March 31, 2025 • 32 mins
Jason reacts to a rollercoaster weekend for the Los Angeles Lakers including losing to the Chicago Bulls on Josh Giddey's buzzer beater and why LA needs more consistency from LeBron James and Luka Doncic. He also discusses Zaccharie Risacher making the leap for the Atlanta Hawks and it being over for the Phoenix Suns after their beatdown from the Houston Rockets and Kevin Durant's ankle sprain.
4:30 - Lakers rollercoaster
19:15 - Zaccharie Risacher
28:15 - Over for the Suns
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Episode Transcript
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(01:50):
All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy Monday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys had an
incredible weekend. It is good to be back. I had
a very fun weekend at the sphere with my wife.
We went to three Dead shows and just an incredible experience.
I've seen them. I think I was talking through this
with my brother last night. I think I've seen nine
Dead shows now, so I think I officially qualify as
(02:11):
a deadhead. I've really grown to appreciate that as like
one of the final opportunities we have to see in
old school jam band in their prime. And it's been
a lot of fun. That said, it's time to get
serious about the NBA. We are three. I was thinking
about this when I was recording with Colin last night.
And by the way, if you haven't seen that yet,
go to the Colin Coward podcast YouTube channel. We talked
(02:34):
last night. We talked a bunch of Celtics, we talked
a bunch of Thunder, we talked some Lakers, we talked
to some Cooper Flag. We got to do a bunch
of stuff, so make sure you guys check that out.
But while we were talking, we were thinking about the
next time we're gonna record, and it's gonna be in
two Sundays. Two Sundays from now, we're gonna know four
of the eight first round series, and that following Sunday
we're gonna know all eight of them, and we're gonna
(02:54):
have series previews and we have the play in tournament.
There's just so much exciting basketball ahead. It feels very
very much like the calm before the storm. But that's it.
I'm glad I got to take a little bit of
a break and do some traveling, but I'm excited to
get back to it. Today. We're going to be talking
a little bit of Lakers after their uneven road trip,
which has shown a lot of extended stretches of dominance,
but also some execution lapses, including a catastrophic loss in
(03:18):
Chicago to the Bulls. Or we're talking a little bit
about that. I want to shout out Zachary Rissache, who
had a career high thirty six points last night, and
there was some stuff with him that was popping in
a film session I did with him surrounding a Hawk's
Rockets game about a week ago. So I want to
kind of talk a little bit about Zachary Rissache's rookie season.
And then at the tail end of the show, I
think we finally saw the nail, the final nail go
(03:40):
in the coffin of the Phoenix Suns last night, as
they just got demolished by the Houston Rockets. So I
want to talk a little bit about the Suns at
the tail end of the show, and then we are
going live tonight after the TNT Slates so we're going
to be hitting Celtic's Grizzlies as well as Lakers Rockets
in tonight's show. You guys are the joke before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. Miss
any more of our videos, follow me on Twitter at
(04:01):
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forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast
on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
leave a rating and a review on that front. We
also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook where Jackson's doing some incredible work this year.
Make sure you guys follow us there, and then, last
but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions and YouTube
comments so we can keep getting to them throughout the
(04:22):
remainder of the season. We're doing a mail bag I
think I'm recording one tomorrow, so make sure you get
a bunch of mail bag questions in the comments of
this video for what we're recording tomorrow, which I believe
is going to air on Wednesday. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So after the Pacers game, I talked a
lot about the idea of the Lakers having these brief
(04:44):
catastrophic lapses in execution that are costing them games or
costing them opportunities to close games out more comfortably. Since
the Pacers game, they lost an absolutely insane game against
the Bulls. The Bulls made eleven threes in the fourth quarter,
including a half court shot from Josh Giddy to win it.
And a win in Memphis against the Grizzlies similarly where
(05:04):
they led by twenty and then ended up trailing in
the fourth quarter. And the Grizzlies have been spiraling a
little bit, and they just fired their coach, but they
have a ton of talent. Joan Morant was back. They
were the five seed, I believe at the time, or
the four to five seed. They had the same record
as the Lakers, a couple of quality opponents on the
road that the Lakers dominated for stretches, yet still had
to manage to almost lose. I talked about those issues
(05:27):
after the Pacers game, and a couple of great examples
in the two following games. Again, they've played three good
teams on the road in this three game span. The
Pacers had won seven out of eight. The Bulls had
won eight out of ten. And the Grizzlies were in
a cold spell, like we said, but their five seed
and they've been great at home all year. The Lakers
led by at least seventeen points in all three of
(05:51):
those games. They led by twenty against Memphis, they led
by eighteen in the fourth quarter of the Bulls game.
Yet they trailed in the fourth quarter of every single
one of those three games. Actually managed to lose one
of them. And if it wasn't for a Lebron tapping
at the buzzer against Indiana, they would have gone one
to two in those three games. Long extended stretches of
(06:14):
dominance undone with these brief catastrophic laps As an execution
the Grizzlies game, I was watching it yesterday in the
morning before we went to the airport. They were up
fifty to thirty. On a Lebron James shot put them
up twenty. The Grizzlies cut that twenty point lead to
six in four minutes. Imagine dominating a team for a
(06:39):
quarter and a half and losing ninety percent of that
progress in a four minute span where you let go
of the rope. It ends up being the same issues
every single time. One of these two. On offense, they
walked the ball up the floor slowly. They usually succumbed
to ball pressure and either get too deep into the
(06:59):
shot clock and have to take bad shots, or they
end up having to face a trap or something like that,
and Lebron, Luca or Austin will be sloppy with the
way they handle that ball pressure and they'll turn the
ball over and they'll end up going the other way
in transition. On defense, and this is one of the
most interesting things about this Laker defense. Their defense is
predicated on keeping the ball in front of a defender,
(07:22):
always keeping someone between them and the rim, so they
have to make something over the top. You'll see with
their dribble penetration the way they handle it like the
guy on the ball has a job to slide his
feet and contain the ball. Great example I thought from
the Grizzlies game was Austin Reeves. I thought Austin just
did an excellent job for most of the game in
reps against John Moran and against Desmond Bain, sliding his feet,
(07:44):
absorbing contact, flattening out drives. That's what you want to do,
but inevitably you're gonna give up dribble penetration. This Lakers
team is going to give up dribble penetration. They have
too many of those slower footed guys on the floor.
Foot speed is not necessarily the strength this Laker team
outside of a handful of guys, right So from there
they have a plan. They're always funneling towards the sideline
(08:07):
and they're offering help from the baseline. And generally speaking,
if a guy gets beat off the dribble, that guy
who's guarding the ball will just bail and run to
the next rotation and there will be somebody almost to
like it kind of feels almost like catching, like the
guy is the helper is catching the drive, sitting in
his stance, arms out wide, right around like that first block,
(08:28):
second block, waiting for the guy on the drive in
help as the team rotates around him. And that's how
the Lakers deal with dribble penetration. They basically switch on
the drive. If that makes sense that that's the type
of scheme requires a lot of hard work. The on
ball guy has to rotate out of it. The helper
(08:49):
has to be there in time. There are these brief
openings where guys have to rotate to shooters. It's a
lot of running, a lot of reading the play, a
lot of communication. And when the Lakers do those things
this year, they've been great defensively. They did it consistently
for a few months there from mid January to early March,
(09:09):
right and we've seen flashes of it in the last week.
They hold Chicago to seventeen points in that third quarter
when they go on their big run to take the lead.
They shut Indy down in that second quarter when they
first took their big lead in that game. But since
Lebron's injury, it's been a we'll do it when we
feel like it kind of thing. And again like when
(09:34):
in the two main ways that I see them let
go of the rope in these like kind of catch
help type of rotation situations, it are like at the
end of the Indie game, Lucas starts getting beat off
the dribble, Ruie starts getting beat off the dribble. The
catches were not there. The Lakers were just hugging up
off the ball, leaving dudes on an island, and they
(09:54):
were giving up easy like concession driving lamps. Again, that's
a fundamental part. So what makes their defense good is
they're loaded up, they have their help ready, they rotate
out of it, and they literally almost blew a game
in Indiana by completely stopping that at the tail end
of the game. The second way that you'll end up
(10:15):
seeing it is in overhelp situations. This we saw in
the Bulls game. It's okay to acknowledge that the Bulls
shot eleven for fourteen from three in the quarter. That's
insane under any circumstances. A lot of impressive shot making, right,
but you have to find a way as a defense
to make guys uncomfortable, to make them miss, And there
(10:37):
were several execution errors in that quarter which are going
to breed a red hot shooting stretch. They helped off
of the strong side corner twice in that fourth quarter
against the Bulls. You guys have probably heard this before,
this concept of don't help off the strong side corner.
There's a very specific reason why you don't want to
help off of the strong side corner. It is the
(10:58):
easiest pass in the world basketball player to make. You're
funneling guys towards the sideline. Guys on the left wing,
he rips to the left, the guy sliding with him,
he's got dribble penetration. What's the easiest pass in the
world for that guy to make is if the guy
in the left corner steps over and it's like, okay,
(11:21):
little ten foot chess pass to a wide open guy
standing in the corner literally ten feet away, writing clear view,
it's an easy pass to make. Right what you're supposed
to do in that situation. That guy, if he wants
to gap to where he feels comfortable closing out, that's
one thing where he just reaches and recovers. But that's
not the guy you ever want to concede the pass to.
(11:43):
You have help coming from the baseline. When the help
comes from the baseline, there's a way to beat that help,
but it is a substantially tougher pass. Now imagine a
different scenario, left wing rip, left dribble penetration. We have
Lebron on Kevin Herder in the left corner in the
(12:03):
fourth quarter of the Bulls game. Lebron helped off Kevin
Herder got a wide open three, and he nailed it.
Let's say Lebron's gapping but stays in control of Herder.
Now the help comes from Jackson Hayes along the baseline,
who's open the skip for a left handed dribbler trying
to go across his body and acrossed helpers covering twenty
(12:28):
five feet in the air thirty feet in the air
to get to the open man. That's why you don't
help off the strong side corner. It's simply about knowing
where the help is coming from and making the passer
make a more difficult pass. A more difficult pass over
a longer stretch of space that's looping or deflected or
not on target is much easier for your defense to
(12:51):
rotate out of. That is basketball one oh one. There
were two strong side corner helps that gave wide open
threes to Kobe White and Order in that fourth herder
in that fourth quarter. Those are execution errors. Jackson Hayes
overhelped on a drive left Nikole Vusovich wide open at
the top of the key. Again, we talked about this.
When a guy has a drive flattened out and under control,
(13:16):
he now has to take a contested, off balance layup
substantially lower percentage shot on a two. Like if he
goes forty five percent on that layup, that's zero point
nine points per shot. Your defense can live with that
it's the straight line drives where it's like he's going
to make a layup every time. That's when you need
(13:36):
to be there and ready to help. You overhelp, give
up a wide open three to Vusovich. Luka had a
very similar one where a driver was contained, left Patrick
Williams wide open at the top of the key. Lebron
two awful reps in the final minute uh go screen
from Kevin Herder that the Lakers were switching all night.
It was a clear switch. Lebron looked like he was
on the bus because they're up, you know, five or
(13:58):
six with less than a minute left. He thinks the
game is over. It's not over. He's lazy. He's on
He's standing upright out of his stance. Kevin Herder slips
out of the screen, hits a wide open three the
possession before the Kobe White three that gave him the lead.
Lebron overhelps on Avusvich upper like kind of left wing
area catch, ends up leaving Patrick Williams wide open in
(14:20):
the left corner right before he threw the ball away
throwing the ball to Kobe White. These are execution errors.
I saw a lot of Laker fans saying like, oh,
I cannot believe the Bulls shot eleven for fourteen from three.
We have got to get out of this mindset of
thinking that shooting is all just luck. It is not.
You can play teams into missus and makes to a
certain extent, I would argue that process has a much
(14:44):
bigger role in shot result than luck, even though we
can acknowledge that luck does play a role. And again,
like the Lakers, they they have an opportunity to win
the title this year, but there are certain non negotiables
things that they absolutely must have tightened up if they're
(15:06):
gonna get to where they want to go, and one
of them is they have to be the best defensive
version of themselves, which is going to require a wire
to wire level of execution. I know they can do it.
They held what six or seven straight teams to one
hundred and two points or fewer. They are capable of
doing that. They have not been doing that since Lebron
James came back from injury. I just think it's at
(15:27):
least worth acknowledging as a trend and something to keep
an eye on. The bottom line is the Lakers just
played three good teams on the road, went in methodically
dominated them to large leads, and yet they were one
Lebron tip in from going one and two. I'm not
trying to be all gloom and doom. I'm still super
high on the Lakers. I was listening while I was
(15:49):
on the airplane yesterday to Pet and Darius from Laker
Film Room, and Darius Oreano does great work. He also
writes for Lakers dot com. He was talking about how
he viewed these two games, these two kind ugly games
to Indiana and Chicago, as part of the Lakers returning
to form before the Lebron injury. I totally agree. I
(16:11):
do think that these last three games are a sign,
especially after they looked bad against Orlando and what was
the of the first Chicago game, they are progressing towards
being what they were before the Lebron injury. I am
still super high on this team. I'm still very tempted
to pick them to win the West when we do
our playoff predictions in the coming weeks. But I wanted
(16:33):
to harp on these execution lapses because I do view
them as a non negotiable thing. If how many champions
do you know of an NBA history? They had a
reputation for extended like or like consistent three or four
minute stretches in every game where they just don't play
hard and they don't execute and they hemorrhage leads. It
(16:54):
burns you, it does, don't tell me it doesn't. It's
happened so many times in NBA history that the Bucks
Raptors series, when they had that big lead in Game
four before they blew it the the the Lakers, excuse me,
the Miami Heat blowing that game to the Dallas Mavericks
(17:15):
in Game two back in twenty eleven. There are so
many examples in NBA history where series who the trophy
goes to swings on a team blowing a lead, a
team not finishing the job. Job's not finished until the
buzzer sounds, and that is a very important hallmark trait
(17:39):
for NBA champions. And I just would like to see
before we get to mid April, I would like to
see a week or two stretch where the Lakers show
that consistent level of execution from buzzer to buzzer again.
We are going to be covering the Lakers Rockets game
tonight on YouTube, including the Celtics Grizzlies game live on
(17:59):
YouTube after the final buzzer of that last game. Let's
move on to Zachary Usache in the Hawk. So he
drops the career high thirty six in a dominant victory
over the Bucks. So the third game this year he
scored over thirty points. Zach's played twenty seven consecutive games.
In those games, he's averaging fifteen point two points per game.
(18:19):
He's shooting fifty two percent from the field forty three
percent from three on over five attempts per game. He's
showcasing a little bit more of a quick release against
the Bucks. Hit a couple of no dip jumpers. Those
are where the ball is already is caught in the
pocket and you flow immediately into the shot instead of
having to catch somewhere else and then dip down into
(18:39):
your release and like kind of restart your chain of
energy from the floor up to the top of the shot.
He's showing a lot of really high level scoring. I
want to talk about this concept for a minute because
I think it's a really important part of team building
moving forward in the NBA. Scoring is the ultimate compliment
to playmaking. I've been thinking a lot about this content
(19:00):
at this season. When you have elite playmaking on your team,
Guys like Trey Young, guys like Lebron, Luca and Nicola Jokic,
these really really high level passers. You need elite play
finishing to pay those sequences off. Whether it's a vertical
spacer like Aaron Gordon alongside Jokic, or Derek Lively alongside Luca,
(19:23):
Jackson Hayes alongside Luca, or a deadly spot up guy
someone like Kyle Korter back with Lebron when he was
with the Cavs, or Malik Beasley playing with Kid Cunningham.
Guys that can pay off these sequences from your playmakers.
But one of the manifestations of that type of player
that I've been talking a lot about this year, I've
been referring to it as the weak side scoring forward.
(19:43):
This is why I went into detail about the strong
side corner help thing that we talked about earlier. The
same concept is built into pick and roll coverages too.
There's a reason why they don't offer low man help
out of the strong side corner. They offer low man
help out of the weak side corner. Why do they
do that? So that for the same reason on an
ISO drive, if a guy's getting downhill in a ball screen.
The opening for him as a playmaker is across the
(20:05):
court and across his body. That's the goal. You want
to make it across the court and across the body,
across as many help defenders as possible to make that
past difficult, right, but that is ultimately the opening, and
all of the best playmakers in the league consistently capitalize
on those openings. We've talked about this concept a ton
making reads in pick and roll. What are my reads?
(20:29):
Big man steps up, I'm making a read based on
the role man or the weak side corner, based on
what the low man does. If the loeman steps over,
I'm skipping it. If the one man stays home, excuse me,
I'm throwing the lob. If the big man drops back
and the guard is chasing, my read is to shoot
in the mid range. My read is to get as
close to the basket for as high percentage of a
shot as possible. Those are the pick and roll reads.
(20:51):
And so when these teams, the majority of teams are
bringing their big up to the level and bringing the
low man over, that skip passes open, and those skip
passes are going to be made, especially by Trey young.
In these sorts of situations, there's a bunch of different
ways that you can look to score right. It's not
just hitting spot up threes. It's running your lane in
(21:13):
transition as an athlete, it's driving closeouts. It's oh, they
switched a screen or we ran in transition and got
a cross match, and now there's a guard on this forward.
You need that forward to do a lot more of
this high level scoring. These are professional scorers, but primarily
in an off ball context. Examples are like Michael Porter,
(21:36):
Junior og An, Andobi Ruy Hatcha, Mura, DeAndre Hunter, Lori
Markenen is kind of a high end version of that
for the Jazz Denny Avdia, even though he's been doing
more on ball stuff as of late, Kyle Kuzma, PJ Washington,
this is becoming an extremely important archetype in the NBA.
Zachary Rissaschet has been doing some of the best week
(21:56):
side scoring work you'll see out of a rookie four
starts in transition. I was watching the Rockets Hawks game
from about a week ago. You can find him on
my Twitter feed. I shared some clips, but Zachary Rissachet
was amazing in transition in that game, just literally out
running everybody up the floor, didn't matter if the rebound
(22:18):
was captured and he was on the baseline. He was
sprinting and it was so visually jarring that I clipped
these examples and I put them on my Twitter feed
for you guys to see. Watch these three clips. Watch
the way Zachary Rissache runs. Watch when he gets his
head of steam, how it literally looks like he's moving
a different speed than everyone else on the floor. He's
(22:40):
a gazelle. It's crazy. And he'll get two or three
wide open attempts at the rim every game just by
running the floor. And that pairs perfectly with Trey Young,
who's one of the best hit a head passers in
the league. I had to coach my last year in
college at Arizona Christian University. Shout out to Jeff Rudder.
They just won their conference. Turn him in on a
(23:00):
buzzer beater, crazy buzzer beater, and then they made it
to the final four before losing Naia tournament. But he
used to say to all of us that you can
manufacture twelve points a game just by getting a transition layup,
running the floor, crashing the offensive glass and getting to
the foul line once per half. It's such a simple
(23:21):
way to produce in a basketball game. And even if
you take the foul line part out, because obviously there's
some out of your control stuff there with the whistle,
if you just crash the offensive glass and you just
run your lane in transition and you get one bucket
a half each, that's eight points right there. You're one
bucket away from double figures. It is such a simple
way to produce in a basketball game. Run every time,
(23:44):
crash every time. And he presents such a massive passing
target for Tray because he's so athletic, so rangy and long.
He caught a behind the back lob from Trey in
the Bucks game where he dunked it behind his head
because it's just a massive passing target. Then in the
half court, as we talked about, when they load up
(24:04):
the strong side in those skips, it's just like king
of the court. When you're playing with your buddies on
short closeouts, you need to knock down threes. He's starting
to do that at a really high level. In this
twenty seven game span, he's at forty three percent on
over five attempts per game. Now, what's gonna start happening.
If he can maintain that level of shooting for a
(24:24):
substantial amount of time, he's gonna start getting chased off
the line. And that's where I think he has a
ton of potential as a score. He has downhill burst
attacking close outs. He had a dunk against Shangoon in
the Rockets game where he drove a close out off
the left wing and just hammered it with his left
hand on Shangon's face, a wildly athletic play. He has
(24:46):
good footwork on like spins in Euros. He had a
bucket against the Nets. Driving a close out against Nick
Claxton in the left corner. He jabbed, got back to
it deep in the corner with a hesitation drib will
cross back over, got into the lane, pump, faked, pivoted
over his right shoulder on his step through for a
left handed finish. That's a really high level scoring move.
He had one on Harden off the left wing, jabbed left,
(25:09):
drove right, snatched back to the left, drove high gather
through zubach and finished at the basket. These are really
high level scoring moves attacking with an advantage in those
king of the court situations. He had a left to
right euro against Zubatch a couple weeks ago where he
drove out of the corner. Like left to right euro
(25:29):
is one of the most complex footwork pieces you'll see
for a right handed player. Most guys don't know how
to do it, and he still has a ton of
growth in front of him. Shooting hot for a couple
of months is not the same as being an elite shooter.
We've all seen it. This guy's shooting forty three percent
from three over his last whatever. Games. You gotta do
it for a long stretch of time before teams game
(25:50):
plan for you in that way. That that will take
a few years probably, but that will be what truly
unlocks his off the dribble game, because I don't think
like as good as he is in the open court
as an athlete, he's his start stop quickness isn't quite
as impressive as his athleticism in the open court, which
is going to make it so it's a little harder
(26:11):
for him to beat people off the dribble unless his
jumper comes around, which again will take some time, but
that's part of his development. He still needs a lot
of improvement on the defensive end too. His athleticism has
not translated yet as like a really high level off
ball defender. He's often a bit behind the play on
his help rotations, which prevents him from having an impact.
That's about processing speed. That's about like learning the actions
(26:33):
so well that you know what's gonna happen as it's developing,
so that you can be there a step earlier. And again,
as we talked about, his start stop quickness isn't as good.
That's why that processing speed is going to be so
important for him because he's gonna need to be there
sooner in terms of the way he's reading these plays.
But the bottom line is he's a rookie that projects
to be one of the best people at his particular
(26:55):
job in the NBA, which is being that weak side
scoring forward, which is verying for Hawks fans. I think
it might officially be over for the Suns. They got
absolutely smacked by the Rockets last night. Shane Gouon was
cooking all their bigs again. Jalen Green poured in another
thirty three points email Udoka in the second quarter brought
(27:15):
out that zone defense that they that he's been using
a bunch for the last month or so, and they
immediately sparked a massive run in that second quarter and
they never looked back. It was a complete and total
physical domination by Houston. They out rebounded them by six,
They forced nineteen turnovers, They scored thirty four points off
of those turnovers. They won the fast break points battle
(27:36):
thirty two to eight. Houston scored forty points in transition
in total in this game. But I want to focus
on Phoenix here for a second, because we're gonna hit
Houston in tonight's show as they play the Lakers again.
We're going live on YouTube tonight after the T and
T slate. What did I say about Phoenix a month ago?
I said they struck me as the stereotypical, older veteran
(27:58):
team that knows deep down that they don't really have
a chance to win anything this year. And the way
that that's gonna manifest is in these short week or
two long bursts where they compete and they look they
look decent, they defend their rebound, they do their jobs,
but that they inevitably let go of the rope because
they can't sustain it, because they don't believe, and that's
(28:21):
exactly what just happened. They won five out of six,
some quality wins versus the Calves and the Bucks. They
were defending in rebounding top ten and both. I think
they might have been top five in both over that span.
But the NBA schedule does not let up. Boston came
to town without Tatum and kicked their ass. Then it
was Minnesota, then it was Houston, a couple of these big,
(28:43):
strong athletic teams that were going to truly test Phoenix's
commitment to the work, and instead of hanging onto the rope,
they just completely let go of it. One thirty seven
point four defensive rating in the last three games, they
gave an offensive rebound on thirty five percent of opponents misses.
(29:07):
That's damagingly bad. And now Katie has an ankle sprain,
Anthony Davis is back, and the MAVs are climbing in
the standings. We talked before the year that there was
going to be a team that had dead serious championship
aspirations but that would miss the playoffs entirely, and no
matter who that would be, it would be a catastrophe.
And it looks like it's going to be the Suns.
(29:29):
I keep watching them and thinking that it's not a
Kevin Durant and Devin Booker problem. But at the same time,
I do think it's worth mentioning that neither of those
two guys can really leverage their physical gifts on the game.
Katie has length and he has mobility that helps him
on defense, but he carries a massive offensive load, so
(29:51):
he can't devote too many resources to that end, and
he's not very strong. He can be pushed around, which
is very very dangerous quality for a front court player.
Defensively on the glass duck ins things along those lines.
It's tough to do that job. Outside of like rangey
rotating and rim contests. There's just a limitation when you
can't win the ground battle. And again, it's just one
(30:15):
of those things where you watch these other teams. It's
like watching Houston Jalen Green can leverage his athleticism to
get to spots. Shane Gouon is bullying these dudes. When
you watch these teams that have these players, where it's like,
I can inflict myself physically on the game to assist
(30:36):
my team in these key areas that they need help.
Devin Booker and KD are not necessarily as capable. This
is why I still believe it's worth exploring the idea
of keeping those two. They still give you such a
high offensive floor in terms of shot quality. I would
(30:56):
still just look to find every discount bruiser I can
find at every position group and try to breed that
culture around them, because regardless of what direction you go
this summer, even if you do choose to get rid
of Kevin Durant or Devin Booker or both, you still
need an organizational identity. I talked about this concept after
the Celtics win against the Suns last week. I talked
(31:17):
about it with Colin Coward last night on his show.
You need an organizational identity that is separate from your stars.
And so regardless of what direction you go, you need
to begin the process of establishing that new owner, new coach.
You need to start establishing a basketball culture. This season
was a massive step back. And so that's the thing, like,
(31:41):
unless you think there's some magical trade that's going to
just solve all your problems, which I don't think there is,
you need to begin the process of changing that culture anyway.
And so from that standpoint, if you tweak things enough
around those two, that's where Kevin Durant, Devin Booker's upside
can actually start to lift you to where you want
to go. But this is a team that is completely
(32:02):
let go of the rope, and I think I would
be stunned at this point if we got to see
them play meaningful basketball here in a couple of weeks.
All right, guys, that is all I have for today,
is I should say for this morning. We'll be back
tonight live on live on YouTube after the T and
T games. There is always a sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show, and I will
see you later tonight. What's so guys? As always, I
(32:22):
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
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(01:50):
All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume
heavy Monday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys had an
incredible weekend. It is good to be back. I had
a very fun weekend at the sphere with my wife.
We went to three Dead shows and just an incredible experience.
I've seen them. I think I was talking through this
with my brother last night. I think I've seen nine
Dead shows now, so I think I officially qualify as
(02:11):
a deadhead. I've really grown to appreciate that as like
one of the final opportunities we have to see in
old school jam band in their prime. And it's been
a lot of fun. That said, it's time to get
serious about the NBA. We are three. I was thinking
about this when I was recording with Colin last night.
And by the way, if you haven't seen that yet,
go to the Colin Coward podcast YouTube channel. We talked
(02:34):
last night. We talked a bunch of Celtics, we talked
a bunch of Thunder, we talked some Lakers, we talked
to some Cooper Flag. We got to do a bunch
of stuff, so make sure you guys check that out.
But while we were talking, we were thinking about the
next time we're gonna record, and it's gonna be in
two Sundays. Two Sundays from now, we're gonna know four
of the eight first round series, and that following Sunday
we're gonna know all eight of them, and we're gonna
(02:54):
have series previews and we have the play in tournament.
There's just so much exciting basketball ahead. It feels very
very much like the calm before the storm. But that's it.
I'm glad I got to take a little bit of
a break and do some traveling, but I'm excited to
get back to it. Today. We're going to be talking
a little bit of Lakers after their uneven road trip,
which has shown a lot of extended stretches of dominance,
but also some execution lapses, including a catastrophic loss in
(03:18):
Chicago to the Bulls. Or we're talking a little bit
about that. I want to shout out Zachary Rissache, who
had a career high thirty six points last night, and
there was some stuff with him that was popping in
a film session I did with him surrounding a Hawk's
Rockets game about a week ago. So I want to
kind of talk a little bit about Zachary Rissache's rookie season.
And then at the tail end of the show, I
think we finally saw the nail, the final nail go
(03:40):
in the coffin of the Phoenix Suns last night, as
they just got demolished by the Houston Rockets. So I
want to talk a little bit about the Suns at
the tail end of the show, and then we are
going live tonight after the TNT Slates so we're going
to be hitting Celtic's Grizzlies as well as Lakers Rockets
in tonight's show. You guys are the joke before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. Miss
any more of our videos, follow me on Twitter at
(04:01):
underscore jsonlt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't
forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast
on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you
leave a rating and a review on that front. We
also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook where Jackson's doing some incredible work this year.
Make sure you guys follow us there, and then, last
but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions and YouTube
comments so we can keep getting to them throughout the
(04:22):
remainder of the season. We're doing a mail bag I
think I'm recording one tomorrow, so make sure you get
a bunch of mail bag questions in the comments of
this video for what we're recording tomorrow, which I believe
is going to air on Wednesday. All right, let's talk
some basketball. So after the Pacers game, I talked a
lot about the idea of the Lakers having these brief
(04:44):
catastrophic lapses in execution that are costing them games or
costing them opportunities to close games out more comfortably. Since
the Pacers game, they lost an absolutely insane game against
the Bulls. The Bulls made eleven threes in the fourth quarter,
including a half court shot from Josh Giddy to win it.
And a win in Memphis against the Grizzlies similarly where
(05:04):
they led by twenty and then ended up trailing in
the fourth quarter. And the Grizzlies have been spiraling a
little bit, and they just fired their coach, but they
have a ton of talent. Joan Morant was back. They
were the five seed, I believe at the time, or
the four to five seed. They had the same record
as the Lakers, a couple of quality opponents on the
road that the Lakers dominated for stretches, yet still had
to manage to almost lose. I talked about those issues
(05:27):
after the Pacers game, and a couple of great examples
in the two following games. Again, they've played three good
teams on the road in this three game span. The
Pacers had won seven out of eight. The Bulls had
won eight out of ten. And the Grizzlies were in
a cold spell, like we said, but their five seed
and they've been great at home all year. The Lakers
led by at least seventeen points in all three of
(05:51):
those games. They led by twenty against Memphis, they led
by eighteen in the fourth quarter of the Bulls game.
Yet they trailed in the fourth quarter of every single
one of those three games. Actually managed to lose one
of them. And if it wasn't for a Lebron tapping
at the buzzer against Indiana, they would have gone one
to two in those three games. Long extended stretches of
(06:14):
dominance undone with these brief catastrophic laps As an execution
the Grizzlies game, I was watching it yesterday in the
morning before we went to the airport. They were up
fifty to thirty. On a Lebron James shot put them
up twenty. The Grizzlies cut that twenty point lead to
six in four minutes. Imagine dominating a team for a
(06:39):
quarter and a half and losing ninety percent of that
progress in a four minute span where you let go
of the rope. It ends up being the same issues
every single time. One of these two. On offense, they
walked the ball up the floor slowly. They usually succumbed
to ball pressure and either get too deep into the
(06:59):
shot clock and have to take bad shots, or they
end up having to face a trap or something like that,
and Lebron, Luca or Austin will be sloppy with the
way they handle that ball pressure and they'll turn the
ball over and they'll end up going the other way
in transition. On defense, and this is one of the
most interesting things about this Laker defense. Their defense is
predicated on keeping the ball in front of a defender,
(07:22):
always keeping someone between them and the rim, so they
have to make something over the top. You'll see with
their dribble penetration the way they handle it like the
guy on the ball has a job to slide his
feet and contain the ball. Great example I thought from
the Grizzlies game was Austin Reeves. I thought Austin just
did an excellent job for most of the game in
reps against John Moran and against Desmond Bain, sliding his feet,
(07:44):
absorbing contact, flattening out drives. That's what you want to do,
but inevitably you're gonna give up dribble penetration. This Lakers
team is going to give up dribble penetration. They have
too many of those slower footed guys on the floor.
Foot speed is not necessarily the strength this Laker team
outside of a handful of guys, right So from there
they have a plan. They're always funneling towards the sideline
(08:07):
and they're offering help from the baseline. And generally speaking,
if a guy gets beat off the dribble, that guy
who's guarding the ball will just bail and run to
the next rotation and there will be somebody almost to
like it kind of feels almost like catching, like the
guy is the helper is catching the drive, sitting in
his stance, arms out wide, right around like that first block,
(08:28):
second block, waiting for the guy on the drive in
help as the team rotates around him. And that's how
the Lakers deal with dribble penetration. They basically switch on
the drive. If that makes sense that that's the type
of scheme requires a lot of hard work. The on
ball guy has to rotate out of it. The helper
(08:49):
has to be there in time. There are these brief
openings where guys have to rotate to shooters. It's a
lot of running, a lot of reading the play, a
lot of communication. And when the Lakers do those things
this year, they've been great defensively. They did it consistently
for a few months there from mid January to early March,
(09:09):
right and we've seen flashes of it in the last week.
They hold Chicago to seventeen points in that third quarter
when they go on their big run to take the lead.
They shut Indy down in that second quarter when they
first took their big lead in that game. But since
Lebron's injury, it's been a we'll do it when we
feel like it kind of thing. And again like when
(09:34):
in the two main ways that I see them let
go of the rope in these like kind of catch
help type of rotation situations, it are like at the
end of the Indie game, Lucas starts getting beat off
the dribble, Ruie starts getting beat off the dribble. The
catches were not there. The Lakers were just hugging up
off the ball, leaving dudes on an island, and they
(09:54):
were giving up easy like concession driving lamps. Again, that's
a fundamental part. So what makes their defense good is
they're loaded up, they have their help ready, they rotate
out of it, and they literally almost blew a game
in Indiana by completely stopping that at the tail end
of the game. The second way that you'll end up
(10:15):
seeing it is in overhelp situations. This we saw in
the Bulls game. It's okay to acknowledge that the Bulls
shot eleven for fourteen from three in the quarter. That's
insane under any circumstances. A lot of impressive shot making, right,
but you have to find a way as a defense
to make guys uncomfortable, to make them miss, And there
(10:37):
were several execution errors in that quarter which are going
to breed a red hot shooting stretch. They helped off
of the strong side corner twice in that fourth quarter
against the Bulls. You guys have probably heard this before,
this concept of don't help off the strong side corner.
There's a very specific reason why you don't want to
help off of the strong side corner. It is the
(10:58):
easiest pass in the world basketball player to make. You're
funneling guys towards the sideline. Guys on the left wing,
he rips to the left, the guy sliding with him,
he's got dribble penetration. What's the easiest pass in the
world for that guy to make is if the guy
in the left corner steps over and it's like, okay,
(11:21):
little ten foot chess pass to a wide open guy
standing in the corner literally ten feet away, writing clear view,
it's an easy pass to make. Right what you're supposed
to do in that situation. That guy, if he wants
to gap to where he feels comfortable closing out, that's
one thing where he just reaches and recovers. But that's
not the guy you ever want to concede the pass to.
(11:43):
You have help coming from the baseline. When the help
comes from the baseline, there's a way to beat that help,
but it is a substantially tougher pass. Now imagine a
different scenario, left wing rip, left dribble penetration. We have
Lebron on Kevin Herder in the left corner in the
(12:03):
fourth quarter of the Bulls game. Lebron helped off Kevin
Herder got a wide open three, and he nailed it.
Let's say Lebron's gapping but stays in control of Herder.
Now the help comes from Jackson Hayes along the baseline,
who's open the skip for a left handed dribbler trying
to go across his body and acrossed helpers covering twenty
(12:28):
five feet in the air thirty feet in the air
to get to the open man. That's why you don't
help off the strong side corner. It's simply about knowing
where the help is coming from and making the passer
make a more difficult pass. A more difficult pass over
a longer stretch of space that's looping or deflected or
not on target is much easier for your defense to
(12:51):
rotate out of. That is basketball one oh one. There
were two strong side corner helps that gave wide open
threes to Kobe White and Order in that fourth herder
in that fourth quarter. Those are execution errors. Jackson Hayes
overhelped on a drive left Nikole Vusovich wide open at
the top of the key. Again, we talked about this.
When a guy has a drive flattened out and under control,
(13:16):
he now has to take a contested, off balance layup
substantially lower percentage shot on a two. Like if he
goes forty five percent on that layup, that's zero point
nine points per shot. Your defense can live with that
it's the straight line drives where it's like he's going
to make a layup every time. That's when you need
(13:36):
to be there and ready to help. You overhelp, give
up a wide open three to Vusovich. Luka had a
very similar one where a driver was contained, left Patrick
Williams wide open at the top of the key. Lebron
two awful reps in the final minute uh go screen
from Kevin Herder that the Lakers were switching all night.
It was a clear switch. Lebron looked like he was
on the bus because they're up, you know, five or
(13:58):
six with less than a minute left. He thinks the
game is over. It's not over. He's lazy. He's on
He's standing upright out of his stance. Kevin Herder slips
out of the screen, hits a wide open three the
possession before the Kobe White three that gave him the lead.
Lebron overhelps on Avusvich upper like kind of left wing
area catch, ends up leaving Patrick Williams wide open in
(14:20):
the left corner right before he threw the ball away
throwing the ball to Kobe White. These are execution errors.
I saw a lot of Laker fans saying like, oh,
I cannot believe the Bulls shot eleven for fourteen from three.
We have got to get out of this mindset of
thinking that shooting is all just luck. It is not.
You can play teams into missus and makes to a
certain extent, I would argue that process has a much
(14:44):
bigger role in shot result than luck, even though we
can acknowledge that luck does play a role. And again,
like the Lakers, they they have an opportunity to win
the title this year, but there are certain non negotiables
things that they absolutely must have tightened up if they're
(15:06):
gonna get to where they want to go, and one
of them is they have to be the best defensive
version of themselves, which is going to require a wire
to wire level of execution. I know they can do it.
They held what six or seven straight teams to one
hundred and two points or fewer. They are capable of
doing that. They have not been doing that since Lebron
James came back from injury. I just think it's at
(15:27):
least worth acknowledging as a trend and something to keep
an eye on. The bottom line is the Lakers just
played three good teams on the road, went in methodically
dominated them to large leads, and yet they were one
Lebron tip in from going one and two. I'm not
trying to be all gloom and doom. I'm still super
high on the Lakers. I was listening while I was
(15:49):
on the airplane yesterday to Pet and Darius from Laker
Film Room, and Darius Oreano does great work. He also
writes for Lakers dot com. He was talking about how
he viewed these two games, these two kind ugly games
to Indiana and Chicago, as part of the Lakers returning
to form before the Lebron injury. I totally agree. I
(16:11):
do think that these last three games are a sign,
especially after they looked bad against Orlando and what was
the of the first Chicago game, they are progressing towards
being what they were before the Lebron injury. I am
still super high on this team. I'm still very tempted
to pick them to win the West when we do
our playoff predictions in the coming weeks. But I wanted
(16:33):
to harp on these execution lapses because I do view
them as a non negotiable thing. If how many champions
do you know of an NBA history? They had a
reputation for extended like or like consistent three or four
minute stretches in every game where they just don't play
hard and they don't execute and they hemorrhage leads. It
(16:54):
burns you, it does, don't tell me it doesn't. It's
happened so many times in NBA history that the Bucks
Raptors series, when they had that big lead in Game
four before they blew it the the the Lakers, excuse me,
the Miami Heat blowing that game to the Dallas Mavericks
(17:15):
in Game two back in twenty eleven. There are so
many examples in NBA history where series who the trophy
goes to swings on a team blowing a lead, a
team not finishing the job. Job's not finished until the
buzzer sounds, and that is a very important hallmark trait
(17:39):
for NBA champions. And I just would like to see
before we get to mid April, I would like to
see a week or two stretch where the Lakers show
that consistent level of execution from buzzer to buzzer again.
We are going to be covering the Lakers Rockets game
tonight on YouTube, including the Celtics Grizzlies game live on
(17:59):
YouTube after the final buzzer of that last game. Let's
move on to Zachary Usache in the Hawk. So he
drops the career high thirty six in a dominant victory
over the Bucks. So the third game this year he
scored over thirty points. Zach's played twenty seven consecutive games.
In those games, he's averaging fifteen point two points per game.
(18:19):
He's shooting fifty two percent from the field forty three
percent from three on over five attempts per game. He's
showcasing a little bit more of a quick release against
the Bucks. Hit a couple of no dip jumpers. Those
are where the ball is already is caught in the
pocket and you flow immediately into the shot instead of
having to catch somewhere else and then dip down into
(18:39):
your release and like kind of restart your chain of
energy from the floor up to the top of the shot.
He's showing a lot of really high level scoring. I
want to talk about this concept for a minute because
I think it's a really important part of team building
moving forward in the NBA. Scoring is the ultimate compliment
to playmaking. I've been thinking a lot about this content
(19:00):
at this season. When you have elite playmaking on your team,
Guys like Trey Young, guys like Lebron, Luca and Nicola Jokic,
these really really high level passers. You need elite play
finishing to pay those sequences off. Whether it's a vertical
spacer like Aaron Gordon alongside Jokic, or Derek Lively alongside Luca,
(19:23):
Jackson Hayes alongside Luca, or a deadly spot up guy
someone like Kyle Korter back with Lebron when he was
with the Cavs, or Malik Beasley playing with Kid Cunningham.
Guys that can pay off these sequences from your playmakers.
But one of the manifestations of that type of player
that I've been talking a lot about this year, I've
been referring to it as the weak side scoring forward.
(19:43):
This is why I went into detail about the strong
side corner help thing that we talked about earlier. The
same concept is built into pick and roll coverages too.
There's a reason why they don't offer low man help
out of the strong side corner. They offer low man
help out of the weak side corner. Why do they
do that? So that for the same reason on an
ISO drive, if a guy's getting downhill in a ball screen.
The opening for him as a playmaker is across the
(20:05):
court and across his body. That's the goal. You want
to make it across the court and across the body,
across as many help defenders as possible to make that
past difficult, right, but that is ultimately the opening, and
all of the best playmakers in the league consistently capitalize
on those openings. We've talked about this concept a ton
making reads in pick and roll. What are my reads?
(20:29):
Big man steps up, I'm making a read based on
the role man or the weak side corner, based on
what the low man does. If the loeman steps over,
I'm skipping it. If the one man stays home, excuse me,
I'm throwing the lob. If the big man drops back
and the guard is chasing, my read is to shoot
in the mid range. My read is to get as
close to the basket for as high percentage of a
shot as possible. Those are the pick and roll reads.
(20:51):
And so when these teams, the majority of teams are
bringing their big up to the level and bringing the
low man over, that skip passes open, and those skip
passes are going to be made, especially by Trey young.
In these sorts of situations, there's a bunch of different
ways that you can look to score right. It's not
just hitting spot up threes. It's running your lane in
(21:13):
transition as an athlete, it's driving closeouts. It's oh, they
switched a screen or we ran in transition and got
a cross match, and now there's a guard on this forward.
You need that forward to do a lot more of
this high level scoring. These are professional scorers, but primarily
in an off ball context. Examples are like Michael Porter,
(21:36):
Junior og An, Andobi Ruy Hatcha, Mura, DeAndre Hunter, Lori
Markenen is kind of a high end version of that
for the Jazz Denny Avdia, even though he's been doing
more on ball stuff as of late, Kyle Kuzma, PJ Washington,
this is becoming an extremely important archetype in the NBA.
Zachary Rissaschet has been doing some of the best week
(21:56):
side scoring work you'll see out of a rookie four
starts in transition. I was watching the Rockets Hawks game
from about a week ago. You can find him on
my Twitter feed. I shared some clips, but Zachary Rissachet
was amazing in transition in that game, just literally out
running everybody up the floor, didn't matter if the rebound
(22:18):
was captured and he was on the baseline. He was
sprinting and it was so visually jarring that I clipped
these examples and I put them on my Twitter feed
for you guys to see. Watch these three clips. Watch
the way Zachary Rissache runs. Watch when he gets his
head of steam, how it literally looks like he's moving
a different speed than everyone else on the floor. He's
(22:40):
a gazelle. It's crazy. And he'll get two or three
wide open attempts at the rim every game just by
running the floor. And that pairs perfectly with Trey Young,
who's one of the best hit a head passers in
the league. I had to coach my last year in
college at Arizona Christian University. Shout out to Jeff Rudder.
They just won their conference. Turn him in on a
(23:00):
buzzer beater, crazy buzzer beater, and then they made it
to the final four before losing Naia tournament. But he
used to say to all of us that you can
manufacture twelve points a game just by getting a transition layup,
running the floor, crashing the offensive glass and getting to
the foul line once per half. It's such a simple
(23:21):
way to produce in a basketball game. And even if
you take the foul line part out, because obviously there's
some out of your control stuff there with the whistle,
if you just crash the offensive glass and you just
run your lane in transition and you get one bucket
a half each, that's eight points right there. You're one
bucket away from double figures. It is such a simple
way to produce in a basketball game. Run every time,
(23:44):
crash every time. And he presents such a massive passing
target for Tray because he's so athletic, so rangy and long.
He caught a behind the back lob from Trey in
the Bucks game where he dunked it behind his head
because it's just a massive passing target. Then in the
half court, as we talked about, when they load up
(24:04):
the strong side in those skips, it's just like king
of the court. When you're playing with your buddies on
short closeouts, you need to knock down threes. He's starting
to do that at a really high level. In this
twenty seven game span, he's at forty three percent on
over five attempts per game. Now, what's gonna start happening.
If he can maintain that level of shooting for a
(24:24):
substantial amount of time, he's gonna start getting chased off
the line. And that's where I think he has a
ton of potential as a score. He has downhill burst
attacking close outs. He had a dunk against Shangoon in
the Rockets game where he drove a close out off
the left wing and just hammered it with his left
hand on Shangon's face, a wildly athletic play. He has
(24:46):
good footwork on like spins in Euros. He had a
bucket against the Nets. Driving a close out against Nick
Claxton in the left corner. He jabbed, got back to
it deep in the corner with a hesitation drib will
cross back over, got into the lane, pump, faked, pivoted
over his right shoulder on his step through for a
left handed finish. That's a really high level scoring move.
He had one on Harden off the left wing, jabbed left,
(25:09):
drove right, snatched back to the left, drove high gather
through zubach and finished at the basket. These are really
high level scoring moves attacking with an advantage in those
king of the court situations. He had a left to
right euro against Zubatch a couple weeks ago where he
drove out of the corner. Like left to right euro
(25:29):
is one of the most complex footwork pieces you'll see
for a right handed player. Most guys don't know how
to do it, and he still has a ton of
growth in front of him. Shooting hot for a couple
of months is not the same as being an elite shooter.
We've all seen it. This guy's shooting forty three percent
from three over his last whatever. Games. You gotta do
it for a long stretch of time before teams game
(25:50):
plan for you in that way. That that will take
a few years probably, but that will be what truly
unlocks his off the dribble game, because I don't think
like as good as he is in the open court
as an athlete, he's his start stop quickness isn't quite
as impressive as his athleticism in the open court, which
is going to make it so it's a little harder
(26:11):
for him to beat people off the dribble unless his
jumper comes around, which again will take some time, but
that's part of his development. He still needs a lot
of improvement on the defensive end too. His athleticism has
not translated yet as like a really high level off
ball defender. He's often a bit behind the play on
his help rotations, which prevents him from having an impact.
That's about processing speed. That's about like learning the actions
(26:33):
so well that you know what's gonna happen as it's developing,
so that you can be there a step earlier. And again,
as we talked about, his start stop quickness isn't as good.
That's why that processing speed is going to be so
important for him because he's gonna need to be there
sooner in terms of the way he's reading these plays.
But the bottom line is he's a rookie that projects
to be one of the best people at his particular
(26:55):
job in the NBA, which is being that weak side
scoring forward, which is verying for Hawks fans. I think
it might officially be over for the Suns. They got
absolutely smacked by the Rockets last night. Shane Gouon was
cooking all their bigs again. Jalen Green poured in another
thirty three points email Udoka in the second quarter brought
(27:15):
out that zone defense that they that he's been using
a bunch for the last month or so, and they
immediately sparked a massive run in that second quarter and
they never looked back. It was a complete and total
physical domination by Houston. They out rebounded them by six,
They forced nineteen turnovers, They scored thirty four points off
of those turnovers. They won the fast break points battle
(27:36):
thirty two to eight. Houston scored forty points in transition
in total in this game. But I want to focus
on Phoenix here for a second, because we're gonna hit
Houston in tonight's show as they play the Lakers again.
We're going live on YouTube tonight after the T and
T slate. What did I say about Phoenix a month ago?
I said they struck me as the stereotypical, older veteran
(27:58):
team that knows deep down that they don't really have
a chance to win anything this year. And the way
that that's gonna manifest is in these short week or
two long bursts where they compete and they look they
look decent, they defend their rebound, they do their jobs,
but that they inevitably let go of the rope because
they can't sustain it, because they don't believe, and that's
(28:21):
exactly what just happened. They won five out of six,
some quality wins versus the Calves and the Bucks. They
were defending in rebounding top ten and both. I think
they might have been top five in both over that span.
But the NBA schedule does not let up. Boston came
to town without Tatum and kicked their ass. Then it
was Minnesota, then it was Houston, a couple of these big,
(28:43):
strong athletic teams that were going to truly test Phoenix's
commitment to the work, and instead of hanging onto the rope,
they just completely let go of it. One thirty seven
point four defensive rating in the last three games, they
gave an offensive rebound on thirty five percent of opponents misses.
(29:07):
That's damagingly bad. And now Katie has an ankle sprain,
Anthony Davis is back, and the MAVs are climbing in
the standings. We talked before the year that there was
going to be a team that had dead serious championship
aspirations but that would miss the playoffs entirely, and no
matter who that would be, it would be a catastrophe.
And it looks like it's going to be the Suns.
(29:29):
I keep watching them and thinking that it's not a
Kevin Durant and Devin Booker problem. But at the same time,
I do think it's worth mentioning that neither of those
two guys can really leverage their physical gifts on the game.
Katie has length and he has mobility that helps him
on defense, but he carries a massive offensive load, so
(29:51):
he can't devote too many resources to that end, and
he's not very strong. He can be pushed around, which
is very very dangerous quality for a front court player.
Defensively on the glass duck ins things along those lines.
It's tough to do that job. Outside of like rangey
rotating and rim contests. There's just a limitation when you
can't win the ground battle. And again, it's just one
(30:15):
of those things where you watch these other teams. It's
like watching Houston Jalen Green can leverage his athleticism to
get to spots. Shane Gouon is bullying these dudes. When
you watch these teams that have these players, where it's like,
I can inflict myself physically on the game to assist
(30:36):
my team in these key areas that they need help.
Devin Booker and KD are not necessarily as capable. This
is why I still believe it's worth exploring the idea
of keeping those two. They still give you such a
high offensive floor in terms of shot quality. I would
(30:56):
still just look to find every discount bruiser I can
find at every position group and try to breed that
culture around them, because regardless of what direction you go
this summer, even if you do choose to get rid
of Kevin Durant or Devin Booker or both, you still
need an organizational identity. I talked about this concept after
the Celtics win against the Suns last week. I talked
(31:17):
about it with Colin Coward last night on his show.
You need an organizational identity that is separate from your stars.
And so regardless of what direction you go, you need
to begin the process of establishing that new owner, new coach.
You need to start establishing a basketball culture. This season
was a massive step back. And so that's the thing, like,
(31:41):
unless you think there's some magical trade that's going to
just solve all your problems, which I don't think there is,
you need to begin the process of changing that culture anyway.
And so from that standpoint, if you tweak things enough
around those two, that's where Kevin Durant, Devin Booker's upside
can actually start to lift you to where you want
to go. But this is a team that is completely
(32:02):
let go of the rope, and I think I would
be stunned at this point if we got to see
them play meaningful basketball here in a couple of weeks.
All right, guys, that is all I have for today,
is I should say for this morning. We'll be back
tonight live on live on YouTube after the T and
T games. There is always a sincerely appreciate you guys
for supporting me and supporting the show, and I will
see you later tonight. What's so guys? As always, I
(32:22):
appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They
would actually be really helpful for us if you guys
would take a second and leave a rating and a review.
As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if
you could take a minute to do that, I'd really
appreciate it. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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