were spacing the floor and
just cutting the Nuggets to pieces in the half court.
The Nuggets did finally have some success against their small
(15:28):
ball look in the mid fourth quarter. We'll get to
that in a minute, but it was a really successful
unit for San Antonio. They were plus six last night
in their centerless groups. Carter Bryant had a really fun
first half shift. He just looks like that prototypical Swiss
army knife forward and I have a feeling he's going
to be a super important player for the Spurs in
the long run. What a great pickup for them to
(15:50):
find a guy like that in the draft last year,
and it will be fun for me to root for
a guy from the University of Arizona. During this Wembe
era sequence in the first half where he was kind
of battling with Yokic on the right block and he's
putting his elbow in his back and really shoving him
off his spot, rebound comes in long and he holds
Jokic down and is able to actually extend and beat
(16:12):
Yolkic to the rebound outlets it sprints up the floor
and ends up hitting a three. It's a massive sequence
during that first half run for them, and I was like,
first of all, that's an incredibly impressive physical play and
beating Jokic to an offensive rebound, But also like, when
you want to run small ball looks, you gotta have
big forwards that can guard even bigger players hang on
the glass, but that also have the ability to capitalize
(16:35):
with the speed advantage. And I think Carter Bryant represents
the guy that can help unlock that look for them.
I think the Spurs are going to use that as
one of their primary looks here as they continue to
build it out in the coming years. The Spurs really
had this under control for the most part until the
start of the fourth quarter. The Nuggets starters made a
nice run to start the second half, so early third quarter,
(16:55):
the cornet groups right in the middle of the third
quarter made a nice little push that pushed it just
out to like nine or eleven points or so. Then
the small ball group comes back in for the Spurs
and causes the same problems that that they caused the
Nuggets in the first half, they pushed the lead back
out to sixteen. But then to start the fourth quarter,
one coach didn't make an adjustment. One coach did. Mitch
(17:19):
Johnson goes back to Mason Plumbley to start the fourth quarter.
Mason Plumbley actually had a decent That unit had a
decent first half shift. It was in the start of
the second quarter, but it was against a Yonis Valancunis
led group where they were positive. David Adaman makes the adjustment.
He goes away from that plumb Lee group or from
that ye Valentunis group, and he goes to a small
(17:41):
ball group. So in the early fourth quarter we get
that inverse of that effect that the Spurs were using
against Denver, we have a small ball unit for Denver
up against this Mason Plumley led group for San Antonio.
Mason Plumbley, because of the small ball look, ends up
having to guard a perimeter player. He ends up guarding
Spencer Jones. Jamal Murray just immediately starts attacking Mason Plumley
(18:04):
and ball screens over and over and over again, and
Spencer what does a brilliant job of just beating Plumbley
with basic play finishing against drop coverage. So set a
couple of picking pops where he hits a couple of threes,
has one where he rolls to the middle of the
floor and hits a floater in the middle of the lane.
Spencer was phenomenal. He had nineteen points in this game,
but him burning that plumbly drop coverage over and over
(18:25):
again in that fourth quarter because again all it is
is Jamal comes off the screen, Jamal's man is chasing
Plumbley is engaged in the drops two on the ball.
Very simple set of play finishing sequences like the one
where Jamal came way off to the right. He ends
up hitting Spencer right in the middle of the lane.
That's when he hits the floater, but a couple easy
pick and pops as well. The lead immediately evaporates, and
(18:48):
as the lead ev operates all of a sudden, Mitch
Johnson's in a tough position. He ends up pulling the
plug pretty quickly unplumbly. It's about nine minutes left in
the fourth quarter, so in a three minute span, Denver
completely erases the lead. Mitch Johnson goes back to his
small ball group and it kind of stabilizes for just
a couple of minutes. They push the lead back up
to like four San Antonio. In that middle fourth quarter,
it looks like they're in a strong position. Then Jokic
(19:11):
comes back and Denver finally plays a good stretch against
that small ball group, finally want to shift against them.
I thought it was their team defense in the fourth
quarter that was really impressive. Again, it's the speed that
was really cutting them apart. And so there has to
be a level of intensity. I'm gonna talk about this
when we talk Lakers, But you can't be big and
also not playing as hard because then you're just gonna
(19:32):
get cut to pieces by speed. When you're big and
playing against a small ball group, you gotta run, you
gotta run, and you gotta be flying around, especially the
faster players that you do have on the floor.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And I thought.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Jokic had this like possessed stretch of defense in the
second half when he was trying to reassertain control, about
as aggressive as I've ever seen him be going for
blocks and deflections. He had five stocks last night, three
steals and two blocks to go with a casual thirty
twenty and ten and insane to call a Jokic game.
Everyone else on the floor was flying around. I thought
Cam Johnson and Spencer Jones in particular were great flying around,
(20:04):
like helping recover situations during that run. They were finally
able to get the stops that they needed, and then
Jamal murray shot making.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Carried them home late in the game. Jamal goes five
to seven in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
He has three assists, all to Spencer Jones to start
the quarter, zero turnovers in the whole quarter, a wide
array of difficult shots, A tough pull up three at
the top of the key off of a step back,
a crazy one handed like leaning fade away over Luke
Cornette off of a spin move on the left block,
this like drifting pull up two on the right baseline,
just unbelievable shot.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Making, over and over again.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
He had this shot that helped ice the game in
the final minutes where he's going against a drop coverage
look and he goes into his spin move into a
right handed floater and the Spurs defended did extremely well.
He was sandwiched on both sides and he barely had
the tiniest window to sneak this little floater up that
he made, and it was a classic example of this
dynamic that I always talk about when I talk about
(20:58):
like high level scoring. When I talk about high level scoring,
I always say it's a combination of Like there's the
skill piece, like you got to have the touch and
the ball handling and the jump shooting ability and all
those different things. Then there's like an audacity element. There's
got to be like this absurd confidence to be able
to take difficult shots. You know, like the shot that
(21:19):
Jamal Murray made on that spin move. It's not a
good read technically he's not open, right, But great scorers
have to be taking shots on occasion that are not
necessarily the best reads because great defenses don't necessarily leave openings.
Sometimes against great defense, a tough shot is the best
thing you can hope for. But you got to have
guys that can actually hit those shots. But the third
(21:40):
piece of it, there's a skill piece, and there's an
audacity piece. There's always been like a creativity piece, like
an improvisation piece. So much of that really high level
scoring is in the moment, purely on instinct against an
elite defense, to be able to unleash something that's maybe
a little unorthodox, a different relief angle on a shot,
(22:01):
maybe a little bit funky footwork on a shot, maybe
a type of like you know, in this particular case
like this, like spinning right handed floater going across your body,
Like it's just a very unorthodox type of shot. But again,
it's like when you have that creativity, so you're able
because if you think of your skills, it's not as
(22:22):
like there's like robotics skill, which is like the stuff
that you work on in drills, right, like a.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Wonderable pull up going left, a wonderable.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Pull up going right, like different little things like pump,
fake rip, a close out, like really fundamental robotic stuff.
But generally speaking, when you're in those like really tight
space environments, the robotic stuff doesn't work. Sometimes you have
to pick and choose from your skills and piece together
like three or four different things that you're good at
in like some creative combination to make like a bizarre,
(22:50):
difficult shot. And it's just something that I think Jamal
Murray is fantastic at. He's just having an unbelievable season.
He's averaging twenty six four and seven on sixty two
percent true shooting. He's one of the most gifted, tough
shot makers I've ever seen, which is such a perfect
skill to pair with Jokic and his overall offensive brilliance.
I think he deserves all NBA conversation, and I would
(23:12):
be of a miss if I did not mention yet
another great two way performance from Cam Johnson. I thought
he was great on defense in the fourth quarter. He
puts up fifteen points on just eight shots, hit two
massive jump shots late in the game. It's this left
wing three if I remember correctly, I think it was
Dylan Harper helps off of him. Brilliant pass from Yokic
if you watch, not really that open, but Jokic throws
(23:34):
the pass and it quite literally lands perfectly in Cam's
shooting pocket. So immediately when the ball touches his hands,
he's rising up into the shot, knocks that one down,
hits like a tough little mid range pull up too,
so like some nice release valve scoring down the stretch,
and then all game long, I thought he did a
nice job of attacking with speed off of the dribble
(23:55):
handoffs with Jokic. When you look at Cam Johnson's athleticism,
and this is actually one of the re is why
he slipped down in the draft. He was always a
very good straight line athlete, so like when he's running
fast or when he's jumping straight up and down, he
actually is a pretty good leaper, and when he's running
straight he can get a good amount of speed.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
He's just not.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Necessarily the best first step athlete, and he's not necessarily
the best lateral athlete, although I think he's actually better
laterally than I think people thought, which is why he's
been a plus defender for the majority part for the
majority of his career. But when he can get a runway,
when he comes running from off the ball into an
action with Jokic, gets it and then turns the corner,
he's actually a pretty difficult athlete to deal with in
(24:33):
those cases. And he had a couple of really nice
driving finishes in this game, curling off of those actions.
I think that's a big one that they need from
Cam to more closely replicate the scoring pop that Michael
Porter Junior brought to the table again fifteen and four
this season the Nuggets. When Cam Johnson scores more than
ten points, I don't care that Wenby was out. I
(24:54):
thought that was really a really tough Spurs team to
beat in San Antonio even without him. Press of road
wind for the Nuggets, and again they desperately need those
because they're in danger of slipping behind Phoenix and the standings. Really,
everybody in the middle portion of the West is in
danger of slipping into the play in with how well
Phoenix is playing. And then lastly, I did leave that
game feeling super impressed by San Antonio and how good
(25:15):
they looked without Wemby, and I think that that small
ball look will continue to accentuate their overall speed and
skill on the perimeter. I think it's something they should
keep building out in the coming years. Today's show is
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Or Virginia.
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All right, before we get out of here today, I
want to talk briefly about Lakers Bulls. Marcus Smart was out,
so the Lakers ended up starting Ruby hot Chimura. That
lineup was plus seventeen last night in fourteen minutes against
a very fast Bulls team that should theoretically caused them
some problems. To be clear, everyone was right that that
should not be their starting lineup when healthy, when it's healthy,
(27:07):
when they're healthy, it should be Marcus Smart, and I
agree with that, and I don't think anybody there hasn't
been too much debate there. I think most people just
agree the rue thing and needed to change. But if
you guys remember at the time, I kept saying like, yeah,
this is probably not the right starting lineup, but they're
also just kind of playing shitty, like the net rating
(27:28):
numbers that were thrown around, Like I think going into
last night there was something crazy like minus twenty two
net or something like that to start the season, so
like the numbers were terrifyingly bad, but like I just
kept saying, like, yeah, maybe not the best fit. I'd
probably go with Marcus s martinstead. I would go with
Marcus martinstead, but they were obviously not playing very well
and they were obviously capable of playing a lot better
(27:49):
than they had. They just need to be active and
connected on defense. Again, like I said with Denver, you
can't be big and slow and also not playing hard.
Teams will just run circles around you. The biggest difference
is one Luca has been playing great defense for a while.
He's been a much better defender than he was when
that lineup was running, and I thought Lebron was fantastic
(28:09):
on defense last night. If two of your big, slow
guys are being slow and lazy, that unit's gonna get
cut to pieces, especially when ruiy Hatchamura is kind of
known to take on the personality of the team around
him and he is not a great defender. But when
Lebron and Luca are playing defense, that lineup absolutely can
be a problem to deal with because there's a ton
of offensive skill. Ruy's a knockdown three point shooter, right.
(28:32):
So like when it actually when that unit played more
to their capability, I don't think you should run that
lineup against really good teams when you're healthy. That goes
without saying for all the reasons why we've talked about,
but I'm just saying we knew they were capable of
playing better. Last night was an example of them playing better.
(28:53):
Lebron came back and basically functioned entirely off the ball.
I want to dig more into that in a minute,
But Austin and Luca orbit the majority of the usage.
This is something I've been calling for, Like Luca and
Austin should be the number one and number two options.
The team should be leaning into those guys in ball
screen action and in there when they're running sets, running
sets for those guys as much as humanly possible. It's
(29:14):
exactly what they did. Lebron just let that happen willingly.
Again I mentioned this earlier, but like, Austin was scoring
just fine with Lebron on the floor before his calf injuries.
So like, I don't know why everyone was assuming that
Lebron was just going to strangle the usage and take
the ball away from those guys. He was just waiting
for Austin to get it going. Now he has it going,
Luca goes for fifty one, Austin goes for thirty. I've
(29:38):
said this at several points this season. When Luca has
his step back three going, he's the best player in
the world, And boy did he have it going. Last
night he had nine of them. And Luca's been on
a tear lately after struggling for a few weeks around
the All Star break. There's a ten game span from
February third to March fifth where Luca played in ten
games in that span and he only scored thirty points
(30:00):
twice in those ten games. It's very unlike Luca, especially
at the amount of usage that he has right in
his last four games forty points, ten rebounds, and seven
assists on fifty one percent from the field, forty five
percent from three on massive volume, and eighty six percent
from the foul line, to go with three point five
stocks per game two and a half steals per game.
(30:23):
He's been a brilliant back line defender in this stretch,
reading plays before they happen, jumping interior passes, getting deflections
and hands on skips, and getting steals off of those.
This is the version of Luca that is every bit
as good as Shay and Jokic, and possibly even better
than them. I can't say enough about how amazing Luca's
(30:43):
been during this stretch, and most importantly, he's been very
fun to watch in this stretch. There's a level of
intensity and focus to him right now, that's tangible.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
He was talking shit last night.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Remember a few weeks back when I was lamenting that
he used to talk more trash to the opponent than
he would to the refs, and that dynamics seem to
have like flipped. Well, him being one tech away from
the suspension has caused him to chill a little bit
with the refs, and last night he was jawing at
modest bizells like crazy. I want to add the layer
of Luca's personal situation to this discussion. I said, Luca's
(31:15):
been playing with crazy focus and intensity to do that
with everything he's got going on, with the separation from
his fiance, being forced to be away from his daughters
as much as he has been. I just think his
leadership has been really impressive this season. And I want
to add this season long point with his postgame pressers.
Even when Luca has had bad stretches this season, and
(31:36):
there's been two, and I say bad relative to his talent.
A lot of this stuff with the with Luca stan
culture is stand culture. People get really upset. It's just
how it goes. I'm pretty consistent with this stuff. You
guys know, like Jo Kich had a stretch where he
played really poorly after his knee injury, and we called
it out on the show. We talked about the percentages.
I talked about how he wasn't playing good on defense
(31:56):
and he needed to be better. Like when it comes
to the very best players in the league, that that tier,
the Yannis, Luca, Jokic, Shay, I hold them to a
different standard because we're talking about guys that are in
that top tier of basketball players in the world, that
are in contention for best player in the world status.
The reason why I have him been super critical of
Shaye this year is he hasn't had a stretch where
(32:19):
he's looked bad. Shae has just been amazing almost every
single night that he's gone out and played. So he's
been a little bit immune to criticism this year, right.
Jokicch just had some up and downs, so he's been
criticized some, He's been praised some. Lucas had some up
and down, so he's been criticized some, He's been praised some. Right,
But even when Luca was having one of those stretches
(32:39):
where he struggled relatives to his talent and There's like
two distinct stretches like that surrounding his trip to Slovenia,
and then this stretch that I just talked about surrounding
the All Star Break where he scored thirty points just twice.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
In ten games.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
He's always been a damn professional in front of the mic,
accepting personal responsibility, keeping his and the team's focus on
big picture goals. I've had my frustrations with Luca this year,
but I've gained a lot of respect for him as
a franchise leader along the way. This is the version
of Luca that is capable of taking the Lakers to
(33:11):
the Promised Land, and he is a welcome sight at
this point in the season as the Lakers look pretty
hell bent on ramping up for a postseason run. Austin's
in full rhythm now last three games, twenty nine points,
five rebounds, seven assists, fifty five percent from the field,
forty eight percent from three to eighty one percent from
the line. It's become abundantly clear that Austin has put
(33:31):
in a ton of work on his three point shot.
He started really cold this season, but he's forty three
percent on six threes a game over his last twenty
seven games. Twenty seven games. It's a large sample that
has given him this awesome counter to his downhill scoring.
He's always been very gifted at shifting defender's side to
side and hitting gaps with downhill speed. Now that he
(33:53):
can counter that with a deadly over the top three
point shot, it's given him a level of reliability night
tonight as an offensive player. It's allowed him to pump
his scoring average the way that he has this season,
and again he obviously can score next to Lebron.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I thought that, like I've it's been.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Hard because like there actually was like a nuanced discussion
to have about Lebron and like some of his waxing
and waning defensive effort and some of the stuff where
like off the ball, he like just has struggled to
knock down catch and shoot threes, Like there was a
discussion to have about Lebron, and instead all I heard
was really stupid stuff like oh, like this is a
(34:31):
like like Chris Finch saying it's a usage puzzle. Lebron
has had historically lost usage, and every single time Austin
and Luca have been healthy, he's been playing primarily a
tertiary role. The only time Lebron has absorbed usage really
has been one Austin has been out or when Luke's
been out, and so like, so much of the discussion
(34:52):
surrounding Lebron has been like straight up aimed in the
wrong direction, like there's actually an interesting discussion to have
about how Lebron fits with the team, and instead all
the Lebron haters are just saying stupid shit that makes
no sense, like, oh, he's hurting Austin and Luca. What
that doesn't even make sense and that's not what's happening
when you watch the games, and so predictably, like I said,
(35:13):
I said that what's really happening is Austin is finally
finding his rhythm, and I said, Lebron will come back
and allow that to continue, just like he did when
he started the season. When Lebron came back. Austin was
averaging thirty points over the first like six or seven
games after Lebron came back. So there was like obviously
(35:35):
an evidence that Austin can cook next to Lebron, that
Luca can cook next to Lebron, and they cooked next
to Lebron last night. Now he was a little gun
shy in the first half. I didn't think he was
that great. In the first half. He looked a little rusty,
looked a little out of shape. He got a back
cut out of the left corner or out of the
right corner by Leonard Miller on one play, had a
couple of ugly turnovers. Not a great first half, But
(35:56):
I thought Lebron was insanely good in his second half
shift monster of a role player.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
He started to act like again.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
This is the thing where I think the valid conversation
surrounding Lebron was is like, Okay, now that Austin and
Luca are in rhythm, we need you to play defense. Man,
Like now that we don't need you to do a
ton with the basketball. You are one of the smartest
and most physically equipped players on our team to be
(36:24):
a great defender, you can't be mailing in that end of.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
The floor, right.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That was a valid discussion to have surrounding Lebron and
his fit with the team. In that second half, Lebron
was a monster defensively. Literally looked like Draymond with the
types of rotations he was making on the back line,
the way he was snuffing out plays and getting deflections
and steals. Lebron was awesome in that second half defensively
and then on offense, getting out in transition and playing
(36:49):
with speed. That was the second thing, another interesting valid
conversation to have with Lebron, which is like, hey, dude,
we're slow. You're one of our best athletes. We need
you to run up and down the floor. Lebron is
running all night last night in transition on both ends
and transition defense and transition offense, the offensive rebounds, like
him just being like, I'm bigger than all you guys.
I'm just gonna get these offensive rebounds. Guess what, Lebron
(37:11):
is absolutely capable of being a monster on the offensive glass.
Like he is one of the most physically imposing players
in the league. Still he absolutely can do that. Had
a bunch of success on the offensive glass in the
second half, the bulley ball stuff under the rim, Like
my whole thing is, like the discussion should be now
that this is the first time, guys, since literally early December,
(37:35):
that Luca and Austin have.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Both been healthy and in rhythm.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Everything between early December and now has been about piecing
together with guys out of the lineup or with guys
hurt now that Austin and lucarran rhythm. Look, the Lakers
need Lebron to be this kick ass role player. We
know he's capable of doing it. He did it last night.
I expect his focus to be headed in that direct
(38:00):
and I expect him he'll have I do think it's
a regular season, right so I do think in the
last sixteen games, there'll be four or five nights where
Lebron's not great in effort, and I'm sure it'll be
a huge talking point when it is. But like, as
long as Lebron is engaged in those areas, he's not
just helpful, he's a ceiling razor for this team, a
massive ceiling razor for the team. He was a big
(38:21):
part of that second half run last night. The only
thing that I would get on him about. There were
two plays in particular, one in the first half, one
in the second half where he was situated on the
wing and Ruey Haschimurro was situated in the corner and
a kickout pass went to Lebron and he was open
to shoot a three, and Ruey's man kind of stayed
home and instead of shooting the three, he like rifled
(38:42):
one time or quick swing passes to Ruey in the
corner and then the play died. And so the one thing,
and I've been consistent with Lebron all season on this,
He's got to take open.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Catch and shoot threes. He just has to take them.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
If he does that, he doesn't even have to shoot
amazing on him if he just does that and shoots
like thirty five percent on him, which we know he can.
If he does that and then does all the little
things that I just talked about defensively and offensive rebounding,
connective playmaking, all those different things, that's going to be
a devastating role player in this group. So that's just
the play the way he's got to stay focused. Lastly,
(39:14):
Deandrayton Deandrayton, I was texting with Pete about this during
the game because I found it really fascinating. Aytan was
playing angry last night, and he's been playing kind of
angry for the last several games, and at first I
was like, it's this kind of weird attitude kind of thing,
but he had a postgame comment that I want to
highlight before we get back into the actual basketball stuff.
(39:38):
Dan Woykee asked Deandretan about the team's recent uptick in
intensity and attention to detail what he's an ate and
responded quote, it felt like I picked up my energy
and my focus, and you know, I finally caught up
with the team.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
That's about it.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
And I thought that was a really impressive show of
self awareness from Deandrayton for him to look at the
situation and be like, no, it's not their fault, it's
not the coach's fault. It's not anybody's fault that I
keep getting pulled out of these games that they keep
closing with different players, that my minutes have been plummeting.
Apex in that Denver game, right, he has a bad
(40:13):
first shift, He's kind of asleep on a lob pass
from Luca. One really his fault, but he was kind
of asleep on a lob from Luca. He had a
bad defensive rap against Julian Strather and a dribble handoff.
He wasn't engaged in focused to start the game. He
gets the hook. He wasn't the only guy in that
lineup that wasn't engaged. But guess what those guys are
Luca and Lebron and Austin they're going to get.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
A longer leash.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It was he got pulled because he wasn't playing well ultimately,
and at first he was angry. May or may not
have quit on the team that night, who knows. But
since he's come back, he's been angry, physically aggressive, super
high motor, and he's been a fucking monster. And I
appreciated him acknowledging that it wasn't a them problem, that
(41:01):
it was a me problem, that he needed to look
in the mirror and meet the moment, meet the intensity,
meet the mission that the Lakers were trying to accomplish. Now,
does this mean that I'm buying a bunch of Ayton
stock and I think suddenly he's gonna go on a run.
I'm not gonna jump on that bandwagon from just a
small handful of games. But I will say, at least
(41:22):
in my time rooting for eight in this season, I
haven't seen a three game stretch like this where he's
been both dominant with his natural ability but also playing
with a consistent level of physical aggression and anger around
the basket and motor. And I do think if Ayton,
this is what I'll say, because I'm not gonna say
I think it's gonna keep happening if Ayton can bottle
(41:44):
that up and understand that that specifically is what will
drive him to get a big contract in the future
and not anything else, just him playing physically aggressive and
angry and doing his job. That if he does that,
it drely increases the ceiling of this team, and it
dramatically increases the possibility.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Of him getting another long term deal in the NBA.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
I've talked about this, This recent run from the Lakers
really impressive. Right They've won I think seven out of eight.
They've been very good on defense in that span, elite
on offense. Up to the third seed in the West.
The Lakers are the sixth best team in the entire
league right now, which is unbelievable. At a couple of
signature wins last week against Minnesota and New York, there's
a lot or this week, I should say, there's a
lot of like really impressive stuff building, But it really
(42:31):
comes down to just a handful of things. Austin getting
back into rhythm like the player he was to start
the year, Luka Doncic upping his level of play to
that true MVP level, DeAndre Ayton, DeAndre Ayton waking up
makes this a different basketball team, and so that's an
encouraging trend against small sample. But if Ayton can just
(42:52):
bottle that up, it means a lot for this particular team.
All Right, guys, that's all I have for today. As
always to sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us, in
supporting the show. Hopefully when I come back a Monday,
I can talk again that that's been brutal.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I appreciate you guys bearing with me.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Got a fun slate of games over the weekend to
we'll have plenty to cover when we get to Monday.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I'll see you guys then
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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