← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Are Warriors, Thunder & Cavaliers REAL or FAKE NBA playoff contenders?
00:41:22
Loading summary
Transcript14 lines
- [00:00]
Julie Swerbinks
You can count on T Mobile to help keep you connected from big cities to small towns on America's largest 5G network. Switch the T Mobile keep your phone and they'll pay it off up to 800 bucks per line via prepaid card. Learn more@t mobile.com heap and switch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption. Acquired card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [00:36]
Nikki Glaser
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start Talkspace Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space80@talk.
- [01:36]
Greg Rosenthal
What's up everyone? It's Greg Rosenthal and I'm teaming up with the King of Spring, Daniel Jeremiah. He requires me to say that we're going to be bringing you 40s and free agents, the only podcast you'll need this NFL draft season. From DJs mock drafts to my top 101 free agents, we'll have it covered for you with all new episodes every Thursday keeping you up to date as we head to the NFL Draft. Listen to 40s and free agents starting on March 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [02:07]
Julie Swerbinks
What's up everyone? Julie Swerbinks here, along with former NHL player Nate Thompson. We're doing a new podcast together. Here we go. The Name Energy Line with Nate and jsb. Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right? Exactly. And you'll never know who will Drop by to join us. Julius Prick Pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe. Listen to Energy Line with Nate and jsb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. I am so excited. We are less than a month away from going to the Sphere to see Dead and Company. I'm actually seeing three shows in a row if you haven't seen them yet. Even if it's not the Dead, the Sphere is like an incredible concert venue experience. You guys got to get over there and check it out. Which is why I want to give the sponsor of today's video, SeatGeek, a huge shout out. With over 28 million downloads, SeatGeek is the number one rated ticketing app. There are more than 70,000 events listed on SeatGeek, including concerts, sports festivals and more. And right now you can get tickets to the NBA and NHL playoffs, which are right around the corner. And again, the Major League Baseball season is not far behind. I love using SeatGeek. It's super easy to use tons of tickets. You can see all the different amazing deals they have right now for the Dead and Company shows going on at the Sphere. Zgeek has your back. Each ticket is rated on a scale of 1 to 10. So you know if you're getting a good deal. So look for the green dots. That's what you're looking for. Green means good, red means bad when it comes to the deal. Plus, every ticket is backed by their buyer guarantee. And you know I came through for you guys. You can use code HOOPS10, that's H O O P S10 for 10% off your next set of tickets at SeatGeek. That's 10% off any tickets with promo code HOOPS10, that's h O O P S10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. Thank you, seatgeek. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Got a jam packed show for you today. We had a bunch of great basketball games yesterday. We're gonna be breaking down two of them off the top. The Cleveland Cavaliers getting a big win on the road against the Milwaukee Bucks. Kind of controlling that one throughout. I want to talk about some of the differences between those two teams and how it's led to their success and failures this year. Then we got an MVP showdown. The first of two. We got another one tonight that we'll be breaking down in tomorrow's show, but the Denver Nuggets went on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Thunder pretty much controlled that game throughout and ended up winning in dominant fashion late. We're going to break that game down. Then at the tail end of the show, I want to hit on the last two Golden State warriors games talking about how good Steph has been of late as he puts on a show against the Brooklyn Nets. And then I want to talk about how Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler kind of stole the show down the stretch in a big win against the Detroit Pistons. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under 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 we're releasing content throughout the year. Jackson's doing some amazing work on those channels. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. All of the mailbags have been kind of out of whack because of all the trips that I've been going on this month and I still have two more at the tail end of this month. So it's going to get a little tricky. But we're going to be doing a mailbag that I believe is releasing on Thursday this week that I'm recording on Friday. So you still have a couple more days to get in. Mailbag questions for that. All right, let's talk some basketball. So once again, every time I watch these kind of like middle tier teams in the league, you know, I kind of, I talked about this last night with Colin Cowherd, but like I kind of view the inner circle of the NBA as like five teams that I think have like a real chance to win the title. And in no particular order because I'm going to end up doing some stuff involving ordering them over the course of the next month. Jackson and I were talking this morning about doing very, very in depth breakdowns specifically on the inner circle contenders involving some film and stuff. So we're thinking about doing that over the course of the next month. But those five teams for me right now are in the Eastern Conference Boston and Cleveland and in the Western Conference, Oklahoma City, Denver and the Los Angeles Lakers. If you look at those teams and you watch them play every single night, there's a level of seriousness on both ends of the floor and their execution and their attention to detail and just their overall pursuit of maximizing their talent and being the best basketball team that they can be. And literally as soon as you go below that, it's a drop off. Even with a team that has a pretty damn good record like the New York Knicks, they've been so inconsistent with their defensive execution this year. Teams like Milwaukee, teams like Minnesota, there's so many teams in that group that have been very, very inconsistent in their attention to detail. The one team that's kind of below there that I'm keeping my eye on because I don't really know where they're going to fit. Once we a larger sample of them playing some tougher teams as the Golden State Warriors, I think they have a chance to enter into the inner circle. There are some teams in that group that I think I. I'm keeping my eye on over the course of the final month to see, but those are the five teams that I see. And when you go beyond that, there's a pretty substantial drop off in or in terms of just the level of serious basketball that they play. I thought it was really interesting as I started to dig through the numbers. Like if you look at the margins, these are the areas where all of the good teams are always good. The margins are the little details that suck. They're hard to do, but they're such an important part of winning basketball games. For instance, taking care of the basketball and making sure you don't give up points off of turnovers. The Thunder, the Cavs and the Celtics are all top five in opponent points off of turnovers. In the lakers are top 10, giving up points off of offensive rebounds. The Cavs and Celtics are both in the top 10. The Thunder have always been a bad defensive rebounding team. That's their Achilles heel. So they're out of that group. But the Cavs and Celtics top 10. And the Lakers since January 15th when they kind of became a serious team, they're seventh in that department giving up fast break points. The Cavs, the Celtics and the Thunder are all in the top 11 in limiting opponents fast break points. This is the Lakers Achilles heel. That's where they always get beat. They're unathletic in transition at times, cleaning the glasses. Overall transition defense stat. The Cavs, the Celtics and the Thunder are all top 10 the Lakers are top 10 since January 15th. Makes in the restricted area allowed, so giving up easy baskets right underneath the rim. The Cavs, Celtics and Thunder are all top 10. The Lakers are seventh since January 15th. Total number of contested shots this year. This is a hustle. Stat on NBA.com the Cavs, the Thunder and the Celtics are all in the top four. These are non negotiables if you want to be a serious basketball team, you have to be committed to running the floor in transition, making contact on box outs, competing for contested rebounds, making rotations, putting your body on the line, making extra efforts, contesting shots. These are non negotiables. And they're hard. I get it. There's a reason why there's such a huge swath of the league that's bad at this stuff on a nightly basis. Because it's 82 games and you're all a bunch of millionaires and it's really, really hard to get yourself to compete at that level on a night in and a night out basis. That said, like I said, it's a non negotiable if you want to get to the finish line. If you want to get the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Every time I watch the Bucks, they seem to be heavily lacking in these areas. They are mediocre to bad in every single one of those statistical categories that I listed, except for defensive rebounding. It was jarring again to watch as the Cavs just dominated this game by outrunning the Bucks all over the floor. 24 easy points in transition, countless possessions where they would defend well and get a stop and rebound and run out the other way and get an easy one against a Bucks team that wasn't willing to run even in the half court. It's the same sort of concept whether it was Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell or somebody else creating that initial advantage. The Cavs just sliced and diced the Bucks defense with these beautiful driving kick sequences that often ended in wide open looks for very good shooters. You could literally see them repeatedly knifing through the lane, not just on that initial drive, but on closeouts and as a result they're able to grow that advantage. So that first close, that's only a little bit of a closeout. The second closeout's more of a closeout. The third one, no chance the dude's wide open. The calves generated 22 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in this game. The Milwaukee bucks generated just 9. That's the difference. The Cavs have this beautiful ability to slice and dice defenses for these super high quality catch and shoot looks and at the same time on the other end of the floor, keep their defense out of rotation against Milwaukee. And it's not just the commitment to running, it's the commitment off the ball on defense to tracking shooters being sharp with your closeouts. Cleveland was so attentive and sharp, every catch and shoot look for Milwaukee felt like it was smothered with a quick and reactive closeout. How many times did you see Torian Prince in the game kind of lingering around 5, 6ft away from max Struse and just a quick swing pass and Max Truce knocks down a shot. How many times did you see Brook Lopez and Giannis Antenna Kumpo just drifting off of Evan Mobley and not in position to offer a closeout as Evan Mobley made them pay knocking down that catch and shoot on the weak side. Prince in particular had a really rough night in this regard, but as a team, the Bucks were not attentive in their off ball defense. That's how you end up with such a huge chasm in the overall number of wide open catch and shoot shots that they generated. The Bucks have a lot of talent, but you can't even get to the point where you're able to weaponize that talent until you're willing to commit to the hard work that is consistent winning basketball that is required to get to that level. There are some realities with the Bucks regarding their age in overall foot speed. This is a size team, not a speed team. We're going to talk about the difference between the two here in a minute, but at the same time, every time I watch them, there's just so much fat that can be trimmed. Simple transition defense principles like stopping the ball, stopping the basket and getting matched up. There's a big one late in the game where Torian Prince left a wide open shooter right at the top of the key the on defense in the half court. Like simple ideas like making sure that when you're in help side defense, positioning yourself in a way where you can see man and ball and make sure that if that pass goes, you're already in the closeout while the ball's in the air and you're there on the catch. These are details that don't necessarily depend on their overall team speed that can be cleaned up that they just haven't made the requisite effort to do so. Now, getting to the game itself, I want to talk about how the combination of speed and jump shooting is what actually allows the Cleveland Cavaliers to generate so many Quality shots. This has been the best offense in the NBA this year. They're actually almost three points per 100 possessions ahead of the second place Boston Celtics. They're the only team in the league getting over a 120 offensive rating. The Cavs offense is unbelievable. Now, like we talked about earlier, there's a difference between size and speed. There are two easy ways to get the defense into rotation through overwhelming speed and overwhelming size. For overwhelming size, think like Jokic or guys like LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Jason Tatum. Some of these bigger, stronger players, they find a defender that's too small to guard them, then they pressure the rim until they get easy twos or they draw in that second defender. Speed works the exact same way when you have guards that through transition or through ball screens, against switches, whatever it is, when they can consistently get screaming downhill towards the rim, they either are going to get layups or they're going to draw in multiple defenders. This is the part of the Cavs roster construct that has really shown through this year. And for the record, I was originally a couple years ago completely out on the Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell pairing as like a foundation for the Cavs. Why? Because it's too small guards. And when you're building around two small guards, it just presents so many issues for you on the defensive glass and just on the defensive end in general. And by the way, they still occasionally have rebounding issues and they still occasionally have defense issues. But as Darius Garland has gotten healthy this year and as he's blossomed into this like super high level guard, we've gotten to see the other side of that dynamic, which is that they do have overwhelming speed. Garland this year, healthy with his legs underneath him, has been one of my favorite players to watch in the league this year because of his combination of speed and handle in shot making and playmaking, which gives him the ability to get wherever he wants to get on the floor. His probing in transition, off the dribble and in the half court is responsible for so much of Cleveland's offensive success. The Cavs offense all year has been about two points better per 100 possessions. When Darius Garland is on the floor versus off Donovan, Mitchell brings the same thing. He's not at the same level of quickness that Darius Garland is at, but he's close and he's bigger and he's more vertically athletic and he's a better shot maker and he's got like a bunch of these really fancy gather moves. Like he's been putting on a clinic of that like windmill over the top gather that Dwyane Wade popularized and then he's brought back the sham God with a vengeance this year. He had another nasty one the other night. Darius or Donovan Mitchell's ball handling in the middle of the floor has been unbelievable this year, but he also has an amazing ability to get wherever he wants on the floor. That's the initial first step for any drive and kick sequence. You've got to generate that initial advantage that compromises the defense and generates those kick out opportunities for your spot up guys. From there they just have a bunch of guys who are awesome at playing driving kick basketball. Max Truth lightning quick release can do it on the move and is a really good driving kick player. Can make basic driving kick reads. Dean Wade is good at it too. DeAndre Hunter has been brilliant so far as a as a cav, as a spot up guy, as a guy who can do some advanced scoring in the mid range Attacking closeouts. Ty Jerome is good at it. Sam Merrill's good at it. Mitchell and Garland can both do it when they're off the ball. Just to give you an idea, here are some spot up efficiency numbers for Cavs players according to synergy. DeAndre Hunter 1.37 points per possession. That's outrageous. Ty Jerome 1.36 points per possession. That's outrageous. Craig Porter obviously in a smaller role 1.28 points per possession Max Struz 1.24 Donovan Mitchell 1.18 Sam Merrill 1.15 they have six players logging over 1.15 points per possession in spot up situations. As a team they get 1.11 points per any spot up possession. Only the Celtics in the NBA are better at converting spot up possessions than the Cleveland Cavaliers and they generate so many of them on the strength of their speed. It's that combination speed which is necessary to consistently get the defense in rotation and then having players that can extend advantages and pay them off even their bigs. Evan Mobley last night burned Giannis and Brook on skip passes by hitting weak side threes. He's shooting 37% from Cat on catch and shoot threes this year. That is helping. Jared Allen provides his own kind of spacing as a short range shot maker. There's a play yesterday where Darius Garland was driving through the lane and Jared ended up like kind of right outside the right block and Darius ran into a bunch of help and just kind of dumped it off to Jared Allen and Jared Allen just stuck a little left handed floater like six feet from the basket and all year long. He's been deadly on hooks and floaters. He provides his own kind of spacing in that way. It's a principle that works for them in both the half court and in transition. It makes them nearly impossible to guard, and it's why they've been head and shoulders above the rest of the field on offense. This year the Celtics are in second place, three points fewer per 100 possessions. That's how ahead of the field their offense has been. Now again, as we've talked about, margins shrink when you get to the postseason. I saw a crazy stat this morning when I was digging through some old NBA data. Five of the last seven NBA teams to win at least 60 games or to win at a 60 win pace. In the two shortened seasons in 2020 and 2021, five of the last seven of the teams to accomplish those feats failed to win their conference in the playoffs. Only one of those five losers made it out of the second round. The reason is simple by the way. The two exceptions there are the 2020 Lakers and last year's Boston Celtics. The reason why this happens is you're almost exclusively in the playoffs, facing elite locked in defenses that have done extensive game planning. And as the officiating loosens up and the game becomes very physical, all of that easy dribble penetration becomes harder to come by in the half court. It gets harder to get to your spots and the catch and shoot threes get harder to knock down because everyone's more tired from being in that super physical environment. The game actually shifts in the playoffs heavily towards each individual matchup and how well each team can guard each other in the half court. Again, five out of the last seven teams to do what Cleveland's doing, to do what Oklahoma City is doing, failed to make it out of their conference. Four out of those seven failed to make it out of the second round. That is a trend that Cleveland has to find a way to to reverse. And it's going to come down to guys knocking down shots at the same rate they did in the regular season and Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell continually being able to generate those advantages and once again finding ways to make sure that you can prevent specific matchups from causing you problems when you get into the in a playoff series. For instance, we talked about the Celtics Cav series, Celtics Cavs game the other night, the ability to attack Sam Houser in the half court in crunch time. That won't be there. So it'll be about can Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown do a better job of attacking Garland and Tatum is comfortable against both Allen and Mobley as well. Are they going to be able to attack those guys better than Cleveland can attack Derek White, Al Horford, Chris Ops, Porzingis in, in. In his drop coverages, whatever it may be. That is the battle. That's the chess match that, that ultimately is going to determine who wins the title, not which team had the better offensive rating in the regular season, which team had the higher win percentage. That is what happens in NBA history and that is why a lot of these teams that dominate the regular season end up losing in the postseason. It doesn't matter what you accomplish in the 82, it comes down to the matchups. Now to be clear, the team that wins the title is almost always in the upper echelon of teams, basically always. So there is a mandatory minimum of a commitment to excellence that you have to have and all of those teams had that. But what ends up happening are there, there. There are these teams usually in that second tier, usually that don't have quite the 60 win pace, but they're in the mid-50s or so that were dead serious all year. But maybe they're a little older, maybe they're a little slower and they get run off the floor a bunch of times in the regular season, but they get into the postseason, they get their shit together. The vets leverage their athleticism and it gets tougher. And that's, that's the challenge that Cleveland has to overcome when the margins shrink and it becomes about Garland and Mitchell. Matchup attacking versus a different team, matchup attacking them, how can they hold up? I think they're going to hold up really well against everybody except for Boston out in the east and ultimately that's the challenge and nothing else really matters until we get to that point. A couple other shout outs from the Bucks game. Again, I thought Max Stru was just awesome and I thought he kicked Taurian Prince's ass and that was a significant swing factor in this game. I also thought the Cavs defended Damian Lillard extremely well. Isaac Okoro in particular did a really nice job. His shifts were excellent in this game. I also thought it was just a great example of how devastating Cleveland's driving, driving kick attack can be in the sense that no player on the team scored over 20 points. Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell were both broke on their pull up threes and it just didn't matter because they just picked Milwaukee apart for wide open catch and shoot threes for their role players. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season. You are with all the new ways to get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. From Monster Slams to dishing the rock to cleaning the glass, get behind your favorite players in the prop bets you can make on DraftKings, the home of NBA player props. Ready to place your first bet? Try betting on something simple like picking how many points your favorite player will have. Go to the DraftKings sportsbook app and make your pick. Right now, the Oklahoma City Thunder have supplanted the Boston Celtics as the favorites to win the title on DraftKings at +225 with the Celtics right behind them at +235. First time here's something special just for you. New DraftKings customers bet $5 to get 150 in bonus bets instantly. Take it to the rack with DraftKings Sportsbook. Every point counts. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code HOOPS. That's H O O P S. That's code hoops for new customers to get 150 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling Problem Call 1-800- gambler in New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY to 467-369 in Connectic. Available for problem gambling, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void In Ontario, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG co be ball.
- [24:27]
Nikki Glaser
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members. Have a zero dollar copay, no insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space80@talkspace.com.
- [25:39]
Julie Swerbinks
All right, let's move on to Nuggets Thunder. This is a really fun MVP showdown. It started off super high energy and a lot of shot attempts because the the Thunder were running a lot of single coverage against Jokic with Hartenstein, so both guys were getting a bunch of shot ups. Shay and Yic attempted 21 shots between the two of them in the first quarter. It was kind of crazy and it was funny too because neither guy could make a three point shot to save their life, but they were getting him up. Like Shay is so good at driving to the basket that when he turns that right shoulder and just does that hard little step back move, he can get a good look from three literally whenever he wants. And Jokic can get one whenever he wants just by popping out of ball screens or spacing above the key because he's generally being guarded by really big players that are defending in some sort of drop coverage and and he's just going to be wide open every time he pops out. Those threes were there. They were just both missing them. There was a lot of talk about Jokic, his elbow and his jump shot in the game and I, I remember a similar conversation happening last year when yic's jump shot was struggling surrounding his wrist. And again, I'm not debating whether or not Jokic is actually hurt. I'm sure he is. But here's the thing. Regardless of whether or not it's an injury, him making that shot is vitally important to the ceiling of this team. OKC was doing an awesome job against Jokic in this game of swarming him on rolls, going under on inverted ball screens and basically daring Jokic to make above the break threes. You know, you've seen it before like sh. Like the OKC will come from the weak side with guys like J Dub or Shea just swiping over the top and they got these long arms and they'll just go at these bigs when they catch on the roll and just swarm them and make life really difficult for them. There's Jokic had an uncharacteristic, uncharacteristic poor shooting game because he, he had to drop back in those ball screens and start popping above the break and he just couldn't knock him down. That's his counter to that coverage. When they're swarming him on rolls, he'll pop. And here's the thing, when he's hitting 45% of his threes, that's 1.35 points per possession. That's untenable for the defense. Now you're chasing him off the line, he's rumbling downhill and he's attacking closeouts and you're in trouble. But here's the problem. Over the last 16 games, Jokic is shooting just 32.9% from three. And this is the thing with the elbow. I'm sure the elbow is not helping things at this point, but we are now on almost a fourth of the season where he's back to shooting the ball extremely poorly again. It's just something to keep an eye on. Again. That's what happened in the Minnesota series. Defending Jokic by daring him to shoot and his inability to knock down those three point shots again, it's just something to keep an eye on. Hopefully it's just a small trend in the season that he can kick before we get to April. But this game was just a complete and total outclassing by the Oklahoma City Thunder. They shot better from two, they shot better from three. They got to the line more. They shot better. When they got to the line, they out rebounded Denver by eight. They had more assists, they had fewer turnovers, they had more points off of turnovers, they had more points in the paint. It was like total domination. I thought Shea and J Dub just eviscerated Denver's man to man defense with their ability to get downhill. You know, we've talked a lot about Jokic in his defense at the level of ball screens, but they don't have much in the way of perimeter containment either. Just in terms of their guard defenders. Shea right away from the start of this game made it perfectly clear that he can drive past Christian Brown whenever he wants. Really the only guy I thought that kind of made Shea uncomfortable was Russ, who did some really nice work with physicality and back pressure and he actually forced him into into some pretty bad misses. But like everyone else, he was just going by whenever he wanted. And in ball screens, Jokic had a couple of different coverages he was using in this game. He was either coming all the way up to the level or he's sitting in a deeper drop and none of it worked. When he was in the deeper drop, Shea could just get wherever he wanted in the mid range. And Shea didn't shoot well from 3 in this game, but he was 6 for 12 on mid range pull ups and then when Jokic came up to the level, he just go around him either by splitting the ball screen or hitting like an in and out dribble and make that aggressive dribble past him. Shay was just picking him apart. I thought J Dub was brilliant in the second half. He did some great work against Jokic in ball screens in the early third quarter, but he was one of the guys who really helped the Thunder crack Denver zone. The Thunder eviscerated Denver's man to man defense in the half court in this game. They got 1.23 points per half court possession. A 123 offensive rating in the half court is outrageous. Denver's man to man defense could not guard Oklahoma City. So Mike Malone in that second half goes zone and it gets him back into the game. They run zone for seven possessions in the third quarter in the Thunder score zero points. They couldn't get dribble penetration. They were generating these kind of mediocre catch and shoot looks on the perimeter off of swing passes. So Denver worked their way back into the game. I thought Tim Legler is just an absolute legend and I've really enjoyed him being on call on the call in these games lately. He was doing a great job of explaining how when the zone is there it contains dribble penetration, which was the specific problem that Denver was having with Oklahoma City all game long. But in the fourth quarter the Thunder found a way to penetrate the zone screens at the top and then just beating the man in front of you and getting into the middle of the zone where everybody reacted, where they generated higher quality catch and shoot looks. J Dub did this several times. Alex Crusoe had a nice driving kick to the left corner as well. As a result of that they were able to generate higher quality catch and shoot looks. Then they started popping the ball around the perimeter. They had a really nice dunk that they got for Isaiah Hartenstein by moving the ball around a bunch of times, getting Denver's zone moving and Yokage had to rotate out and Chet just threw a beautiful pass from the top of the key to Hartenstein. He got a dunk on eight possessions of zone to start the fourth quarter. The Thunder scored 14 points and that caused Mike Malone to bail on that too. Then Shea comes back in and closes the deal with a bunch of buckets. He hits another mid range jump shot and pick and roll. He had a nasty hesitation move on Jamal Murray where he just kind of looked at the rim as he went forward right hand left side layup for another bucket and then he had a step back three at the top of the key. Finally made one that ended up being the dagger in this game and this ended up being an absolute blowout as The Thunder won 127 to 103. I want to talk a little bit about MVP and about how this game kind of fits into that in tonight's rematch as well. But before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about Jalen Williams, who's been on an absolute tear. He had 26, 9 and 8 last night. In his last 19 games he's getting 23 points per game, 5 rebounds and 5 assists on 59 true shooting. Not bad for a 23 year old, right? He's been one of the best defensive players in the league over that span as well. He's just kind of like the prototypical Swiss army knife forward, which is one of my favorite archetypes in the league. He's big and strong, he's a great athlete, he's a legit shooter. He had a rough start to this season jump shooting, but he's been over 40% from three in this span and he was fantastic last year. He's a legit on ball creator. He can shoot off the dribble, he can score from all three levels. He's way ahead of where most forwards are as playmakers at this phase of his career like so many of these forwards can't. They're like one to one assist to turnover guys. You can count on on J Dub to just be another level above as a playmaker at the forward position than most guys are. He's just kind of a natural at it. Honestly that that's. I tend to think a lot of that playmaking talent is natural and he's a very good defensive player. He can guard multiple positions, he can defend both on and off the ball and he's a good defensive rebounder. Now the next step for him is becoming a reliable secondary secondary ball handling option in the postseason context. It can't turn into Shay's got to make all the shots. That's where they get into issues, right? But he's well on his way to that point. So I'm going to say the same thing that I said when we were talking about Cleveland. Five of the last seven teams to win at least 60 games in a season or to win at a 60, 60 game pace in the shortened seasons failed to win their conference in the playoffs. Four of those five teams lost in the second round or earlier and the reason why, like we talked about earlier is margins become less of a separator. Everyone is really good, defenses are really good, the game planning is incredible and now it becomes about how do you match up against this team. Nothing else matters for two weeks. You're playing against each other. It's going to denigrate down into half court basketball, it's going to get super physical and it's going to come down to matchups. Oklahoma City is going to run into the same problem they ran into last year, role players making catch and shoot shots and is Jalen Williams going to be able to be that legitimate secondary option to help carry weight for Shake Gilsis Alexander? That is the trend they're going to have to overcome if they are going to beat that trend where five of the last seven teams to win at this pace have failed to have success in the postseason. Couple things I want to get to the Denver front and talk a little bit about the MVP race. So we already talked about the MVP rights in our last show, but yesterday was a strong statement From Shea drops 40 picks apart Denver's defense despite a poor three point shooting game. I thought he had a good defensive game as well. He's up to minus 500 on DraftKings to win the award after last night's game. But these same two teams play again tonight in Oklahoma City. If Jokic is going to get back into the race, he's going to have to win tonight and he's going to have to look clearly better than Shea in the process. So what can Denver do to flip the script tonight? Couple things. 1. I thought Jokic is at the level. Coverages were effective when he contained the ball. There were a couple times where he was late up to the level and Shea was able to just split him or make an in and out dribble and go the other way. He gave up a little too much dribble penetration on some of those looks. But if he gets up to the level quickly and forces Shea to not get downhill but to take a retreat dribble, Shea struggles compared to most of his peers at skipping the ball out of ball pressure so they can actually do a good job of putting two on the ball with Shay and keeping their defense out of rotation as long as Jokic gets up there quickly and is active with his hands to prevent Shea from splitting him off the dribble. 2. As a team they need to do a better job of containing dribble penetration at all positions. We talked about that earlier. 3. I would absolutely try the zone again. I'D wait. I wait until Oklahoma City makes a second half run and try to just use it as a rhythm disruptor. I think Jokic is going to have to hit some of those pick and pop jumpers like we talked about it. Like again, when you look at the way Oklahoma City's guarding him on those roles, it's just the easy counter is for him to pop. He just has to knock the shot down. If Jokic and the Nuggets get a big win tonight, it will flip the script and get things back to where they were yesterday. And if you looked at the odds yesterday, Jokic was like plus 200. He was back within striking distance. The narrative was gaining strength. If he gets a win tonight and Jokic is amazing the rest of the season and he demonstrates a little bit of a closing of that gap, maybe he can make up ground and get to his fourth mvp. But it's going to start tonight by flipping the script against the Thunder. All right, let's talk a little bit about the Golden State warriors before we get out of here for the day. A couple of big wins over the weekend against the Brooklyn Nets and the Detroit Detroit Pistons. Steph put on an absolute show against Brooklyn. Dropped 40 points, hit one of the craziest shots of his career, left shoulder fade from 40ft to beat the halftime buzzer. Just a ridiculous shot. I want to talk a little bit about that specific footwork and how Steph's just been deadly on it here in a little bit. He had two threes in the final six minutes that ice, that game. He continues to be absolutely Brilliant. He dropped 32 more against the Pistons yesterday. We're now at a 15 game span from Steph where he's played every night, hasn't missed a game, averaged 31 points, four rebounds and six assists on 65% true shooting. Remember Steph's unanimous MVP campaign. He averaged 30 points a game on 67% true shooting. He's basically at that level and he looks like it too. I talked about how the best example of it is his paint scoring. In a video a while back I shared some stats with you guys about how since Jimmy Butler came to the team, his rim attempts and his efficiency have skyrocket, skyrocketed since Jimmy came to town. But another example that has come to light to me is his movement shooting, particularly sprinting to his right. I've talked about this concept on the show before, but it is the hardest shot for a right handed shooter. Most right handed shooters, when they're taking a jump shot, their Shoulders are not square to the basket, they're tilted slightly to the left. Why? Because it's just kind of a natural spot for the shooting motion to exist. Most right handed shooters are very comfortable moving to the left, shooting to the left because as they're running, it's an easy one two with that right foot, left foot, as they're planning their feet to get up, straight up and down. And when they're off the dribble, they're already canted in that direction. So they can take step backs and shoot. Shay's a great example. That step back that Shay shoots all the time. He's using that right foot to jab because his right foot's going to be forward when he shoots anyway. And so like as you're moving as a shooter to your left, it's easier. Most ball handling shooters in the league, if you funnel them to the right, they're going to go to the rim. If you funnel them to the left, they're going to settle for a pull up jump shot. That's like a basic defensive principle that works for the most part at all levels. But the very best shooters in the world can also shoot really well moving to the right. It's just way more difficult. Specifically on your legs. That same dynamic is reversed. I want to shoot with my right foot slightly canted forward and my left foot slightly back. But I'm running towards my right hand side. So as I'm running, my left foot is closer to the basket and my right foot is closer to half court. And so in order to rise up and knock down a shot sprinting to my right, I have to plant that left foot, swing that right foot all the way around and plant it as close to forward as possible. Usually not. And then as I'm jumping, I have to square up in midair in order to rise up and knock the shot down. It is a very difficult shot, specifically on your legs. And that's the most exciting part that I've seen from Steph over the course of the last couple weeks. Other than the stuff in the paint. He's sprinting into that jump shot, running to his right and he's hitting that thing. He had a big one against the Pistons late. He had a big one against the Nets late. He had another one a couple games earlier. The fade away that he hit against the nets, that's also a same sort of concept. He's pivoting over his left shoulder and squaring up in midair to knock down a shot. That to me is a great sign that Steph has a really strong base right now. And that, to me is the most important part. You're seeing it too. He had the. He had a little step back jumper that he missed against a Sar Thompson in the. I think it was in the late third. It could have been in the fourth quarter, but he got tons of separation against the Sar Thompson and I'm like, oh, my goodness. Like the Sar Thompson's one of the most athletic perimeter defenders we have in the league. And Steph just, just basically shucked him off and got an easy look. Steph is looking fantastic. And that's. That is exciting because there is no championship ceiling for this team. Even with trades, even with roster upside, even with Jimmy Butler. There's no championship upside for this team unless Steph Curry gets back to top tier superstar level. And we're at about a month now of him being at that level, which is super, super encouraging. But I want to shout out some of Steph's teammates from the Pistons game. The Pistons defended Steph pretty well. He grinded out his 32 points because he's a legend, but it wasn't easy. Azar Thompson did a good job on him in this game. Jaylen Duran logged some really good at the level reps in that fourth quarter. Even got a strip on. On Steph trying to cross over in front of him in that. In that stretch. But the warriors were able to go somewhere else for offense down the stretch. Jimmy was fantastic all night. He had 26.9 and 5, one of his better stat lines as a Warrior. Did a lot of work against Isaiah Stewart in switches in the bench groups. He's already showing some nice chemistry with Quinton Post as like a ball screen guy. He can get some favorable switches there because, no, nobody wants to leave Quentin post open on the pop if they can avoid it. He's good at, like kind of operating in the dunker spot off of Jimmy. And Jimmy's just doing a really nice job with those bench groups. But he also hit one of the biggest shots of the game late. Tie game, little over a minute left, just cleared the left side of the floor, gave the ball to Jimmy against Tobias Harris and he just sat in that hesitation dribble and rose up over the top and knocked down a big shot to put the warriors up too. And then Draymond Green, two massive plays. A beautiful pass to Steph on a cut where he was cutting through the lane and Malik Beasley was like face guarding Steph and Draymond identified that he was face guarding him. And that means he's open. If he's being face guarded, it means he's not watching man and ball. He's only watching man. So Draymond just threw this easy, breezy little pass and Steph saw it, just sealed Malik a little bit, allowed the pass to come in right over the top, and then flipped it in for an and one. Beautiful read from Draymond Green. And then the game winner, with about 30 seconds left, just confidently stepped into a three on the right wing and switched it. There was a lot of time on the shot clock when that shot went up. So Draymond literally trusted himself down. What was it, down 2 or down 1? I can't remember exactly. Down in a. In the final minute to rise up and knock down a shot with plenty of time left in the shot clock swished it. Just unbelievable plays. On one hand, the luxury of having an apex star to give the ball too late to go get a bucket. But on the other hand, a confident veteran who can make simple reads and step up and make big shots and big moments. I thought it was awesome that those two stepped up and made the plays that late to beat the Pistons. I want to show out, shout out some of the other role players as well. Moses Moody, he had a rough shooting night overall, but he made two huge plays late. He had a big catch and shoot three out of the right corner. And then after Draymond's three, applying some good ball pressure to Cade Cunningham and strips Cade at half court. One of the biggest plays of the game, a big steal. He had three steals in this game. And then G. Santos just active all over the floor. He had an incredible offensive rebound put back where he got knocked to the floor off of like a little shove. But he just kind of fed the ball into the basket and got an and one. He had this nice play too late in the game where he was operating with the ball at the right wing and there was off ball action running and the Pistons were just completely geared towards the off ball action. And GI just ripped through to the right, saw driving lane and got all the way to the basket, made a layup. He looked awesome. He had 15 points and six rebounds and was a plus 12. The warriors are 11 and two in their last 13 games now just five games back from the two seed as they continue to climb in the standings. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with a breakdown of that rematch between the Thunder and the Nuggets as well as some a couple other games from tonight's slate. I will see you guys then. The Volume what's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops 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.
- [45:01]
Nikki Glaser
This is Nikki Glaser from the Nikki Glaser Podcast. On a more serious note, I'm still thinking about that commercial with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg hating on each other. Because when you listen to the reasons for hating someone or something, you realize just how stupid they really are. There is too much hate in this country and it's gotta stop. So join us at iHeart in standing up to it. If you see hate, speak up, call it out and you can learn more by following oupwithhate Geico's motorcycle expertise means I'm covered by people who know bikes like I do. I'm happy as a clam.
- [45:34]
Julie Swerbinks
No, conclusive scientific research. Research has shown clams can experience happiness.
- [45:37]
Nikki Glaser
It just meant that I feel really.
- [45:39]
Julie Swerbinks
Good about my coverage. I mean, even if you took the clam out for the best day ever, visiting the zoo, taking a scenic ride, knowing you're insured by specialists, and sharing a strawberry ice cream cone together, the clam would not feel happy and your strawberry cone would taste sort of clammy.
- [45:49]
Nikki Glaser
Ew.
- [45:49]
Julie Swerbinks
Geico's motorcycle specialists who know bikes like you do, assume no liability for clammy ice cream cones. Geico expertise for your motorcycle what's up everyone?
- [45:59]
Greg Rosenthal
It's Greg Rosenthal, and I'm teaming up with the King of Spring, Daniel Jeremiah. He requires me to say that we're going to be bringing you 40s and free agents, the only podcast you'll need this NFL draft season. From DJs mock drafts to my top 101 free agents will have it covered for you with all new episodes every Thursday keeping you up to date as we head to the NFL Draft. Listen to 40s and free agents starting on March 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [46:29]
Julie Swerbinks
What's up everyone? Julie swearbinks here, along with former NHL player Nate Thompson, we're doing a new podcast together. Here we go, the Name Energy Line with Nate and jsb. Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right? Exactly. And you'll never know who will drop by to join us. Julie is pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe. Listen to Energy Line with Nate and jsb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.