November 1, 2022 • 52 mins
First (3:00) Jason Timpf reacts to Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and the Golden State Warriors' two-game losing streak. What's been the main cause of the defending champs' poor play? Later (21:00), Jason discusses Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers' hot start to the season, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers finally winning a game, and the drama already surrounding Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and the Brooklyn Nets two weeks into the NBA season. #Volume #Herd
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in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented
(02:12):
by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Halloween, everybody.
I hope you guys had some fun over the weekend
and or tonight, depending on how your schedule all worked out.
We have a ton of basketball to get to today.
The Golden State Warriors lost back to back games in
Charlotte in Detroit over the weekend. We're gonna get into
(02:33):
specifically Detroit. I'm gonna dive into some of their young
players as well, because I had so much fun watching
them this morning. They have some of my favorite young
players in the league. The Cleveland Cavaliers have been one
of the most impressive teams to start this season. They
beat the Knicks yesterday to get up to five and one,
but they also had a super impressive road win in
Boston that we're gonna cover. We'll also be covering them
(02:56):
again this Wednesday live on AMP after they have their
rematch with the Celtics. The Los Angeles Lakers finally won
a basketball game at home against the Denver Nuggets a
lot to get into there. And then last but not least,
the Brooklyn Nets are experiencing more drama that I hope
then I think they could have hoped for at this
point in the season with Kyrie Irving re I don't know,
(03:21):
renewing his yearly shenanigans, which are always a lot harder
to handle when you're losing basketball games than when you're winning. Um,
you guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
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Under Hoops tonight. So Golden State dropping games in Charlotte
Detroit obviously not a good thing. Detroit and Charlotte are
two pretty bad basketball teams. Some of its poor shooting. Obviously,
(04:04):
I'm sure Warriors fans have been thinking about that a lot. Uh.
Steph was seven for twenty seven from three over the weekend.
That's an anomaly. Andrew Wiggins was another guy who had
a nightmare shooting weekend. He was eighty eight from the field.
But don't let that distract from the reality, which is
that the Warriors problems are on the defensive end and
(04:25):
primarily with their bench. So I wanted to kind of
dive into those two concepts a little bit. So, first
of all, these are two average offenses in Detroit and Charlotte,
and in the two games, the Golden State Warriors had
a defensive rating of almost a hundred and twenty, meaning
they were giving up almost a hundred and twenty points
per one hundred possessions. Regardless of what you think factors
(04:46):
might be working against you in any sort of road trip,
or a guy being out of the lineup like Clay
Thompson missing, you know, or Dante deve di Vincenzo being
out of the game. Regardless of how you feel about
any of those things. You should be able to go
into Detroit and get stops as the Golden State Warriors.
And you should be able to go into the Charlotte
to Charlotte, especially Charlotte because they don't have the level
of offensive talent that Detroit has, and you should be
(05:09):
able to get stops. You know, I was listening to
the Warriors broadcast that Pistons game this morning, and you know,
you keep hearing they're just flummixed and that I can't
believe that he made that shot. Like these guys are playing,
that they've lost five straight games, how is it that
they're this they're having the night of their life and
and and it's so easy as a fan, and I
(05:31):
get that. I know, I too, am a fan. I
We're all fans in one way or another, whether it's
a specific players or specific teams. And when you're a fan,
you jump to rationalizations like this this explains why this happened,
or that explains why it happened, and a lot of
times we do that ignoring obvious evidence that something more
serious is taking place. Um, you're right, Detroit is not
(05:52):
very good. They're not a very good basketball team, but
they are super talented. Charlotte is not a very good
basketball team, but they have some talent. And it's not
about being good in a vacuum, because of course the
Warriors are good in a vacuum. You have to be
good against the basketball players you're playing that night, and
if you don't bring it on that night, you'll get beat.
(06:16):
This is what I meant when I was saying unforgiving league.
I had somebody in the comments say, Jason unforgiving league,
tim because I've dropped it like three times in the
last week. But I've been saying that for a reason.
It's something I've been preaching all summer. The league is
deeper with talent than it's ever been, but that still
means that there's gonna be good teams, mediocre teams, and
bad teams. Because your team isn't about the talent, it's
(06:38):
relative to the other teams around the league. A bad
team now might have been a good team ten years
ago based on the talent, but that doesn't matter. It
only matters within this season. The truth of the matter
is that if you know, Steph slides his feet and
gets a stop on the final possession against Dennis Smith Jr.
You get a win in Charlotte. But Dennis Smith Jr.
(07:01):
Is a pretty damn athletic quick guard, a guard that
in this league kind of seems like a bad guard, right,
But he's a freak athlete that can dribble. He's been
knocking down more pull up jump shots this year than
he has in years past. He's a guy that if
you don't slide your feet, he's gonna be to the
basket and make a layup. And that sent the game
to overtime where they lost. You know, if you leave
(07:22):
your feet jumping at a Saedique Bay pump fake the
way that Jordan Pool did, you know in the second
half against Detroit, like he's gonna go to the basket
and get a layup because side Bay is a big, strong,
athletic wing and a damn good basketball player. He doesn't
care that it says Detroit Pistons on the front of
his Jersey or that his team lost five straight games.
He's a good basketball player and if you don't bring effort,
(07:44):
you're gonna lose. And in this particular game, there was
just a whole lot of sloppiness from the Warriors. There's
a play where Jade and Ivy with a live dribble,
just brought the ball up the floor and transition and
nobody picked him up. So guess what he did. He
elevated above the rim and dunked it. I watched Jade
and I be in summer League. He's my second favorite
player in this entire class. He's damn good. He's a
(08:06):
damn good basketball player, and if you don't play him
with respectable effort, you're gonna lose games. And then Kate.
You know Kate Cunningham, and he's becoming one of my
favorite young players in the league too. He was getting
downhill too easily and pick and roll. And he's a big,
strong wing that has a very high level passing field.
He's got these big hands. You can palm the basketball
(08:26):
and throw these cross court passes and and swing like
slingshot passes and things along those lines. And if you
let him get downhill and force your help to come in.
He's gonna hit open shooters on the other side of
the court all day long. And if you don't box out,
you'll get beat on the offensive glass by two really
athletic teams like the Detroit Pistons and the Charlotte Hornets,
(08:47):
and the Warriors gave up twenty seven offensive rebounds in
these two games. The Warriors now are down to t
in the NBA in rebounding percentage, So they're twenty three
and deep pens and twenty seven and rebounding percentage. They're
they're how in terms of a title defense, that's not
(09:09):
a good start. If you can't defend and you can't
get rebounds, even against bad teams, then you're not good
enough to be able to win at the highest levels. Now,
let's zoom out a little bit, because it's not like
Steph and Clay and Draymond and Andrew Wiggins all forgot
how to play basketball. That's not what happened. The problem
is with their bench um. According to Cleaning the Glass,
(09:32):
when Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and
Kevan Luny are on the floor, this is their starting
lineup they are whooping everyone's ass. They have a hundred
and twenty seven offensive rating, which is outstanding, in a
one hundred defensive rating, which is outstanding. So the silver
lining for Warriors fans to cling to is like, our
core five guys are excellent. The problem is that they're
(09:56):
getting destroyed almost everywhere else. Six of their top eight
lineups in terms of total minutes played without Stephen Draymond
on the floor are getting out scored, and most of
them are getting badly outscored. They just fall apart when
those guys go to the bench, and there's you know,
some of it is weak perimeter defense, and we'll talk
(10:16):
more about this in a minute, but the big glaring
one that's been standing out to me in the last
few games is James Wiseman. He's getting absolutely destroyed in
his minutes, or at least the team is. And yes,
some of it is like, yeah, he's playing with Moses
Moody guarding really good perimeter players, and Moses is not
quite ready for that yet. Jordan Pool is having a
really bad defensive season to start. Dear Jonathan Cominga who
(10:38):
is better defensive player than Moses Moody, I thought, and
he hasn't been defending well to start this season. But
the reality is is in a hundred and two minutes
with James Wiseman on the floor, their minus forty eight.
That's destructive. That's really really bad. The most frequently used
James Wiseman line up right now is Jordan Pool with
Dante DiVincenzo, Jonathan Comingo, jam Michael Green and James Wiseman.
(11:02):
That's the most used, like the most minutes, most possessions
line up with James Wiseman on the floor, they have
an offensive rating of fifty nine points per one hun
possessions and a defensive rating of a hundred and eleven.
They're getting outscored by fifty two points per one hund
possessions in the most frequently used James Wiseman lineup. And
again like it's I want to blame the weak perimeter defense,
(11:24):
but it's not just that. You know, even with Steph Clay,
Andrew Wiggins and Draymond on the floor with James Wiseman,
dave a minus eighty two net rating in eleven possessions. Again,
small sample size, but they got absolutely destroyed in that
particular lineup. The reality is is that's it's kind of
a clunky fit. First of all, he's a big guy
(11:47):
who's learning how to play the game. And he as
we've said throughout the season, he's really good at some
things already, Like he's got he's a legit vertical spacer,
although he can fumble the basketball sometimes. He had a
pretty a bad missed lob in the second half against
Detroit that was kind of a big momentum play because
they ran out the other way and got side. Bay
hit a three on the left wing and it was
(12:08):
like a five point swing um. But he's pretty good
vertical spacer right and like he uh, if he catches
with an advantage around the ram, he'll finish. I think
he's I think he's shooting like in the restricted area
this year, which is fine. You know, defensively, when he's
around the rim and guys are coming at him, his
length can be a problem, which is good when he's
(12:29):
in drop coverage. You know, he makes some good reads
from time to time, and his length can be a problem.
But he's really struggling with physicality and it hurts the
Warriors in particular on to two spots on the floor
on offense. It's so important to be a really good
screener as a big and Golden State's offense and Draymond
Green and Kevan Luniar are excellent screeners. But but James
(12:53):
Wiseman is the biggest weakness that he has right now
is physicality struggles in the physical battles of the game.
And if you don't set big, physical screens, then you're
not getting as much separation for the Golden State guards
coming off those actions. And then it just it's like
a missing cog in the engine and then everything stops
working right. And then on the defensive end, it's like
(13:15):
like Isaiah Stewart was just bullying James Wiseman, especially on
the offensive glass, and and that's a problem. And so
when I really look at it, like what James Wiseman
does as a big in this league is less valuable
to Golden State than it is to other teams. His
vertical spacing, even though it's a unique touch on this roster,
(13:39):
is less valuable for Golden State because vertical spacing matters
more when the paint is clogged and you need an
escape route to throw the ball up towards the rim.
Golden States spacing is inverted. They're spacing around the rim
is always good because they have all these guys and
Steph Clay and and Jordan Poole flying off of these screens,
and Andrew Wiggins shoots the balls so well that for
(14:01):
the most part, their spacing is inverted. The congestion for
the Warriors is on the perimeter, and so vertical spacing
brings less value. What they actually need out of that
position is a guy who can screen really really well,
and that is a really smart decision maker that's hitting
guys cutting out of the week side corner things along
those lines. They want you to succeed in four on
(14:21):
three settings. And so part of me feels bad for
Wiseman because he's a young player that's learning how to
play the game. He's played something crazy like fifty five
NBA games or something. I don't quote me on that,
but he's played less than a hundred NBA games before that.
He didn't really play much at Memphis, Like the dude
hasn't had much of an opportunity to learn how to
play the game, and he's learning to play in a
(14:42):
system or his specific archetype is kind of less valuable.
You have to almost play a different style. They just
basically run a lot of high pick and roll with
with Jordan Pool when he's out there. And so at
the end of the day, like like, it'll be a
really interesting decision for the for the Warriors brass to
make because you know when we're looking like, yes, Clay
(15:02):
Thompson's gonna come back. He didn't play on Sunday, He's
gonna come back. That's gonna alleviate some of your bench concerns.
Andrea Gudala eventually, especially as we get deeper in the season,
will start being used a little bit more frequently. He's
a better perimeter defender than a Moses Moody or someone
along those lines. There there will be some reinforcements, there'll
be a candidate for buy out players as we get
(15:23):
past the deadline. All that's true, but one of two
things needs to happen. They either need these young guys
to get better to the point where they're dependable playoff
rotation players, or they need to consider flipping them for
players who will be And that's gonna be a tough
decision because right now, Moses Moody is making progress and
(15:44):
might be that guy. Jonathan Cominga is definitely not ready
like he's just not ready and he will not be
ready this year. And James Wiseman is very very far
away from becoming a positive player on this team. So
the question is is it do you bank on that,
(16:04):
on the fact that Wiseman will eventually figure that stuff
out during this season, or do you do something like
take Wiseman and Kaminga or maybe Wiseman, Kominga and Moody
in combine them and try to get something back that
can actually contribute within this season. And again, it's early,
there's a lot of basketball left, and it's possible that
(16:27):
these guys do make monumental improvements. That's just the risk.
Right now, You're a dominant starting lineup and everyone else
is killing you, and you lost Otto Porter Jr. And
Gary Payton, the second two players that were very productive
for you in these roles. Gary Payton the second in particular,
(16:48):
the Warriors were positive with him on the court in
the playoffs and negative without him. And so it's very
important as the Warriors go to their bench to have
an additional really good perimeter to ender that can operate
in the short role and that can knock down the
occasional corner three, and that does smart is a smart
basketball player that doesn't make mistakes that can hurt your team,
(17:10):
and it's it's gonna be an interesting conundrum for them.
I did want to shout out Jordan Pool. Holy cow,
did he have an explosive second half in that Pistons game.
He had like a transition three on the right wing
and then a steel that led to another transition three
on the right wing, and then he hit another transition
three on the left wing on a pass from Steph
(17:31):
and then he started barbecuing Boy and Bogdanovich in isolation
at the top of the key. Hit a disgusting step
back move there. He's got a mile to go defensively, obviously,
but while everyone else was struggling offensively this weekend, uh,
Jordan Pool was really really impressive and that that's he's
been a huge bright spot here early in the season
(17:53):
in my opinion. Well, tough one tomorrow in Miami for
the Warriors to get back on track, um and we'll
be covering that game on amp right after the final buzzer.
So Detroit. I was really impressed just in general by
how good they were getting downhill towards the rim with
all of their young players that they have. Cede Bay
is kind of like your classic mismatch attacking forward. Not
(18:15):
quite as skilled as some of the other ones around
the league, but he is huge and there were a
lot of plays where he just ripped through to the
basket and guys were just shedding off of him as
he was getting to the rim. Kate Cunningham is really
good at leveraging his body to get the defender on
his back side as he's coming through on pick and roll.
We talked about earlier how good he is at making
those cross court passes and things along those lines, those
(18:37):
high level reads. He had another transition pass two to
Killing and Hayes like cutting out of the backside corner
that I didn't even see as I was watching. I
didn't even see Killing in there. That's always to me
like one of the UH indicators of a high level passers.
If us the fans, as we're watching, we can see
the basic reads. We can see strong side help and
an easy kick out. We can see, you know, a
(19:00):
drop off past to the dunker spot when the big
guy steps up. Those are normal things, but like it's
hard unless you're on a rewatch when you're watching all
the things moving to see the higher level reads like
skips to the weak side corner and things that you
might not see, and kids all over that stuff. Jade
and Ivy Uh is still, in my opinion, one of
the hardest guards in the league, keeping front, which is
(19:21):
insane for how young he is. Um. You can see
that attacking closeouts and in transition. Um. And then both
Isaiah Stewart and Jalen During are just monsters on the
offensive class They the two combined for eight offensive rebounds
against Golden State. This is one of the most exciting
young cores in basketball. And they just extended boy and
Magdanovitch for two additional years. So you've got a veteran
(19:42):
president of PREV presidents that can shoot the basketball, defend
the bigger wings, although he's not quick enough to defend
quicker players. But I like that move for them. There's
no reason to uh. Um, you know, as long as
you can afford him for the next couple of years.
It's not like you're gonna be big players in the
free agent market. So I like to move Detroit. It's
gonna be fun to watch. I enjoyed watching that game
(20:03):
and Um again, it's like it's just the story of
the NBA these days. What you what you anticipate to
be an easy game just isn't an easy game anymore.
So let's move on to the Calves. So, the Calves
beat the Nix yesterday to get to five and one. So, uh,
the game I actually watched. I did not watch the
Knicks game. I watched the Celtics game from a couple
(20:23):
of nights prior, epic back and forth game, and ot uh.
Celtics should have won that game, but the kind of
classic Celtics did at the end with some poor decision
making down the stretch and crunch time in and ot um. Also,
you just kind of handed to the Calves like Donovan
Mitchell and Carris LeVert just time and time again made
(20:44):
gigantic shots like tough off the dribble pull up jump
shots in that game. But the two of them have
been making them all season long. They are fit in
offense to start the year third in defense, second in
net rating. What's really interesting about him being third in
defense is if I ask you what the Calves would
be great at defensively, you would say, oh, well, they
(21:06):
got Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. They're going to shut
down the paint, but that it could not be further
from the truth. They are eighteen and opponent paint points
allowed per one possessions and opponents are shooting six against
them in the paint, which is bottom ten excuse me,
in the restricted area, which is bottom ten in the league.
The reason why their defense is so good is they
are not allowing teams to get off three point shots.
(21:29):
They are allowing the fewest three point attempts in the
league at just twenty eight point three per one possessions.
Team teams are shooting right around just just under thirty
six on those shots, which is pretty normal. Um. You
can also see it on tape. They just they pressure
the ball, which is what you expect from a team
that has great back line help. They're chasing guys off
the line. They're not over helping. They're willing to allow
(21:52):
a guy to challenge a player that's on his hip
at the rim rather than sending help that you don't
need to send. And then there This is a huge
part of it. Both Jared Allen and Mobile are good
at defending on the perimeter, but the biggest driving force.
Without a doubt of their early season success because Darius
Garland went down in the first game against Toronto with
like a scratch to the eye or something, and we
haven't seen him since. But Donovan Mitchell has just been
(22:15):
otherworldly good. He's playing the best basketball of his career
and it's not particularly close. I was listening to the
Celtics broadcast for this particular game and they were one
of the announcers said that they noticed that pep in
Donovan Mitchell's step since he came to Cleveland, and I'm
not surprised. I mean, there was kind of like a
negative energy lingering around that Utah team for a while
(22:37):
and just getting that change of scenery. Um, you know,
I think I think Rudy Gobert can grate on people
a little bit. He's with younger, probably more energetic people
that it's just he just looks happy. And and obviously,
with Darius Garland being out, the whole your turn, my
turn thing has just been almost thrown out of the window,
and he kind of has like a really natural given
(22:57):
take with Carris Laverte already and dude, you could you
could just you could just see it in his in
his in the way he plays his uh. Um, He's
still one of the most athletic guards in the league.
He had a disgusting blowby on Marcus Smart in the
fourth quarter of that game where he kind of like, uh.
The announcers called it an overhand crossover, and I thought
(23:18):
it was interesting that he called that because I've always
thought of that as just like more of a body crossover.
You're not just you're not actually doing anything to sway
the defender with the ball. What it is is your
body is pointed to the right and then you're literally
turning your body to the left. And it's one of
the biggest things that I teach young players when I
coach skills from my high school team is it's not
(23:40):
about what you do with the basketball with the move,
it's what you do with your body. If you can
sell with your body that you're going one direction and
then change direction while protecting the basketball from getting swiped at,
you will get by the defender. It's not about doing
some big sweeping crossover. You can just push the ball
out to your left as long as you sell that
you're going right, and you'll beat someone off the dribble.
(24:02):
And on this play, Donovan Mitchell did that to Marcus Smart.
He buckled and he went all the way to the
rim and dunked it. He had another one in overtime
um where he hit Malcolm Broggden with a hard right
to left move. I think he went through his legs
on this one, but Malcolm Brogden literally got just utterly toasted.
Didn't even get a hand on him as he went
all the way to the room for the layup. He's just,
(24:23):
He's just He's a really unique combination of freaky downhill
athleticism to get to the rim and one of the
best pull up jump shooters in the league. I talked
to you guys about this over the summer. One of
the biggest reasons why I was excited for Cleveland is
is he has the offensive skill set that translates to
the postseason, and he is one of the most successful
(24:46):
postseason scorers of the last few years. He's just been
so bad defensively in the Utah Jazz were so bad
and so disappointing that we kind of just look at
him as out of sight or out of mind. But
I want to say he was like on like eleven
three point eleven pull up three point attempts per game
or something crazy like that over the last few post seasons.
(25:07):
He's just a knockdown, pull up shooter that can get
to the rim, and that that that combination just makes
him incredibly difficult to guard. He's averaging thirty two, five
and seven this season so far on sixty true shooting
career highs and points and efficiency at this point obviously
early career high and assists as well at seven per game.
(25:27):
He's shooting forty six percent on eleven pull up jumpers
per game, including fifty three percent on pull up threes.
Just absolutely insane shot making. And he's been better defensively
than he was in Utah. I haven't seen enough to
just be like, oh, he's seen the light, because I've
only seen like three or four of the Cavs games
this year, But in the games that I've watched, he's
(25:49):
been impressive. Um, he's been one of the most impressive
players in the league to start the season. So you
have to you have to tip the cap to Kobe
Altman and the Calves for a really smart move over
the summer. Carris Lavert has also been a lot better
than I expected that I called him the odd man
out to start the season, and who knows maybe he
still will be the odd man out when Darius Garland
comes back. But I could not have been more wrong
(26:11):
about how he fits, at least with this iteration of
the calves. His shotmaking has been all over the place.
He's basically hitting everything from deep and nothing else. He's
shooting fift on pull up threes so far this season.
He had a massive step back three I think it
was over Jalen Brown and overtime that basically amounted to
be the game winner. Um the Celtics went down and tied,
(26:33):
and they had kind of a bad possession where it
was a little stagnant and Caris Lavert just hit like
a pound dribble between his legs into his step back
and he knocked it down. But the most impressive thing
to me from Carris Lavert has been his playmaking out
of high pick and roll. It's kind of similar to
what we were talking about Kate Cunningham. You know, he's
not a the downhill, you know, speedy threat that Donovan
(26:54):
Mitchell is. It's kind of a really interesting different type
of attack to the Donovan Mitchell attack because Carris LeVert
is moving in slow motion a lot of the time.
He's trying to get you pinned on his on on
his back side, he's a lot more willing to shoot
in the mid range. And even though both guys are
averaging seven assists per game, it's uncharacteristics for Donovan Mitchell.
(27:14):
You know, Carris LeVert has always had a little bit
of that, you know, uh, pick you apart type of
game and high pick and roll. And he's getting high
usage because of Darius Garland being out, and he's producing
in that specific role at a career high seven assist
per game right now, this early in the season. And
then I think he's been again, I need to see more,
(27:35):
but I think he's been pretty damn solid defensively, and
I thought he was really impressive defensively in the games
that I watched. Um, the rim defense for the Calves
should improve, Like I said, even though they defended the
three point line really well, just having Mobile and Allen
out there, I do think that will kind of trend
back in their direction. Darius Garland will bring a different
dynamic to the offense, but it will also take something
(27:55):
away defensively, so that'll be an interesting kind of dynamic
when he comes back. Obviously, that kind of throws off
the give and take between LeVert and Mitchell and kind
of shift some rolls around. So they got some they
got some stuff that they'll have to figure out. But overall,
they've been one of the most impressive teams to start
the season and we're gonna be covering them again on
Wednesday when they host the Calves live on AMP after
(28:18):
the final buzzer of that game, but I definitely wanted
to spend some time shouting out the Calves this morning.
So the Lakers finally not to win at home against Denver,
I did a TikTok uh for for Carson. He's the
guy here at the volume that helps with our TikTok
and he also helps out on this show. You guys,
you guys know him, And he was like, Hey, can
you send me a video three things that you think
(28:39):
would fix the Los Angeles Lakers, And I said, you know,
obviously a targeted management, like they need to do something
with Russ. But then the other two things I said
were they needed to um actually have Lebron James and
Anthony Davis played to their capability, meaning Lebron like a
top five player, a d like a top ten player.
And then I said they needed to knock down some
(29:00):
him ter jump shots, because if you're shooting blow, you're
just not gonna be able to be competitive in the
n b A. And yeah, they I never expected to
the Lakers to be a good um three point shooting
team this year. They just don't have the roster for that.
But they certainly are better than what they were. And
so two of those three were rectified essentially in that
Denver Nuggets game. And what do you know, they want
(29:21):
a basketball game? They shot forty three from three. Big
part of that was shot quality. Uh, they only had
thirty attempts, but only one, according to NBA dot Com,
was tracked as either tightly contested or very tightly contested.
So they just took smarter threes um. And then also
some of that's just positive regression again, like they're not
a good shooting team, but they were nowhere near as
(29:41):
bad as they looked, and so it was inevitable that
they were going to have some good shooting games, and
they happen to have one, going thirteen for thirty against
the Nuggets. And then Anthony Davis, like, okay, Anthony Davis
got soundly outplayed by Nicola Yoki up in Denver. I
did a whole video talking about how is transition defense
in particular A destroyed the Lakers in that particular game,
(30:03):
And I was very critical of Anthony Davis. And you know, again,
like when when it comes to the criticism of players,
everything is like relative to what your talent level is,
and you know, it's it's kind of like an expectations
versus results type of thing. Like you know what frustrates
me about Anthony Davis is he should be one of
(30:24):
the top five basketball players in the world. That's how
talented he is. He's, you know, obviously constructed like Rudy
Gobert defensively, but he's got the shooting touch. He's demonstrated
over the course of his career stretches of outstanding shooting touch.
He can dribble the basketball. The dude is an unbelievable
freak talent, and I've seen what it looks like when
(30:46):
he's dialed in on both ends of the floor. I
saw it in he was so damn impressive. I used
I was joking about this in a in a group
chat the other day. He was so damn impressive in
the season that when he would have a bad first half.
I would tweet out like, oh, big second half incoming,
because a D was like that was his rough game,
(31:09):
Like a rough a D game would be he'd have
a bad first half and then he'd come out in
the second half and destroy everybody. The dude was a
night in, night out monster that killed everybody that was
in his path. He became one of my favorite players.
He I ranked him as the fourth best player in
the world. After that season. He was a monster, and
then he just lost it. Some of it was injuries,
(31:32):
a lot of it is him coming into the season
out of shape. A lot of it is he put
on too much muscle and he's too heavy. Now, I mean,
look this back spasm thing that's been acting up for
a while. The reality is is like that's just part
of the Anthony Davis experience. Now, you can't just blame
bad luck. You're he's stiff as a board because he's
incredibly overweight in terms of just too much muscle mass
(31:54):
for what he needs for the position. And guess what
happens a lot when you get stiff and lack of
mobility because you over build, your back gets tight. And
that's what he's dealing with now and like it's I
have all that. There's just a lot of reasons for
all Laker fans or Anthony Davis fans to be frustrated
with the way that he's played over the years, the
last couple of years. And you know what, he went
(32:16):
out with his bad back, with the same lack of
mobility that he's had over the last couple of years,
and he soundly outplayed Yoki last night, soundly outplayed him,
completely erased that transition stuff, sprinting back. Instead of having
thirty five fast break points like they did in the
game in Denver, they only had nine, did a great
(32:37):
job in isolation defense. Even the shots that Yokis made
in that game were immensely difficult because Anthony Davis was
draped all over him. Anthony Davis was making his jump shot,
particularly his two point jump shot, and then on the
other end of the floor, Yokich can't shoot anymore, which
we're gonna get to. That's a whole other thing. But
a d was ignoring Yokis and dropping back into the
paint to contain things and shut down a out of
(33:00):
Denver stuff. He was the better player in that game.
Now Yokis is a better player overall. Do I expect
Anthony Davis to outplay Yokis every single night. No, not
until he gets back to form. But if he can
play like a top ten player and outplay Nicola Yokich
in a random game like this, when he plays up
to that level where he's an all World defensive player
(33:22):
that also has the ability to make big time offensive plays.
He hit back to back isolation jumpers over Nicola Yokichen
crunch time in this game, a nasty fade away over
his left shoulder into the lane, and then a one
of those easy breezy jab step pull up jump shots
on the left wing, and then he had a huge
offensive rebound put back on a missed Lebron jump shot
(33:42):
in crunch time. When he's making superstar offensive plays and
he's the all world defender that he is, he's a
top ten player. When he plays like a top ten player,
the Lakers are a better team. Big shock. You know.
That's that's why I've been trying to hold him to
that standard. I know that's what he's capable. Love. He's
capable of being a top ten player in this league.
(34:03):
He hasn't been for this entire season up till last night,
and for the most part over the course of the
previous two years. If he plays to that standard, a
lot of the Lakers problems go from being big problems
to being smaller problems. That's why it was so important
for him to get up to that level. And then,
you know, Lebron, he had a rough night, particularly in
the first half, really struggled to finish around the ram,
(34:24):
had some sloppy turnovers. But he came out and was
excellent in the second half, and he had a bunch
of tough isolation jumpers. He made some huge plays at
the end of the game. There's a play where Yokich
had Anthony Davis kind of pinned under the rim and
got an offensive rebound and was holding it in his
right hand and Lebron just came flying in and snatched
it out of his hand, dribbled the ball up the
floor and hit a transition three. It was a five
(34:45):
point swing essentially because Yokis probably gets fouled there or
makes a layup. It's a five point swing. That was
a huge impact play in this game. And then there
was another play where he got switched on to Yokich
and he denied Yokich the post entry the entire possession
just by fronting him, and when he did, the Nuggets
kind of passed it around the perimeter for a while,
didn't know what to do and Michael Porter Jr. Ended
up jacking up a bad three at the top of
(35:07):
the key and it was a huge stop in the game.
And what's funny is like, like, uh, like Lebron, That's
that's all you're asking for from Lebron. Top five players
are going to have bad games, They're going to have
bad halves. That happens, but more often than not, they
bring their a game and when they do have a
(35:28):
rough half, they usually come out in the second half
and they make big place And in this particular game,
when Lebron was a little bit uneven, they happened to
get a great Russell westper performance that helped kind of
bolster that. But it was funny. There was a moment
in the first half or Lebron um I want to
say it was either a turnover. I think it was
a turnover. He turned the ball over in transition, I
(35:48):
believe um and they went down the other way and
there was a foul. I think Aaron Gordon got foul
or something, and he was sitting and he kind of
had his head down and the camera was right on
his face, and he just kind of shook his head
and then he went back to the game, and it
was right before I think it was right before the
end of the first half. I remember sitting there thinking, like,
he's the one guy that I don't worry about freaking
(36:10):
uh uh, don't worry about figuring it out, like Anthony Davis,
who knows last night it might be an anomaly or
he might play like that the rest of the season.
I literally have no idea. I have no idea what
to make of what that performance was last night, if
that's the usual thing for him moving forward, or if
it was an anomaly. But with Lebron, he will figure
(36:30):
out a way to be one of the five best
players in the world this year. His body is still
moving well enough. It's mainly like sloppiness that's been undercutting
him to this point. And most importantly, he's wired that way.
He is the psychotic competitor that does not get complacent.
He sees what's happening around him on the team, and
he knows he hasn't been good enough. I expect him
(36:53):
to get I expect over the course the next few
weeks for Lebron to steadily improve into eventually he looked
like a sure fire top five player in the league.
So we gotta shout out Russ. Russ had one of
one of his very good games, not just a good game,
a very good game from Russ, and like I said,
it helps kind of balance out some of Lebron's uneven
(37:14):
performance a couple of things. He had good games last year.
This is not incredibly unheard of, um in the way
these good games for Russ look are a lot like
what you saw last night, which is bad Russ plays,
just with more good Russ plays, like he missed four
more layups in that game. He's now shooting under in
(37:37):
the restricted area for the season, which is insane. He
had three more turnovers. He had a bad missed box
out in the second half on Bruce Brown that led
to a three point shot at he um Bruce Barron
went up and grabbed the rebound of kicked a te
Thinkentavious called up Pope in the right corner and he
made a three. Bad Russ plays are every night, but
at the differences in this particular game, he had all
(37:59):
of his great russ plays working and as a result,
the balance skipped heavily in the favor of him impacting
winning he was punishing the smaller Denver guards, particularly Jamal Murray,
just had no chance against him in the UH. I
believe it was in the first half, hitting Nasty really
low between the legs, cross over to his right where
(38:20):
he got Like again, when you're trying to beat a
person off the dribble, one of the best ways to
do that is to get lower than them because there's
inevitably going to be some contact as you're trying to
go around their shoulder, and then from there it's just
a challenge of leverage, and you're gonna have better leverage
if you're lower to the ground and your legs are
bent and you can power up through that contact. Then
(38:40):
if you're up higher and the defender is lower than you,
he can push you off of your line. And he
got super low and got past Jamal Murray's shoulder and
finished with the right hand layup, kind of talk some
ship to Jamal in his face, and then the game
ceiling one same thing. Just put his head down and
went right around Jamal Murray to the right then, he's
gonna be having nightmares about that because you could tell
it bothered Jim Ball when Russ was talking shit at
(39:02):
his expense. I don't blame him. Russ has been one
of the worst players in the league over the last
couple of years, so if he talks trash to you,
can I assume that would be kind of frustrating. Um,
But yeah, like like that's always gonna be one of
Russ's strengths, as him being a huge, strong guard that
has the ability to overpower smaller guards around the league.
He had four offensive rebounds in this game, including a
(39:24):
massive offensive rebound in the fourth quarter where Matt Ryan
kind of drove to the baseline and air ball to
short jump shot and Russ came flying in from the
other side and grab the rebound and like pitched it
back out to Matt Ryan in the corner and he
knocked down a three. UM. He had to high level
Russ playmaking that we've grown accustomed to over the years. Specifically,
there was one where he drove along the left wing
(39:46):
to the baseline and made a ridiculous cross court pass
to Austin Reeves in the right corner at the last second.
Like he was in the air for like a second
before he did this, Denver completely collapsed, kicked out to Austin,
Austin pump fake and went to the ram and got
an and one. This was during a seventeen oh run
from the Lakers, which I'm pretty sure for the most
(40:06):
part was just Russ and Anthony Davis. A massive winning
effort from Russ in this game. And then he was
good defensively, held up well and closeouts. He had a
big block on Michael Porter Jr. Under the rim late
in the game. Overall, he's just been Uh. In this
particular game, he was just a force of positive energy
and uh. And that's what a good Russ game is
going to look like. And again, like I do I
(40:29):
like Russ on this team? No? Do I dislike him
as a person? No, to have I been frustrated rooting
for him over the last couple of years, Yes, because
he's a very frustrating basketball player to root for, But
there is no personal beef here. And I will always
point out when he plays well, um off the bench
is definitely the best way to use him because he
gets to be more aggressive when he has the basketball.
(40:50):
But the reality is is his good nights like the
one last night are way too inconsistent to bank on,
So as Laker fans, I hope you don't get your
hopes up that that's what it's gonna look like every night,
because it's just not going to And at the end
of the day, they're better off flipping Russ for players
that have more night tonight impact on winning, zooming out
a little bit from the Lakers their second in defense
(41:11):
in the entire league right now, and a D just
played his best game, and Lebron, like I said earlier,
is the last guy worry about figuring things out. So
if a D can kind of translate this into more
consistent success, if Lebron continues to improve offensively over the
course of the next couple of weeks and their defense
holds up the way it has through a very tough schedule,
this team is gonna start ripping off some wins. I
(41:32):
just think the biggest thing that I'd watch out for
his health, because if Anthony Davis is back has to
requires him to miss one or two games every week,
they they'll lose those games because without him they just
don't have enough talent. And then obviously, in terms of continuity,
just not having enough UMU, the continuity in lineups from
night tonight. A couple of quick notes on the Nuggets.
(41:53):
They're down to defense now. The influx of Michael Porter Jr.
And Jamal Murray was always going to limit them defensively.
We talked about this a lot this summer, but I
said that they would be the number one offense in
the league, and they just simply haven't been. They've been
fifteenth in offense. And there's a couple of big reasons
for that. Jamal Murray in particular, has a ways to
go to get back to what he was. Although he
was hitting some wild shots um against the Lakers. In
(42:15):
this game, he had a late shot clock one against
Anthony Davis on the left wing where like Pump faked
and Anthony Davis was draped all over him and he
like leaned into the right and made it a couple
of nasty stepped backs to uh. So those are good signs.
But his scoring, he's he's averaging right around like, I think,
four teen points per game, and you'd like to see
him over twenty. Aaron Gordon hasn't shot the ball well,
that's not helping. And then their bench is just really,
(42:36):
really bad. DeAndre Jordan's is, in my opinion, like probably
the worst NBA player that gets rotation minutes in the NBA.
I've thought that when he was on the Lakers, thought
that when he was on the Sixers. Think that now, um,
this particular game, because Bones Highland was out, they were
running like it was funny. There was a late game
I want to say it was either late third or
(42:57):
early fourth. I wanted I think it was late third
where the nets are. The Nuggets had a half court
possession where the Lakers run to run and Bruce Brown
like came off of a high ball screen from DeAndre
Jordan's and just pulled up and shot a pull up
off the dribble three early in the shot clock that
he missed. And I remember thinking, like, why in the
(43:17):
world is Bruce Brown taking that shot? And then I
looked around at the lineup and it was like, uh,
DeAndre Jordans, Devon Reid, Jeff Green, Christian Braun and and
and Bruce Brown. I'm like, Oh, that's why. It's because
they literally don't have anybody in that lineup that can
create their own shot. But Bones Highland was out in
that particular game. But a big part of why their
(43:37):
bench scoring hasn't been good all season is Bones Highland.
His efficiency has fallen off of a cliff this year,
despite him shooting from three. I had the Nuggets down
at eight in my power rankings because even though there
was there's a ton of optimism surrounding the Nuggets. They
killed everybody when they made Aaron Gordon trade two years
ago before Jamal Murray came back, so there was a
(43:59):
lot like, oh, they'll just come back and just start
killing everybody again. But the truth is, is there a
team that has great strengths and great flaws, which is
true for a lot of the teams around the league
right now, but for Denver in particular. There they got
worse defensively and their offense hasn't been good enough to
make up for it, and they've got to figure that out.
And then the last part here, and this is something
I was on over the course of last year. So
(44:20):
if you guys remember I talked about how yoki Is
perimeter shooting was concerning to me, and over the course
of the last chunk of the season and into the postseason,
his inability to knock down a pick and pop three
point shot was causing some problems for Denver's offense because
the big man could sit back into the lane in
those situations, and I thought it was like a legitimate regression.
(44:41):
I was like, this is a huge sample size spanning
over months and months, and this dude's just not making
any shots. Something's up. But then I talked to somebody
who covers the Nuggets and and he told me that, uh,
he had a wrist issue. And a lot of you
Laker fans probably are immediately like I remember this excuse
because Anthony Davis said something similar over the course the summer. Well,
(45:01):
whatever risk issue was there last season is gone, and
Yogi has missed one of his last thirteen or excuse me,
he's made one of his last thirteen three point attempts,
and Anthony Davis just completely ignored him when he was
that far away from the rim and sagged back and
he was unable to make him pay. And it was
a big part of why Denver had some stretches of
ugly offense in this game. Um, so Denver has got
(45:23):
a lot to work it out too. As we're zooming
out here. I mean, like the Clippers have been really
bad to start the season. The Nets have been really
bad to start the season, the Sixers have been really
bad to start the season, and the Warriors have been
really bad to start the season relative to their expectations.
Those are four of my top six teams in the
power rankings, the only and and the Celtics I think
they have I'm going off the top of my head here,
(45:44):
but I think they might have three losses at this point.
So when I'm zooming out here, like got like really,
the Bucks are the only one of the top tier
teams that is really excelling right now, and their offense
isn't uh their uh um offense isn't as good as
it needs to be because they're missing all their spot
up shooters. So like, there is no perfect team right now,
(46:05):
and so I'm really curious to see if there is
a team out there that decides to go all in
or make some sort of more aggressive trade, because the
truth is is there's just a whole lot of a
whole lot of uh uh mid level basketball going on
around the league right now. All Right, We've been going
for a while, so I'm gonna get out of here
pretty quick. The uh A couple of notes on the
Nets I was stunned when they decided to bring everyone back.
(46:28):
If you remember we I there was literally two videos
one day apart. One was on a Monday, one was
on her Tuesday. One was on Monday. I was like, uh,
Katie's gonna get traded. There's no way they decided to
move forward with this group. And it was after everything
that happened with like Joe sigh and and uh, you know,
and talking about wanting Steve Nash out, and then like
(46:50):
Tuesday morning, the Kevin Durant report came that he's going
to be returning to the team, like in his recommitted
and I and I came out that day and I
was stunned. I was stunned. And I had a lot
of people in the comments like, you were so confident
that that was gonna happen. You were wrong, bo By.
I'm gonna be wrong all the time. Anytime you make predictions,
you're gonna be wrong. But I was really stunned, And
(47:12):
there was a reason why I came out so strong
with that take on that Monday. I could not figure
out because like I believe in Kevin Durant as a
foundational piece for a franchise. I believe in Kyrie Irving's capability.
I believe in the fit that they have naturally with
Ben Simmons, they you know, obviously said Curry has been out,
(47:33):
t J. Warren has been out. They have more talent
that's not available yet. But I had them as a
if things go right, contender, but I did not have
them as a top tier contender, and there was a
big gap between those And specifically, I just was looking
at that situation and I'm thinking Katie doesn't like the
GM or the coach. Kyrie Irving is is literally a
(47:56):
disaster for a basketball team to deal with every single season,
with all the draw that he brings. And they're not
talented enough to be a top tier contender. So like,
what's the point? Like, you need everything to go right
in order for you to win a title, and chances
are things won't go right. And so I was I
came out strongly thinking there's no way, and then they
(48:16):
decided to bring everybody back. And if you guys, remember
what did I say at that point? I said, they
are very talented and so if they win games, this
will all be fine. But if you remember, I said,
if they start losing games, the wounds from this summer
will come back to the surface. And that's literally what's happened.
They're sitting at one in five, and all of a sudden,
(48:39):
when a team that's not playing hard, like not grabbing
rebounds and not defending, you start to think, oh, they're
not bought into their coach. Well, the best player said
he didn't want that coach. That's something that you're gonna
start thinking about. Kyrie Irving I said, oh, well, he's
gonna buy back in and try to earn that contract
(49:00):
extension this summer. And he has on the court been available,
which is a lot more than you could say over
the last two seasons. But now we have all this
drama with all the anti Semitic stuff that he's been
promoting and and him having back back and forth with
Nique fredell uh Nick fredell In in the postgame presser.
That stuff is a lot easier to deal with when
you're five and one than it is when you're one
(49:22):
in five. And as these losses start to pile up,
and that last one against the Pacers was really, really,
really embarrassing, the reality is is all of these things
are gonna start to bubble to the surface. Are they
bought into the coach? You know Ben Simmons and his
mental health, is that going to be an issue? Kyrie
Irving and his shenanigans. You know, all of that stuff
starts to bubble to the surface, and I honestly don't
(49:44):
know what ends up happening here. I really thought they'd
want to move on from this group over the summer,
and they did not. They wanted to continue to push forward.
I see k D as a foundational m v P piece,
but nothing else around this to me, is worth this
everything else, And you don't have the means with which
(50:05):
to turn the surrounding pieces into players that compliment k
D well enough to win a title. And he's getting older.
So like, at the end of the day, like you
really only have two options. You can cross your fingers
and just hope this all works out, and they suddenly
start playing defense, and they suddenly start grabbing rebounds, and
Seth Curry and T. J. Warren come in and and
(50:26):
and just kind of give them an influx of talent
and everything is fine. Or you can sell the farm.
And I'm really curious to see which direction they end
up going. Um My guests as they stick it out
for a little while longer until Seth Curry and t J.
Warren get into the offense. But right now, like man,
this could not have gone worse to start the season.
(50:46):
They've lost some winnable games in this chunk, all right,
So that's all I have for today. Here's the plan
for the rest of this week. Tomorrow night, we're going
live UM after the final buzzer if I believe Golden
State Miami. That's gonna be on AMP. So you're gonna
want to go to my Twitter feed and find the
AMPLE links so you can download that AMP uh at
that app and listen to the show there. If you
(51:08):
miss that for whatever reason, it will be redistributed on
YouTube later in the evening. Then Wednesday AMP after the
early morning or the early evening game Cavs Celtics, and
then live on YouTube after the Lakers game on Wednesday night,
which I believe is against the Pelicans. Thursday night we're
live on AMP after Warriors Magic, and then Friday we're
(51:30):
just doing a normal YouTube film breakdown sometime during the day.
So that's our schedule for this week. As always, I
appreciate your guys support and I will see you tomorrow
(52:04):
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I hope you guys had some fun over the weekend
and or tonight, depending on how your schedule all worked out.
We have a ton of basketball to get to today.
The Golden State Warriors lost back to back games in
Charlotte in Detroit over the weekend. We're gonna get into
(02:33):
specifically Detroit. I'm gonna dive into some of their young
players as well, because I had so much fun watching
them this morning. They have some of my favorite young
players in the league. The Cleveland Cavaliers have been one
of the most impressive teams to start this season. They
beat the Knicks yesterday to get up to five and one,
but they also had a super impressive road win in
Boston that we're gonna cover. We'll also be covering them
(02:56):
again this Wednesday live on AMP after they have their
rematch with the Celtics. The Los Angeles Lakers finally won
a basketball game at home against the Denver Nuggets a
lot to get into there. And then last but not least,
the Brooklyn Nets are experiencing more drama that I hope
then I think they could have hoped for at this
point in the season with Kyrie Irving re I don't know,
(03:21):
renewing his yearly shenanigans, which are always a lot harder
to handle when you're losing basketball games than when you're winning. Um,
you guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe
to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me in on Twitter at
Underscore Jason lt s you guys don't miss any show announcements.
That's also where I put footage breakdowns because of some
(03:41):
of the limitations we have on YouTube. And then, last
but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of
these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube
to finish, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.
Under Hoops tonight. So Golden State dropping games in Charlotte
Detroit obviously not a good thing. Detroit and Charlotte are
two pretty bad basketball teams. Some of its poor shooting. Obviously,
(04:04):
I'm sure Warriors fans have been thinking about that a lot. Uh.
Steph was seven for twenty seven from three over the weekend.
That's an anomaly. Andrew Wiggins was another guy who had
a nightmare shooting weekend. He was eighty eight from the field.
But don't let that distract from the reality, which is
that the Warriors problems are on the defensive end and
(04:25):
primarily with their bench. So I wanted to kind of
dive into those two concepts a little bit. So, first
of all, these are two average offenses in Detroit and Charlotte,
and in the two games, the Golden State Warriors had
a defensive rating of almost a hundred and twenty, meaning
they were giving up almost a hundred and twenty points
per one hundred possessions. Regardless of what you think factors
(04:46):
might be working against you in any sort of road trip,
or a guy being out of the lineup like Clay
Thompson missing, you know, or Dante deve di Vincenzo being
out of the game. Regardless of how you feel about
any of those things. You should be able to go
into Detroit and get stops as the Golden State Warriors.
And you should be able to go into the Charlotte
to Charlotte, especially Charlotte because they don't have the level
of offensive talent that Detroit has, and you should be
(05:09):
able to get stops. You know, I was listening to
the Warriors broadcast that Pistons game this morning, and you know,
you keep hearing they're just flummixed and that I can't
believe that he made that shot. Like these guys are playing,
that they've lost five straight games, how is it that
they're this they're having the night of their life and
and and it's so easy as a fan, and I
(05:31):
get that. I know, I too, am a fan. I
We're all fans in one way or another, whether it's
a specific players or specific teams. And when you're a fan,
you jump to rationalizations like this this explains why this happened,
or that explains why it happened, and a lot of
times we do that ignoring obvious evidence that something more
serious is taking place. Um, you're right, Detroit is not
(05:52):
very good. They're not a very good basketball team, but
they are super talented. Charlotte is not a very good
basketball team, but they have some talent. And it's not
about being good in a vacuum, because of course the
Warriors are good in a vacuum. You have to be
good against the basketball players you're playing that night, and
if you don't bring it on that night, you'll get beat.
(06:16):
This is what I meant when I was saying unforgiving league.
I had somebody in the comments say, Jason unforgiving league,
tim because I've dropped it like three times in the
last week. But I've been saying that for a reason.
It's something I've been preaching all summer. The league is
deeper with talent than it's ever been, but that still
means that there's gonna be good teams, mediocre teams, and
bad teams. Because your team isn't about the talent, it's
(06:38):
relative to the other teams around the league. A bad
team now might have been a good team ten years
ago based on the talent, but that doesn't matter. It
only matters within this season. The truth of the matter
is that if you know, Steph slides his feet and
gets a stop on the final possession against Dennis Smith Jr.
You get a win in Charlotte. But Dennis Smith Jr.
(07:01):
Is a pretty damn athletic quick guard, a guard that
in this league kind of seems like a bad guard, right,
But he's a freak athlete that can dribble. He's been
knocking down more pull up jump shots this year than
he has in years past. He's a guy that if
you don't slide your feet, he's gonna be to the
basket and make a layup. And that sent the game
to overtime where they lost. You know, if you leave
(07:22):
your feet jumping at a Saedique Bay pump fake the
way that Jordan Pool did, you know in the second
half against Detroit, like he's gonna go to the basket
and get a layup because side Bay is a big, strong,
athletic wing and a damn good basketball player. He doesn't
care that it says Detroit Pistons on the front of
his Jersey or that his team lost five straight games.
He's a good basketball player and if you don't bring effort,
(07:44):
you're gonna lose. And in this particular game, there was
just a whole lot of sloppiness from the Warriors. There's
a play where Jade and Ivy with a live dribble,
just brought the ball up the floor and transition and
nobody picked him up. So guess what he did. He
elevated above the rim and dunked it. I watched Jade
and I be in summer League. He's my second favorite
player in this entire class. He's damn good. He's a
(08:06):
damn good basketball player, and if you don't play him
with respectable effort, you're gonna lose games. And then Kate.
You know Kate Cunningham, and he's becoming one of my
favorite young players in the league too. He was getting
downhill too easily and pick and roll. And he's a big,
strong wing that has a very high level passing field.
He's got these big hands. You can palm the basketball
(08:26):
and throw these cross court passes and and swing like
slingshot passes and things along those lines. And if you
let him get downhill and force your help to come in.
He's gonna hit open shooters on the other side of
the court all day long. And if you don't box out,
you'll get beat on the offensive glass by two really
athletic teams like the Detroit Pistons and the Charlotte Hornets,
(08:47):
and the Warriors gave up twenty seven offensive rebounds in
these two games. The Warriors now are down to t
in the NBA in rebounding percentage, So they're twenty three
and deep pens and twenty seven and rebounding percentage. They're
they're how in terms of a title defense, that's not
(09:09):
a good start. If you can't defend and you can't
get rebounds, even against bad teams, then you're not good
enough to be able to win at the highest levels. Now,
let's zoom out a little bit, because it's not like
Steph and Clay and Draymond and Andrew Wiggins all forgot
how to play basketball. That's not what happened. The problem
is with their bench um. According to Cleaning the Glass,
(09:32):
when Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and
Kevan Luny are on the floor, this is their starting
lineup they are whooping everyone's ass. They have a hundred
and twenty seven offensive rating, which is outstanding, in a
one hundred defensive rating, which is outstanding. So the silver
lining for Warriors fans to cling to is like, our
core five guys are excellent. The problem is that they're
(09:56):
getting destroyed almost everywhere else. Six of their top eight
lineups in terms of total minutes played without Stephen Draymond
on the floor are getting out scored, and most of
them are getting badly outscored. They just fall apart when
those guys go to the bench, and there's you know,
some of it is weak perimeter defense, and we'll talk
(10:16):
more about this in a minute, but the big glaring
one that's been standing out to me in the last
few games is James Wiseman. He's getting absolutely destroyed in
his minutes, or at least the team is. And yes,
some of it is like, yeah, he's playing with Moses
Moody guarding really good perimeter players, and Moses is not
quite ready for that yet. Jordan Pool is having a
really bad defensive season to start. Dear Jonathan Cominga who
(10:38):
is better defensive player than Moses Moody, I thought, and
he hasn't been defending well to start this season. But
the reality is is in a hundred and two minutes
with James Wiseman on the floor, their minus forty eight.
That's destructive. That's really really bad. The most frequently used
James Wiseman line up right now is Jordan Pool with
Dante DiVincenzo, Jonathan Comingo, jam Michael Green and James Wiseman.
(11:02):
That's the most used, like the most minutes, most possessions
line up with James Wiseman on the floor, they have
an offensive rating of fifty nine points per one hun
possessions and a defensive rating of a hundred and eleven.
They're getting outscored by fifty two points per one hund
possessions in the most frequently used James Wiseman lineup. And
again like it's I want to blame the weak perimeter defense,
(11:24):
but it's not just that. You know, even with Steph Clay,
Andrew Wiggins and Draymond on the floor with James Wiseman,
dave a minus eighty two net rating in eleven possessions. Again,
small sample size, but they got absolutely destroyed in that
particular lineup. The reality is is that's it's kind of
a clunky fit. First of all, he's a big guy
(11:47):
who's learning how to play the game. And he as
we've said throughout the season, he's really good at some
things already, Like he's got he's a legit vertical spacer,
although he can fumble the basketball sometimes. He had a
pretty a bad missed lob in the second half against
Detroit that was kind of a big momentum play because
they ran out the other way and got side. Bay
hit a three on the left wing and it was
(12:08):
like a five point swing um. But he's pretty good
vertical spacer right and like he uh, if he catches
with an advantage around the ram, he'll finish. I think
he's I think he's shooting like in the restricted area
this year, which is fine. You know, defensively, when he's
around the rim and guys are coming at him, his
length can be a problem, which is good when he's
(12:29):
in drop coverage. You know, he makes some good reads
from time to time, and his length can be a problem.
But he's really struggling with physicality and it hurts the
Warriors in particular on to two spots on the floor
on offense. It's so important to be a really good
screener as a big and Golden State's offense and Draymond
Green and Kevan Luniar are excellent screeners. But but James
(12:53):
Wiseman is the biggest weakness that he has right now
is physicality struggles in the physical battles of the game.
And if you don't set big, physical screens, then you're
not getting as much separation for the Golden State guards
coming off those actions. And then it just it's like
a missing cog in the engine and then everything stops
working right. And then on the defensive end, it's like
(13:15):
like Isaiah Stewart was just bullying James Wiseman, especially on
the offensive glass, and and that's a problem. And so
when I really look at it, like what James Wiseman
does as a big in this league is less valuable
to Golden State than it is to other teams. His
vertical spacing, even though it's a unique touch on this roster,
(13:39):
is less valuable for Golden State because vertical spacing matters
more when the paint is clogged and you need an
escape route to throw the ball up towards the rim.
Golden States spacing is inverted. They're spacing around the rim
is always good because they have all these guys and
Steph Clay and and Jordan Poole flying off of these screens,
and Andrew Wiggins shoots the balls so well that for
(14:01):
the most part, their spacing is inverted. The congestion for
the Warriors is on the perimeter, and so vertical spacing
brings less value. What they actually need out of that
position is a guy who can screen really really well,
and that is a really smart decision maker that's hitting
guys cutting out of the week side corner things along
those lines. They want you to succeed in four on
(14:21):
three settings. And so part of me feels bad for
Wiseman because he's a young player that's learning how to
play the game. He's played something crazy like fifty five
NBA games or something. I don't quote me on that,
but he's played less than a hundred NBA games before that.
He didn't really play much at Memphis, Like the dude
hasn't had much of an opportunity to learn how to
play the game, and he's learning to play in a
(14:42):
system or his specific archetype is kind of less valuable.
You have to almost play a different style. They just
basically run a lot of high pick and roll with
with Jordan Pool when he's out there. And so at
the end of the day, like like, it'll be a
really interesting decision for the for the Warriors brass to
make because you know when we're looking like, yes, Clay
(15:02):
Thompson's gonna come back. He didn't play on Sunday, He's
gonna come back. That's gonna alleviate some of your bench concerns.
Andrea Gudala eventually, especially as we get deeper in the season,
will start being used a little bit more frequently. He's
a better perimeter defender than a Moses Moody or someone
along those lines. There there will be some reinforcements, there'll
be a candidate for buy out players as we get
(15:23):
past the deadline. All that's true, but one of two
things needs to happen. They either need these young guys
to get better to the point where they're dependable playoff
rotation players, or they need to consider flipping them for
players who will be And that's gonna be a tough
decision because right now, Moses Moody is making progress and
(15:44):
might be that guy. Jonathan Cominga is definitely not ready
like he's just not ready and he will not be
ready this year. And James Wiseman is very very far
away from becoming a positive player on this team. So
the question is is it do you bank on that,
(16:04):
on the fact that Wiseman will eventually figure that stuff
out during this season, or do you do something like
take Wiseman and Kaminga or maybe Wiseman, Kominga and Moody
in combine them and try to get something back that
can actually contribute within this season. And again, it's early,
there's a lot of basketball left, and it's possible that
(16:27):
these guys do make monumental improvements. That's just the risk.
Right now, You're a dominant starting lineup and everyone else
is killing you, and you lost Otto Porter Jr. And
Gary Payton, the second two players that were very productive
for you in these roles. Gary Payton the second in particular,
(16:48):
the Warriors were positive with him on the court in
the playoffs and negative without him. And so it's very
important as the Warriors go to their bench to have
an additional really good perimeter to ender that can operate
in the short role and that can knock down the
occasional corner three, and that does smart is a smart
basketball player that doesn't make mistakes that can hurt your team,
(17:10):
and it's it's gonna be an interesting conundrum for them.
I did want to shout out Jordan Pool. Holy cow,
did he have an explosive second half in that Pistons game.
He had like a transition three on the right wing
and then a steel that led to another transition three
on the right wing, and then he hit another transition
three on the left wing on a pass from Steph
(17:31):
and then he started barbecuing Boy and Bogdanovich in isolation
at the top of the key. Hit a disgusting step
back move there. He's got a mile to go defensively, obviously,
but while everyone else was struggling offensively this weekend, uh,
Jordan Pool was really really impressive and that that's he's
been a huge bright spot here early in the season
(17:53):
in my opinion. Well, tough one tomorrow in Miami for
the Warriors to get back on track, um and we'll
be covering that game on amp right after the final buzzer.
So Detroit. I was really impressed just in general by
how good they were getting downhill towards the rim with
all of their young players that they have. Cede Bay
is kind of like your classic mismatch attacking forward. Not
(18:15):
quite as skilled as some of the other ones around
the league, but he is huge and there were a
lot of plays where he just ripped through to the
basket and guys were just shedding off of him as
he was getting to the rim. Kate Cunningham is really
good at leveraging his body to get the defender on
his back side as he's coming through on pick and roll.
We talked about earlier how good he is at making
those cross court passes and things along those lines, those
(18:37):
high level reads. He had another transition pass two to
Killing and Hayes like cutting out of the backside corner
that I didn't even see as I was watching. I
didn't even see Killing in there. That's always to me
like one of the UH indicators of a high level passers.
If us the fans, as we're watching, we can see
the basic reads. We can see strong side help and
an easy kick out. We can see, you know, a
(19:00):
drop off past to the dunker spot when the big
guy steps up. Those are normal things, but like it's
hard unless you're on a rewatch when you're watching all
the things moving to see the higher level reads like
skips to the weak side corner and things that you
might not see, and kids all over that stuff. Jade
and Ivy Uh is still, in my opinion, one of
the hardest guards in the league, keeping front, which is
(19:21):
insane for how young he is. Um. You can see
that attacking closeouts and in transition. Um. And then both
Isaiah Stewart and Jalen During are just monsters on the
offensive class They the two combined for eight offensive rebounds
against Golden State. This is one of the most exciting
young cores in basketball. And they just extended boy and
Magdanovitch for two additional years. So you've got a veteran
(19:42):
president of PREV presidents that can shoot the basketball, defend
the bigger wings, although he's not quick enough to defend
quicker players. But I like that move for them. There's
no reason to uh. Um, you know, as long as
you can afford him for the next couple of years.
It's not like you're gonna be big players in the
free agent market. So I like to move Detroit. It's
gonna be fun to watch. I enjoyed watching that game
(20:03):
and Um again, it's like it's just the story of
the NBA these days. What you what you anticipate to
be an easy game just isn't an easy game anymore.
So let's move on to the Calves. So, the Calves
beat the Nix yesterday to get to five and one. So, uh,
the game I actually watched. I did not watch the
Knicks game. I watched the Celtics game from a couple
(20:23):
of nights prior, epic back and forth game, and ot uh.
Celtics should have won that game, but the kind of
classic Celtics did at the end with some poor decision
making down the stretch and crunch time in and ot um. Also,
you just kind of handed to the Calves like Donovan
Mitchell and Carris LeVert just time and time again made
(20:44):
gigantic shots like tough off the dribble pull up jump
shots in that game. But the two of them have
been making them all season long. They are fit in
offense to start the year third in defense, second in
net rating. What's really interesting about him being third in
defense is if I ask you what the Calves would
be great at defensively, you would say, oh, well, they
(21:06):
got Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. They're going to shut
down the paint, but that it could not be further
from the truth. They are eighteen and opponent paint points
allowed per one possessions and opponents are shooting six against
them in the paint, which is bottom ten excuse me,
in the restricted area, which is bottom ten in the league.
The reason why their defense is so good is they
are not allowing teams to get off three point shots.
(21:29):
They are allowing the fewest three point attempts in the
league at just twenty eight point three per one possessions.
Team teams are shooting right around just just under thirty
six on those shots, which is pretty normal. Um. You
can also see it on tape. They just they pressure
the ball, which is what you expect from a team
that has great back line help. They're chasing guys off
the line. They're not over helping. They're willing to allow
(21:52):
a guy to challenge a player that's on his hip
at the rim rather than sending help that you don't
need to send. And then there This is a huge
part of it. Both Jared Allen and Mobile are good
at defending on the perimeter, but the biggest driving force.
Without a doubt of their early season success because Darius
Garland went down in the first game against Toronto with
like a scratch to the eye or something, and we
haven't seen him since. But Donovan Mitchell has just been
(22:15):
otherworldly good. He's playing the best basketball of his career
and it's not particularly close. I was listening to the
Celtics broadcast for this particular game and they were one
of the announcers said that they noticed that pep in
Donovan Mitchell's step since he came to Cleveland, and I'm
not surprised. I mean, there was kind of like a
negative energy lingering around that Utah team for a while
(22:37):
and just getting that change of scenery. Um, you know,
I think I think Rudy Gobert can grate on people
a little bit. He's with younger, probably more energetic people
that it's just he just looks happy. And and obviously,
with Darius Garland being out, the whole your turn, my
turn thing has just been almost thrown out of the window,
and he kind of has like a really natural given
(22:57):
take with Carris Laverte already and dude, you could you
could just you could just see it in his in
his in the way he plays his uh. Um, He's
still one of the most athletic guards in the league.
He had a disgusting blowby on Marcus Smart in the
fourth quarter of that game where he kind of like, uh.
The announcers called it an overhand crossover, and I thought
(23:18):
it was interesting that he called that because I've always
thought of that as just like more of a body crossover.
You're not just you're not actually doing anything to sway
the defender with the ball. What it is is your
body is pointed to the right and then you're literally
turning your body to the left. And it's one of
the biggest things that I teach young players when I
coach skills from my high school team is it's not
(23:40):
about what you do with the basketball with the move,
it's what you do with your body. If you can
sell with your body that you're going one direction and
then change direction while protecting the basketball from getting swiped at,
you will get by the defender. It's not about doing
some big sweeping crossover. You can just push the ball
out to your left as long as you sell that
you're going right, and you'll beat someone off the dribble.
(24:02):
And on this play, Donovan Mitchell did that to Marcus Smart.
He buckled and he went all the way to the
rim and dunked it. He had another one in overtime
um where he hit Malcolm Broggden with a hard right
to left move. I think he went through his legs
on this one, but Malcolm Brogden literally got just utterly toasted.
Didn't even get a hand on him as he went
all the way to the room for the layup. He's just,
(24:23):
He's just He's a really unique combination of freaky downhill
athleticism to get to the rim and one of the
best pull up jump shooters in the league. I talked
to you guys about this over the summer. One of
the biggest reasons why I was excited for Cleveland is
is he has the offensive skill set that translates to
the postseason, and he is one of the most successful
(24:46):
postseason scorers of the last few years. He's just been
so bad defensively in the Utah Jazz were so bad
and so disappointing that we kind of just look at
him as out of sight or out of mind. But
I want to say he was like on like eleven
three point eleven pull up three point attempts per game
or something crazy like that over the last few post seasons.
(25:07):
He's just a knockdown, pull up shooter that can get
to the rim, and that that that combination just makes
him incredibly difficult to guard. He's averaging thirty two, five
and seven this season so far on sixty true shooting
career highs and points and efficiency at this point obviously
early career high and assists as well at seven per game.
(25:27):
He's shooting forty six percent on eleven pull up jumpers
per game, including fifty three percent on pull up threes.
Just absolutely insane shot making. And he's been better defensively
than he was in Utah. I haven't seen enough to
just be like, oh, he's seen the light, because I've
only seen like three or four of the Cavs games
this year, But in the games that I've watched, he's
(25:49):
been impressive. Um, he's been one of the most impressive
players in the league to start the season. So you
have to you have to tip the cap to Kobe
Altman and the Calves for a really smart move over
the summer. Carris Lavert has also been a lot better
than I expected that I called him the odd man
out to start the season, and who knows maybe he
still will be the odd man out when Darius Garland
comes back. But I could not have been more wrong
(26:11):
about how he fits, at least with this iteration of
the calves. His shotmaking has been all over the place.
He's basically hitting everything from deep and nothing else. He's
shooting fift on pull up threes so far this season.
He had a massive step back three I think it
was over Jalen Brown and overtime that basically amounted to
be the game winner. Um the Celtics went down and tied,
(26:33):
and they had kind of a bad possession where it
was a little stagnant and Caris Lavert just hit like
a pound dribble between his legs into his step back
and he knocked it down. But the most impressive thing
to me from Carris Lavert has been his playmaking out
of high pick and roll. It's kind of similar to
what we were talking about Kate Cunningham. You know, he's
not a the downhill, you know, speedy threat that Donovan
(26:54):
Mitchell is. It's kind of a really interesting different type
of attack to the Donovan Mitchell attack because Carris LeVert
is moving in slow motion a lot of the time.
He's trying to get you pinned on his on on
his back side, he's a lot more willing to shoot
in the mid range. And even though both guys are
averaging seven assists per game, it's uncharacteristics for Donovan Mitchell.
(27:14):
You know, Carris LeVert has always had a little bit
of that, you know, uh, pick you apart type of
game and high pick and roll. And he's getting high
usage because of Darius Garland being out, and he's producing
in that specific role at a career high seven assist
per game right now, this early in the season. And
then I think he's been again, I need to see more,
(27:35):
but I think he's been pretty damn solid defensively, and
I thought he was really impressive defensively in the games
that I watched. Um, the rim defense for the Calves
should improve, Like I said, even though they defended the
three point line really well, just having Mobile and Allen
out there, I do think that will kind of trend
back in their direction. Darius Garland will bring a different
dynamic to the offense, but it will also take something
(27:55):
away defensively, so that'll be an interesting kind of dynamic
when he comes back. Obviously, that kind of throws off
the give and take between LeVert and Mitchell and kind
of shift some rolls around. So they got some they
got some stuff that they'll have to figure out. But overall,
they've been one of the most impressive teams to start
the season and we're gonna be covering them again on
Wednesday when they host the Calves live on AMP after
(28:18):
the final buzzer of that game, but I definitely wanted
to spend some time shouting out the Calves this morning.
So the Lakers finally not to win at home against Denver,
I did a TikTok uh for for Carson. He's the
guy here at the volume that helps with our TikTok
and he also helps out on this show. You guys,
you guys know him, And he was like, Hey, can
you send me a video three things that you think
(28:39):
would fix the Los Angeles Lakers, And I said, you know,
obviously a targeted management, like they need to do something
with Russ. But then the other two things I said
were they needed to um actually have Lebron James and
Anthony Davis played to their capability, meaning Lebron like a
top five player, a d like a top ten player.
And then I said they needed to knock down some
(29:00):
him ter jump shots, because if you're shooting blow, you're
just not gonna be able to be competitive in the
n b A. And yeah, they I never expected to
the Lakers to be a good um three point shooting
team this year. They just don't have the roster for that.
But they certainly are better than what they were. And
so two of those three were rectified essentially in that
Denver Nuggets game. And what do you know, they want
(29:21):
a basketball game? They shot forty three from three. Big
part of that was shot quality. Uh, they only had
thirty attempts, but only one, according to NBA dot Com,
was tracked as either tightly contested or very tightly contested.
So they just took smarter threes um. And then also
some of that's just positive regression again, like they're not
a good shooting team, but they were nowhere near as
(29:41):
bad as they looked, and so it was inevitable that
they were going to have some good shooting games, and
they happen to have one, going thirteen for thirty against
the Nuggets. And then Anthony Davis, like, okay, Anthony Davis
got soundly outplayed by Nicola Yoki up in Denver. I
did a whole video talking about how is transition defense
in particular A destroyed the Lakers in that particular game,
(30:03):
And I was very critical of Anthony Davis. And you know, again,
like when when it comes to the criticism of players,
everything is like relative to what your talent level is,
and you know, it's it's kind of like an expectations
versus results type of thing. Like you know what frustrates
me about Anthony Davis is he should be one of
(30:24):
the top five basketball players in the world. That's how
talented he is. He's, you know, obviously constructed like Rudy
Gobert defensively, but he's got the shooting touch. He's demonstrated
over the course of his career stretches of outstanding shooting touch.
He can dribble the basketball. The dude is an unbelievable
freak talent, and I've seen what it looks like when
(30:46):
he's dialed in on both ends of the floor. I
saw it in he was so damn impressive. I used
I was joking about this in a in a group
chat the other day. He was so damn impressive in
the season that when he would have a bad first half.
I would tweet out like, oh, big second half incoming,
because a D was like that was his rough game,
(31:09):
Like a rough a D game would be he'd have
a bad first half and then he'd come out in
the second half and destroy everybody. The dude was a
night in, night out monster that killed everybody that was
in his path. He became one of my favorite players.
He I ranked him as the fourth best player in
the world. After that season. He was a monster, and
then he just lost it. Some of it was injuries,
(31:32):
a lot of it is him coming into the season
out of shape. A lot of it is he put
on too much muscle and he's too heavy. Now, I mean,
look this back spasm thing that's been acting up for
a while. The reality is is like that's just part
of the Anthony Davis experience. Now, you can't just blame
bad luck. You're he's stiff as a board because he's
incredibly overweight in terms of just too much muscle mass
(31:54):
for what he needs for the position. And guess what
happens a lot when you get stiff and lack of
mobility because you over build, your back gets tight. And
that's what he's dealing with now and like it's I
have all that. There's just a lot of reasons for
all Laker fans or Anthony Davis fans to be frustrated
with the way that he's played over the years, the
last couple of years. And you know what, he went
(32:16):
out with his bad back, with the same lack of
mobility that he's had over the last couple of years,
and he soundly outplayed Yoki last night, soundly outplayed him,
completely erased that transition stuff, sprinting back. Instead of having
thirty five fast break points like they did in the
game in Denver, they only had nine, did a great
(32:37):
job in isolation defense. Even the shots that Yokis made
in that game were immensely difficult because Anthony Davis was
draped all over him. Anthony Davis was making his jump shot,
particularly his two point jump shot, and then on the
other end of the floor, Yokich can't shoot anymore, which
we're gonna get to. That's a whole other thing. But
a d was ignoring Yokis and dropping back into the
paint to contain things and shut down a out of
(33:00):
Denver stuff. He was the better player in that game.
Now Yokis is a better player overall. Do I expect
Anthony Davis to outplay Yokis every single night. No, not
until he gets back to form. But if he can
play like a top ten player and outplay Nicola Yokich
in a random game like this, when he plays up
to that level where he's an all World defensive player
(33:22):
that also has the ability to make big time offensive plays.
He hit back to back isolation jumpers over Nicola Yokichen
crunch time in this game, a nasty fade away over
his left shoulder into the lane, and then a one
of those easy breezy jab step pull up jump shots
on the left wing, and then he had a huge
offensive rebound put back on a missed Lebron jump shot
(33:42):
in crunch time. When he's making superstar offensive plays and
he's the all world defender that he is, he's a
top ten player. When he plays like a top ten player,
the Lakers are a better team. Big shock. You know.
That's that's why I've been trying to hold him to
that standard. I know that's what he's capable. Love. He's
capable of being a top ten player in this league.
(34:03):
He hasn't been for this entire season up till last night,
and for the most part over the course of the
previous two years. If he plays to that standard, a
lot of the Lakers problems go from being big problems
to being smaller problems. That's why it was so important
for him to get up to that level. And then,
you know, Lebron, he had a rough night, particularly in
the first half, really struggled to finish around the ram,
(34:24):
had some sloppy turnovers. But he came out and was
excellent in the second half, and he had a bunch
of tough isolation jumpers. He made some huge plays at
the end of the game. There's a play where Yokich
had Anthony Davis kind of pinned under the rim and
got an offensive rebound and was holding it in his
right hand and Lebron just came flying in and snatched
it out of his hand, dribbled the ball up the
floor and hit a transition three. It was a five
(34:45):
point swing essentially because Yokis probably gets fouled there or
makes a layup. It's a five point swing. That was
a huge impact play in this game. And then there
was another play where he got switched on to Yokich
and he denied Yokich the post entry the entire possession
just by fronting him, and when he did, the Nuggets
kind of passed it around the perimeter for a while,
didn't know what to do and Michael Porter Jr. Ended
up jacking up a bad three at the top of
(35:07):
the key and it was a huge stop in the game.
And what's funny is like, like, uh, like Lebron, That's
that's all you're asking for from Lebron. Top five players
are going to have bad games, They're going to have
bad halves. That happens, but more often than not, they
bring their a game and when they do have a
(35:28):
rough half, they usually come out in the second half
and they make big place And in this particular game,
when Lebron was a little bit uneven, they happened to
get a great Russell westper performance that helped kind of
bolster that. But it was funny. There was a moment
in the first half or Lebron um I want to
say it was either a turnover. I think it was
a turnover. He turned the ball over in transition, I
(35:48):
believe um and they went down the other way and
there was a foul. I think Aaron Gordon got foul
or something, and he was sitting and he kind of
had his head down and the camera was right on
his face, and he just kind of shook his head
and then he went back to the game, and it
was right before I think it was right before the
end of the first half. I remember sitting there thinking, like,
he's the one guy that I don't worry about freaking
(36:10):
uh uh, don't worry about figuring it out, like Anthony Davis,
who knows last night it might be an anomaly or
he might play like that the rest of the season.
I literally have no idea. I have no idea what
to make of what that performance was last night, if
that's the usual thing for him moving forward, or if
it was an anomaly. But with Lebron, he will figure
(36:30):
out a way to be one of the five best
players in the world this year. His body is still
moving well enough. It's mainly like sloppiness that's been undercutting
him to this point. And most importantly, he's wired that way.
He is the psychotic competitor that does not get complacent.
He sees what's happening around him on the team, and
he knows he hasn't been good enough. I expect him
(36:53):
to get I expect over the course the next few
weeks for Lebron to steadily improve into eventually he looked
like a sure fire top five player in the league.
So we gotta shout out Russ. Russ had one of
one of his very good games, not just a good game,
a very good game from Russ, and like I said,
it helps kind of balance out some of Lebron's uneven
(37:14):
performance a couple of things. He had good games last year.
This is not incredibly unheard of, um in the way
these good games for Russ look are a lot like
what you saw last night, which is bad Russ plays,
just with more good Russ plays, like he missed four
more layups in that game. He's now shooting under in
(37:37):
the restricted area for the season, which is insane. He
had three more turnovers. He had a bad missed box
out in the second half on Bruce Brown that led
to a three point shot at he um Bruce Barron
went up and grabbed the rebound of kicked a te
Thinkentavious called up Pope in the right corner and he
made a three. Bad Russ plays are every night, but
at the differences in this particular game, he had all
(37:59):
of his great russ plays working and as a result,
the balance skipped heavily in the favor of him impacting
winning he was punishing the smaller Denver guards, particularly Jamal Murray,
just had no chance against him in the UH. I
believe it was in the first half, hitting Nasty really
low between the legs, cross over to his right where
(38:20):
he got Like again, when you're trying to beat a
person off the dribble, one of the best ways to
do that is to get lower than them because there's
inevitably going to be some contact as you're trying to
go around their shoulder, and then from there it's just
a challenge of leverage, and you're gonna have better leverage
if you're lower to the ground and your legs are
bent and you can power up through that contact. Then
(38:40):
if you're up higher and the defender is lower than you,
he can push you off of your line. And he
got super low and got past Jamal Murray's shoulder and
finished with the right hand layup, kind of talk some
ship to Jamal in his face, and then the game
ceiling one same thing. Just put his head down and
went right around Jamal Murray to the right then, he's
gonna be having nightmares about that because you could tell
it bothered Jim Ball when Russ was talking shit at
(39:02):
his expense. I don't blame him. Russ has been one
of the worst players in the league over the last
couple of years, so if he talks trash to you,
can I assume that would be kind of frustrating. Um,
But yeah, like like that's always gonna be one of
Russ's strengths, as him being a huge, strong guard that
has the ability to overpower smaller guards around the league.
He had four offensive rebounds in this game, including a
(39:24):
massive offensive rebound in the fourth quarter where Matt Ryan
kind of drove to the baseline and air ball to
short jump shot and Russ came flying in from the
other side and grab the rebound and like pitched it
back out to Matt Ryan in the corner and he
knocked down a three. UM. He had to high level
Russ playmaking that we've grown accustomed to over the years. Specifically,
there was one where he drove along the left wing
(39:46):
to the baseline and made a ridiculous cross court pass
to Austin Reeves in the right corner at the last second.
Like he was in the air for like a second
before he did this, Denver completely collapsed, kicked out to Austin,
Austin pump fake and went to the ram and got
an and one. This was during a seventeen oh run
from the Lakers, which I'm pretty sure for the most
(40:06):
part was just Russ and Anthony Davis. A massive winning
effort from Russ in this game. And then he was
good defensively, held up well and closeouts. He had a
big block on Michael Porter Jr. Under the rim late
in the game. Overall, he's just been Uh. In this
particular game, he was just a force of positive energy
and uh. And that's what a good Russ game is
going to look like. And again, like I do I
(40:29):
like Russ on this team? No? Do I dislike him
as a person? No, to have I been frustrated rooting
for him over the last couple of years, Yes, because
he's a very frustrating basketball player to root for, But
there is no personal beef here. And I will always
point out when he plays well, um off the bench
is definitely the best way to use him because he
gets to be more aggressive when he has the basketball.
(40:50):
But the reality is is his good nights like the
one last night are way too inconsistent to bank on,
So as Laker fans, I hope you don't get your
hopes up that that's what it's gonna look like every night,
because it's just not going to And at the end
of the day, they're better off flipping Russ for players
that have more night tonight impact on winning, zooming out
a little bit from the Lakers their second in defense
(41:11):
in the entire league right now, and a D just
played his best game, and Lebron, like I said earlier,
is the last guy worry about figuring things out. So
if a D can kind of translate this into more
consistent success, if Lebron continues to improve offensively over the
course of the next couple of weeks and their defense
holds up the way it has through a very tough schedule,
this team is gonna start ripping off some wins. I
(41:32):
just think the biggest thing that I'd watch out for
his health, because if Anthony Davis is back has to
requires him to miss one or two games every week,
they they'll lose those games because without him they just
don't have enough talent. And then obviously, in terms of continuity,
just not having enough UMU, the continuity in lineups from
night tonight. A couple of quick notes on the Nuggets.
(41:53):
They're down to defense now. The influx of Michael Porter Jr.
And Jamal Murray was always going to limit them defensively.
We talked about this a lot this summer, but I
said that they would be the number one offense in
the league, and they just simply haven't been. They've been
fifteenth in offense. And there's a couple of big reasons
for that. Jamal Murray in particular, has a ways to
go to get back to what he was. Although he
was hitting some wild shots um against the Lakers. In
(42:15):
this game, he had a late shot clock one against
Anthony Davis on the left wing where like Pump faked
and Anthony Davis was draped all over him and he
like leaned into the right and made it a couple
of nasty stepped backs to uh. So those are good signs.
But his scoring, he's he's averaging right around like, I think,
four teen points per game, and you'd like to see
him over twenty. Aaron Gordon hasn't shot the ball well,
that's not helping. And then their bench is just really,
(42:36):
really bad. DeAndre Jordan's is, in my opinion, like probably
the worst NBA player that gets rotation minutes in the NBA.
I've thought that when he was on the Lakers, thought
that when he was on the Sixers. Think that now, um,
this particular game, because Bones Highland was out, they were
running like it was funny. There was a late game
I want to say it was either late third or
(42:57):
early fourth. I wanted I think it was late third
where the nets are. The Nuggets had a half court
possession where the Lakers run to run and Bruce Brown
like came off of a high ball screen from DeAndre
Jordan's and just pulled up and shot a pull up
off the dribble three early in the shot clock that
he missed. And I remember thinking, like, why in the
(43:17):
world is Bruce Brown taking that shot? And then I
looked around at the lineup and it was like, uh,
DeAndre Jordans, Devon Reid, Jeff Green, Christian Braun and and
and Bruce Brown. I'm like, Oh, that's why. It's because
they literally don't have anybody in that lineup that can
create their own shot. But Bones Highland was out in
that particular game. But a big part of why their
(43:37):
bench scoring hasn't been good all season is Bones Highland.
His efficiency has fallen off of a cliff this year,
despite him shooting from three. I had the Nuggets down
at eight in my power rankings because even though there
was there's a ton of optimism surrounding the Nuggets. They
killed everybody when they made Aaron Gordon trade two years
ago before Jamal Murray came back, so there was a
(43:59):
lot like, oh, they'll just come back and just start
killing everybody again. But the truth is, is there a
team that has great strengths and great flaws, which is
true for a lot of the teams around the league
right now, but for Denver in particular. There they got
worse defensively and their offense hasn't been good enough to
make up for it, and they've got to figure that out.
And then the last part here, and this is something
I was on over the course of last year. So
(44:20):
if you guys remember I talked about how yoki Is
perimeter shooting was concerning to me, and over the course
of the last chunk of the season and into the postseason,
his inability to knock down a pick and pop three
point shot was causing some problems for Denver's offense because
the big man could sit back into the lane in
those situations, and I thought it was like a legitimate regression.
(44:41):
I was like, this is a huge sample size spanning
over months and months, and this dude's just not making
any shots. Something's up. But then I talked to somebody
who covers the Nuggets and and he told me that, uh,
he had a wrist issue. And a lot of you
Laker fans probably are immediately like I remember this excuse
because Anthony Davis said something similar over the course the summer. Well,
(45:01):
whatever risk issue was there last season is gone, and
Yogi has missed one of his last thirteen or excuse me,
he's made one of his last thirteen three point attempts,
and Anthony Davis just completely ignored him when he was
that far away from the rim and sagged back and
he was unable to make him pay. And it was
a big part of why Denver had some stretches of
ugly offense in this game. Um, so Denver has got
(45:23):
a lot to work it out too. As we're zooming
out here. I mean, like the Clippers have been really
bad to start the season. The Nets have been really
bad to start the season, the Sixers have been really
bad to start the season, and the Warriors have been
really bad to start the season relative to their expectations.
Those are four of my top six teams in the
power rankings, the only and and the Celtics I think
they have I'm going off the top of my head here,
(45:44):
but I think they might have three losses at this point.
So when I'm zooming out here, like got like really,
the Bucks are the only one of the top tier
teams that is really excelling right now, and their offense
isn't uh their uh um offense isn't as good as
it needs to be because they're missing all their spot
up shooters. So like, there is no perfect team right now,
(46:05):
and so I'm really curious to see if there is
a team out there that decides to go all in
or make some sort of more aggressive trade, because the
truth is is there's just a whole lot of a
whole lot of uh uh mid level basketball going on
around the league right now. All Right, We've been going
for a while, so I'm gonna get out of here
pretty quick. The uh A couple of notes on the
Nets I was stunned when they decided to bring everyone back.
(46:28):
If you remember we I there was literally two videos
one day apart. One was on a Monday, one was
on her Tuesday. One was on Monday. I was like, uh,
Katie's gonna get traded. There's no way they decided to
move forward with this group. And it was after everything
that happened with like Joe sigh and and uh, you know,
and talking about wanting Steve Nash out, and then like
(46:50):
Tuesday morning, the Kevin Durant report came that he's going
to be returning to the team, like in his recommitted
and I and I came out that day and I
was stunned. I was stunned. And I had a lot
of people in the comments like, you were so confident
that that was gonna happen. You were wrong, bo By.
I'm gonna be wrong all the time. Anytime you make predictions,
you're gonna be wrong. But I was really stunned, And
(47:12):
there was a reason why I came out so strong
with that take on that Monday. I could not figure
out because like I believe in Kevin Durant as a
foundational piece for a franchise. I believe in Kyrie Irving's capability.
I believe in the fit that they have naturally with
Ben Simmons, they you know, obviously said Curry has been out,
(47:33):
t J. Warren has been out. They have more talent
that's not available yet. But I had them as a
if things go right, contender, but I did not have
them as a top tier contender, and there was a
big gap between those And specifically, I just was looking
at that situation and I'm thinking Katie doesn't like the
GM or the coach. Kyrie Irving is is literally a
(47:56):
disaster for a basketball team to deal with every single season,
with all the draw that he brings. And they're not
talented enough to be a top tier contender. So like,
what's the point? Like, you need everything to go right
in order for you to win a title, and chances
are things won't go right. And so I was I
came out strongly thinking there's no way, and then they
(48:16):
decided to bring everybody back. And if you guys, remember
what did I say at that point? I said, they
are very talented and so if they win games, this
will all be fine. But if you remember, I said,
if they start losing games, the wounds from this summer
will come back to the surface. And that's literally what's happened.
They're sitting at one in five, and all of a sudden,
(48:39):
when a team that's not playing hard, like not grabbing
rebounds and not defending, you start to think, oh, they're
not bought into their coach. Well, the best player said
he didn't want that coach. That's something that you're gonna
start thinking about. Kyrie Irving I said, oh, well, he's
gonna buy back in and try to earn that contract
(49:00):
extension this summer. And he has on the court been available,
which is a lot more than you could say over
the last two seasons. But now we have all this
drama with all the anti Semitic stuff that he's been
promoting and and him having back back and forth with
Nique fredell uh Nick fredell In in the postgame presser.
That stuff is a lot easier to deal with when
you're five and one than it is when you're one
(49:22):
in five. And as these losses start to pile up,
and that last one against the Pacers was really, really,
really embarrassing, the reality is is all of these things
are gonna start to bubble to the surface. Are they
bought into the coach? You know Ben Simmons and his
mental health, is that going to be an issue? Kyrie
Irving and his shenanigans. You know, all of that stuff
starts to bubble to the surface, and I honestly don't
(49:44):
know what ends up happening here. I really thought they'd
want to move on from this group over the summer,
and they did not. They wanted to continue to push forward.
I see k D as a foundational m v P piece,
but nothing else around this to me, is worth this
everything else, And you don't have the means with which
(50:05):
to turn the surrounding pieces into players that compliment k
D well enough to win a title. And he's getting older.
So like, at the end of the day, like you
really only have two options. You can cross your fingers
and just hope this all works out, and they suddenly
start playing defense, and they suddenly start grabbing rebounds, and
Seth Curry and T. J. Warren come in and and
(50:26):
and just kind of give them an influx of talent
and everything is fine. Or you can sell the farm.
And I'm really curious to see which direction they end
up going. Um My guests as they stick it out
for a little while longer until Seth Curry and t J.
Warren get into the offense. But right now, like man,
this could not have gone worse to start the season.
(50:46):
They've lost some winnable games in this chunk, all right,
So that's all I have for today. Here's the plan
for the rest of this week. Tomorrow night, we're going
live UM after the final buzzer if I believe Golden
State Miami. That's gonna be on AMP. So you're gonna
want to go to my Twitter feed and find the
AMPLE links so you can download that AMP uh at
that app and listen to the show there. If you
(51:08):
miss that for whatever reason, it will be redistributed on
YouTube later in the evening. Then Wednesday AMP after the
early morning or the early evening game Cavs Celtics, and
then live on YouTube after the Lakers game on Wednesday night,
which I believe is against the Pelicans. Thursday night we're
live on AMP after Warriors Magic, and then Friday we're
(51:30):
just doing a normal YouTube film breakdown sometime during the day.
So that's our schedule for this week. As always, I
appreciate your guys support and I will see you tomorrow
(52:04):
s s the volume
Host
Jason Timpf
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