Hoops Tonight - Celtics Dominate 76ers, Lakers Get Back On Track, Plus A Mailbag

Jason Timpf breaks down Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics dominant win over Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kyle Kuzma jump starting the Milwaukee Bucks in a comeback win over Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers, LeBron James leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over the Portland Trail Blazers, and answers NBA mailbag questions about Luka Doncic, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and more.

Timeline:

4:15 - Start

6:00 - Celtics dominate 76ers

25:00 - Bucks beat Clippers

33:00 - Lakers get back on track

55:00 - Mailbag

#Volume #Herd

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.

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Speaker 1 (01:32):
Toe with Mando. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at
the volume heavy Friday. Everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Hope all of you guys had a great We got
a jam pack show for you tonight. We're gonna be
starting with the Boston Celtics, who really beat up the
Philadelphia seventy six ers last night. I want to zoom
in on there versatility. After that, the Milwaukee Bucks came
back from down thirteen in the fourth quarter to the
LA Clippers last night. Kyle Kuzma was amazing on defense.

(02:10):
Giannis looked incredible before sitting out the rest of the game.
On his minutes restriction. We really want to dive into
Kyle Kuzma in the force multiplier that he can be
for that group. Then in our third segment, we're going
to talk some Lakers who got a big win against
the Blazers to get back on track. Last night, Lebron
James drops forty points. I want to zoom in on
the concept of their defense, the number one defense in

(02:31):
the league since January fifteenth, a seventeen games sample. I
want to just zoom into that and what it means
for the Lakers and what it means specifically within the
context of Luca. And then, lastly, like we always do
on Fridays, our mail bag questions. Remember, if you guys
want to get mailbag questions, drop them in our YouTube comments.
Just put mail bag with the call in, write your
question and we'll get to it on Fridays throughout the

(02:53):
rest of the season. You guys have the Joe before
we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel
so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow
me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT. You guys, don't miss
you announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you
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We leave a rating and a review on that front.
We also have brand new social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram,
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more content throughout the season. And last but not least,
like I mentioned off the top, keep dropping mailback questions

(03:16):
and those YouTube comments for our Friday mail bags throughout
the rest of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the Celtics beat the shit out of the Sixers
last night, really controlled that one from start to finish.
And the Sixers with MBD, with Maxi, with Paul George
all healthy in the lineup, who continue to look extremely mediocre.

(03:37):
We talked about that last week, so I'm not going
to get into that today. But what fascinated me was
the way that Boston dominated that game. This is a
team that only averages thirty three ball screens per game.
It's bottom ten in the league. Several reasons for that.
Part of that is a lot of their perimeter players
are similar size and style, so you'll see a lot

(03:59):
of switching against the Boston Celtics. They also have pick
and pop bigs in one of the easiest ways to
confront a pick and pop, which is always open in
a traditional coverage, is to switch. And the Celtics also,
just in terms of their talent level, they're a team
that has a lot of guys that can punish mismatches,
so they're more or less a mismatch hunting type of offense.

(04:20):
But last night they ran forty two ball screens against
the Philadelphia seventy six ers, and I thought there was
a very specific reason why Philly has a severe roster weakness,
specifically at the center position in terms of footspeed, the
ability to cover ground and change direction on the perimeter.

(04:41):
Whether it's Embiid who's been brutally bad as of late
on the perimeter, or Quashanyabuseli or Andre Drummond, whoever it is,
they're just extremely slow.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Footed at that position.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
So Boston specifically for that matchup, changed the way they
played and start guarded spamming ball screens instead of hunting
smaller perimeter players. And by the way, they had smaller
players that they could attack. Right, there's Tyrese Maxey out
there that you can consistently look to hunt. There are smaller,
skinnier players, but they just went the route of trying

(05:16):
to hunt the Philly Bigs in space, and it was
barbecue chicken over and over and over again. Embiid would
either be way too far back in his drop coverage.
That's a weird thing with Embiid, Like I don't know
if it's like a Nick Nurse mixing up coverages thing,
or if he just decides possession by possession, whether or
not he feels like getting up to the level. But

(05:38):
sometimes he's way far back in a drop and guys
are hitting pull of jumpers over the top. Sometimes he's
running up to the level, but they'll just pop Horford
to poor Zingis out to the three point line, or
they'll just attack Joel Embiid in space or a big
one Inbiad's been really struggling with is rejected screens.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Where like guys will get ready to go.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Off a bass and Embiid will over commit to one
side of the screen and so then when the ball
handler crosses back over away from the screen, it's just
all this daylight going downhill.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
In the first half, when the.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Celtics scored seventy two points, they got one point five
to five points per ball screen.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
In twenty two reps in the first half over one
and a half points per possession, including passes in ball screens.
Just an insane level of efficiency, and the Sixers really
got ran off the floor. And it got me thinking
about this concept of versatility. In order to win the title,
you have to win four completely different playoff series against

(06:41):
four completely different teams, right, Like you might face a
dominant rim protector and more of a traditional scheme in
one round. Think about a team like Milwaukee. Milwaukee's gonna
present a challenge We're going to talk about them later,
where they got Giannis and Kyle Kuzma flying around in
helpside and Brooks just sitting under the rim waiting for everybody.

(07:02):
It's a specific type of challenge, right, But then you
might face a team that does a lot more switching
in a different round. Think about a team like the
Miami Heat, who with all of their big, rangy athletes,
especially now that Wigans is in the picture, they can
switch a lot of action. Dam Adebayo one of the
best bigs in the league at switching ball screens right.
Cleveland this year has done a lot of switching because

(07:24):
Jared Allen can guard on the perimeter. Evan Mobley can
guard on the perimeter. It's a very different type of
challenge going against the Cleveland Cavaliers right, and then on
the other end of the floor, like the East has
a lot of elite guards right, guys like Jalen Brunson,
Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, and Darius Garland with the Calves.
But then you'll also face these teams that have more

(07:47):
dynamic like big wings right teams like the Pistons with
Kay Cunningham or Jannison Tenakumpo, who was just bludgeoning the
Clippers last night, or Pascal si Yakum, who's been one
of the more efficient matchup attackers in the league this year.
Pala Bancaro when he's healthy and in rhythm, Franz Wagner
when he's healthy in rhythm. Even looking at the center position, again,

(08:09):
the Sixers aren't a threat this year, but on any
given season, you could run into an issue where it's like, oh,
what if you have to face some combination of one
or two of Jokic, Anthony Davis or Joe el Embiid right, Alprin, Shanegon,
the Victor wembin Yama types of the league I say types,
he's the one and only of his kind.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
But you get the point.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
These like big unicorn bigs that can cause problems.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
You might face speed in one round and size in
the next. A team that tests your ability to defensive
rebound like the Detroit Pistons, are a team that tries
to run you off the floor in transition, like the
Indiana Pacers.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Contrary to what Draymond Green.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Says and so many of our former NBA players that
are content to shit on the league, there are a
bunch of teams in the NBA who play different styles.
There's a lot of uniqueness as you go from team
to team around the league. The ability to survive those
wild shifts in style from round to round is a
big part of what makes an NBA champion. Sometimes you're

(09:11):
just so strong with your base setup that no team's
able to match it. That happens from time to time.
The team I look at as an example of that
is the Denver Nuggets in twenty twenty three. They had
slight variations, right. They would have stretches of games or
specific matchups where they'd bring Jokic up to the level,
and then they'd have other matchups where they'd sit Jokic

(09:34):
deeper in a drop and offer less low man help
from Aaron Gordon. But for the most part, it was
traditional coverages and on offense, they just run the same
thing just about every single time. There were some differences,
like the Miami Heat series, it's like, oh, we're gonna
spam Aaron Gordon post ups, right, Like, there are a
handful of different things that they would do differently, but
that team it was more like just we have this

(09:56):
completely unsolvable problem that is Nikola Jokic, and good luck
solving it. But there are different types of champions over
the year where it comes down more to versatility, the
Bucks being able to play Giannis at center or at
the four, the Lakers being able to play Anthony Davis
at center or at the four. Teams playing through heavy

(10:17):
ballscreen attack one night, switching towards more of a post
up style attack a different night. There's a lot of
versatility in the champions as we look back through NBA history,
and that's what I like about this Celtics team. There
are a lot of teams out there that struggle against
switching defenses, but that will thrive against traditional ball screen coverages.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
We're gonna talk Lakers later.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Luca will help them with their switching, but Lebron and
Austin have a vulnerability to ball pressure and switching. But
then you look at them in the first half against Portland,
when Donovan Klingen and Robert Williams are sitting in drop
coverages all game, Lebron and Austin are picking them apart
right like they thrive on baked in dribble penetration. But
when you force them to do it over and over

(10:59):
and over again against the set defender in front, they
can have some problems. Right, the Celtics are very well
equipped to handle both. They have a reputation for being
one of the best switch attacking defenses in the offenses
in the league, not just because Jason Tatum can attack
smaller players, not just because Jalen Brown can attack smaller players,
not just because they can pick on bigs in space,

(11:21):
but also because of their spacing, also because of their
ability to use seals like you'll see Jason Tatum screen
for Derek White, but screen the backside of the defender
and create that little passing angle over the top and
Derek White floats it to him. Suddenly you have a
four on three. They do a lot of work attacking
switching successfully. But then, as we saw last night, you

(11:44):
go up against a drop coverage team, a team that's
running a lot more traditional coverage is either the big
at the level or sitting back in a drop in
that sort of situation, if you don't score the basketball
in those ball screens, if you don't score the basketball
with the big popping, then you allow Embiid to park
his ass underneath the basket. And when Embiid has parked

(12:04):
underneath the basket, he can be a problem. And there
are a lot of teams that struggle against those kinds
of coverages.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Right. The Celtics literally just.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Change the way they play and annihilated the Sixers, picking
on their bigs in those traditional coverages.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
There are a lot.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Of teams out there have a base defensive scheme that works,
but it doesn't work against other teams.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Famous example of this is the Jazz in twenty twenty one.
You could sit Rudy Gobaar underneath the basket. Everything's great,
you start spacing them out with five out spacing. Suddenly
it's like ooh, like Donovan Mitchell struggling to guard the ball,
Mike Conley's struggling to guard the ball, boy on mcdonovitch
is struggling to guard the ball, and Go Bear's not.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
There to clean things up.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
And a Clippers team just without Kawhi Leonard just completely
picks apart a Utah Jazz defense that dominant throughout the
entire regular season. I'm a little worried about that with
the Lakers this year. We're gonna talk about it in
a little bit. I'm concerned about them being able to
handle certain matchups with their defense, even though their base
scheme has been defending well and I expect to continue

(13:14):
to defend well. Right, how do you have defensive versatility?

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Well?

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Can you match teams with size? Yeah, the Celtics can.
They can play two big looks with Horford and Porzingis
on the floor. Can the Celtics go small and switch everything.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
They had looks last year with Horford at center where
they did a lot of damage to teams just by
doing a lot of switching. They have bigs that can
guard on the perimeter. They have perimeter players that can
guard bigs. That was the big thing that unlocked the
Celtics defensive scheme in the postseason last year was We're
gonna put Jason Tatum on the opponent's center, and we're

(13:46):
gonna put Jalen Brown on the opponent's best perimeter player,
and we're just gonna switch ball screens. And now all
of a sudden, your pick and roll attack doesn't work.
And oh, by the way, where's porzingis at. He's guarding
your weakest above the break three point shooter and just
waiting for everybody at the rim, just making a complete
mess of things. That's the versatility that Boston has on

(14:07):
the defensive end of the floor. Drew Holliday, you spent
a bunch of time guarding Joel Embiid last night.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
One of my.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Biggest issues with the way that the game of basketball
is analyzed around the league is we hyper focus on
what a team's net rating is, or how good their
offense is in a large sample, or how good their
defense is in a large sample. And I don't want
to sit here and pretend like there aren't value in
those things. There are, and I think they're important in
terms of indicators of a team's level of commitment on

(14:35):
the night and night out process of the regular season.
If you're serious basketball team. You need to be winning
your games by a lot of points, and it needs
to manifest in something like net rating, right, Like, if
you're not dominating in those areas, then you're probably just
not sharp enough in general to get where you want
to go. But once you get into a playoff series,
those metrics don't mean shit. It becomes can you score

(14:59):
against this particular team? Can you get stops against this
particular team. I was watching Giannis last night. He was
showcasing this like ridiculous spin move, we're going to talk
about it here in a little bit, and like two
to one, like fadeaways over the top. Was just bludgeoning
the Clippers in the paint in that early fourth quarter stretch,

(15:21):
which really sparked the run. And it doesn't really matter
how good your defense is if you can't guard Giannis.
That's what I'm concerned about with the Lakers with the Nuggets,
right it doesn't really matter if they're switching scheme, can
bend but not break and get a lot of stops,
if like Nikole Jokic can just get a layup every
single time he wants. That's why we have to look

(15:42):
at this deeper than just reading net ratings and reading
the standings to tell us who the best playoff threats are.
The Celtics have great metrics too, top five in both
offense and defense. Right now, they're sixth in defensive rebounding.
But they also have the ability to shape shift from
matchup to matchup, and that's what makes them such a

(16:04):
difficult team to contend with. Thought, it's really interesting the
way they just spam ball screens to beat the Sixers
last night, when that's not really their play style on
most nights.

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(17:51):
on a Clippers Bucks. So the Bucks were trailing at
thirteen in the early fourth quarter and Yannis just completely
takes over the game. They try to get some stops
by running a two three zone with Jericho Simms in
the middle of the floor, and Clippers got a couple
of buckets out it, but it didn't a nice job
of just kind of stagnating and changing the flow of
the game. And on the other end of the floor,

(18:11):
Giannis was just torching Ben Simmons, torching Nicholas Patom just
he was using his spin move over and over again
last night disguised it really well too. He had a
fun one against Nick Patom where he catches the ball
on the left kind of like elbow extended area there
in the middle of the of that left side of
the floor, and he's facing up in the Clippers are

(18:33):
basically zoned up on him, so they're in both driving lanes.
Kawhi Leonards kind of doing the little defensive three second
dance where he's hopping in and out of the key
trying to make sure that he's ready to rotate. They're
rotating on the high side and Giannis just kind of
waits for as second to kind of read the floor,
and then he does a beautiful job of disguising a
post up, making it look like he was about to

(18:54):
go kind of into a traditional slowdown post up where
he turns his back into that high hesitation dribble and
then just immediately spun off of it, like disguised it
like he was.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Going to go for a slow, methodical post up and.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Then just immediately spun off of it, went right around
Nick patom Kawhi had no chance, he was not even
close to being there in time. He's right at the basket.
It just reminds everybody that, like when you're dealing with
one of those true upper tier guys. This is one
of the reasons why I've been excited about Luka Doncic
when it comes to the Lakers. Right there are a

(19:29):
handful of guys in the league, Nikola Jokic, Shay Gildess,
Alexander Jannis, and Tennekumpo, Luka Doncic. I think Jason Tatum
has kind of entered into this group where it's like
there's really nothing you can do. There's no player that
stops them, there's no scheme that stops them. They are
world beaters, and when you have one of those guys,

(19:51):
you present a problem to the opponent that becomes.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Very difficult to solve.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
So one of the big things that we've underrated when
we've talked about the Bucks Andry years, where we think
about them as a broken roster. And look, here's the thing.
They're not the best roster in the league. We all
know that, but there's an important context to their last
two playoff exits. Yiannis didn't play. When Yannis played, even
on a limited Bucks roster in twenty twenty two because

(20:19):
of the Chris Middleton injury, it was just Drew Holliday,
a bunch of role players in Giannis, and he still
pushed the Celtics to seven games because guess what, when
you get into a playoff series, it's over and over
and over and over again that he's coming downhill at you.
And I remember early in that series it's like Horford

(20:40):
would wall him up, you know, like you'd you'd have
guys sliding their feet and absorbing contact. Grant Williams played
some good minutes on Giannis in that series, but then
what happened after, like the tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty fifth
time that he comes at you, he starts to just
get through you, and there's literally nothing you can do
about it. And he pushed that series to seven games

(21:01):
when it had no business going to seven games. And
that's where the optimism comes.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
That's what.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Have the Bucks looked mediocre at times this year? Yeah,
you shouldn't write off Jannis. Have the Nuggets looked mediocre
at times at times this year? Yeah, you shouldn't right
off Jokic. Have the Lakers looked like they have some
obvious roster flaws with their new build, especially at the
center position. Yeah, but you probably shouldn't write off Luka,

(21:27):
Doncic and Lebron James playing the way that he's playing.
And as I was watching that last night, it just
goes to show you, like Giannis is kind of flying
under the radar this year because of all the excitement
around Shay, all the excitement around Jokic, He's still one
of those guys, one of those guys that presents a
truly unsolvable problem for opponents. When Yanna sat out of

(21:51):
the game, though something really interesting happened, he kind of
goes out of the game in that mid fourth quarter
stretch on a minute's restriction, obviously coming back from his injury,
and the Bucks won the game with defense and everybody
was guarded. Dame had a really nice steal where they
were running a ball screen with Zubach and Harden, and
Harden threw a bounce pass to Zubatch on the roll

(22:14):
and Dame dug down off of a mere coffee and
got a steal that ended up leading to a runout
and one for Kyle Kuzma. Brook Lopez blocked Kawhi at
the rim because Kuzma flattened out the drive. I talk
a lot about flattening out drives. When you flatten out drives,
it gives your helpers more time to rotate, and when
Brook has time to kind of read things on the

(22:34):
back line, he can be devastating there. He had another
block on another sweeping drive across the middle of the florid.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
He had three blocks in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Kyle Kuzma took a charge, tagging if he can Zubatch
on a roll they were guarding aj Green, Stonewall, Kawhi
Leonard a few times. Kyle Kuzma had multiple stops on
the ball against Kawhi Leonard and James Harden either them
into bad shots. He forced James Harden into a three

(23:05):
out of the right corner that was like a foot
and a half over the back of the rim. He's
stonewalled Kawhi Leonard into passing the basketball because he's got
the length to bother that pull up jump shot. Kusma
looks like a Swiss army knife. I've seen him take charges.
I've seen him battle embiad in the post, in front
the posts. I've seen him guard guards. I've seen him
guard wings. He's grabbing its on a defensive rebounds. He

(23:27):
is a force multiplier for this defense. And I was
especially excited to see him in the context of playing
alongside Giannis, because again, that's what makes this work when
you're talking about when you're talking about traditional switching schemes,
it becomes about how many good defenders do you have

(23:49):
on the floor.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
But when it comes to these more.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Traditional pick and roll schemes where you have Brooke waiting
at the basket, where you have Brooke coming up to
the level, sometimes it becomes more off ball defense. It
becomes more about how athletic are you on the back line,
how well can you protect the rim and disrupt things
when the ball gets past brook Lopez against types of
players that are gonna pull him out to the level

(24:15):
and like, yes, Chris Middleton brought a lot of ball
handling to this team, which, by the way, like Kyle
Kuzma's done some of that. He had a big one
of the biggest clutch plays in this game.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
It's one four, one oh four.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Kuzma attacks downhill with the ball, forces Zubats to switch
on him, swings a skip Passatorian Prince Amir Coffee ends
up switched on brook Lopez because Kyle Kuzma got downhill
so hard he forced Zubats to switch. Got brook a
one on one in the post against a mere Coffee.
He just bullied him right under the basket for an
and one. They ended up leading the rest of the

(24:48):
game from that point. You know, I'd already loved the
early returns from the Kyle Kuzma trade. He made it
immediately clear within the first few games that he was
playing on playing winning basketball. Now, adding Gianis to this
mix gives this team crazy potential and I have my
eye on them as a team that could potentially jump

(25:09):
considerably higher up my contender rankings after I see them
with Giannis and Cuz together more. It's a physicality thing.
It's a size thing. It's a protecting the rim and
rebounding thing. It's a maybe you just can't handle Jannis
on Tanacumpo on the other end of the floor kind
of thing that makes me so excited about them in

(25:29):
the big picture. And then Dame, I mean like Dame,
we Dame when he was in the first round last
year with Chris Middleton had to carry such a massive
offensive load within the context of this sort of build.
When they get to the postseason, when Giannis is playing
the way he's playing, when you have this type of defense,
Dame is a really dangerous second option. Has this remarkable

(25:52):
ability to get to the foul line on three point shots.
He drew two fouls on three point shots in the
fourth quarter, hit another big step back three off the
left wing, just manufacturing points. That is another force multiplier
within the context of what this team is capable of
on the offensive end of the floor. All Right, moving
on the Lakers Blazers. This game looks so similar to

(26:13):
me to the set of games that we saw between
when Ad got hurt in the Sixers game and when
Luca joined the team, think about like that when they
beat the Knicks, like in the Clippers, in that kind
of phase of the of the season. The Lakers defense
has just been so good lately. Again, they're number one
in the entire NBA in defensive ratings since January fifteenth.

(26:36):
That's a seventeen game sample, or roughly twenty one percent
of the season. Oh well, Anthony Davis was in there
for some of those games. You're right, he was in
there for seven of those games. In the ten games
since they are second in defensive rating. Now, we'll get
deeper into what that means later, because like, do I
think they're a top tier defense in this league. No,

(26:57):
But the point is they are guarding to the effect
that they're guarding better than everyone in the NBA.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Over the course of the last six weeks.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Or so, they've just done a much much better job
of executing JJ Redicks one through five switching scheme. We'll
talk about that when we get into their defense. And
then on offense, Lebron and Austin have just been in
such a great group. There have been clunky moments, especially
as Luca has been in the picture. And they're trying
to work that new partnership out. But Lebron in this

(27:25):
thirteen and four stretch twenty seven points, eight rebounds, nine
assists on sixty three percent true shooting. That is MVP
level production from a forty year old in a winning
context with massive games against good teams. Austin reeves in
this thirteen and four stretch twenty one points, four rebounds,

(27:46):
seven assists, sixty three percent true shooting. That's insane. Forty
eight points, twelve rebounds and sixteen assists on sixty three
percent true shooting from Lebron and Austin over this seventeen
game span, this game kind of had an interesting flow,
and that's how it also kind of mimicked some of
these other games recently when AD's been out but Luca's

(28:06):
also been out, where like they start the game, there's
a lot of ball pressure. That's like the book on
the Lakers. You want a ball pressure Austin and Lebron
and try to wear them out. That's, by the way,
one of the big reasons why I think Luca is
so important to this team. He is impervious to that
sort of thing. But in the early part of this game,
it's a lot of ball pressure. But the Blazers were

(28:27):
running a lot of drop coverage with Donovan Klingon and
Robert Williams, where they're either they're coming up but they're
not that high up at the level, but they're sitting
back waiting for the ball handler coming off of the screen,
and Lebron and Austin just absolutely torched it getting all the.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Way to the rim.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Lebron in particular, had some really impressive finishes in traffic
through Klingon. Lebron, by the way, in this seventeen game span,
is shooting eighty two percent in the restricted area, So
how's that for the old man. He's one of only
six players in the league in that span that's making
at least three point five shots in the restricted area
on at least eighty percent, and it's all centers. And

(29:03):
then Lebron the short to mid range shot making. Both
Austin and Lebron were great with that. And then again,
when you show a willingness to either attack downhill or
to score and pick and roll, something happens with the
screen defender.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
The ball.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Screen defender starts to engage the ball handler more as
soon as you start to engage the ball handler more.
That's when the roleman gets open. Jackson As and Trey
Jamison at fifteen points in this game, a lot of
spoon fed baskets right around the rim off of action
that Austin and Lebron were running. But again, every team

(29:36):
has a game plan for the Lakers. Lots of ball pressure,
you wear them down, and then usually over the course
of the game there's more switching and then more aggressive
ball coverages where the bigs coming up to the level.
And what ends up happening is Lebron and Austin start
to get tired, and when they get tired, they get sloppy,
particularly as passers. Those two guys finished with seventeen turnovers.

(29:58):
The team finished with a season twenty four turnovers, and
so many of them were like pick sixes. And this
is the weird part about that game. Lebron and Austin
were brilliant, but they both undercut a lot of their
success with these really sloppy turnovers that literally led to
run out layups and dunks. Again, they had thirty one
points off of turnovers in this game. The Blazers did

(30:20):
Denny Avdia in particular, it was amazing in this game,
did a ton of damage in those like kind of
runout like six pick six type of types of sequences,
but that allowed the Blazers to kind of slowly and
methodically work their way back into the game. But Lebron James,
once again, just like he did against the Hornets the
night before, goes absolutely bizarre in the early fourth quarter

(30:42):
shift hitting threes against Jeremy Grant, who was going underneath picks,
and Lebron's just shooting the ball too well these days
for you to go under picks. He made Jeremy Grant
pay with two threes that way, hit another one of
those drop covered shots against Donovan Klingen like god Jeremy
Grant in jail, and then hit like a little like
twelve along the left lane line. He hit this crazy

(31:03):
driving floater onto Monty Camarrow was a really impressive defensive
player all season, but was doing a lot of damage
to the Lakers last night. Hit this driving floater on
to moniy Amara. All of a sudden, the Lakers are
up by nine, But then the rest of the way
the Blazers just double team Lebron and there were a
couple more ugly turnovers, a couple more runouts and kept
things kind of close. But when you double team Lebron,

(31:23):
he's just gonna pick you apart. They got good looks
down the stretch. Austin Reeves hit a big three on
the right wing off of a Lebron double that more
or less kind of like ice to the game, so
to speak. And then Austin Reeves a couple of big stops,
got to stop on Scoot Henderson driving off of the
left wing. Got another stop in the post against Jeremy Grant.
I've been telling everybody forever, like Austin will have his

(31:43):
bad games where he looks bad on defense, especially like
random regular season games against mediocre teams. But when len
when Austin needs to guard, he guards. Austin slides his feet,
he absorbs contact. He's excellent at attacking the basketball. Both
of those stops against Scoot Henderson and Jeremy Grant just
attacked the basketball. He got screw Henderson up high, he
got Jeremy Grant down low. Austin can guard, and he

(32:06):
got a couple of huge stops down the stretch of
that game. Before we get into the Lakers defense, I
just want to shout out a couple of Blazers. I
was really impressed with Smani Kamara. Again, he is just
a really unique combination of like size and strength but
also long arms in lots of mobility.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Latterly he had five steals in this game.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Was causing a lot of problems Danny Avdia not just
the transition runouts off of steels, but he brings a
good amount of downhill force. He had this off foot
dunk against Lebron, driving a close out off the top
of the key where he literally made Lebron look like
he was stuck in the mud. And Lebron's been guarding
for a couple of months now, it's not as easy
to do as you might think, and he just he
counters that downhill force with a nice jump shot. It

(32:45):
can be someone in consistent. He's better off the dribble
than he is off the catch. That means he's kind
of like a rhythm player. Makes me think like in
the big picture, he's kind of more of a second
side creator, a guy who should run more action. Robert Williams,
his length and mobility was a problem all night. They
had two blocks and two steals. The Blazers are fun.
They have a nice group of useful role players. It's
just Anthony Simons and Jeremy Grant leave a lot to

(33:08):
be desired as ball handlers. They would four for twenty
five from the field and that's just really hard to
overcome for anybody. But I want to focus on the
Lakers defense for a bit again. They're number one in
defensive ratings since January fifteenth, a large chunk of the
season here where they've been playing great defense. They've really
settled into a base scheme that works for them. They

(33:29):
either switch everything or switch almost everything depending on the matchup.
So like last night, for instance, they're not worried about
getting picked apart in ball screens by Portland. Their ball
handlers aren't good enough at scoring or playmaking to do that,
so they had Dorianfhinney Smith some of their perimterive players
gave Vincent chasing over the top of screens while clinging

(33:50):
in Robert Williams role, and it allowed them to make
stay attached to their pull up shooters in bait Shade
and Sharp and bait Anfernie Simon's into these like tough
rear view contested pull up threes coming off of screens,
and it worked. It baited them into a bunch of them.
They took seventeen pull up jumpers last night, made six
of them. But then you'll see in other matchups where

(34:13):
they're more concerned about ball screens, they'll switch with their
fives as well. And then they do they switch everything
when they go to their small ball groups right when
there's no center on the floor. But their switching scheme
has worked so so much better in the last couple
of months because the Lakers are actually doing the things
that they need to do to make that scheme work.

(34:34):
To JJ's credit, even when those guys weren't executing it,
he stuck with it. He believed in it, and now
he's reaping the rewards. We've talked about this on the
show before, but there are several key things that you
need to do in order for a switching scheme to work. First,
you need your off ball defenders to be prepared to
jump out immediately when there is a screen to avoid

(34:55):
that interchange gap. We talked about that yesterday with Miles Bridges.
You got to switch right away. You can have a
gap between the switch because that's when a decent player
can rise up and knock down a jump shot. There's
an example early in the game where you can see
there's a couple of Portland screeners up at the top
of the key. The Lakers players are glued up on
the backside ready to jump out whenever that screen comes,

(35:17):
so that that interchange gap isn't there. Secondly, you need
your weaker defenders to battle. If you're switching, they're gonna go, Hey,
let's attack Austin Reeves. Hey, let's attack Luka doncich Austin.
You got to compete in those situations. Austin last night
huge stops down the stretch against Scoot Henderson against Jeremy Grant. Third,

(35:39):
you need to shrink the floor around them by gapping
driving lanes. You'll see possessions where the Lakers have two
guys on either side of the ball arms out in
the driving lane close enough where they feel like they
can close out, shrinking the floor. The Scoot Henderson drive
against Austin Reeves, if you look, there's a Laker on
either side of Austin in the gap, making it like

(36:02):
a narrow lane for Scoot Henderson to try to drive through,
and so he doesn't really try to go around Austin.
He tries to go through Austin, and Austin takes one
good slide to the left, absorbs that contact and attacks
the basketball and ties Scoot Henderson up. If you don't
have those gaps there, excuse me. If you don't have
those defenders gapping there and they're out of the way,

(36:23):
you have a wider lane. That is what allows Scoot
Henderson to really get to mixing Austin up. And once
he starts mixing Austin up, that's where he has more
of a speed advantage that he can take advantage of.
Right fourth, you need to have a plan for dribble penetration.
Which way if I'm gonna get beat off the dribble,

(36:44):
which way do I want to funnel the guy where
I have more help.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
There's a big.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Stop late in this game that Lebron James had on
Anthony Simon's And here's the thing. Simon's is faster than Lebron,
especially at age forty right, So like Lebron is probably
going to give up at least some dribble penetration on
that play. Now, his job again is to flatten out
the drive, and he did. But watch that play, Lebron,
he knows Ruy Hatchramura is gapping from the left side

(37:11):
off of Jeremy Grant, and he knows Austin Reeves is
sitting right.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
At the left block or the right block, excuse me.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
So with Austin on the right block and Ruey gapping
off of that right corner, Lebron knows my best help
is if I funnel him towards the sideline. So if
you look at Lebron, look at his stance. His right
foot is high, his left foot is back. He's in
position to slide with Anthony Simons, but he is forcing
him towards his right hand.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
So what happens.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Lebron knows the drive is going right, the drive happens
to the right, Lebron slides with him. Both him and
Austin end up attacking the basketball and they forced it
out of bounce. That's a plan that's gonna be big
when you have Luca. When Luca's in this picture and
he does start getting attacked, you need to have a
plan for what he's going to do. That doesn't mean

(38:01):
Luca allows dribble penetration. I heard that a lot from
Mavericks fans, like, Oh, Luca's job was to let guys drive.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Past him into rim protection. No, it's not.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Your job is to contain the ball as best as
you can. But in the absence of the ability to
actually literally contain the ball, you need to force him
in one direction where you have a plan to handle it.
And then fifth, you have to gang rebound. When you switch,
you're likely going to have smaller players battling bigs underneath

(38:30):
the rim. You have to come flying in from the
perimeter to help that smaller player in those situations.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
They've been doing a good job of that.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
In the ten games since Anthony Davis left the team,
they are thirteenth in defensive rebounding. That's not bad at
all for a team that's been playing a lot of
small ball over that stretch. Now, the question is how
good is this defense really, especially in the context of
Luka Doncic. To be clear, even without Luca on the floor,

(39:01):
even if we just remove Luca from the equation, this
is obviously not a number one level defense. A lot
of this is February basketball. There have been good wins
in there, so they've played really good defense against some
good teams. They defended the Clippers really well. They defended
the Knicks really well. They defended the Pacers well, but

(39:22):
a lot of bad offenses were in there too. Games
against Utah, games against Charlotte, games against Portland, games against Washington,
those are gonna The Warriors offense has struggled a lot
this year. Those are games that are gonna influence your
defensive rating a certain amount. Right, you add thirty plus
minutes of Luka Doncic into the picture, and yeah, your
defensive talent goes down a level. So I don't think

(39:45):
this is gonna be some top five dominant defense. I'm
not here today saying Lakers number one defense are gonna
say number one defense, They're gonna win with defense. I
don't think that's gonna be the case. But they don't
need to be that type of dominant defense. This team
absolutely needs to be a dominant top two or top
three level offense. And I do think that's a real

(40:08):
possibility for them with the talent level that they have
on that end of the floor. With Lebron playing at
the level he's playing at, with Luca playing at the
level he's capable of playing at, they can present an
unsolvable problem to teams. But if they're a top two
or top three level offense. They don't need to be

(40:29):
a dominant defense, they just need to be good enough.
I've talked about this a lot in the context of
like Denver in twenty twenty three, somewhere in that like
ten to fifteen range of defense is good enough when
you have peak unguardability on the offensive end of the
flour And I absolutely think the Lakers can get to
that point. I think the Lakers can be a slightly

(40:49):
above average defense with Luca in the picture. They've been
getting too many stops now for a while, Like I'm
seeing so many people just writing the Lakers defense off
and who knows, maybe Luca gets in the pick sure
and they actually can't guard. Maybe everything falls apart, but
it's all conjecture at this point. There's too many good
defenders in the lineup. We talked about how Austin's a
better defender than people think. Gabe's a good defender, Drian

(41:11):
Phinney Smith's a good defender. Lebron for months now has
been a good defender. Jared Vanderbilt when he's right, is
a great defender. They have good defenders in this lineup.
They're gonna get some stops I absolutely think they can
get into that slightly above average range of defense. I
like the switching scheme as like a way for them

(41:33):
to essentially they bend but not break, shut down screening
actions try to bait teams into running a lot of
inefficient ISOs and post ups, giving up some points but
keeping teams in check enough for their offense to be
a differentiator. My worry center around specific matchups like I've
been talking about, like we talked about earlier with Boston,
and the realities of playoff series. Like I do, worry

(41:56):
about Boston truly spacing them out to where they can't gap,
to where they can't help and it becomes a problem.
I can see a team like Denver where it's like
they just can't keep Jokic off of the offensive glass,
and even if they double team him and force teams
into misses, he just waddles his way underneath the basket
and starts shoving guys off and gets offensive rebounds and putbacks.

(42:16):
I can see that being a problem, But I think
in the big picture, they're gonna get a lot more
stops than people think. I don't view them as a
top tier contender, even if they're at their peak simply
because of the fact that they're gonna have severe matchup weaknesses.
But if they get their defense into that slightly above

(42:36):
average range and they get their offense where they're capable
of at the top tier in this league, I absolutely
think they can enter into that second tier in the
league with teams like Denver, with teams like Cleveland, I
absolutely think that's in their potential. All right, let's get

(43:03):
into our mail bag. First question, Hey, Jason up from Brazilla.
Loved the show. I've learned a lot from me last
two years, and I usually agree with most of your takes.
I'm always impressed by your knowledge of the game and
how well you break the plays down and analyze them.
Luca is my favorite player since Alan Iverson, and I've
learned to appreciate Lebron, which was hard at first because
I'm an MJ guy. However, I don't see a world
where the Lakers will be able to take the beating

(43:25):
and win multiple playoff series without a reliable center.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
It's just too much to ask.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Luca has really disappointed me as a defender recently, and
has shown some decline in his lateral movement to the
point of becoming a liability at the point of attack,
even though he's an okay post defender and a good rebounder.
I can easily see teams like Minnesota, Denver, Golden State
and others putting Luca and Austin in ball screens and
attacking them without any rim protection in the back line.
To make up for it. What kind of scheme can
they use to avoid being put in rotation all the time?

(43:51):
I used to hate the Lakers, but now I find
myself rooting for them because of Luca. I just want
to have some hope that they won't be embarrassed in
a playoff series for their lack of defense. Again, it's
a bend but not break kind of concept. I like
the idea of switching within the context of this roster,
and again, it's not about letting Austin and Luca get
run through a million ball screens. You don't want them
running through screens. You want them switching. And then when

(44:13):
they end up on the ball, there are things you
can do, like you can scram guys out of mismatches.
That was something they tried to do against Charlotte. They
just botched a rotation at the back. You can gap
and shrink those driving lanes and make it so it's
harder for them to attack. You can tell them to
play off and try to bait the guy they're guarding
into taking pull up jump shots. And if they're playing
off and there's guys in the gaps, it's like, are
you going to drive into three bodies or are you

(44:34):
going to take.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
A pull up three? Right?

Speaker 2 (44:35):
And maybe if you bait an opponent into taking a
bunch of pull up jump shots while your offense is
executing the crap out of them on the other end
of the floor, that can go a long way towards
that base scheme type of that base type of scheme working.
I'm not worried about the center position really outside of
the Yokic matchup, and even then, like Jokic used to
eat Anthony Davis up, so like, I don't see how

(44:56):
that really makes much of a difference within the context
of Lebron in Luca. It's vertical spacing really that you
need from that position, and Jackson does a good job
of that. I think Jackson's been really good since the
Anthony Davis trade. What you hit on, which I am
actually worried about is the ability to take a beating
like you talked about. I do think they can double

(45:18):
and rotate and get a certain amount of stops against
Nicole Jokic. I do think that they can switch and
contain and get a certain amount of stops against other teams.
But the question is can they do it over and
over and over again for two weeks against a team
like Denver, for four playoff rounds against a bunch of
different kinds of teams. And they do have a thin rotation.

(45:39):
They have like seven guys that I really trust, right,
it's like Lebron, Luca Austin, Dorian Phinney Smith, Ruy Gabe
and who.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Am I missing? And Vando?

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Right, and then like even Vando, it's a question mark
Jackson Hayes, there's some question marks there, right, So, like
you get an injury there, Dorian Phinney Smith goes down,
that's catastrophic. You can't overcome that, Jackson and Hayes goes down.
Now you're playing Jared Vanderbilt or Alex lann or Christian
KloCo or Trey Jemison at the center, that's not something
you can overcome. Like there are a few guys now

(46:10):
in their lineup that are like absolutely vitally important in
terms of if they get injured, you're in big trouble.
And so that's where my major concerns lie is, like
I worry about Jokics just wearing them down over a
playoff series and just destroying them on the offensive glass.
I worry about them getting spaced out by teams like Boston,
and then I worry about them breaking down. If you're

(46:32):
gonna play small ball, you need guys like Lebron to
rebound really well. That's just really exhausting for him to
have to do a lot. Feels like Tatum has been
shooting the ball a lot better this year, but he's
still only shooting thirty six percent from three as he
takes a lot of tough pull ups that drags his
efficiency down. I've seen arguments that even so is tough
pull up is still critical to opening up room for

(46:52):
the whole offense. Do you agree with that view on
a shot diet, Yes, he he has hurt his efficiency
by taking a lot of really tough shots, but there's
two things that's helped overcome it in my opinion. First
of all, he's shooting better off the dribble. He's up
over a point per shot off the dribble. That's the
key one. It's becoming a situation, especially in ISO, where

(47:13):
like it used to be, it's like, oh, just bait
Tatum and to take in a tough step back and
he'll probably miss most of them. And like, now that's
a battle he's winning more often than not. I think
that will especially become valuable when he gets into the
postseason and late clock shot making increases in value exponentially
compared to the regular season's That's why we call him

(47:34):
playoff shots.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
The second piece of it with Tatum is just his
overall command of games. He has gotten so good at
identifying the flow of each game, what each game actually
like demands from Tatum in any specific situation, and adapting
his skill set to fit whatever that demand is. And
that's why, like again, it goes back to what we
were talking about earlier in terms of evaluating teams based

(47:58):
on ratings, I don't necessarily look get the box score
as an indicator of how good Jason Tatum is at basketball.
He's been a twenty five, ten and five guy for
as long as we can remember. It's about the impact,
It's about how he does it. Within the context of
each individual basketball game, Jason, why doesn't Tatum get more
love as a future face of the league. Not that
the conversation really matters much anyway, but he never gets

(48:20):
brought up. American grown, twenty six year old champion, top
five guy whose jersey sales have been top three to
five and is quite polarizing, just seems like he doesn't
get any love compared to other guys. Not sure if
it's an anti Celtics bias or what the national media's
reason is. Love the show would love your insight. I
straight up cannot even begin to care or ever be

(48:44):
concerned with who the face of the NBA is. It
hasn't meant anything in my entire time that I've been
a fan of this game. I've never even felt like
there was a single face of the NBA. Even through
the Lebron era, it felt like Lebron and Kobe, then
Lebron and KD, then Lebron and Steph like it.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
It never felt to me.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
The marketability of the stars of the league is a
big picture concept that centers around the entire.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Set of stars. Then how marketable all of them are? Now?

Speaker 2 (49:19):
I do think that there's a conversation to be had
about the fact that that there just aren't as many
very popular young American players as years past. And some
of that has been Zion not taking care of his body.
Some of that has been John Morant and his off
court antics getting himself into trouble, and you're right, they're
like the Ant and Tatum kind of seem like the

(49:40):
only two guys in a lot of ways. Tatum the
reason why he doesn't get as much buzz in terms
of his personality is he's got a very muted personality.
Jason Tatum is a pretty chill guy who doesn't talk
a ton of shit, who doesn't act super you know,
he's not very performative in the media. He kind of
just takes care of business and goes home, and so like, yeah,

(50:03):
Jason Tatum doesn't have the sort of like big picture
reputation that some of these other players have, but that
has more to do with him than anything to do
with the league.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
And frankly, he shouldn't care. I don't care. I don't
talk to many people who care.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
It's one of those things that I see it on ESPN,
I see it on Twitter people arguing about it occasionally,
but like, I can't think of any reason why we
even waste time talking about who the face of the
league is.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
It doesn't mean anything to me to be.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Frank, Hey, I love the content you put out and
the breakdown you do on the game of basketball. Just
a question about regular season dominance and whether it's an
overall plus or not. As a Thunder fan, I believe
they are clearly the best team in the league this year.
The Celtics have proven it in the playoffs, but clearly
don't care about the regular season as much. I've heard
you talk about how attacking the regular season every day
and building up good habits is a strong indicator for

(50:54):
a contender. So I question why you see the Thunder
with ten losses in a dominant regular season as inflated
and why the Celtics with sixteen losses and disinterested as
title favorites. Clearly, the Thunder are building the foundation of
good habits and have done it while significantly injured, so
I believe they deserve the top spot in the contender rankings.
What you consider to be the Celtics being disinterested is

(51:16):
top five in offense top five and defense sixth and
defensive rebounding, so like the way I look at Boston
is a very good regular season team that has punted
some games, but in the aggregate has been really fucking good.
Still in the concept of the regular season. In the
context of the regular season, I should say, and then,

(51:38):
as I talked about in that opening segment involving the Celtics,
I look at everything within the context of matchup to matchup.
How versatile is a team, how capable are they of
winning four playoff rounds? To me, the regular season performance
is more of just like a mandatory minimum. If you're
not one of the top ten records in the NBA,

(51:58):
if you're not consistently every single night providing a certain
baseline average performance on either end of the floor that's
keeping you sharp as a basketball team, I'm pretty much
going to disqualify you as a contender in a lot
of ways in terms of being a serious contender. But
once you're in that group, to me, now it's like
you kind of have to parse out things because guess.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
What I talked about this the other day.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Every single player in the core eight rotation for the
Thunder is twenty six or younger. You look at the
core rotation for the Celtics, and it's a lot of
older guys. Jason Tatum's twenty six, A lot of the
other guys are older. They've got guys in their thirties.
They're not going to be as athletically engaged night in

(52:45):
night out as Oklahoma City is going to be. You
get into a series, Let's pretend it's the NBA Finals.
Do you think the fact that the Thunder played harder
in December and January is going to matter to the
Boston Celtics when they're in TD and they're playing super
hard because they have an opportunity to win the trophy. Now,
all of a sudden, it comes down to parsing out

(53:07):
the details I still get concerned about, and we're going
to talk about this, I might as well skip ahead
to it if I can find the question, the one
about Okay. See here it is, Hey, Jason, love the
show and you're the truth when it comes to Hoops
break down. You spoke on how Okac's defense is the
ultimate calling card and them having a rating way above
everyone else is in the league. It reminds me of

(53:29):
the same discourse around the Celtics in twenty twenty two
when they went to the finals. What similarities do you
notice between the Celtics and twenty twenty two and the
OKCE defense. Now Celtics unfortunately lost in the finals, but
as the defensive rating a full indicator that OKAC will
get to the finals this year. And would you take
the Seas twenty twenty two defense or the OKCE defense
this year as the best defense as you've seen in

(53:50):
the current era. They are similar in a lot of ways, right,
because like that Seas team with Robert Williams had like
a rim protection version, but then with Horford at center,
they had like more of a switching type of version.
Same sort of thing with the Thunder They have these
small groups where they're doing a ton of switching, but
then they also have the ability to use chet at
the basket. Right, There's like a kind of similar vibe there.

(54:12):
Both teams won games with their defense, but had issues
from times from time to time on the offensive ended
FOURD which we'll get to in a minute. I think
I would personally take the C's defense just because they
were bigger on the perimeter. Oklahoma City has a lot
of guys in the like six four, six five range.
The Celtics were putting out lineups where you would have

(54:33):
you know, Derek White and Marcus Smart, but you'd have
Jason Tatum, you'd have Jalen Brown in addition.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
To their bigs on the floor.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
So they just had a little bit more size, a
little bit more strength that I think presented teams with
more problems on the defensive end of the four. Now
as far as okay, seeing their specific calling card, the
thing that I think they do that revolutionizes the game
in their own way is aggression. Aggression in rotation. When
you are aggressive on the ball, when you're trapping balls,

(55:00):
when you're gapping and overhelping and really throwing a lot
of resources in the direction of the ball, you create
week side two on ones, meaning situations where you have
a shooter in the corner, shooter on the wing with
one guy there, and the thunder are just so good
at quickly disengaging from their aggressive coverage and recovering out
to the perimeter. That's like their main thing that they

(55:21):
do extremely well. But the offensive side of the floor,
it's very similar to what we saw with Boston over
the years in the sense that like if you remember
in that game, if you guys remember in that game
against or that series against the Bucks in twenty twenty two,
they repeatedly time and time again kept challenging brook Lopez
right at the rim instead of taking easy kickout passes.

(55:43):
When I look back at the Mavericks series last year,
same sort of thing, Jalen Williams in particular, doing a
lot of like trying to finish through Daniel Gafford or
Derek Lively at the basket, and it's just that's a
really low percentage shot. You need to be making those
extra kickout passes. There is a thing that happened with
the Celtics where they learned between twenty twenty two and
twenty twenty four to be more deliberate with their shot selection,

(56:06):
to get the great shot instead of the good shot,
and that is what pushed them over the top. And
I still maintain that's the main barrier between the Thunder
and where they want to get and where they are now.
It's that offensive process piece. Inevitably, they're going to run
into some great defense that makes them super uncomfortable and
they're going to have to really break a defense down.

(56:27):
This is actually a perfect tee up into our second
to last question. We have two more what happened to
all the concerns that everyone, including you, had of the
Celtics when it comes to offensive execution against an elite defense.
They had no real opposition in the East.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Last year.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Dallas was their best match about West because of how
bad Luca was defensively, basically granting them an assured advantage
every possession. Did everyone already forget the last five years
of basketball? I've seen way too many occasions where Tatum
and Brown just settled for contested jumpers when things get tight. Also,
similar to your concerns for Yokid shooting last year, are
you not concerned about Brown?

Speaker 1 (56:58):
In Holiday?

Speaker 2 (56:58):
They're shooting thirty two and thirty three three percent from three.
That's a legitimate concern. The Celtics aren't shooting particularly well.
Those guys are gonna have to shoot better if they
want to have more margin for error when they get
to the postseason. I think that's legitimate. However, Jason Tatum's
twenty six years old. When you say, like, oh, the
last five years of basketball, you want to you want

(57:19):
us to factor in Tatum when he was twenty one
when we're talking about what they can do. I think
there's this misconception that when I talk about any concept,
whether it's boxing out, containing the ball, making good decisions,
running back in transition defense, that it means you do
it every single time. Every team, even the Thunder, even
the Celtics, even the Cavs, will make bad decisions on offense,

(57:42):
miss box outs, not get back in transition defense, just
in general, make execution errs. Everyone makes executioners. It's about
a ratio. How frequently are you making those executioners. Yes,
Tatum still takes bad shots. Yes, Jalen Brown still takes
bad shots. Yes, the Celtics have stretches where their offense

(58:03):
looks bad, It is much fewer and much further between
than it used to be, And I'd actually argue the
Celtics have been particularly great this year at identifying when
they're losing control of things and re centering themselves on
offense and making those execution Making those better decisions on

(58:24):
offense that get them back on track. Kind of felt
like the opposite in years past, where they would play
good basketball and then they would lose sight of it,
and especially when things got hard, they would revert to
bad habits.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
It feels like the.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Opposite of that now I'm not saying I don't think
the Celtics are impervious. I think they could lose in
the East. I think they could lose in the West.
I'm not sitting here and viewing them as like the
twenty seventeen Warriors or anything like that, but I think
they deserve more credit for their offensive development over the
course of the last few years. All right, last question, Hey, Jason,

(58:59):
love the show. Thank you for taking time to help
educate us that didn't play basketball at high level. It's
great to get your perspective, and it's only fitting my
question is best suited for a player like yourself? When
I'm watching Luca the last few games with LA, doesn't
look like he's just playing bad basketball, looks like he's
broken mentally. It's crazy, as fans were programmed to be
upset with players when they leave their teams, but when
organizations trade players, it's just business. Because of this, I

(59:20):
don't think most people realize how big of an impact
this has on an athlete. Watching Luca has bad play
the last few games has seems psychological. Doesn't look like
he's even having fun, and I don't think he's going
to play any meaningful basketball again until he rediscovers his
love for the game. To be clear, I don't think
this will be a prolonged thing. I do think he'll
get back on track. But I'm curious if you, as
a player, could take us through your thoughts. Do you
agree with me or do you think his poor play

(59:42):
is more of a lack of team chemistry. Thanks again,
love the show. I'm not gonna see here and pretend
like I don't think Luca's mentality or his mental state
with all of this chaos over the course of the
last few weeks isn't affecting him. Of course, it's affecting him.
I just think it's affecting him more when he's off
the court. You know, basketball is for guys like this too,

(01:00:02):
like they love the game so much. I would argue
that for a guy like Luca, this is when he's
having the most fun. It's one of those things where
it's like when you're going back to a different house
than you're, a different apartment than you usually go back to,
and friends that you had in your old home are
not there anymore, and you're building new friendships, but everything's

(01:00:23):
still kind of in a fledgling stage. Like I'm sure,
he has a lot of moments where he's struggling a
bit outside of the Lakers facility, but basketball is the
happy place for most of these guys. I think it's
mostly chemistry. One of the things that made things hard
for Luca is the Lakers played awesome in the stretch
before he showed up. After the trade. He like sat

(01:00:46):
there and watched as Lebron and Austin played awesome and
beat good teams. Luca has come into a situation with
a team playing great. Hell, he just sat out last
night and they played great again. So like it's one
of those things for Luca where I think he's reading
the situation and he's trying really hard not to step
on everyone's toes. That's the natural thing that happens every

(01:01:09):
time you add a high volume ball handler to a
team that already had ball handling. Everyone's gonna start looking
at each other and it's like, is it your turn?
Is it my turn? I really could feel that at
the tail end of the Charlotte game, where it's like
Lucas in a.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Terrible rhythm and is playing poorly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Lebron clearly has it going, so like Lucas like trying
to feed Lebron more because Lebron's got it going, but
at the same time, like like the Lakers need Luca
to get going in order to get to where they
want to go. That stuff is all going to take time,
and it all what will end up happening is different
phases of the game will take on different feels. They

(01:01:45):
will come out the gates. My guess is early on
in games with the starters, they'll start leaning on Luca more.
But then as different guys check in and out of
the lineup, different guys will become more aggressive. Lebron will
check out in the mid the first quarter, Austin will
start to be more aggressive, right, Luca will check out,
Lebron will come in for the late first quarter group

(01:02:07):
that's when Lebron will really turn it on. We've seen
a lot in recent weeks how in the early fourth
quarter Lebron is like, this is my time to like
really just fire every bullet I've gotten my gun to
get us as much of a lead as I can
so that Luca can come in and close the deal.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
There will be flows to these.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Games and you feel it out like there will be
games where it's like, hey, Lou Dort's on Luca.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
He's doing a good job.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Lebron's got Jalen Williams, like, we should probably play through
Lebron more. There will be other games where it's like
they've got guys for Luca for Austin, but they don't
have guys for Luca and Lebron or vice versa, and
they're gonna kind of jerry rig it from game to game.
But right now, it's a lot of you can tell
it's a couple of different things. Lucas obviously very big
and out of shape. That's gonna take time. Luca's jump

(01:02:52):
shot is completely broke right now. That won't be the
case in the big picture. He's gonna get it going.
He's shooting a lot of really flat jump shots that
are either way off the back room or way short,
like that's just his jumper's way off. That's going to
take time to figure out. He's out of rhythm as well,
but he's also trying to figure out those chemistry things.
It's going to take time. It's interesting as I look
at the Lakers, even with the ugly basketball that they've

(01:03:14):
played with Lucas so far, I've already seen enough to
know that I think they're gonna be a great offense.
I'm just not worried about that at all whatsoever. As
soon as Luca gets it going, I think they're going
to take off on offense. The questions are going to
be centered around whether or not they can get enough
stops in particular matchups to win multiple playoff rounds.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
All right, guys, that is all I have for today.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me
and supporting the show. We're gonna be taking this weekend off.
We'll be back on Monday.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
We will see you guys. Then the volume