April 14, 2025 • 33 mins
Jason reacts to the epic NBA regular season finale between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers, how James Harden and Kawhi Leonard were able to overpower Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler, and what it means for these two teams heading into the playoffs. Then he gives his initial impressions on the series between the Clippers and Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets as well as the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves.
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(01:57):
All right, welcome doopsy, you're at the volume. Have you
to everybody off? All of you guys had an incredible weekend.
As expected. The Clippers Warriors game yesterday was incredibly entertaining
and incredibly informative. So all we're gonna do in this
little short episode this morning is we're going to talk
about my five biggest takeaways from the first truly important,
(02:19):
truly high stakes game in the NBA this season, and
then after that, I'm gonna give just my initial impressions
on the two Western Conference playoffs series, that being the
Lakers versus the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Denver Nuggets versus
the Los Angeles Clippers. The rest of this week, we're
gonna have a lot of series preview content. I actually
have a kind of a breakdown of that coming a
(02:40):
little bit later in the show so that you guys
can have an idea of what to expect this week.
But this morning just Clippers Warriors, some takeaways, as well
as my initial thoughts on the two other playoff series
in the Western Conference. You guys know the joke before
we get started to subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you
guys don't miss announcement stff forget about a podcast for
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(03:02):
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
a review on that front. Jackson's also doing incredible work
on our new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Make sure you guys follow us there. In the last
but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions and the YouTube
comments and we can get to our mail bags throughout
the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So again, yesterday, there was a brief moment early in
(03:23):
the day where it looked like things could get a
little bit more complicated because email Udoka decided to play
his starters against the Nuggets. So now all of a sudden,
you're really looking at the four or eight being literally anything.
But the Nuggets came out with the requisite intensity. The
Rockets did not. Udoka kept their minutes down and so
that game ended up not mattering. So it ended up
(03:44):
all coming down to that Clippers Warriors game. As I
said at the top, we're going to do our five
biggest takeaways. This is going to be the schedule for
series previews this week, So again we have just initial thoughts.
Today Tomorrow full series previews for Bucks, Pacers and Pistons Nicks.
The next day Wednesday, full series previews on Lakers, Wolves,
(04:07):
and on Clippers Nuggets. The two sevens will be out
on Thursday after we have the results from the play
in and then, just like we do every year, the
one eights are always a little bit shorter and a
little bit more brief, just because they're the biggest favorite
usually and because of the way the schedule works, we
don't even find out who those teams are until Friday night,
and then Saturday morning the actual playoffs start, so I
(04:29):
actually have to turn my attention to the real game.
So our one eights won't be as comprehensive as the
other six series previews. But that's the schedule this week.
Two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, two on Thursdays. Keep
an eye on the feeds. You guys will see it there.
Also for your Warrior fans, we will be going live
on YouTube after the final buzzer of Grizzlies Warriors tomorrow night,
(04:50):
and we'll do a little mail bag there as well.
So our five biggest takeaways from this Clippers Warriors game.
First of all, just incredible basketball. It's always amazing when
you get to this time of year. There are important
regular season games. There have been a lot of important
regular season games in the last couple of weeks, but
when you get to that final day of the regular season,
(05:11):
it just feels different in terms of the stakes. And
these were important stakes for both teams on a bunch
of different levels. Right the Warriors losing dropped to the
play in. If the Clippers had lost, they would have
dropped to the plan. Now you can kind of draw
a little bit of a silver lining for Warriors fans
in the sense that, like, if you win that game,
you have to go through the Clippers and then likely
(05:32):
excuse me, the Lakers, and then likely the Clippers right
after that, because I do think the Clippers would have
beat Houston in a two seven matchup, and so you
would have to go through two of the top teams
in the Western Conference. If I was ordering the teams
in the Western Conference, there's going to be, you know,
the Thunder, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Warriors, and then
a gap for me before the rest of these teams.
(05:54):
And so the for you to have to play one
of those teams in every single round, potentially this would
be extremely difficult to get through. So now, if you
win on Tuesday against the Grizzlies, at least you get
to play Houston in the first round, which I think
is an easier opponent than both the Lakers or the Clippers.
That said, I think Warriors fans would have rather done
(06:16):
the Lakers Clippers route and not have to take the
risk of the play in. You go in there tomorrow
and John Moran happens to have his three point shot
going and he hit six or seven threes, and Desmond
Bain's got to go in and Jaron Jackson hit six
or seven threes, you could be staring down the barrel
of like a Demarta rozen Zach Lavine led team coming
into your building with a chance to knock you out
(06:37):
of the playoffs. It's unnecessary risks, So obviously you'd rather
take the route of the guaranteed playoff path. But if
you're looking for a silver lining, I do think it's
an easier path to go Houston La ok See than
to go La la ok See. So that's a little
bit of a of a silver lining there. But okay,
looking back at the game ends up going to ot
(07:00):
Clippers pull it out late. I wanted to go over
some takeaways because I did think there were some revealing
things for both teams in terms of what we can
expect in their playoff run this year. From that game,
first of all playoff Kawhi looks very much here, easily
getting separation from top tier defenders, working Jimmy Butler to
(07:21):
his spots on the floor to get easy fadeaways over
both shoulders. He was getting separated. Draymond Green did log
some good possessions against him, specifically the one at the
final buzzer in the fourth quarter where he just got
a great contest and forced one of Kawhi's worst misses
of the day, kind of like an outside of the
rim miss long into the right. But even against Draymond Green,
(07:43):
like got a clean look at a step back three
in crunch time, got a clean look at a step
back along the left wing along two that he made.
He was able to get separation from everybody and eventually
dictate a bunch of double teams from Steve Kerr, I disagreed.
I was actually talking with Jackson. We talked on the
phone a little bit after the game yesterday, and I
disagree with the strategy that they went with with the
double team, specifically attacking Kawhi so far from the basket.
(08:06):
One of the reasons why I don't like that is
it creates a lot more space to deal with the
four on three. Right, Like, it's kind of the Steph
Curry blitz concept. Right, This is what Steph Curry's been
doing to teams for a decade in terms of blitz coverage.
You give a guy the ball right at the high
post and a four on three with like the two
defenders that were on the ball way out at near
half court, there's just so much space for Chris Dunn
(08:29):
to turn around and methodically look down the lane, like, oh,
you know, this guy didn't step up, so I'm gonna
shoot the little floater. Oh, this guy did step up,
so I'm gonna throw the little lob to Zubats. It's
like a very easy kind of like order of operations there.
Kawhi is not the greatest passer of all times, so
like I would have rather had you double Kawhi, Like
as he's going into more of a scoring position, So like,
(08:52):
if he's dribbling out by the three point line, just
tell your man to pressure the ball, pressure him and
funnel him to a specific side where you're planning the
double coming from. And then as he puts his head
down and starts driving, that's when you bring the double
team and you can kind of capitalize in some of
Kawhi's playmaking weaknesses. But I disagree with the strategy, but
it is what it is. Kawhi ends up drawing all
these double teams and they're able to consistently generate great
(09:13):
shots out of it. But it started from the basic
concept that nobody on the Warriors, an elite defense in
this league, could make Kauai uncomfortable as he was just
dropping whatever he wanted from anywhere on the floor. That
bodes extremely well for the Clippers, right, Like, so much
of what we talk about with the Clippers comes down
to like this theoretical concept of like, well will Kawai
(09:35):
be able to give you four playoff rounds? Well, here's
the thing. It's April fourteenth or here now, Like Kawhi
is healthy right now, with no games between now and
his playoff series with the Denver Nuggets that starts on Saturday.
So like he's here now, and he looks like Kauai.
So at this point I feel like it's wishful thinking
for him to get hurt. Maybe he will get hurt,
(09:56):
who knows, but like it's very likely at this point
that Kawhi is going to be healthy for this playoff
runt in a way that it wasn't when we were
discussing this theoretical team back in October. In November, I
think that Bo's extremely well for Clippers fans. Kawhi Leonard
looked like the best player on the floor last night.
Kawhi when he's at his ceiling, is very capable of
(10:17):
being a top tier superstar in this league, and it
just fundamentally alters the talent level that is on this
Clippers team. They looked like an absolute problem yesterday because
of Kawhi and the ceiling that he's able to reach.
Two I vi'sa. Zubats is on the doorstep of becoming
one of the star centers in this league. Big, huge,
(10:39):
important game, twenty two points, seventeen rebounds, got a bucket
out of the post. He was doing a lot of
different types of floor spacing. We talked about the vertical
spacing on the lob from Chris Dunn in crunch time.
He had another example of spacing like that Isaiah Hartenstein
style floater spacing on a James Harden drive past Gary
Payton where he went down the lane line had just
(11:00):
shoveled it off to Zoo just outside the left block,
and he was able to shoot that little floater over
the top. He was destroying them on the offensive glass.
He was just an absolute problem. I cannot wait to
watch him battle Jokic for a full series. I think
it's a very interesting matchup because of his size. He's
one of the few guys in this league that's actually
big and strong enough to cause some disruption for Nicole
(11:22):
Jokic's base. Zoo is on a run and I cannot
wait to watch him play some really high stakes basketball
this week. Third big takeaway playoff. Jimmy Butler apparently is
still a thing. I can't ever remember watching a player
that has had more ability to scale up from his
normal production in high stakes environments than Jimmy Butler. I
(11:45):
wish he would have been more aggressive in crunch time,
and we're going to talk about that in a little
bit here in our fourth piece. Like Steph was just
running out of gas a little bit late in the
game once we got into the final minute of the
fourth quarter. But for the most part last night, with
the scoring in the playmaking, was able to leverage it
in a way that was deeply impactful. He looked springy.
He was getting to the rim, he was dunking, he
(12:06):
was getting lots of lyft on his jump shot. Little
concern with that need of the quad that he caught
late in the game from Kawhi, especially just because they
have to turn around and play in a day. That said,
I do think the Warriors will dispatch of Memphis and
he will have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off, So
I think he should be fine. Jimmy looking great, I
think is huge. I was talking with my friend Sam's
(12:28):
fondi a who covers the Warriors with the Light Years guys,
like about a week ago about Jimmy and just like
some of his scoring scalability and like this was the
big question mark. Was he gonna be the Jimmy that
we saw in the regular season that's just kind of
like a cog in the system that kind of helps
elevate everybody and the Warriors look really, really good. Or
is he going to be the twenty five plus per
(12:50):
game point scorer that can like actually raise the ceiling
of this team to where it needs to be to
win the title. And even though it's just one game,
I thought that was a very encouraging start to that
run from Jimmy Butler. Four, the Warriors offense is still
way to Steph reliant, kind of to the point where
it doesn't actually make sense schematically. Like Brandon Pajemski is
(13:13):
playing incredibly well, continues to play incredibly well, played incredibly
well in a high leverage game again yesterday, Jimmy Butler
was scoring whenever he wanted throughout the majority of that game.
But there's this thing that happens when they get into
crunch time where all of a sudden, it becomes no
one shoot but Steph. The only way you're allowed to
shoot off of Steph is if it's like specifically in
(13:35):
the flow of those like four on three. So like, yeah,
Jimmy will score on a cut off of a Jimmy
off of a Steph Curry backscreen, or Brandon Pajemski will
take a you know, wide open three at the top
of the key out of a rotation situation that Steph generates.
But there's no willingness for Jimmy to like come off
of an action and look to score. There's no willingness
(13:57):
for Brandon Pajemski to come off of an action and
look to score down the stretch of these games. It's
like Steph tries to create something and if it's not there,
it's like find Steph again, Like wherever Steph is, just
give it back to Steph. And it's like, while I
get that, because I agree with Steve Kerr when he
had his rant with Buddy Heel to be like, hey,
look it's Steph Curry's great a shoot of all time,
should probably give him the basketball. I don't disagree. But
(14:18):
there's this thing that happens when you get into these
super intense physical games where Steph Curry, because he's not
the greatest athlete in the world, can sometimes struggle to
get a shot off. Like over the course of the
final six minutes of the game, he was incredible for
the first stretch of crunch time that like just lighting
the world on fire. Relocation, threes off the dribble, threes,
(14:40):
getting to the basket, and transition. Steph was cooking them.
But over the last six minutes he was running out
of gas. He had three turnovers. He had a turnover
in the final minute of the fourth quarter. He had
two turnovers in the fourth quarter or in the overtime.
Excuse me, you only got one three point shot off
and then entire span like Steph was struggling to get
a shot off. And so that's what you got Jimmy
Butler for. Like what happens in those situations is when
(15:02):
things get really physical and really tight and no one's open.
It helps to have a forward who's big and strong,
who can put his elbow into a dude and create
a passing angle for you to just throw him the
damn ball and he can turn and just shoot over
the top of somebody. Because that's the advantage of being
the great athlete, right. Like Steph has to run in
(15:23):
circles until someone fucks up so that he can get open,
Jimmy can just stand there at six seven with lots
of strength and a good strong base and great lyft
on his jump shot to be able to create a
shot for himself. And so I think it would behoove
the Warriors to at least have a little bit more
balance down crunch time of these games to where you're
still trying to get the ball to Steph and everything
(15:45):
is still flowing through Steph. But hey, if it's like,
you know, nine ten seconds left on the shot clock,
it might be time to get Jimmy to the high
post and ask him to try to draw foul by
like ripping through him, pump faking, or trying to get
to a spot in the middle of the floor so
he can elevate over the top for a little ten
foot jumps out over the top of somebody. There needs
to be more variety down the stretch of these games.
It's just so many of these games look just like
(16:07):
that for the Warriors, where it's just Steph running around
in circles until someone fucks up, and there just needs
to be a little bit more variety and a little
bit more confidence for Steph's co stars to be able
to take some initiative late in games. And then, lastly,
the Warriors have a little bit of a fifth starter problem.
They had this issue yesterday where they're like, Okay, we
(16:29):
who are we gonna close with? Are we gonna close
with Moses Moody? Are we gonna close with Gary Payton?
Are we gonna close going big? Like what are we
gonna end up doing? Right? And so they end up
going with Gary Payton, And the problem with that is
Gary Payton wasn't particularly having too much success with James Harden.
James Harden was still getting dribble penetration on him pretty
much whenever he wanted. Shout out to James Harden, by
(16:51):
the way, like two just absolutely massive threes in overtime,
the transition three out of the right corner and that
little step back three that he hit at the top
of the key, some great dribble penetration sequences that led
to quality shots. I thought Harden was fantastic yesterday, but
Gary Payton was struggling in that particular matchup to keep
him away from the basket. And then on the offensive
(17:12):
end of the floor, it gives you a third player
that no one has to account for as a shooter.
I saw my friend roch Topolua I used to cover
the Lakers with years ago. He tweeted out after the game,
like it's Gary Payton, it's Draymond, it's Jimmy Butler. It's
three guys that you don't necessarily have to like worry
about being aggressive at the three point line in crunch time,
like they will take them. Like we saw Draymond take
(17:33):
one out of the right corner that he made. We
saw Jimmy randomly after like not shooting in crunch time
at all. We saw Jimmy randomly just just take a
super heavily contested left corner three. But like, they're not
guys that are going to catch wide open on the
three point line and typically look to be super super aggressive,
and that just gives a ton of opportunity for those
other three guys, the defenders, to leverage their attention a
(17:56):
little bit more towards Steph and so, but then you
go to the Moses Moody thing and it's like, Okay, well,
Moses Moody has been really struggling to shoot the ball
as of late, right, and Moses Moody is not as
good of a read and react player as Gary Payton is.
That's a big part of why they go with Gary Payton.
When Draymond missed the layup right in the final minute
of OTI, it's a read that Gary Payton made out
(18:17):
of the short role. Gary Payton has a ton of
experience running screening action with Steph Short, rolling into the
middle of the floor and playmaking out of it, where
Moses Moody does not. So like that's the issue. Is like, okay,
so you can go with the three and D guy,
but then you don't have the playmaking talent, and Moses
Moody hasn't been a very reliable three point shooter. Or
you can go with Gary Payton and you're gonna get
(18:38):
a better defender, but he's small and struggled with James
Harden's size, and he doesn't shoot the three well even
though he can do the read and react stuff. And
so that's where, like, you know, when I look at
the big picture for the Warriors as we go into
next season, who knows what's gonna happen this year. There's
still plenty of time for this team to regain the
momentum that they lost here in the last week, and
they could potentially go on a title run this year.
(18:59):
I'm not right off by any means, but if they
go into this summer, that's the position I think they
need to look to address. And that's where it's like, Man,
if you could somehow flip you know, minga and and
something else for Cam Johnson and bring in like a
like a really high level fifth starter, that's where this
team could potentially vault into that like top top tier
(19:22):
of teams in this league. So let's take a couple
of looks at our Western Conference first round series. So
Clippers Nuggets. My initial thoughts, I was surprised to see
that Denver was favored, even though they do have home court.
The Clippers have been playing better basketball for a very
long time, like much better basketball for a very long
(19:45):
time than the Denver Nuggets. I struggle to see how
Denver regard the Clippers. James Harden in ball screens is
the classic conundrum that Denver has struggled with, which is
a pull up shooter that you have to bring Jokic
up to the level against. Also a top tier playmaker
in this league that can make the passes out of
those sequences to consistently get Denver and rotation. That's a problem.
(20:08):
As you saw in overtime and in crunch time, Norman
Powell can attack closeouts. He attacked to close out off
of the left winging crunch time, got to the basket
for a scooping layup attack to close out out of
the left corner. In overtime, drove along the baseline and
had a really nice little slaloming move around the rim
protector to get a reverse layup on the right side
(20:28):
of the basket. That's the type of weak side scoring
that has been devastating the Nuggets throughout this entire stretch
where their defense is falling apart. You bring Jokic up
to the level where's zoo Zoo is now getting all
the way towards the rim with inside position on everybody.
He's gonna crush everybody on the offensive glass. Are you
going to guard Kawhi Leonard with Aaron Gordon? He's the
(20:49):
only guy physically capable. Christian Brown is too small, Michael
Porter Junior would get thrown around like a rag doll,
Peyton Watson's too skinny. Aaron Gordon's the one guy who
can physically match up with him. Here's the problem if
you bring and I talked about this in other playoff
series in the past, when you bring Aaron Gordon out
to the perimeter to guard, he is no longer the
(21:09):
low man support behind Jokic. Jokic is a weak rim
protector that consistently has to go up to the level
that it's consistently running back and forth to the perimeter.
You need Aaron Gordon on the back line as the
athlete that can clean things up at the rim and
help side situations and clean up the defensive glass. If
you put him on Kawhi gonna Kawhi is gonna space
him out and occupy him, and it's just gonna leave
(21:32):
an athletic deficit on the back line. I think it's
That's my initial impression is I just don't see how
Denver is going to really successfully guard the Clippers. Now.
To be clear, Denver will also be able to score.
Michael Porter Junior will almost certainly have size advantages shooting
over the top. They'll put either James Harden or Norman
Powell on him and he's gonna be able to shoot
over the top. And then because of help on Jokich,
(21:53):
there's gonna be opportunities for Christian Brown to slash off
the wing or to cut along the baseline. Aaron Gordon's
shooting the ball extremely well for a long time. I
think he's just a good shooter now, so like he's
gonna get clean looks as they're having to swarm around Jokic.
But the Clips do have more traditional matchups for Denver
stars than vice versa. For Denver, they have to take
(22:14):
their lowman to occupy Kawhi. That's a problem, that's a
non traditional thing that messes up the backside of their
defensive scheme. They literally don't have the ability to contend
with James Harden. That coverage is gonna get annihilated. They
don't have traditional matchups there. You go over to the
other side of the floor and it's like Chris down
and Derek Jones Junior are a classic chase over the
(22:36):
top bother pull up shooter type of players. They are
a clean natural matchup for Jamal Murray. And then, in
a league that doesn't really have many natural matchups for
Nikola Jokic, Avita zubats is as close as you can
get to a natural matchup for NICOLEA Jokic. He's big
and strong, one of the few players in the league
that actually has the size to bother Jokic's base a
(22:57):
little bit. Again, I expect Denver to score, but I
always look at playoff series in a very basic concept
the context which team is more likely to make the
other team uncomfortable. Do you think Denver's defense will make
the Clippers offense more uncomfortable? Then the Clippers defense will
make the Denver offense. And for me right now, it
(23:18):
looks to me like the Clippers would be able to
make Denver's offense more uncomfortable than the other way around.
That's just my initial impression. Again, I want to be
very clear, I've not done my prep yet for the series.
That's the goal for this week. I'm going to watch
a ton of film. I'm gonna dig into numbers. I
might change my mind on this, but my initial impression
right now is that the Clippers should be favored to
(23:39):
beat the Nuggets and that I would pick them to
win that series. Same thing for the Lakers Wolves. These
are just my initial thoughts. Reserve the right to change
my mind. But I can tell you as a fan,
I was experiencing a great deal of anxiety worrying about
how to guard the Golden State Warriors. They were a
team that caused me anxiety on both ends of the
(24:00):
floor because one, I don't think they have the foot
speed to guard Steph, and then once you start throwing
a lot of attention at Steph, playmaking talent is how
you capitalize on that. I'm more worried about super smart,
high high IQ teams incrementally breaking down the Laker defense
than teams that can't playmate. The Warriors have all that
playmaking talent. They were a team that I thought was
(24:22):
going to be able to score against the Laker defense.
And then on the other end of the floor, it's
a team that switches a ton, super high IQ and
excellent in rotation at like speeding guys up, which I
thought could cause some problems for Laker role players and
capitalizing some of the indecision for Luca and Lebron. I
would have still picked the Lakers versus the Warriors. I
think they're a better basketball team. But I thought it
was a really tough matchup, and it was something that
(24:43):
I was worried about and I didn't want to see,
and I would rather see after they dealt with Dylan Brooks,
you know, kicking them in the balls for two straight weeks.
So that was what I was That was the ideal
outcome for me Timberwolves as a fan again, And I
might change mind after digging into the numbers a little bit,
but and digging into the film, but I think it's
(25:06):
the perfect matchup for the Lakers as a first round series.
The only team that I'd feel more confident in them
beating out of the teams that were beneath them in
the standings that they could potentially face in the first round.
The only team I'd feel more confident in them beating
is Memphis, and Memphis had no chance to get out
of the eight because they've just been playing really bad
basketball for a while. This was the team I wanted.
Here's my basic reasoning, surface level right now, before I
(25:30):
dig into the film and do the comprehensive breakdown. One
the Dorian Finney, Smith, Ruby, Hatchamurro lineup. The lineup with Austin,
Lebron and Luca, the lineup that I've often said is
the only other team other than Boston with their lineups
with Horford to perzingis the only other lineup in the
league that can truly present elite advantage creation with elite
five out spacing. That's the only lineups in the league
(25:53):
that can do that right now. Five guys where it's like,
you can't leave this guy open. If you leave him open,
he's just gonna hit shots. If you leave Dorian Finn
Smith open, he's gonna hit shots. If you leave Ruy open,
he's gonna hit shots. If you leave Austin open, he's
gonna hit shots. If you leave Lebron open, he's gonna
hit shots. And Luke is probably gonna have the ball
most of the time, so like it's a lineup that
can really truly space the floor, that lineup will either
(26:15):
play Rudy off the floor or at least neutralize his
rim protection. Rudy, when he can sit under the basket,
is a devastating defensive player. When he switches onto the
perimeter and has help behind him, he's a devastating defensive player.
When he has to guard in space, his defensive value
(26:38):
is mitigated a bit because he's not protecting the rim.
He's defending out on the perimeter, which he does well,
but not exactly as well as elite perimeter defenders. And
then is he bringing enough offensively on the other end
of the floor to justify him being out on the court.
That is the question we will see if it's very
possible that we uh seecres Finch basically just be like,
(27:00):
we're gonna leave Rudy out there, and even if we
lose some value in certain places, we're gonna gain value elsewhere.
We'll see, but that unit at the very least should
be able to neutralize Rudy's rim protection. Once you neutralize
Rudy's rim protection, now you're allowing Lebron and Luca to
pick on matchups without having to worry about being deterred
when they get to the rim. I think that that
(27:21):
is a huge advantage for the Lakers. Two, the Wolves
perimeter guys, all their perimeter defenders are way too small
for Luca. As we saw in the Western Conference Finals
last year, Jada McDaniels is just too skinny for Luca.
He can throw him around. He's one of the very
best perimeter defenders in the league who can't guard Luca.
And that is like just a really difficult situation to manage,
(27:44):
right off the stop, right off the top. I wanna
there's a potential here to like tinker with matchups. So
you could imagine a situation where you take Jada McDaniel's
and you put him on Austin Reeves instead, because he
at the very least can stop Austin Reeves. But then
it's like, now you're asking Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall
to guard Lebron James and Luka Doncic, and that's a
(28:04):
problem because one ant can't navigate screens, So if you
put him on Luca, he's just gonna run him through screens.
We saw that at the tail end of the Western
Conference Finals last year they tried on Luca. It didn't work.
Put Julius on Luca. Ah, that's gonna be barbecue chicken.
And yeah, you could put Lebron on you could put
Anthony Edwards on Lebron, but now you're leaving Julius on
(28:25):
Luca and that's just a huge problem. If you don't
put Jayden on Austin, Who's guarding Austin? Is it going
to be Mike Conley? Like Austin's gonna cook Mike Conley?
Like there's so many different like matchup issues with the
way that Minnesota can disperse their perimeter talent. If I
was coaching the Timberwolves, is what I would do is
I would lean a lot more into like Dante DiVincenzo,
(28:46):
and I would deploy their best defenders on Lebron in
Austin and try to mitigate them as much as possible,
understanding that you're probably not going to do much damage
to Luca anyway. So maybe like put Jayden on Lebron
and put Dante on Austin and essentially have those two
be uncomfortable all series and just see if Luca can
(29:06):
do enough damage to you and try to wear him
down with physicality over the course of the series. But
the bottom line is the Wolf's perimeter guys are just
not necessarily big and strong enough to bother a Luka
doncicin Lebron the way that like you see from Houston
for instance, or when Golden State like deploys Draymond and
Jimmy on the perimeter and stuff like that like that,
(29:29):
those options are just not available to Minnesota in this series.
And then lastly, as an advantage for the Lakers, I think,
as I mentioned earlier, what worries me the most for
the Laker defense is playmaking talent. The reason why is
there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with JJ Redick's defense.
They don't have rim protection, they don't have a ton
of elite perimeter defenders that usually are hiding at least
(29:50):
two targets on the floor at any given time. But
what they do is they just have a ton of
like elite defensive game planning in terms of like funneling
guy into where they specifically want their help side set up.
They're good in rotation. They've got a couple of athletes
on the floor all the time that are flying around
and helping recover situations. You need to break down the
(30:10):
Laker defense with incremental playmaking, like creating that initial advantage
and the guy drives a close out and then another
guy makes a great read and a guy makes a
smart cut. If you do that kind of stuff, you
can pick the Lakers apart. And the Warriors have done
that in their most recent matchup against the Lakers. This
Timberwolves team is not a good aggregate playmaking team. They're
a team that I think would be susceptible to a
(30:32):
lot of the gimmicky stuff that JJ Reddick will do.
I expect an assortment of double teams against Anthony Edwards.
I expect a lot of pressure being put on Ants
to be an elite playmaker in this series. I just
think from a matchup standpoint, a lot of stuff just
kind of lines up with the Lakers' strengths and avoids
some of the Lakers' weaknesses, and so I think it both.
(30:53):
I think it's just a really favorable matchup for them.
Now again, where another opportunity for the Timberwolves in this series.
Where the Lakers struggled in the past with Aunt and
Julius Anthony Edwards in particular in their last matchup, even
though the Lakers controlled that matchup from start to finish,
they were funneling Anthony Edwards. They were doing the same
defense they used against shake Yos Alexander, So they're funneling
(31:16):
him towards the sideline, like opening up their stance. Basically,
they did this against Jalen Brunson too, if you remember
they used it against Shay. They use it against Jalen.
They used it. It's basically their defense against elite star
guards in this league. They funnel him towards the sideline
with like basically a catch waiting. So a helper like
that's already zoned up on the strong side outside the block,
(31:36):
like waiting for that drive. And Ant did have some
success in that game, being like, oh, you're gonna give
me a runway, Well, I'm way more athletic than you guys,
And he would just shoot that gap and he'd be
right in the teeth of all the help. But he's
such an elite athlete that he would either just finish
over everybody or he would do that slow down step
he does and wait for everybody to la Hi back
on the ground before he goes back up and score
(31:56):
An did have some success against that defensive game plan
before he got ejected in that game. And then lastly,
Julius Randall over the years has had some success against
Ruey Hotcha Mura. It's something I've talked about on the
show before, the idea of like holding ground with your shoulder.
Ruey has a little bit of a tendency to give
ground against physicality, and so if Ruy Hatcha Mura gets
the Julius Randall matchup instead of Lebron James to start
(32:17):
the game, that's something I could see Ruey having some
issues with. It's very possible that the Lakers deploy Lebron
on Jaden McDaniels thinking they can use him as a roamer,
and I think they could end up in some situations
where Julius gets comfortable if they do that. So I
don't want to sit here and pretend like Minnesota doesn't
have advantages. They obviously do. I just think the Lakers
have more advantages in this matchup. This was the matchup
(32:38):
that I was most comfortable with as a first round
series for the Lakers other than Memphis. Again, we're gonna
do a deep dive as we get later into this week,
but those are my initial impressions. It's all I have
for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. I will see you
guys tomorrow morning with series previews on the Bucks and
the Pacers and the Pistons and the Knicks, and then
(32:58):
again tomorrow night for the Warriors play. As always, appreciate
you guys, and I will see you that. What's up guys,
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
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(01:57):
All right, welcome doopsy, you're at the volume. Have you
to everybody off? All of you guys had an incredible weekend.
As expected. The Clippers Warriors game yesterday was incredibly entertaining
and incredibly informative. So all we're gonna do in this
little short episode this morning is we're going to talk
about my five biggest takeaways from the first truly important,
(02:19):
truly high stakes game in the NBA this season, and
then after that, I'm gonna give just my initial impressions
on the two Western Conference playoffs series, that being the
Lakers versus the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Denver Nuggets versus
the Los Angeles Clippers. The rest of this week, we're
gonna have a lot of series preview content. I actually
have a kind of a breakdown of that coming a
(02:40):
little bit later in the show so that you guys
can have an idea of what to expect this week.
But this morning just Clippers Warriors, some takeaways, as well
as my initial thoughts on the two other playoff series
in the Western Conference. You guys know the joke before
we get started to subscribed to the Hoops Tonight YouTube
channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you
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(03:02):
It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and
a review on that front. Jackson's also doing incredible work
on our new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Make sure you guys follow us there. In the last
but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions and the YouTube
comments and we can get to our mail bags throughout
the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So again, yesterday, there was a brief moment early in
(03:23):
the day where it looked like things could get a
little bit more complicated because email Udoka decided to play
his starters against the Nuggets. So now all of a sudden,
you're really looking at the four or eight being literally anything.
But the Nuggets came out with the requisite intensity. The
Rockets did not. Udoka kept their minutes down and so
that game ended up not mattering. So it ended up
(03:44):
all coming down to that Clippers Warriors game. As I
said at the top, we're going to do our five
biggest takeaways. This is going to be the schedule for
series previews this week, So again we have just initial thoughts.
Today Tomorrow full series previews for Bucks, Pacers and Pistons Nicks.
The next day Wednesday, full series previews on Lakers, Wolves,
(04:07):
and on Clippers Nuggets. The two sevens will be out
on Thursday after we have the results from the play
in and then, just like we do every year, the
one eights are always a little bit shorter and a
little bit more brief, just because they're the biggest favorite
usually and because of the way the schedule works, we
don't even find out who those teams are until Friday night,
and then Saturday morning the actual playoffs start, so I
(04:29):
actually have to turn my attention to the real game.
So our one eights won't be as comprehensive as the
other six series previews. But that's the schedule this week.
Two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, two on Thursdays. Keep
an eye on the feeds. You guys will see it there.
Also for your Warrior fans, we will be going live
on YouTube after the final buzzer of Grizzlies Warriors tomorrow night,
(04:50):
and we'll do a little mail bag there as well.
So our five biggest takeaways from this Clippers Warriors game.
First of all, just incredible basketball. It's always amazing when
you get to this time of year. There are important
regular season games. There have been a lot of important
regular season games in the last couple of weeks, but
when you get to that final day of the regular season,
(05:11):
it just feels different in terms of the stakes. And
these were important stakes for both teams on a bunch
of different levels. Right the Warriors losing dropped to the
play in. If the Clippers had lost, they would have
dropped to the plan. Now you can kind of draw
a little bit of a silver lining for Warriors fans
in the sense that, like, if you win that game,
you have to go through the Clippers and then likely
(05:32):
excuse me, the Lakers, and then likely the Clippers right
after that, because I do think the Clippers would have
beat Houston in a two seven matchup, and so you
would have to go through two of the top teams
in the Western Conference. If I was ordering the teams
in the Western Conference, there's going to be, you know,
the Thunder, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Warriors, and then
a gap for me before the rest of these teams.
(05:54):
And so the for you to have to play one
of those teams in every single round, potentially this would
be extremely difficult to get through. So now, if you
win on Tuesday against the Grizzlies, at least you get
to play Houston in the first round, which I think
is an easier opponent than both the Lakers or the Clippers.
That said, I think Warriors fans would have rather done
(06:16):
the Lakers Clippers route and not have to take the
risk of the play in. You go in there tomorrow
and John Moran happens to have his three point shot
going and he hit six or seven threes, and Desmond
Bain's got to go in and Jaron Jackson hit six
or seven threes, you could be staring down the barrel
of like a Demarta rozen Zach Lavine led team coming
into your building with a chance to knock you out
(06:37):
of the playoffs. It's unnecessary risks, So obviously you'd rather
take the route of the guaranteed playoff path. But if
you're looking for a silver lining, I do think it's
an easier path to go Houston La ok See than
to go La la ok See. So that's a little
bit of a of a silver lining there. But okay,
looking back at the game ends up going to ot
(07:00):
Clippers pull it out late. I wanted to go over
some takeaways because I did think there were some revealing
things for both teams in terms of what we can
expect in their playoff run this year. From that game,
first of all playoff Kawhi looks very much here, easily
getting separation from top tier defenders, working Jimmy Butler to
(07:21):
his spots on the floor to get easy fadeaways over
both shoulders. He was getting separated. Draymond Green did log
some good possessions against him, specifically the one at the
final buzzer in the fourth quarter where he just got
a great contest and forced one of Kawhi's worst misses
of the day, kind of like an outside of the
rim miss long into the right. But even against Draymond Green,
(07:43):
like got a clean look at a step back three
in crunch time, got a clean look at a step
back along the left wing along two that he made.
He was able to get separation from everybody and eventually
dictate a bunch of double teams from Steve Kerr, I disagreed.
I was actually talking with Jackson. We talked on the
phone a little bit after the game yesterday, and I
disagree with the strategy that they went with with the
double team, specifically attacking Kawhi so far from the basket.
(08:06):
One of the reasons why I don't like that is
it creates a lot more space to deal with the
four on three. Right, Like, it's kind of the Steph
Curry blitz concept. Right, This is what Steph Curry's been
doing to teams for a decade in terms of blitz coverage.
You give a guy the ball right at the high
post and a four on three with like the two
defenders that were on the ball way out at near
half court, there's just so much space for Chris Dunn
(08:29):
to turn around and methodically look down the lane, like, oh,
you know, this guy didn't step up, so I'm gonna
shoot the little floater. Oh, this guy did step up,
so I'm gonna throw the little lob to Zubats. It's
like a very easy kind of like order of operations there.
Kawhi is not the greatest passer of all times, so
like I would have rather had you double Kawhi, Like
as he's going into more of a scoring position, So like,
(08:52):
if he's dribbling out by the three point line, just
tell your man to pressure the ball, pressure him and
funnel him to a specific side where you're planning the
double coming from. And then as he puts his head
down and starts driving, that's when you bring the double
team and you can kind of capitalize in some of
Kawhi's playmaking weaknesses. But I disagree with the strategy, but
it is what it is. Kawhi ends up drawing all
these double teams and they're able to consistently generate great
(09:13):
shots out of it. But it started from the basic
concept that nobody on the Warriors, an elite defense in
this league, could make Kauai uncomfortable as he was just
dropping whatever he wanted from anywhere on the floor. That
bodes extremely well for the Clippers, right, Like, so much
of what we talk about with the Clippers comes down
to like this theoretical concept of like, well will Kawai
(09:35):
be able to give you four playoff rounds? Well, here's
the thing. It's April fourteenth or here now, Like Kawhi
is healthy right now, with no games between now and
his playoff series with the Denver Nuggets that starts on Saturday.
So like he's here now, and he looks like Kauai.
So at this point I feel like it's wishful thinking
for him to get hurt. Maybe he will get hurt,
(09:56):
who knows, but like it's very likely at this point
that Kawhi is going to be healthy for this playoff
runt in a way that it wasn't when we were
discussing this theoretical team back in October. In November, I
think that Bo's extremely well for Clippers fans. Kawhi Leonard
looked like the best player on the floor last night.
Kawhi when he's at his ceiling, is very capable of
(10:17):
being a top tier superstar in this league, and it
just fundamentally alters the talent level that is on this
Clippers team. They looked like an absolute problem yesterday because
of Kawhi and the ceiling that he's able to reach.
Two I vi'sa. Zubats is on the doorstep of becoming
one of the star centers in this league. Big, huge,
(10:39):
important game, twenty two points, seventeen rebounds, got a bucket
out of the post. He was doing a lot of
different types of floor spacing. We talked about the vertical
spacing on the lob from Chris Dunn in crunch time.
He had another example of spacing like that Isaiah Hartenstein
style floater spacing on a James Harden drive past Gary
Payton where he went down the lane line had just
(11:00):
shoveled it off to Zoo just outside the left block,
and he was able to shoot that little floater over
the top. He was destroying them on the offensive glass.
He was just an absolute problem. I cannot wait to
watch him battle Jokic for a full series. I think
it's a very interesting matchup because of his size. He's
one of the few guys in this league that's actually
big and strong enough to cause some disruption for Nicole
(11:22):
Jokic's base. Zoo is on a run and I cannot
wait to watch him play some really high stakes basketball
this week. Third big takeaway playoff. Jimmy Butler apparently is
still a thing. I can't ever remember watching a player
that has had more ability to scale up from his
normal production in high stakes environments than Jimmy Butler. I
(11:45):
wish he would have been more aggressive in crunch time,
and we're going to talk about that in a little
bit here in our fourth piece. Like Steph was just
running out of gas a little bit late in the
game once we got into the final minute of the
fourth quarter. But for the most part last night, with
the scoring in the playmaking, was able to leverage it
in a way that was deeply impactful. He looked springy.
He was getting to the rim, he was dunking, he
(12:06):
was getting lots of lyft on his jump shot. Little
concern with that need of the quad that he caught
late in the game from Kawhi, especially just because they
have to turn around and play in a day. That said,
I do think the Warriors will dispatch of Memphis and
he will have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off, So
I think he should be fine. Jimmy looking great, I
think is huge. I was talking with my friend Sam's
(12:28):
fondi a who covers the Warriors with the Light Years guys,
like about a week ago about Jimmy and just like
some of his scoring scalability and like this was the
big question mark. Was he gonna be the Jimmy that
we saw in the regular season that's just kind of
like a cog in the system that kind of helps
elevate everybody and the Warriors look really, really good. Or
is he going to be the twenty five plus per
(12:50):
game point scorer that can like actually raise the ceiling
of this team to where it needs to be to
win the title. And even though it's just one game,
I thought that was a very encouraging start to that
run from Jimmy Butler. Four, the Warriors offense is still
way to Steph reliant, kind of to the point where
it doesn't actually make sense schematically. Like Brandon Pajemski is
(13:13):
playing incredibly well, continues to play incredibly well, played incredibly
well in a high leverage game again yesterday, Jimmy Butler
was scoring whenever he wanted throughout the majority of that game.
But there's this thing that happens when they get into
crunch time where all of a sudden, it becomes no
one shoot but Steph. The only way you're allowed to
shoot off of Steph is if it's like specifically in
(13:35):
the flow of those like four on three. So like, yeah,
Jimmy will score on a cut off of a Jimmy
off of a Steph Curry backscreen, or Brandon Pajemski will
take a you know, wide open three at the top
of the key out of a rotation situation that Steph generates.
But there's no willingness for Jimmy to like come off
of an action and look to score. There's no willingness
(13:57):
for Brandon Pajemski to come off of an action and
look to score down the stretch of these games. It's
like Steph tries to create something and if it's not there,
it's like find Steph again, Like wherever Steph is, just
give it back to Steph. And it's like, while I
get that, because I agree with Steve Kerr when he
had his rant with Buddy Heel to be like, hey,
look it's Steph Curry's great a shoot of all time,
should probably give him the basketball. I don't disagree. But
(14:18):
there's this thing that happens when you get into these
super intense physical games where Steph Curry, because he's not
the greatest athlete in the world, can sometimes struggle to
get a shot off. Like over the course of the
final six minutes of the game, he was incredible for
the first stretch of crunch time that like just lighting
the world on fire. Relocation, threes off the dribble, threes,
(14:40):
getting to the basket, and transition. Steph was cooking them.
But over the last six minutes he was running out
of gas. He had three turnovers. He had a turnover
in the final minute of the fourth quarter. He had
two turnovers in the fourth quarter or in the overtime.
Excuse me, you only got one three point shot off
and then entire span like Steph was struggling to get
a shot off. And so that's what you got Jimmy
Butler for. Like what happens in those situations is when
(15:02):
things get really physical and really tight and no one's open.
It helps to have a forward who's big and strong,
who can put his elbow into a dude and create
a passing angle for you to just throw him the
damn ball and he can turn and just shoot over
the top of somebody. Because that's the advantage of being
the great athlete, right. Like Steph has to run in
(15:23):
circles until someone fucks up so that he can get open,
Jimmy can just stand there at six seven with lots
of strength and a good strong base and great lyft
on his jump shot to be able to create a
shot for himself. And so I think it would behoove
the Warriors to at least have a little bit more
balance down crunch time of these games to where you're
still trying to get the ball to Steph and everything
(15:45):
is still flowing through Steph. But hey, if it's like,
you know, nine ten seconds left on the shot clock,
it might be time to get Jimmy to the high
post and ask him to try to draw foul by
like ripping through him, pump faking, or trying to get
to a spot in the middle of the floor so
he can elevate over the top for a little ten
foot jumps out over the top of somebody. There needs
to be more variety down the stretch of these games.
It's just so many of these games look just like
(16:07):
that for the Warriors, where it's just Steph running around
in circles until someone fucks up, and there just needs
to be a little bit more variety and a little
bit more confidence for Steph's co stars to be able
to take some initiative late in games. And then, lastly,
the Warriors have a little bit of a fifth starter problem.
They had this issue yesterday where they're like, Okay, we
(16:29):
who are we gonna close with? Are we gonna close
with Moses Moody? Are we gonna close with Gary Payton?
Are we gonna close going big? Like what are we
gonna end up doing? Right? And so they end up
going with Gary Payton, And the problem with that is
Gary Payton wasn't particularly having too much success with James Harden.
James Harden was still getting dribble penetration on him pretty
much whenever he wanted. Shout out to James Harden, by
(16:51):
the way, like two just absolutely massive threes in overtime,
the transition three out of the right corner and that
little step back three that he hit at the top
of the key, some great dribble penetration sequences that led
to quality shots. I thought Harden was fantastic yesterday, but
Gary Payton was struggling in that particular matchup to keep
him away from the basket. And then on the offensive
(17:12):
end of the floor, it gives you a third player
that no one has to account for as a shooter.
I saw my friend roch Topolua I used to cover
the Lakers with years ago. He tweeted out after the game,
like it's Gary Payton, it's Draymond, it's Jimmy Butler. It's
three guys that you don't necessarily have to like worry
about being aggressive at the three point line in crunch time,
like they will take them. Like we saw Draymond take
(17:33):
one out of the right corner that he made. We
saw Jimmy randomly after like not shooting in crunch time
at all. We saw Jimmy randomly just just take a
super heavily contested left corner three. But like, they're not
guys that are going to catch wide open on the
three point line and typically look to be super super aggressive,
and that just gives a ton of opportunity for those
other three guys, the defenders, to leverage their attention a
(17:56):
little bit more towards Steph and so, but then you
go to the Moses Moody thing and it's like, Okay, well,
Moses Moody has been really struggling to shoot the ball
as of late, right, and Moses Moody is not as
good of a read and react player as Gary Payton is.
That's a big part of why they go with Gary Payton.
When Draymond missed the layup right in the final minute
of OTI, it's a read that Gary Payton made out
(18:17):
of the short role. Gary Payton has a ton of
experience running screening action with Steph Short, rolling into the
middle of the floor and playmaking out of it, where
Moses Moody does not. So like that's the issue. Is like, okay,
so you can go with the three and D guy,
but then you don't have the playmaking talent, and Moses
Moody hasn't been a very reliable three point shooter. Or
you can go with Gary Payton and you're gonna get
(18:38):
a better defender, but he's small and struggled with James
Harden's size, and he doesn't shoot the three well even
though he can do the read and react stuff. And
so that's where, like, you know, when I look at
the big picture for the Warriors as we go into
next season, who knows what's gonna happen this year. There's
still plenty of time for this team to regain the
momentum that they lost here in the last week, and
they could potentially go on a title run this year.
(18:59):
I'm not right off by any means, but if they
go into this summer, that's the position I think they
need to look to address. And that's where it's like, Man,
if you could somehow flip you know, minga and and
something else for Cam Johnson and bring in like a
like a really high level fifth starter, that's where this
team could potentially vault into that like top top tier
(19:22):
of teams in this league. So let's take a couple
of looks at our Western Conference first round series. So
Clippers Nuggets. My initial thoughts, I was surprised to see
that Denver was favored, even though they do have home court.
The Clippers have been playing better basketball for a very
long time, like much better basketball for a very long
(19:45):
time than the Denver Nuggets. I struggle to see how
Denver regard the Clippers. James Harden in ball screens is
the classic conundrum that Denver has struggled with, which is
a pull up shooter that you have to bring Jokic
up to the level against. Also a top tier playmaker
in this league that can make the passes out of
those sequences to consistently get Denver and rotation. That's a problem.
(20:08):
As you saw in overtime and in crunch time, Norman
Powell can attack closeouts. He attacked to close out off
of the left winging crunch time, got to the basket
for a scooping layup attack to close out out of
the left corner. In overtime, drove along the baseline and
had a really nice little slaloming move around the rim
protector to get a reverse layup on the right side
(20:28):
of the basket. That's the type of weak side scoring
that has been devastating the Nuggets throughout this entire stretch
where their defense is falling apart. You bring Jokic up
to the level where's zoo Zoo is now getting all
the way towards the rim with inside position on everybody.
He's gonna crush everybody on the offensive glass. Are you
going to guard Kawhi Leonard with Aaron Gordon? He's the
(20:49):
only guy physically capable. Christian Brown is too small, Michael
Porter Junior would get thrown around like a rag doll,
Peyton Watson's too skinny. Aaron Gordon's the one guy who
can physically match up with him. Here's the problem if
you bring and I talked about this in other playoff
series in the past, when you bring Aaron Gordon out
to the perimeter to guard, he is no longer the
(21:09):
low man support behind Jokic. Jokic is a weak rim
protector that consistently has to go up to the level
that it's consistently running back and forth to the perimeter.
You need Aaron Gordon on the back line as the
athlete that can clean things up at the rim and
help side situations and clean up the defensive glass. If
you put him on Kawhi gonna Kawhi is gonna space
him out and occupy him, and it's just gonna leave
(21:32):
an athletic deficit on the back line. I think it's
That's my initial impression is I just don't see how
Denver is going to really successfully guard the Clippers. Now.
To be clear, Denver will also be able to score.
Michael Porter Junior will almost certainly have size advantages shooting
over the top. They'll put either James Harden or Norman
Powell on him and he's gonna be able to shoot
over the top. And then because of help on Jokich,
(21:53):
there's gonna be opportunities for Christian Brown to slash off
the wing or to cut along the baseline. Aaron Gordon's
shooting the ball extremely well for a long time. I
think he's just a good shooter now, so like he's
gonna get clean looks as they're having to swarm around Jokic.
But the Clips do have more traditional matchups for Denver
stars than vice versa. For Denver, they have to take
(22:14):
their lowman to occupy Kawhi. That's a problem, that's a
non traditional thing that messes up the backside of their
defensive scheme. They literally don't have the ability to contend
with James Harden. That coverage is gonna get annihilated. They
don't have traditional matchups there. You go over to the
other side of the floor and it's like Chris down
and Derek Jones Junior are a classic chase over the
(22:36):
top bother pull up shooter type of players. They are
a clean natural matchup for Jamal Murray. And then, in
a league that doesn't really have many natural matchups for
Nikola Jokic, Avita zubats is as close as you can
get to a natural matchup for NICOLEA Jokic. He's big
and strong, one of the few players in the league
that actually has the size to bother Jokic's base a
(22:57):
little bit. Again, I expect Denver to score, but I
always look at playoff series in a very basic concept
the context which team is more likely to make the
other team uncomfortable. Do you think Denver's defense will make
the Clippers offense more uncomfortable? Then the Clippers defense will
make the Denver offense. And for me right now, it
(23:18):
looks to me like the Clippers would be able to
make Denver's offense more uncomfortable than the other way around.
That's just my initial impression. Again, I want to be
very clear, I've not done my prep yet for the series.
That's the goal for this week. I'm going to watch
a ton of film. I'm gonna dig into numbers. I
might change my mind on this, but my initial impression
right now is that the Clippers should be favored to
(23:39):
beat the Nuggets and that I would pick them to
win that series. Same thing for the Lakers Wolves. These
are just my initial thoughts. Reserve the right to change
my mind. But I can tell you as a fan,
I was experiencing a great deal of anxiety worrying about
how to guard the Golden State Warriors. They were a
team that caused me anxiety on both ends of the
(24:00):
floor because one, I don't think they have the foot
speed to guard Steph, and then once you start throwing
a lot of attention at Steph, playmaking talent is how
you capitalize on that. I'm more worried about super smart,
high high IQ teams incrementally breaking down the Laker defense
than teams that can't playmate. The Warriors have all that
playmaking talent. They were a team that I thought was
(24:22):
going to be able to score against the Laker defense.
And then on the other end of the floor, it's
a team that switches a ton, super high IQ and
excellent in rotation at like speeding guys up, which I
thought could cause some problems for Laker role players and
capitalizing some of the indecision for Luca and Lebron. I
would have still picked the Lakers versus the Warriors. I
think they're a better basketball team. But I thought it
was a really tough matchup, and it was something that
(24:43):
I was worried about and I didn't want to see,
and I would rather see after they dealt with Dylan Brooks,
you know, kicking them in the balls for two straight weeks.
So that was what I was That was the ideal
outcome for me Timberwolves as a fan again, And I
might change mind after digging into the numbers a little bit,
but and digging into the film, but I think it's
(25:06):
the perfect matchup for the Lakers as a first round series.
The only team that I'd feel more confident in them
beating out of the teams that were beneath them in
the standings that they could potentially face in the first round.
The only team I'd feel more confident in them beating
is Memphis, and Memphis had no chance to get out
of the eight because they've just been playing really bad
basketball for a while. This was the team I wanted.
Here's my basic reasoning, surface level right now, before I
(25:30):
dig into the film and do the comprehensive breakdown. One
the Dorian Finney, Smith, Ruby, Hatchamurro lineup. The lineup with Austin,
Lebron and Luca, the lineup that I've often said is
the only other team other than Boston with their lineups
with Horford to perzingis the only other lineup in the
league that can truly present elite advantage creation with elite
five out spacing. That's the only lineups in the league
(25:53):
that can do that right now. Five guys where it's like,
you can't leave this guy open. If you leave him open,
he's just gonna hit shots. If you leave Dorian Finn
Smith open, he's gonna hit shots. If you leave Ruy open,
he's gonna hit shots. If you leave Austin open, he's
gonna hit shots. If you leave Lebron open, he's gonna
hit shots. And Luke is probably gonna have the ball
most of the time, so like it's a lineup that
can really truly space the floor, that lineup will either
(26:15):
play Rudy off the floor or at least neutralize his
rim protection. Rudy, when he can sit under the basket,
is a devastating defensive player. When he switches onto the
perimeter and has help behind him, he's a devastating defensive player.
When he has to guard in space, his defensive value
(26:38):
is mitigated a bit because he's not protecting the rim.
He's defending out on the perimeter, which he does well,
but not exactly as well as elite perimeter defenders. And
then is he bringing enough offensively on the other end
of the floor to justify him being out on the court.
That is the question we will see if it's very
possible that we uh seecres Finch basically just be like,
(27:00):
we're gonna leave Rudy out there, and even if we
lose some value in certain places, we're gonna gain value elsewhere.
We'll see, but that unit at the very least should
be able to neutralize Rudy's rim protection. Once you neutralize
Rudy's rim protection, now you're allowing Lebron and Luca to
pick on matchups without having to worry about being deterred
when they get to the rim. I think that that
(27:21):
is a huge advantage for the Lakers. Two, the Wolves
perimeter guys, all their perimeter defenders are way too small
for Luca. As we saw in the Western Conference Finals
last year, Jada McDaniels is just too skinny for Luca.
He can throw him around. He's one of the very
best perimeter defenders in the league who can't guard Luca.
And that is like just a really difficult situation to manage,
(27:44):
right off the stop, right off the top. I wanna
there's a potential here to like tinker with matchups. So
you could imagine a situation where you take Jada McDaniel's
and you put him on Austin Reeves instead, because he
at the very least can stop Austin Reeves. But then
it's like, now you're asking Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall
to guard Lebron James and Luka Doncic, and that's a
(28:04):
problem because one ant can't navigate screens, So if you
put him on Luca, he's just gonna run him through screens.
We saw that at the tail end of the Western
Conference Finals last year they tried on Luca. It didn't work.
Put Julius on Luca. Ah, that's gonna be barbecue chicken.
And yeah, you could put Lebron on you could put
Anthony Edwards on Lebron, but now you're leaving Julius on
(28:25):
Luca and that's just a huge problem. If you don't
put Jayden on Austin, Who's guarding Austin? Is it going
to be Mike Conley? Like Austin's gonna cook Mike Conley?
Like there's so many different like matchup issues with the
way that Minnesota can disperse their perimeter talent. If I
was coaching the Timberwolves, is what I would do is
I would lean a lot more into like Dante DiVincenzo,
(28:46):
and I would deploy their best defenders on Lebron in
Austin and try to mitigate them as much as possible,
understanding that you're probably not going to do much damage
to Luca anyway. So maybe like put Jayden on Lebron
and put Dante on Austin and essentially have those two
be uncomfortable all series and just see if Luca can
(29:06):
do enough damage to you and try to wear him
down with physicality over the course of the series. But
the bottom line is the Wolf's perimeter guys are just
not necessarily big and strong enough to bother a Luka
doncicin Lebron the way that like you see from Houston
for instance, or when Golden State like deploys Draymond and
Jimmy on the perimeter and stuff like that like that,
(29:29):
those options are just not available to Minnesota in this series.
And then lastly, as an advantage for the Lakers, I think,
as I mentioned earlier, what worries me the most for
the Laker defense is playmaking talent. The reason why is
there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with JJ Redick's defense.
They don't have rim protection, they don't have a ton
of elite perimeter defenders that usually are hiding at least
(29:50):
two targets on the floor at any given time. But
what they do is they just have a ton of
like elite defensive game planning in terms of like funneling
guy into where they specifically want their help side set up.
They're good in rotation. They've got a couple of athletes
on the floor all the time that are flying around
and helping recover situations. You need to break down the
(30:10):
Laker defense with incremental playmaking, like creating that initial advantage
and the guy drives a close out and then another
guy makes a great read and a guy makes a
smart cut. If you do that kind of stuff, you
can pick the Lakers apart. And the Warriors have done
that in their most recent matchup against the Lakers. This
Timberwolves team is not a good aggregate playmaking team. They're
a team that I think would be susceptible to a
(30:32):
lot of the gimmicky stuff that JJ Reddick will do.
I expect an assortment of double teams against Anthony Edwards.
I expect a lot of pressure being put on Ants
to be an elite playmaker in this series. I just
think from a matchup standpoint, a lot of stuff just
kind of lines up with the Lakers' strengths and avoids
some of the Lakers' weaknesses, and so I think it both.
(30:53):
I think it's just a really favorable matchup for them.
Now again, where another opportunity for the Timberwolves in this series.
Where the Lakers struggled in the past with Aunt and
Julius Anthony Edwards in particular in their last matchup, even
though the Lakers controlled that matchup from start to finish,
they were funneling Anthony Edwards. They were doing the same
defense they used against shake Yos Alexander, So they're funneling
(31:16):
him towards the sideline, like opening up their stance. Basically,
they did this against Jalen Brunson too, if you remember
they used it against Shay. They use it against Jalen.
They used it. It's basically their defense against elite star
guards in this league. They funnel him towards the sideline
with like basically a catch waiting. So a helper like
that's already zoned up on the strong side outside the block,
(31:36):
like waiting for that drive. And Ant did have some
success in that game, being like, oh, you're gonna give
me a runway, Well, I'm way more athletic than you guys,
And he would just shoot that gap and he'd be
right in the teeth of all the help. But he's
such an elite athlete that he would either just finish
over everybody or he would do that slow down step
he does and wait for everybody to la Hi back
on the ground before he goes back up and score
(31:56):
An did have some success against that defensive game plan
before he got ejected in that game. And then lastly,
Julius Randall over the years has had some success against
Ruey Hotcha Mura. It's something I've talked about on the
show before, the idea of like holding ground with your shoulder.
Ruey has a little bit of a tendency to give
ground against physicality, and so if Ruy Hatcha Mura gets
the Julius Randall matchup instead of Lebron James to start
(32:17):
the game, that's something I could see Ruey having some
issues with. It's very possible that the Lakers deploy Lebron
on Jaden McDaniels thinking they can use him as a roamer,
and I think they could end up in some situations
where Julius gets comfortable if they do that. So I
don't want to sit here and pretend like Minnesota doesn't
have advantages. They obviously do. I just think the Lakers
have more advantages in this matchup. This was the matchup
(32:38):
that I was most comfortable with as a first round
series for the Lakers other than Memphis. Again, we're gonna
do a deep dive as we get later into this week,
but those are my initial impressions. It's all I have
for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for
supporting me and supporting the show. I will see you
guys tomorrow morning with series previews on the Bucks and
the Pacers and the Pistons and the Knicks, and then
(32:58):
again tomorrow night for the Warriors play. As always, appreciate
you guys, and I will see you that. What's up guys,
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting
OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us
if you guys would take a second and leave a
rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys
supporting us, but if you could take a minute to
do that, I'd really appreciate it. The volume
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