April 7, 2025 • 41 mins
Jason reacts to NBA games over the weekend including LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and the Los Angeles Lakers getting a huge win over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder. He also discusses the Houston Rockets beating up on Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and the Golden State Warriors, Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers shredding Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets defense, and the Bron vs. Steph debate from over the weekend.
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co slash b ball. All right, oldrid hoops. Today you're
(01:49):
at the volume heavy Monday, everybody. Oh lol. If you
guys had a great weekend, got a jam pack show
for you today we're getting off the top with the
Lakers getting a signature win for the first time since
Lebron came back from injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Kind of a proof of concept of some of the
things I've talked about in that matchup, albeit influenced by
an absurd shooting performance by the Lakers, that should temper
(02:12):
some of the some of the optimism coming out of
that matchup. After that, we're going to talk about the
Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets and their showdown
last night. The Rockets put Steph in jail, hold them
to three points, showcase some of their upside in terms
of their perimeter size. I want to talk about the
difference between the Rockets defense and the OKC defense and
(02:32):
some of the ways that that caused problems for the Warriors.
And then at the tail end of the show, we're
gonna talk a little bit about the Indiana Pacers Nuggets
game from last night. As the Pacers shredded Denver's defense,
showed I have a couple of troubling statistics coming out
of Denver's defense. We're going to talk a little bit
about the Pacers offense and how they took advantage of
(02:53):
those weaknesses. And then at the very end over the weekend,
I missed it because I was busy, but there was
a healthy out of reopening of the Steph versus Lebron debate,
which everyone is entitled to their opinion. I personally disagreed
with a lot of what I heard. I'll give you
guys my take at the tail end of the show.
You guys are the Joe before we started to subscribe
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
(03:13):
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore JSNLTS,
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It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
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dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we
(03:34):
can hit them in our weekly mail bags throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the Lakers blew out the thunder last night because
they shot extremely well. That was the reasoning for the blowout.
They shot fifty one jump shots. I got seventy eight
points out of them. That's that's insane. It's one point
five to three points per shot, So that was the
(03:55):
reason for the dramatic differential between the two teams. But
as I allays say is I literally always say on
the show, shooting variants or luck or whatever you want
to call it plays a role in shot result, but
I always think comfort plays a larger role. The Lakers
stars and by association, their role players were comfortable in
(04:19):
that game, more comfortable than their Thunder counterparts. That allowed
them to get into an offensive rhythm that the Thunder
were not able to get into. You talk a lot
about the Lakers shooting. That's the number three offense in
the league that the Lakers held in ninety nine points
last night. And yeah, the Lakers have been somewhat inconsistent
defensively since Lebron's injury, but as we saw it before
(04:39):
Lebron's injury, they are capable of getting to that type
of level on the defensive end of the floor. Arguably,
the most exciting thing about what happened last night was
the Laker defense getting back to four. But the only
way to flip shot result, like if you want shot
result to go from seventy eight points on fifty one
jump shots, to fifty two points on fifty one jump shots.
(05:01):
You're not gonna get that just by rolling the dice. Again.
If you roll that same set of dice and you
allow the Lakers to get as comfortable as they did,
they may not get one point five to three points
per shot. They'll probably be one point two one point
three points per shot. If you let them get that comfortable.
You have to find a way to flip the comfort
dynamic in order to get that luck to play in
(05:23):
your favor, which is why I always talk about that
as a subsidiary factor and not the main factor in
shot result when we're talking about basketball games. Why were
Lebron and Lucas so comfortable They had forty nine points
on thirty six shots, thirteen assists to just four turnovers.
This is the Lakers advantage in this matchup perimeter size.
(05:48):
This perimeter size dynamic is the main reason why I've
been viewing the Thunder matchup in particular as a matchup
that the Lakers are capable of winning. The Thunder are
much better at center, but the Thunder centers aren't necessarily physical.
They're not going to pass you around like a Yokich
or a Shangoon or a zubats right, so they aren't
(06:08):
able to bully the smaller groups. Then when you get
out of the center position, the Lakers are just much
much bigger and stronger on the perimeter, and so Luca
and Lebron are able to use their size and strength
to do two things. Get to spots on the floor
because they can dislodge bases and fight for position because
(06:31):
of their size and strength, and they can protect the ball.
They can keep the ball away from those guys. Only
two turnovers for Lebron, only two turnovers for Luca in
this game, because they're going against dudes that are somewhere
between six three and six six, and every single one
of them is given forty to fifty pounds up at
a minimum to Lebron and Luca in these situations when
they're attacking. It wasn't even just the smalls. Luca was
(06:55):
having his way with Isaiah Hartenstein at the start of
this game. As far as the offensive side of the
ball goes. The most exciting part of what we got
out of that game, if you're a Lakers fan, is
that they had success against a switching defense, an elite
switching defense, historically a statistically prominent defense that switched every screen,
(07:19):
and Luca was able to punish Isaiah Hartenstein and switches
start to force the double teams that led to those
kickout opportunities for the quality catch and shoot looks. Lebron
and Luca attacking Smalls all right in the middle of
the floor where it's hard to double team. The short
range shot making is such an important piece of Lebron
and Luca punishing Smalls. The Lakers made nine short to
(07:43):
mid range shots in this game, either floaters or short
jump shots or mid range jump shots. That is how
you punish those matchups to the point where they start
sending extra attention. They ran thirty seven thirty seven ISOs
and post ups in this game and were well over
a point per possession. That is the verse version of
the team that can be successful against switching. Lebron and
(08:04):
Luca both have to in Austin as well, to a
certain extent, have to punish teams in single coverage enough
to draw the help that leads to the rotation opportunities
that lead to the rhythm and flow of their offense
that gets them those catch and shoot threes that they
get much more easily against a drop coverage or against
an at the level coverage, but it requires a more
(08:27):
diligent punishing of matchups against switching. They did that last night.
That's what it can look like. That's what I've been
talking about NonStop since this trade. They can be good
at beating switching defense. It starts with Lebron and Luca.
Like we're gonna talk about a little bit more in
a minute, but like Luca has struggled so much against
(08:48):
the top teams that they played against Boston, against Golden State,
this was exactly what they needed from Luca in those games,
punishing one on one attack that leads to the advantage
situations that can come their way. The defense was equally impressive.
They held the number three offense in the NBA to
just ninety nine points. When the Laker defense was a
(09:10):
was dominant before Lebron's injury. They had this swarming feel.
Every drive seemed to run into a pre They would
funnel drive towards the sideline. There's a pre planned helper
that's waiting outside of the block in kind of like
a catch help situation. The guy on the ball will
immediately start rotating. Everyone's flying around and the openings that
look like openings turn into pretty well contested threes. The
(09:34):
Lakers allowed just ten unguarded catch and shoot jump shots
yesterday against a team that should, in theory, be able
to cut them to pieces with drive and kick. They
kept them out of open threes. Okay See shot well
on them, shot five for ten on their unguarded catch
and shoot threes. But for all of that doubling and
all of that swarming, they weren't getting a ton of
open looks. Shay was great, got his twenty six points,
(09:58):
but every other Thunder player was held in check and
the Lakers were able to hold on to their dominant lead.
And again, like even in that second half, as a
Laker started to miss more shots and okay See started
to turn up the defense, it was like every time
okay Se'd make a couple plays in a row, it'd
be like, here's another high post up for Lebron against
Cason Wallace or Luca against Alex Crusoe, right in the
(10:21):
middle of the floor, and just they're getting to an
easy shot. If they can keep that dynamic, which is
containing the ball, defending Oklahoma City well, keeping them out
of transition, they can turn this into a matchup hunting contest,
and if they turn it into a matchup hunting contest,
(10:42):
I like Lebron and Luca picking on their smaller defenders
more than I like Shay and Jay Dubb taking contested
mid range jump shots over taller players, because again, this
is a team with a lot of length on the perimeter,
and so like there's a version of this that can
tilt the other way, right, Lebron and Luca two turnovers each.
(11:08):
There's a version of this game where you can imagine
Lebron and Luke are a little more sloppy. They have
a few early turnovers that lead to runouts. Okay, see
gets a little bit of lead, gets a little bit
of momentum. The pressure continues on the defensive end. The
Lakers miss a few catch and shoot shots. Now they're
down eighteen to nine. Are they still gonna slide their feet?
(11:31):
Are they still gonna fly around in rotation? There's an
enormous amount of mental discipline that it takes for this
Laker team to be good defensively and to take care
of the ball in this matchup. I don't think the
Lakers are gonna sweep the Thunder. I think the Thunder
should be favored if they were to face in a series.
I am just saying the Lakers can beat them. If
(11:52):
they can. This is what it would look like in
the world where the Thunder control the series. Are in
the moments where the Thunder control the series, it will
be defense to transition, defense to transition, building momentum, lacking
discipline from the Lakers, then in the half court them
starting to cut them to pieces with driving kick as
their defense starts to let go of the rope. Those
(12:14):
are the versions of this matchup that will tilt Okac's direction.
The versions that tilt LA's direction. Taking care of the ball,
ruthless matchup, hunting, elite shot making, great transition defense, and
great half court defense. That's the version of it that
will go the Lakers direction. I thought it was a
particularly important win for the Lakers for several week reasons.
(12:37):
First of all, they needed it for the standings. They
were in some moderate danger of dropping to the plan
after the Golden State loss. That win last night makes
it so that the Lakers need to go just two
and two in their last four games in order to
keep the three seed. If you drop both of these
games to oksee then you have to beat Houston or Dallas,
and those are gonna be tough games. Houston's beaten up
(12:58):
on everybody. The Lakers are one of the few to
get them as of late. And then you have that
Dallas team, which is well rested. They don't play on Sunday, Monday,
or Tuesday before they play on Wednesday. The Mavericks play
the Lakers on Wednesday in Dallas. That's a really tough game.
By winning that game last night, you took most of
the pressure off. You just got to get one of
(13:20):
the OKC games, the Thunder game, or excuse me, the
Thunder game, the Rockets game, or the Dallas game now,
assuming you can get the job done in Portland. So
you did yourself a favor in the standing. Secondly, as
a team, they had n't put together a signature win
since Lebron's injury where they like that was a team
before Lebron's injury that looked particularly exciting. After Lebron got
(13:42):
hurt in that Celtics game, you start to zoom out.
Didn't look good. They were just fourteen to ten after
the Warriors game since the Luca trade. That's not very good.
That was a statement that they are capable of getting
to the championship level on both ends of the floor.
The defense from before the lebron the injury, combined with
the offense that we saw last night. Thirdly, Luca looked fantastic.
(14:06):
Luca had been slumping a bit and had looked especially
bad in their last two games against top tier contenders
Boston and Golden State. He looked rough. The team looked rough.
This was an important statement. Best team in the league,
favored to win the title, best defense in the league, historically,
great defense statistically, at least on their home floor, and
Luca looked great. So again, it's not the end all
(14:31):
be all. There are going to be tougher elements to
this as Okase starts to leverage their advantages in this matchup,
but it was a nice proof of concept of what
they are capable of. Are that are the Lakers going
to be able to maintain that discipline when they don't
shoot as well. More misses equals more long rebounds. More
(14:51):
long rebounds equals more transition opportunities. More transition opportunities means
more situations where the Lakers have to be incredibly sharp
with their game plan discipline, getting back It's not going
to be easy, but they certainly can do this. They
just have to drag the Thunder into these matchup attacking
half court situations where Lebron and Luc are just better
(15:11):
at it than their stars are. And then on the thunderfront,
there's only so much they can do on defense with
their size disadvantages, Like a certain amount of their approach
is going to have to be hoping the Lakers missshots,
meaning hoping Lebron and Luca miss their ISO jump shots,
hoping that their role players miss their kickouts. On offense, though,
it is an example of something I've talked about a
(15:33):
lot this year, which is big game team comes in
and punches him in the mouth, really going after them defensively.
We saw this in the Rockets game too. How many
of these guys do you actually trust to be consistently
good on offense? The truth is is it's Shay end
of list. And so that's the part that makes it
(15:54):
really hard for me to buy into the Thunder as
like a traditional dominant runaway championship contender. The way some
of the metrics coming out of their look, the way
the standings would look, That's why I view them as
closer to the pack in the West, even if I
have them at the top, because they're just prone to
these like brutally bad stretches on offense. When you can
(16:16):
keep them out of transition. It's just something to keep
an eye on as a vulnerability. Okay, as of right now,
I'm not gonna jump the Lakers' way up just because
they played really well one game against a great team.
To me, OKAC still is deserving to be the favorite
in the Western Conference. But they are not invulnerable, and
I think we've seen that over the course of this weekend.
(16:36):
All right, Moving on to Rockets Warriors. The Rockets are
healthy again and they're back to doing what they did
in January when they just started beating up on the
top teams in the league over and over again. Back
to back huge wins against the Thunder and the Red
Hot Warriors in the Bay. All that defense Fred Van Vlietna,
Men Thompson literally put Steph Curry in handcuffs night. I
(17:00):
thought Steph looked a little tired too. It was his
third game in four nights. All of his misses were
short off the front of the rim, and you could
literally see like his energy transfer just wasn't quite the
same as it was in the previous couple of games,
finished with just three points for the second time this year.
But I do want to give the Rockets credit for
(17:20):
the job they did defensively. They did not allow him
to come free and clear off of anything. Both Fred
and men were physical with him on and off the ball,
wearing him down. Everything was contested, everything was off balanced.
A lot of his threes were an extra two or
three feet further back than he usually gets them as
a result of that pressure. This is where I want
to talk about Houston's superpower on the perimeter, which is
(17:43):
their athletic signs. This is the thing that makes them
fundamentally different than a team like Oka See. We think
of them both as these young athletic teams, super fast,
young athletic teams that play super hard, and that's their
advantage in the regular season, and there's no doubt that's
what it is. Like, I'm not prized that after having
(18:03):
watched these teams all year that Okay See and Houston
ended up at the top. It was pretty clear after
the first month of the season. It's like, Okay, these
guys are super young and athletic and these other older
veteran teams in the West are gonna have a hard
time keeping up. They pulled away the way that they did,
But Okay sees the like kind of athletic profile is
very different. Okay See has rim protection in the form
(18:25):
of chet Houston does not. I'd argue they have the opposite.
Shane Gun is often the main entry point for their
defense because he's the one guy they're not switching with.
It's the guy that you can get that baked in
dribble penetration as long as you can lay a good
screen on a men Thompson or Dylan Brooks, whoever it
is that's on the ball, right. But once you get
past that center position, Houston's athletic wings are also much
(18:46):
bigger and stronger than Okay sees perimeter athletes. That size
on a fundamental level gives them a better job, better
ability to contest jump shots. I've talked about that in
the thunder Lakers matchup. To me, when it comes to
pull up shooting over the top, shooting length is the advantage, right,
that's where you can actually bother shooters. It also allows
(19:09):
them to hold up better against wing bullies. I don't
think it's a coincidence that Luca and Lebron struggled against
Houston in a way they didn't against OKC. It's that
extra two inches, it's that extra thirty pounds of muscle
makes a huge difference when you're battling guys for position.
It's a little different posting up a Haison Wallace or
(19:32):
in Isaiah Joe that it is posting up at Dylan Brooks.
You guys get the point, right, That size and strength
gives them just a different athletic profile than OKAC does.
The theoretical way that you would attack Houston if you
are Golden State is to use Jimmy Butler and Jonathan
Kamana to attack mismatches to get them in rotation. Right,
(19:55):
But Jimmy took seven shots as he continues to be
bizarrely unaggressive. He's driving to the rim, and every single
time he drives to the rim about right on his
last like gather dribble, he just starts looking away from
the rim. He's not even looking at the room. He's
just looking for those kickout opportunities. And like there's a
time and a place when the offense is in a
flow where that makes sense. But then there are times
where they need you to be the bigger, stronger athlete
(20:17):
than the big strong athletes that you're going against. Jonathan
Camingos four for ninety and a few really really ugly
turnovers in the backcourt that continue to cause Steve Krdilou's
trust in him. He got pulled after one of them
for Gee Santo's. Thankfully, Buddy healed and Brandon Pajemski had
big games to keep things respectable. And that's an upside
if you're a Golden State fan. Is Pods continues to
(20:37):
play super well. He's been shooting forty percent from three
for like almost four months now. That's a super exciting
piece of it. But other than that, it was it
was a pretty brutal offensive performance for the Warriors. On
the Houston front. Jabari Smith, his development has been super
fascinating to me because he came out in Summer League.
(20:59):
I remember the first year that I covered him as
a guy that was not a good ball handler, and
it was so fun to There were two plays in
particular that I thought demonstrated just the way that he's
gotten better getting to his spots as a basketball player
so that he can unlock his talent which he's got
great size, great shooting touch. He's got like this like
aggressive shot making piece to him too. And in order
(21:21):
to get in order to get to that shot making talent,
that size talent, you gotta be able to get your
body to where you need to be on the floor.
Footwork and ball handling. Foot work and ball handling are
these skills that allow you to get your body from
point A to point B with the basketball so that
you can get to a spot where you can be
a score. He had a play where he drove a
close out Jimmy digs down from the top of the key.
(21:42):
As he's driving, snapped a push dribble with his left
hand up the floor. A couple of feet ran up
to the spot, got to it, and then popped up
off the ground at that spot and made a little
ten foot or just a nasty ball handling move from
Jabari Smith. He had a little baseline iso where he
looked like Kevin Durant, grabbed it, faced up, left foot,
pivot foot, ripped to the left one drim a pull
(22:04):
up just rose up over the top of the defender
with his size advantage knocked it down. He's turned into
a super effective rebounder on both ends of the four.
He had five offensive rebounds in the two games twenty
six total rebounds against the Thunder and Warriors. His three
point percentage is up to thirty eight percent on five
attempts per game over his last sixteen games. Jabari's just
(22:25):
turned into a really useful role player. Kind of a
combination of like that weak side scoring forward that we
talked about, while also having some of those bigger forward,
defensive and athletic capabilities that you see from like an
Aaron Gordon type of player. Just a really exciting young
player for Houston in their big picture goals. Dylan Brooks
was incredible. He was attacking size mismatches out of the post.
(22:48):
He went right over the top of Steph for two
right shoulder fades early in the game. His three point
shot is so much quicker and more fluid now. Jalen Green,
one of the things that consistently stood out to me
against these more athletic defense is that he is able
to get to his spots because he's such a good athlete.
That's kind of like what you needed from KAMINGA last
night was like it's almost like Jalen Green is hectic
(23:12):
and gonna make some bad decisions, but he's able to
rise to the occasion against these super elite defenses as
a shot maker in a way that some lesser athletes can't.
That's kind of what you needed from Kaminga in that
matchup last night. Is he needed the mistakes. He's gonna
make three, four, five big mistakes, but she needed seventeen
points on fourteen shots as he was looking to be
aggressive throughout the game, and that piece just wasn't there.
(23:36):
Shane Gun continued his ass kicking tour. He went right
at Draymond several times. He was destroying guards and switches.
He hit fifty points in the last two games. Again,
I don't I still don't view Houston as a legitimate
threat to win the conference because I don't think they
have the offensive variety or offensive resilience to be able
to win three series with the types of teams that
(23:56):
we have coming out of this Western Conference. But they
will be a pain in the ass, and I absolutely
think they're capable of upsetting eighteen. Like if we saw
the Rockets play in the second round, I wouldn't be stunned,
Like I wouldn't be completely shocked I just would be
shocked if they ended up winning the conference entirely. Moving
out of PACER's Nuggets. The Pacers just absolutely shredded Denver's
(24:17):
defense in the middle portion of this game. Denver got
off to a little bit of a lead early. Jokic
was incredible in this game. He had a three point
shot going early in the game. They were leaving him
in a lot of single coverage situations against Miles Turner
and he was just being super aggressive. Jokic went for
forty one points. It just didn't matter because in that
middle portion of the game, the Pacers hung seventy four
(24:38):
points in the second and third quarters on the Nuggets.
And it all came down to a combination of two factors.
One a reality that I've been discussing a lot on
this show, which is that the Nuggets defense is bad,
and the reason why it's bad is a combination of
two factors. They have to bring Yokic up to the
level because he can't switch or protect the rim, so
(24:58):
they have to bring him up to the level, which
puts two on the ball. Now you're in these four
on three situations. Jokich has not been very good with
being active with his hands and disrupting when he comes
up to the level. So as a result, you're just
playing four on three basketball and you haven't been very
good in your rotations on the back line with those
three guys. That is a death sentence. If you're gonna
put two on the ball without bothering the ball and
(25:21):
you're gonna operate three on four but not be a
good rotation team, you're gonna get cut to pieces. On
the other side of that is a red hot Pacers
team that's now one four in a row with Tyre's
Halliburton and Miles Turner just running a deadly high ballscreen attack,
and that just kind of that confluence of those two
events just led to some hilarious basketball in Denver last night.
(25:43):
I clipped a thread of a bunch of examples of
this concept so you guys can see it. It's on
my Twitter feed at underscore json lt. But the Pacers
just got either a wide open layup or a wide
open three basically whenever they wanted against the Denver defense.
A combination of a couple of things. Basic pick and
pop action with Miles Turner Yo Kicch at the ball.
(26:06):
Miles Turner is just sitting at the top of the key.
They're not rotating from the weak side. Easy pitch back,
He's wide open. Several like transition excuse me, transition trailing
types of shots for Miles Turner, where like you know,
Halliburton would just do like a probing dribble attack right
around the top of the key and the on ball
defender would kind of be there, but Jokich would just
(26:27):
sink down to like the foul line as like a
kind of a token help situation. Just pitch it back
to Miles Turner. He's right there at the top of
the key. Shot a Miles Turner, by the way, Like
it's not just shooting, it's aggressive shooting. I talk about
this all the time. There's a huge difference between a
guy who hits forty percent of his threes and a
guy who confidently and aggressively hunts his shot. That is
the one that's gonna beat manifest better for the defense, right,
(26:48):
that a manifest with more of a reaction from the defense,
I should say. But like they the nuggets weren't accounting
for him, and Turner was being aggressive. He ended up
hitting like a twenty seven foot or huge one on
the left wing on a play because he got comfortable
with all these easy shots and then he went into
a tougher one off the left wing. They ended up hitting,
but a lot of them though they were rolling with
(27:11):
Turner and tagging Turner, and so when they were tagging Turner,
it just created those simple week side two on ones
and it was just skip pass or swing swing wide
open three, skip pass or swing swing wide open, layup,
just over and over and over and over again, like
it didn't even matter that Denver was scoring. On the
other end. Christian Brown went for thirty, slashing him to
(27:33):
pieces on drives and transition pushes like Jokic goes for
forty one. It didn't matter because the Pacers just got
whatever they wanted on the other end of the floor,
Obi topping. He kind of fits the mold of that
week side scoring forward that I was talking about earlier.
He had twenty two points in this one, had a
couple of possessions where he was on an island with Jokic,
(27:54):
went right at Jokic with his speed, aggressive week side shooting,
running his lane in transition. This is a Pacers offense
that lives off of advantage creation, advantage extending and play finishing,
everybody understanding their roles on the plays were Denver rotated better,
there weren't many of them, but there were a few
on the plays when Denver rotated better. A lot of
(28:15):
these like Andrew Nemhard Aaron Nie Smith close out opportunities
with a defender coming out of them. And it was
the same thing every time hard right hand drive, defender
sliding and putting that hand up snatchback dribble. On that
snatchback dribble, the defender goes flying, there's a wide open
twelve footer, and both Nemhard and Nie Smith hit a
(28:37):
bunch of those in this game. That's what ties it
all together, right, Like, you need a guy who can
consistently get your defense in rotation. That's Tyrese Halliburton. Then
you need guys that can be play finishers, right, Miles
Turner hitting pick and pop three is Miles Turner finishing
on the role obi top and hitting threes off of
skip passes. Things along those lines. But then you also
(28:58):
need advantage extenders. There are times when it's not as
simple as drive and kick, swing, swing wide up in
layup or three. Sometimes you need a guy that can
take a close out situation and turn it into points.
And that's where you get your close out attackers in
the form of Nie Smith and Nemhard and again Pascal
Siakam didn't even play in this game, and he unlocks
an entire different element of the Pacers offense in the
(29:19):
form of that matchup attacking from the post. But they
just chewed up and spit out that Nuggets defense. They
generated twenty six unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which
is the second most that the Pacers have generated in
any game this season, which brings me to the Nuggets
part of this, and it's something that we have to
(29:40):
be realistic about. The Nuggets since January twenty third, with
Nikola Jokic on the floor, have a one to twenty
defensive rating. To be clear, it's not all Jokic's fault.
Like I said, it's a combination of two factors. Jokic
(30:00):
constantly having to be at the level of the screen,
but then him also not having the energy because he
has so much offensive responsibility, he doesn't have the energy
to be really active up at the level. So because
he's not very active up at the level, the ball
handler is able to make relatively easy reads and kickout
(30:20):
passes from there, then you're in all these four on
threes and the rotations are just not being made. There's
not connectivity even with the athletes, even guys like Aaron Gordon,
Payton Watson, like they're not doing their job rotating on
the backside. So again it's both Jokic is putting you
in a compromising position on every single possession defensively, but
(30:43):
you don't have the personnel to cover for him. So
at a certain point, there's like a directional change that
this organization needs to go through in terms of anchoring
Jokic as he gets older. I don't think he's going
to get better at defense. So at a certain point,
from a team construct standpoint, if you're gonna have Jokic
generate everything for you on offense and you're not gonna
(31:04):
get anything out of him on defense, and that at
the level coverage, you've got to anchor him with better
defensive talent. And I think that's something that they'll have
to take a long look at when we get to
this offseason. But like, here's the thing, I still view
the Nuggets as a championship contender. I would be insane
to write off Nikola Jokic. However, this is a long,
extended half the season, long stretch where they haven't just
(31:28):
been bad defensively, they've been so bad that it's basically
impossible to win in the NBA playoffs with the type
of defense that they've been playing. Jokic has said before,
I don't believe in a switch, meaning he doesn't think
we can just flip the switch and be better in
the postseason. I agree. I've talked about this a lot.
It's your habits. Your habits are what carry you when
(31:50):
you run into adversity, when the shit hits the fan
and you're not hitting shots and the other team has
all this momentum. The only thing you can rely on
is the instinctual way you play hard. What habitually? Have
you been making these rotations all year? Have you been
communicating through actions all year? Have you been cracked down
rebounding and boxing out all year? If you've been doing
(32:12):
those things, they will still work for you when you
run into adversity and carry you through rough stretches so
that your offense can carry you back to the forefront.
The Snuggets team's going to score a lot of points.
They can score, but they will have stretches where they
cool lot, and teams will pull away from them if
they don't have a higher level than this that they
can reach defensively. Now, again, I won't write them off
(32:33):
because I have seen this group play better defense than
they've played. Hell, they played better defense in the early
part of the year. But the problem is is they
are practicing playing bad defense now. They are deliberately prepping
for the postseason by playing a brand of basketball that
will not work in the postseason on the defensive end
of the floor. So they're playing with fire. What does
(32:56):
that mean? Does I mean they can't win? Of course not.
They could go on a run, they could play better defense,
Jokic could go crazy, they could hoist the trophy. But
basketball history tells us it's more likely than not that
this season ends in disappointment because they're practicing playing bad
defense at this point and not really making any sort
of serious attempt to improve on that end of the floor.
(33:16):
All right, before we get out of here today, I
want to talk a little bit about the Steph Lebron debate.
So Steph fans reinstigated this discussion over the weekend, basically
trying to paint the picture that Steph is the defining
player of this era, the greatest player of this era,
and then had a better career than Lebron James. Steph
(33:39):
fans have felt this way since twenty fifteen. This is
not exactly a new idea. Many of you might remember
the Steph better, the hashtag that used to go around
all the time. And to be clear, I don't blame
more of yours fans for feeling this way. He's their hero,
he brought them four titles. It'd be weird if they
weren't lessly advocating for him in the all time context.
(34:03):
I also find debates along these lines to be somewhat
boring because no one's changing their mind. There's no Warriors
fan that is going to budge based on this take
that I'm about to unleash. You guys have your way
that you feel I respect, that, I have my way
that I feel I respect that, or I would ask
for the same in return. Right. But I have literally
(34:25):
never heard a basketball person who isn't a Warriors fan
or an outspoken anti Lebron guy make the case that
Steph was better than Lebron. Because it's absurd. Let's set
aside the obvious stuff like that Lebron had a Hall
of Fame career before Steph even entered his prime, and
that Lebron is still every bit as good as him,
(34:46):
or that Lebron has four times as many Finals MVPs
or twice as many MVPs, or that Lebron is one
of only two players in NBA history with four MVPs
and four Finals MVPs. Let's set that stuff aside. Just
the narrative that Warriors fans are trying to build as absurd.
Steph won his first title against Lebron in a series
(35:06):
where both of his co stars were injured. Lebron literally
received more Finals MVP consideration than Steph after that series.
I disagreed with that line of thinking because I don't
believe in rewarding the loser. I think Steph should have
won at Finals MVP, but Lebron literally got more consideration
for Finals MVP than Steph that season. Then Lebron beat
(35:26):
him in spectacular fashion in twenty sixteen back to back
or two forty point games in Game five and Game
six to extend the series. In that twenty sixteen series,
Lebron badly outplayed Steph on both ends. Of the floor.
Then Kevin Durant joined the team, and the Warriors were
so insanely talented that they had a negative odds on
(35:48):
sportsbooks before the season to win the title. You were
going you bet a dollar on the Warriors to win
the title in October those years in seventeen and eighteen,
you'd have made less than at all at the end
of the season. Because it wasn't just Katie and Steph.
It wasn't just the second and third best players in
the league joining forces. It was Klay Thompson, the second
(36:09):
best shooter of all time, one of the best perimeter
defenders in basketball, with great size and strength at his
positioned an awesome role player in this league. Draymond Green
arguably the greatest defender of this era. Andra g Woodallas
such a versatile forward that he got the Finals MVP
in twenty fifteen, and during that era was a do
everything player for them. I'm a big fan of Kyrie
(36:32):
Irving and Kevin Love and j R. Smith, but it
was a different level of talent that was on those
two rosters. The way that whole four year saga is
now being retroactively rebuild as a one on one rivalry
between Lebron and Steph is fucking outrageous. When Lebron was
(36:53):
at his best, he was the best parts of Steph
and Draymond put together. He was one of the most
prolific offensive engines in the history of the sport and
one of the best defensive players to ever play the game.
What happened in the twenty sixteen Finals is kind of
the perfect encapsulation of the difference between the two of them.
Lebron in that fourth quarter surgically took the Warriors apart
(37:15):
in a way Steph was not able to on the
other end of the floor, and yet still at the
end of the game, Lebron saved it by leveraging his
athleticism to make a superhuman play when Kyrie on the
other end, attacked step because he was the lesser athlete
on the court and a player he could get easy
separation from. That's the difference between the two two all
(37:37):
time great offensive engines. I'd even argue Steph was a
little bit better as an offensive engine than Lebron, but
Lebron brought that Draymon level of playoff defensive impact while
also being a five time First Team All NBA First
Team All defensive player. Lebron was one of the great
defenders to ever play this game. Think back to the
Spurs series and the low man possessions on Tim Duncan
(37:59):
and Tiago Splitter at the rim. Think about him in
twenty sixteen in on the famous brick that Steph shot
over over Kevin Love at the top of the key,
Lebron was lurking in the paint. He blocked nine shots
over game five, six, and seven of that series. Think
about the level Lebron was able to get to defensively
(38:21):
in twenty twenty as he helped anchor one of the
great defenses in NBA history as he won his fourth
championship the year after Kevin Durant left the Warriors. There
was a level Lebron could get to in terms of
his athletic imposition that Steph could never get to, and
that to me is why they are on different tiers.
I'm a huge Steph fan. He's you gotta take my
(38:44):
word for this. I get it. He's legitimately my second
favorite player, and I actually like him more as like
a dude than Lebron. Half the time Lebron opens his mouth,
it drives me crazy, super corny there are a lot
of things I don't like about the guy. To me,
Steph is a more steady leader and a much more
(39:05):
likable just guy. I'm a big Steph fan, but when
it comes down to basketball, he's just not on the
same tier as Lebron. All time, it's Lebron and MJ
at the top, then there's a gap, and then it's Kobe,
it's Magic, it's Steph, and it's Bird in that next tier.
For me, I don't think Steph is even capable of
(39:25):
entering into the next tier. He's never even had an
undisputed hold on the best player in the World title
the way that Lebron did back in twenty thirteen or
that Jokic does. Now, we can celebrate Steph without rewriting
history and journeying to fantasyland that guys like. It was
(39:47):
an awesome rivalry between the Cavs and Warriors, and it
was fun in a stretch of the of the NBA
history where we got to see these teams face over
and over again. But if you're painting that as like
Steph versus Lebron playing one on one, that's dishonest and
it's just it's not reality. So like I I like
like that athletic imposition element we're talking about. You want
(40:10):
to know why Lebron's never had single digit points and
you know, if God knows how many games or that,
Lebron hasn't had three points in a game since December
of two thousand and four, because there's a certain floor
that comes from being six' nine two hundred and sixty
pounds and big and strong and being able to leverage
yourself in ways that don't strictly tie to shot. Making,
(40:33):
Now steph has a gravity. Element in The rockets game last,
night for, instance he only had three. POINTS a lot
of plays on film Where i'm Watching steph run off
of an, action someone slip out of it and get.
Open steph has value that goes beyond. It but there's
more variance in his singular output on the game because
he's a jump. Shooter sometimes the shots don't go. In
sometimes he goes one for eight from three instead of you,
(40:55):
know twelve for, Twenty and that's the up and down
that can come from that type of. Experience it's again
like to, Me steph is one of the greats IN nba.
HISTORY i have him at, FIVE i have him the
top five player IN nba, history BUT i just don't
think he was on the same level As lebron AND
i thought it was just kind of hilarious the way
that that was attempted to be made as a case
over the course of the. Weekend all, right, guys that's
(41:18):
ALL i have for today is always a sincerely appreciate
you guys for supporting me and supporting the. Show No
oops tonight. Tonight we're going back, tomorrow BUT i am
doing some stuff With kevin O'Connor tonight surrounding The National title.
Game it's a little Bit Colle shoop, stuff SOME nba draft.
Stuff we're also going to talk SOME nba in that,
Show so make sure you guys check Out kevin's pod
OTHERWISE i will see you guys. Tomorrow what, so, Guys as,
ALWAYS i appreciate you for listening to and SUPPORTING oops.
(41:40):
Tonight they would actually be really helpful for us if
you guys would take a second and leave a rating
and a. Review as, ALWAYS i appreciate you guys supporting,
us but if you could take a minute to do,
That i'd really appreciate. It the volume
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co slash b ball. All right, oldrid hoops. Today you're
(01:49):
at the volume heavy Monday, everybody. Oh lol. If you
guys had a great weekend, got a jam pack show
for you today we're getting off the top with the
Lakers getting a signature win for the first time since
Lebron came back from injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Kind of a proof of concept of some of the
things I've talked about in that matchup, albeit influenced by
an absurd shooting performance by the Lakers, that should temper
(02:12):
some of the some of the optimism coming out of
that matchup. After that, we're going to talk about the
Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets and their showdown
last night. The Rockets put Steph in jail, hold them
to three points, showcase some of their upside in terms
of their perimeter size. I want to talk about the
difference between the Rockets defense and the OKC defense and
(02:32):
some of the ways that that caused problems for the Warriors.
And then at the tail end of the show, we're
gonna talk a little bit about the Indiana Pacers Nuggets
game from last night. As the Pacers shredded Denver's defense,
showed I have a couple of troubling statistics coming out
of Denver's defense. We're going to talk a little bit
about the Pacers offense and how they took advantage of
(02:53):
those weaknesses. And then at the very end over the weekend,
I missed it because I was busy, but there was
a healthy out of reopening of the Steph versus Lebron debate,
which everyone is entitled to their opinion. I personally disagreed
with a lot of what I heard. I'll give you
guys my take at the tail end of the show.
You guys are the Joe before we started to subscribe
to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any
(03:13):
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, underscore JSNLTS,
you guys don't miss you announcement. Don't forget about a
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It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in
a review on that front, we als said. Brand new
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incredible work this year. Make sure you guys follow us
there for extra content. The last but not at least, keep
dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we
(03:34):
can hit them in our weekly mail bags throughout the
remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the Lakers blew out the thunder last night because
they shot extremely well. That was the reasoning for the blowout.
They shot fifty one jump shots. I got seventy eight
points out of them. That's that's insane. It's one point
five to three points per shot, So that was the
(03:55):
reason for the dramatic differential between the two teams. But
as I allays say is I literally always say on
the show, shooting variants or luck or whatever you want
to call it plays a role in shot result, but
I always think comfort plays a larger role. The Lakers
stars and by association, their role players were comfortable in
(04:19):
that game, more comfortable than their Thunder counterparts. That allowed
them to get into an offensive rhythm that the Thunder
were not able to get into. You talk a lot
about the Lakers shooting. That's the number three offense in
the league that the Lakers held in ninety nine points
last night. And yeah, the Lakers have been somewhat inconsistent
defensively since Lebron's injury, but as we saw it before
(04:39):
Lebron's injury, they are capable of getting to that type
of level on the defensive end of the floor. Arguably,
the most exciting thing about what happened last night was
the Laker defense getting back to four. But the only
way to flip shot result, like if you want shot
result to go from seventy eight points on fifty one
jump shots, to fifty two points on fifty one jump shots.
(05:01):
You're not gonna get that just by rolling the dice. Again.
If you roll that same set of dice and you
allow the Lakers to get as comfortable as they did,
they may not get one point five to three points
per shot. They'll probably be one point two one point
three points per shot. If you let them get that comfortable.
You have to find a way to flip the comfort
dynamic in order to get that luck to play in
(05:23):
your favor, which is why I always talk about that
as a subsidiary factor and not the main factor in
shot result when we're talking about basketball games. Why were
Lebron and Lucas so comfortable They had forty nine points
on thirty six shots, thirteen assists to just four turnovers.
This is the Lakers advantage in this matchup perimeter size.
(05:48):
This perimeter size dynamic is the main reason why I've
been viewing the Thunder matchup in particular as a matchup
that the Lakers are capable of winning. The Thunder are
much better at center, but the Thunder centers aren't necessarily physical.
They're not going to pass you around like a Yokich
or a Shangoon or a zubats right, so they aren't
(06:08):
able to bully the smaller groups. Then when you get
out of the center position, the Lakers are just much
much bigger and stronger on the perimeter, and so Luca
and Lebron are able to use their size and strength
to do two things. Get to spots on the floor
because they can dislodge bases and fight for position because
(06:31):
of their size and strength, and they can protect the ball.
They can keep the ball away from those guys. Only
two turnovers for Lebron, only two turnovers for Luca in
this game, because they're going against dudes that are somewhere
between six three and six six, and every single one
of them is given forty to fifty pounds up at
a minimum to Lebron and Luca in these situations when
they're attacking. It wasn't even just the smalls. Luca was
(06:55):
having his way with Isaiah Hartenstein at the start of
this game. As far as the offensive side of the
ball goes. The most exciting part of what we got
out of that game, if you're a Lakers fan, is
that they had success against a switching defense, an elite
switching defense, historically a statistically prominent defense that switched every screen,
(07:19):
and Luca was able to punish Isaiah Hartenstein and switches
start to force the double teams that led to those
kickout opportunities for the quality catch and shoot looks. Lebron
and Luca attacking Smalls all right in the middle of
the floor where it's hard to double team. The short
range shot making is such an important piece of Lebron
and Luca punishing Smalls. The Lakers made nine short to
(07:43):
mid range shots in this game, either floaters or short
jump shots or mid range jump shots. That is how
you punish those matchups to the point where they start
sending extra attention. They ran thirty seven thirty seven ISOs
and post ups in this game and were well over
a point per possession. That is the verse version of
the team that can be successful against switching. Lebron and
(08:04):
Luca both have to in Austin as well, to a
certain extent, have to punish teams in single coverage enough
to draw the help that leads to the rotation opportunities
that lead to the rhythm and flow of their offense
that gets them those catch and shoot threes that they
get much more easily against a drop coverage or against
an at the level coverage, but it requires a more
(08:27):
diligent punishing of matchups against switching. They did that last night.
That's what it can look like. That's what I've been
talking about NonStop since this trade. They can be good
at beating switching defense. It starts with Lebron and Luca.
Like we're gonna talk about a little bit more in
a minute, but like Luca has struggled so much against
(08:48):
the top teams that they played against Boston, against Golden State,
this was exactly what they needed from Luca in those games,
punishing one on one attack that leads to the advantage
situations that can come their way. The defense was equally impressive.
They held the number three offense in the NBA to
just ninety nine points. When the Laker defense was a
(09:10):
was dominant before Lebron's injury. They had this swarming feel.
Every drive seemed to run into a pre They would
funnel drive towards the sideline. There's a pre planned helper
that's waiting outside of the block in kind of like
a catch help situation. The guy on the ball will
immediately start rotating. Everyone's flying around and the openings that
look like openings turn into pretty well contested threes. The
(09:34):
Lakers allowed just ten unguarded catch and shoot jump shots
yesterday against a team that should, in theory, be able
to cut them to pieces with drive and kick. They
kept them out of open threes. Okay See shot well
on them, shot five for ten on their unguarded catch
and shoot threes. But for all of that doubling and
all of that swarming, they weren't getting a ton of
open looks. Shay was great, got his twenty six points,
(09:58):
but every other Thunder player was held in check and
the Lakers were able to hold on to their dominant lead.
And again, like even in that second half, as a
Laker started to miss more shots and okay See started
to turn up the defense, it was like every time
okay Se'd make a couple plays in a row, it'd
be like, here's another high post up for Lebron against
Cason Wallace or Luca against Alex Crusoe, right in the
(10:21):
middle of the floor, and just they're getting to an
easy shot. If they can keep that dynamic, which is
containing the ball, defending Oklahoma City well, keeping them out
of transition, they can turn this into a matchup hunting contest,
and if they turn it into a matchup hunting contest,
(10:42):
I like Lebron and Luca picking on their smaller defenders
more than I like Shay and Jay Dubb taking contested
mid range jump shots over taller players, because again, this
is a team with a lot of length on the perimeter,
and so like there's a version of this that can
tilt the other way, right, Lebron and Luca two turnovers each.
(11:08):
There's a version of this game where you can imagine
Lebron and Luke are a little more sloppy. They have
a few early turnovers that lead to runouts. Okay, see
gets a little bit of lead, gets a little bit
of momentum. The pressure continues on the defensive end. The
Lakers miss a few catch and shoot shots. Now they're
down eighteen to nine. Are they still gonna slide their feet?
(11:31):
Are they still gonna fly around in rotation? There's an
enormous amount of mental discipline that it takes for this
Laker team to be good defensively and to take care
of the ball in this matchup. I don't think the
Lakers are gonna sweep the Thunder. I think the Thunder
should be favored if they were to face in a series.
I am just saying the Lakers can beat them. If
(11:52):
they can. This is what it would look like in
the world where the Thunder control the series. Are in
the moments where the Thunder control the series, it will
be defense to transition, defense to transition, building momentum, lacking
discipline from the Lakers, then in the half court them
starting to cut them to pieces with driving kick as
their defense starts to let go of the rope. Those
(12:14):
are the versions of this matchup that will tilt Okac's direction.
The versions that tilt LA's direction. Taking care of the ball,
ruthless matchup, hunting, elite shot making, great transition defense, and
great half court defense. That's the version of it that
will go the Lakers direction. I thought it was a
particularly important win for the Lakers for several week reasons.
(12:37):
First of all, they needed it for the standings. They
were in some moderate danger of dropping to the plan
after the Golden State loss. That win last night makes
it so that the Lakers need to go just two
and two in their last four games in order to
keep the three seed. If you drop both of these
games to oksee then you have to beat Houston or Dallas,
and those are gonna be tough games. Houston's beaten up
(12:58):
on everybody. The Lakers are one of the few to
get them as of late. And then you have that
Dallas team, which is well rested. They don't play on Sunday, Monday,
or Tuesday before they play on Wednesday. The Mavericks play
the Lakers on Wednesday in Dallas. That's a really tough game.
By winning that game last night, you took most of
the pressure off. You just got to get one of
(13:20):
the OKC games, the Thunder game, or excuse me, the
Thunder game, the Rockets game, or the Dallas game now,
assuming you can get the job done in Portland. So
you did yourself a favor in the standing. Secondly, as
a team, they had n't put together a signature win
since Lebron's injury where they like that was a team
before Lebron's injury that looked particularly exciting. After Lebron got
(13:42):
hurt in that Celtics game, you start to zoom out.
Didn't look good. They were just fourteen to ten after
the Warriors game since the Luca trade. That's not very good.
That was a statement that they are capable of getting
to the championship level on both ends of the floor.
The defense from before the lebron the injury, combined with
the offense that we saw last night. Thirdly, Luca looked fantastic.
(14:06):
Luca had been slumping a bit and had looked especially
bad in their last two games against top tier contenders
Boston and Golden State. He looked rough. The team looked rough.
This was an important statement. Best team in the league,
favored to win the title, best defense in the league, historically,
great defense statistically, at least on their home floor, and
Luca looked great. So again, it's not the end all
(14:31):
be all. There are going to be tougher elements to
this as Okase starts to leverage their advantages in this matchup,
but it was a nice proof of concept of what
they are capable of. Are that are the Lakers going
to be able to maintain that discipline when they don't
shoot as well. More misses equals more long rebounds. More
(14:51):
long rebounds equals more transition opportunities. More transition opportunities means
more situations where the Lakers have to be incredibly sharp
with their game plan discipline, getting back It's not going
to be easy, but they certainly can do this. They
just have to drag the Thunder into these matchup attacking
half court situations where Lebron and Luc are just better
(15:11):
at it than their stars are. And then on the thunderfront,
there's only so much they can do on defense with
their size disadvantages, Like a certain amount of their approach
is going to have to be hoping the Lakers missshots,
meaning hoping Lebron and Luca miss their ISO jump shots,
hoping that their role players miss their kickouts. On offense, though,
it is an example of something I've talked about a
(15:33):
lot this year, which is big game team comes in
and punches him in the mouth, really going after them defensively.
We saw this in the Rockets game too. How many
of these guys do you actually trust to be consistently
good on offense? The truth is is it's Shay end
of list. And so that's the part that makes it
(15:54):
really hard for me to buy into the Thunder as
like a traditional dominant runaway championship contender. The way some
of the metrics coming out of their look, the way
the standings would look, That's why I view them as
closer to the pack in the West, even if I
have them at the top, because they're just prone to
these like brutally bad stretches on offense. When you can
(16:16):
keep them out of transition. It's just something to keep
an eye on as a vulnerability. Okay, as of right now,
I'm not gonna jump the Lakers' way up just because
they played really well one game against a great team.
To me, OKAC still is deserving to be the favorite
in the Western Conference. But they are not invulnerable, and
I think we've seen that over the course of this weekend.
(16:36):
All right, Moving on to Rockets Warriors. The Rockets are
healthy again and they're back to doing what they did
in January when they just started beating up on the
top teams in the league over and over again. Back
to back huge wins against the Thunder and the Red
Hot Warriors in the Bay. All that defense Fred Van Vlietna,
Men Thompson literally put Steph Curry in handcuffs night. I
(17:00):
thought Steph looked a little tired too. It was his
third game in four nights. All of his misses were
short off the front of the rim, and you could
literally see like his energy transfer just wasn't quite the
same as it was in the previous couple of games,
finished with just three points for the second time this year.
But I do want to give the Rockets credit for
(17:20):
the job they did defensively. They did not allow him
to come free and clear off of anything. Both Fred
and men were physical with him on and off the ball,
wearing him down. Everything was contested, everything was off balanced.
A lot of his threes were an extra two or
three feet further back than he usually gets them as
a result of that pressure. This is where I want
to talk about Houston's superpower on the perimeter, which is
(17:43):
their athletic signs. This is the thing that makes them
fundamentally different than a team like Oka See. We think
of them both as these young athletic teams, super fast,
young athletic teams that play super hard, and that's their
advantage in the regular season, and there's no doubt that's
what it is. Like, I'm not prized that after having
(18:03):
watched these teams all year that Okay See and Houston
ended up at the top. It was pretty clear after
the first month of the season. It's like, Okay, these
guys are super young and athletic and these other older
veteran teams in the West are gonna have a hard
time keeping up. They pulled away the way that they did,
But Okay sees the like kind of athletic profile is
very different. Okay See has rim protection in the form
(18:25):
of chet Houston does not. I'd argue they have the opposite.
Shane Gun is often the main entry point for their
defense because he's the one guy they're not switching with.
It's the guy that you can get that baked in
dribble penetration as long as you can lay a good
screen on a men Thompson or Dylan Brooks, whoever it
is that's on the ball, right. But once you get
past that center position, Houston's athletic wings are also much
(18:46):
bigger and stronger than Okay sees perimeter athletes. That size
on a fundamental level gives them a better job, better
ability to contest jump shots. I've talked about that in
the thunder Lakers matchup. To me, when it comes to
pull up shooting over the top, shooting length is the advantage, right,
that's where you can actually bother shooters. It also allows
(19:09):
them to hold up better against wing bullies. I don't
think it's a coincidence that Luca and Lebron struggled against
Houston in a way they didn't against OKC. It's that
extra two inches, it's that extra thirty pounds of muscle
makes a huge difference when you're battling guys for position.
It's a little different posting up a Haison Wallace or
(19:32):
in Isaiah Joe that it is posting up at Dylan Brooks.
You guys get the point, right, That size and strength
gives them just a different athletic profile than OKAC does.
The theoretical way that you would attack Houston if you
are Golden State is to use Jimmy Butler and Jonathan
Kamana to attack mismatches to get them in rotation. Right,
(19:55):
But Jimmy took seven shots as he continues to be
bizarrely unaggressive. He's driving to the rim, and every single
time he drives to the rim about right on his
last like gather dribble, he just starts looking away from
the rim. He's not even looking at the room. He's
just looking for those kickout opportunities. And like there's a
time and a place when the offense is in a
flow where that makes sense. But then there are times
where they need you to be the bigger, stronger athlete
(20:17):
than the big strong athletes that you're going against. Jonathan
Camingos four for ninety and a few really really ugly
turnovers in the backcourt that continue to cause Steve Krdilou's
trust in him. He got pulled after one of them
for Gee Santo's. Thankfully, Buddy healed and Brandon Pajemski had
big games to keep things respectable. And that's an upside
if you're a Golden State fan. Is Pods continues to
(20:37):
play super well. He's been shooting forty percent from three
for like almost four months now. That's a super exciting
piece of it. But other than that, it was it
was a pretty brutal offensive performance for the Warriors. On
the Houston front. Jabari Smith, his development has been super
fascinating to me because he came out in Summer League.
(20:59):
I remember the first year that I covered him as
a guy that was not a good ball handler, and
it was so fun to There were two plays in
particular that I thought demonstrated just the way that he's
gotten better getting to his spots as a basketball player
so that he can unlock his talent which he's got
great size, great shooting touch. He's got like this like
aggressive shot making piece to him too. And in order
(21:21):
to get in order to get to that shot making talent,
that size talent, you gotta be able to get your
body to where you need to be on the floor.
Footwork and ball handling. Foot work and ball handling are
these skills that allow you to get your body from
point A to point B with the basketball so that
you can get to a spot where you can be
a score. He had a play where he drove a
close out Jimmy digs down from the top of the key.
(21:42):
As he's driving, snapped a push dribble with his left
hand up the floor. A couple of feet ran up
to the spot, got to it, and then popped up
off the ground at that spot and made a little
ten foot or just a nasty ball handling move from
Jabari Smith. He had a little baseline iso where he
looked like Kevin Durant, grabbed it, faced up, left foot,
pivot foot, ripped to the left one drim a pull
(22:04):
up just rose up over the top of the defender
with his size advantage knocked it down. He's turned into
a super effective rebounder on both ends of the four.
He had five offensive rebounds in the two games twenty
six total rebounds against the Thunder and Warriors. His three
point percentage is up to thirty eight percent on five
attempts per game over his last sixteen games. Jabari's just
(22:25):
turned into a really useful role player. Kind of a
combination of like that weak side scoring forward that we
talked about, while also having some of those bigger forward,
defensive and athletic capabilities that you see from like an
Aaron Gordon type of player. Just a really exciting young
player for Houston in their big picture goals. Dylan Brooks
was incredible. He was attacking size mismatches out of the post.
(22:48):
He went right over the top of Steph for two
right shoulder fades early in the game. His three point
shot is so much quicker and more fluid now. Jalen Green,
one of the things that consistently stood out to me
against these more athletic defense is that he is able
to get to his spots because he's such a good athlete.
That's kind of like what you needed from KAMINGA last
night was like it's almost like Jalen Green is hectic
(23:12):
and gonna make some bad decisions, but he's able to
rise to the occasion against these super elite defenses as
a shot maker in a way that some lesser athletes can't.
That's kind of what you needed from Kaminga in that
matchup last night. Is he needed the mistakes. He's gonna
make three, four, five big mistakes, but she needed seventeen
points on fourteen shots as he was looking to be
aggressive throughout the game, and that piece just wasn't there.
(23:36):
Shane Gun continued his ass kicking tour. He went right
at Draymond several times. He was destroying guards and switches.
He hit fifty points in the last two games. Again,
I don't I still don't view Houston as a legitimate
threat to win the conference because I don't think they
have the offensive variety or offensive resilience to be able
to win three series with the types of teams that
(23:56):
we have coming out of this Western Conference. But they
will be a pain in the ass, and I absolutely
think they're capable of upsetting eighteen. Like if we saw
the Rockets play in the second round, I wouldn't be stunned,
Like I wouldn't be completely shocked I just would be
shocked if they ended up winning the conference entirely. Moving
out of PACER's Nuggets. The Pacers just absolutely shredded Denver's
(24:17):
defense in the middle portion of this game. Denver got
off to a little bit of a lead early. Jokic
was incredible in this game. He had a three point
shot going early in the game. They were leaving him
in a lot of single coverage situations against Miles Turner
and he was just being super aggressive. Jokic went for
forty one points. It just didn't matter because in that
middle portion of the game, the Pacers hung seventy four
(24:38):
points in the second and third quarters on the Nuggets.
And it all came down to a combination of two factors.
One a reality that I've been discussing a lot on
this show, which is that the Nuggets defense is bad,
and the reason why it's bad is a combination of
two factors. They have to bring Yokic up to the
level because he can't switch or protect the rim, so
(24:58):
they have to bring him up to the level, which
puts two on the ball. Now you're in these four
on three situations. Jokich has not been very good with
being active with his hands and disrupting when he comes
up to the level. So as a result, you're just
playing four on three basketball and you haven't been very
good in your rotations on the back line with those
three guys. That is a death sentence. If you're gonna
put two on the ball without bothering the ball and
(25:21):
you're gonna operate three on four but not be a
good rotation team, you're gonna get cut to pieces. On
the other side of that is a red hot Pacers
team that's now one four in a row with Tyre's
Halliburton and Miles Turner just running a deadly high ballscreen attack,
and that just kind of that confluence of those two
events just led to some hilarious basketball in Denver last night.
(25:43):
I clipped a thread of a bunch of examples of
this concept so you guys can see it. It's on
my Twitter feed at underscore json lt. But the Pacers
just got either a wide open layup or a wide
open three basically whenever they wanted against the Denver defense.
A combination of a couple of things. Basic pick and
pop action with Miles Turner Yo Kicch at the ball.
(26:06):
Miles Turner is just sitting at the top of the key.
They're not rotating from the weak side. Easy pitch back,
He's wide open. Several like transition excuse me, transition trailing
types of shots for Miles Turner, where like you know,
Halliburton would just do like a probing dribble attack right
around the top of the key and the on ball
defender would kind of be there, but Jokich would just
(26:27):
sink down to like the foul line as like a
kind of a token help situation. Just pitch it back
to Miles Turner. He's right there at the top of
the key. Shot a Miles Turner, by the way, Like
it's not just shooting, it's aggressive shooting. I talk about
this all the time. There's a huge difference between a
guy who hits forty percent of his threes and a
guy who confidently and aggressively hunts his shot. That is
the one that's gonna beat manifest better for the defense, right,
(26:48):
that a manifest with more of a reaction from the defense,
I should say. But like they the nuggets weren't accounting
for him, and Turner was being aggressive. He ended up
hitting like a twenty seven foot or huge one on
the left wing on a play because he got comfortable
with all these easy shots and then he went into
a tougher one off the left wing. They ended up hitting,
but a lot of them though they were rolling with
(27:11):
Turner and tagging Turner, and so when they were tagging Turner,
it just created those simple week side two on ones
and it was just skip pass or swing swing wide
open three, skip pass or swing swing wide open, layup,
just over and over and over and over again, like
it didn't even matter that Denver was scoring. On the
other end. Christian Brown went for thirty, slashing him to
(27:33):
pieces on drives and transition pushes like Jokic goes for
forty one. It didn't matter because the Pacers just got
whatever they wanted on the other end of the floor,
Obi topping. He kind of fits the mold of that
week side scoring forward that I was talking about earlier.
He had twenty two points in this one, had a
couple of possessions where he was on an island with Jokic,
(27:54):
went right at Jokic with his speed, aggressive week side shooting,
running his lane in transition. This is a Pacers offense
that lives off of advantage creation, advantage extending and play finishing,
everybody understanding their roles on the plays were Denver rotated better,
there weren't many of them, but there were a few
on the plays when Denver rotated better. A lot of
(28:15):
these like Andrew Nemhard Aaron Nie Smith close out opportunities
with a defender coming out of them. And it was
the same thing every time hard right hand drive, defender
sliding and putting that hand up snatchback dribble. On that
snatchback dribble, the defender goes flying, there's a wide open
twelve footer, and both Nemhard and Nie Smith hit a
(28:37):
bunch of those in this game. That's what ties it
all together, right, Like, you need a guy who can
consistently get your defense in rotation. That's Tyrese Halliburton. Then
you need guys that can be play finishers, right, Miles
Turner hitting pick and pop three is Miles Turner finishing
on the role obi top and hitting threes off of
skip passes. Things along those lines. But then you also
(28:58):
need advantage extenders. There are times when it's not as
simple as drive and kick, swing, swing wide up in
layup or three. Sometimes you need a guy that can
take a close out situation and turn it into points.
And that's where you get your close out attackers in
the form of Nie Smith and Nemhard and again Pascal
Siakam didn't even play in this game, and he unlocks
an entire different element of the Pacers offense in the
(29:19):
form of that matchup attacking from the post. But they
just chewed up and spit out that Nuggets defense. They
generated twenty six unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which
is the second most that the Pacers have generated in
any game this season, which brings me to the Nuggets
part of this, and it's something that we have to
(29:40):
be realistic about. The Nuggets since January twenty third, with
Nikola Jokic on the floor, have a one to twenty
defensive rating. To be clear, it's not all Jokic's fault.
Like I said, it's a combination of two factors. Jokic
(30:00):
constantly having to be at the level of the screen,
but then him also not having the energy because he
has so much offensive responsibility, he doesn't have the energy
to be really active up at the level. So because
he's not very active up at the level, the ball
handler is able to make relatively easy reads and kickout
(30:20):
passes from there, then you're in all these four on
threes and the rotations are just not being made. There's
not connectivity even with the athletes, even guys like Aaron Gordon,
Payton Watson, like they're not doing their job rotating on
the backside. So again it's both Jokic is putting you
in a compromising position on every single possession defensively, but
(30:43):
you don't have the personnel to cover for him. So
at a certain point, there's like a directional change that
this organization needs to go through in terms of anchoring
Jokic as he gets older. I don't think he's going
to get better at defense. So at a certain point,
from a team construct standpoint, if you're gonna have Jokic
generate everything for you on offense and you're not gonna
(31:04):
get anything out of him on defense, and that at
the level coverage, you've got to anchor him with better
defensive talent. And I think that's something that they'll have
to take a long look at when we get to
this offseason. But like, here's the thing, I still view
the Nuggets as a championship contender. I would be insane
to write off Nikola Jokic. However, this is a long,
extended half the season, long stretch where they haven't just
(31:28):
been bad defensively, they've been so bad that it's basically
impossible to win in the NBA playoffs with the type
of defense that they've been playing. Jokic has said before,
I don't believe in a switch, meaning he doesn't think
we can just flip the switch and be better in
the postseason. I agree. I've talked about this a lot.
It's your habits. Your habits are what carry you when
(31:50):
you run into adversity, when the shit hits the fan
and you're not hitting shots and the other team has
all this momentum. The only thing you can rely on
is the instinctual way you play hard. What habitually? Have
you been making these rotations all year? Have you been
communicating through actions all year? Have you been cracked down
rebounding and boxing out all year? If you've been doing
(32:12):
those things, they will still work for you when you
run into adversity and carry you through rough stretches so
that your offense can carry you back to the forefront.
The Snuggets team's going to score a lot of points.
They can score, but they will have stretches where they
cool lot, and teams will pull away from them if
they don't have a higher level than this that they
can reach defensively. Now, again, I won't write them off
(32:33):
because I have seen this group play better defense than
they've played. Hell, they played better defense in the early
part of the year. But the problem is is they
are practicing playing bad defense now. They are deliberately prepping
for the postseason by playing a brand of basketball that
will not work in the postseason on the defensive end
of the floor. So they're playing with fire. What does
(32:56):
that mean? Does I mean they can't win? Of course not.
They could go on a run, they could play better defense,
Jokic could go crazy, they could hoist the trophy. But
basketball history tells us it's more likely than not that
this season ends in disappointment because they're practicing playing bad
defense at this point and not really making any sort
of serious attempt to improve on that end of the floor.
(33:16):
All right, before we get out of here today, I
want to talk a little bit about the Steph Lebron debate.
So Steph fans reinstigated this discussion over the weekend, basically
trying to paint the picture that Steph is the defining
player of this era, the greatest player of this era,
and then had a better career than Lebron James. Steph
(33:39):
fans have felt this way since twenty fifteen. This is
not exactly a new idea. Many of you might remember
the Steph better, the hashtag that used to go around
all the time. And to be clear, I don't blame
more of yours fans for feeling this way. He's their hero,
he brought them four titles. It'd be weird if they
weren't lessly advocating for him in the all time context.
(34:03):
I also find debates along these lines to be somewhat
boring because no one's changing their mind. There's no Warriors
fan that is going to budge based on this take
that I'm about to unleash. You guys have your way
that you feel I respect, that, I have my way
that I feel I respect that, or I would ask
for the same in return. Right. But I have literally
(34:25):
never heard a basketball person who isn't a Warriors fan
or an outspoken anti Lebron guy make the case that
Steph was better than Lebron. Because it's absurd. Let's set
aside the obvious stuff like that Lebron had a Hall
of Fame career before Steph even entered his prime, and
that Lebron is still every bit as good as him,
(34:46):
or that Lebron has four times as many Finals MVPs
or twice as many MVPs, or that Lebron is one
of only two players in NBA history with four MVPs
and four Finals MVPs. Let's set that stuff aside. Just
the narrative that Warriors fans are trying to build as absurd.
Steph won his first title against Lebron in a series
(35:06):
where both of his co stars were injured. Lebron literally
received more Finals MVP consideration than Steph after that series.
I disagreed with that line of thinking because I don't
believe in rewarding the loser. I think Steph should have
won at Finals MVP, but Lebron literally got more consideration
for Finals MVP than Steph that season. Then Lebron beat
(35:26):
him in spectacular fashion in twenty sixteen back to back
or two forty point games in Game five and Game
six to extend the series. In that twenty sixteen series,
Lebron badly outplayed Steph on both ends. Of the floor.
Then Kevin Durant joined the team, and the Warriors were
so insanely talented that they had a negative odds on
(35:48):
sportsbooks before the season to win the title. You were
going you bet a dollar on the Warriors to win
the title in October those years in seventeen and eighteen,
you'd have made less than at all at the end
of the season. Because it wasn't just Katie and Steph.
It wasn't just the second and third best players in
the league joining forces. It was Klay Thompson, the second
(36:09):
best shooter of all time, one of the best perimeter
defenders in basketball, with great size and strength at his
positioned an awesome role player in this league. Draymond Green
arguably the greatest defender of this era. Andra g Woodallas
such a versatile forward that he got the Finals MVP
in twenty fifteen, and during that era was a do
everything player for them. I'm a big fan of Kyrie
(36:32):
Irving and Kevin Love and j R. Smith, but it
was a different level of talent that was on those
two rosters. The way that whole four year saga is
now being retroactively rebuild as a one on one rivalry
between Lebron and Steph is fucking outrageous. When Lebron was
(36:53):
at his best, he was the best parts of Steph
and Draymond put together. He was one of the most
prolific offensive engines in the history of the sport and
one of the best defensive players to ever play the game.
What happened in the twenty sixteen Finals is kind of
the perfect encapsulation of the difference between the two of them.
Lebron in that fourth quarter surgically took the Warriors apart
(37:15):
in a way Steph was not able to on the
other end of the floor, and yet still at the
end of the game, Lebron saved it by leveraging his
athleticism to make a superhuman play when Kyrie on the
other end, attacked step because he was the lesser athlete
on the court and a player he could get easy
separation from. That's the difference between the two two all
(37:37):
time great offensive engines. I'd even argue Steph was a
little bit better as an offensive engine than Lebron, but
Lebron brought that Draymon level of playoff defensive impact while
also being a five time First Team All NBA First
Team All defensive player. Lebron was one of the great
defenders to ever play this game. Think back to the
Spurs series and the low man possessions on Tim Duncan
(37:59):
and Tiago Splitter at the rim. Think about him in
twenty sixteen in on the famous brick that Steph shot
over over Kevin Love at the top of the key,
Lebron was lurking in the paint. He blocked nine shots
over game five, six, and seven of that series. Think
about the level Lebron was able to get to defensively
(38:21):
in twenty twenty as he helped anchor one of the
great defenses in NBA history as he won his fourth
championship the year after Kevin Durant left the Warriors. There
was a level Lebron could get to in terms of
his athletic imposition that Steph could never get to, and
that to me is why they are on different tiers.
I'm a huge Steph fan. He's you gotta take my
(38:44):
word for this. I get it. He's legitimately my second
favorite player, and I actually like him more as like
a dude than Lebron. Half the time Lebron opens his mouth,
it drives me crazy, super corny there are a lot
of things I don't like about the guy. To me,
Steph is a more steady leader and a much more
(39:05):
likable just guy. I'm a big Steph fan, but when
it comes down to basketball, he's just not on the
same tier as Lebron. All time, it's Lebron and MJ
at the top, then there's a gap, and then it's Kobe,
it's Magic, it's Steph, and it's Bird in that next tier.
For me, I don't think Steph is even capable of
(39:25):
entering into the next tier. He's never even had an
undisputed hold on the best player in the World title
the way that Lebron did back in twenty thirteen or
that Jokic does. Now, we can celebrate Steph without rewriting
history and journeying to fantasyland that guys like. It was
(39:47):
an awesome rivalry between the Cavs and Warriors, and it
was fun in a stretch of the of the NBA
history where we got to see these teams face over
and over again. But if you're painting that as like
Steph versus Lebron playing one on one, that's dishonest and
it's just it's not reality. So like I I like
like that athletic imposition element we're talking about. You want
(40:10):
to know why Lebron's never had single digit points and
you know, if God knows how many games or that,
Lebron hasn't had three points in a game since December
of two thousand and four, because there's a certain floor
that comes from being six' nine two hundred and sixty
pounds and big and strong and being able to leverage
yourself in ways that don't strictly tie to shot. Making,
(40:33):
Now steph has a gravity. Element in The rockets game last,
night for, instance he only had three. POINTS a lot
of plays on film Where i'm Watching steph run off
of an, action someone slip out of it and get.
Open steph has value that goes beyond. It but there's
more variance in his singular output on the game because
he's a jump. Shooter sometimes the shots don't go. In
sometimes he goes one for eight from three instead of you,
(40:55):
know twelve for, Twenty and that's the up and down
that can come from that type of. Experience it's again
like to, Me steph is one of the greats IN nba.
HISTORY i have him at, FIVE i have him the
top five player IN nba, history BUT i just don't
think he was on the same level As lebron AND
i thought it was just kind of hilarious the way
that that was attempted to be made as a case
over the course of the. Weekend all, right, guys that's
(41:18):
ALL i have for today is always a sincerely appreciate
you guys for supporting me and supporting the. Show No
oops tonight. Tonight we're going back, tomorrow BUT i am
doing some stuff With kevin O'Connor tonight surrounding The National title.
Game it's a little Bit Colle shoop, stuff SOME nba draft.
Stuff we're also going to talk SOME nba in that,
Show so make sure you guys check Out kevin's pod
OTHERWISE i will see you guys. Tomorrow what, so, Guys as,
ALWAYS i appreciate you for listening to and SUPPORTING oops.
(41:40):
Tonight they would actually be really helpful for us if
you guys would take a second and leave a rating
and a. Review as, ALWAYS i appreciate you guys supporting,
us but if you could take a minute to do,
That i'd really appreciate. It the volume
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.