← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Jason Timpf goes SCORCHED EARTH on Luka Doncic's EMBARRASSING play lately + 5 NBA Tuesday takeaways
00:42:05
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
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Lavar Arrington
This is Lavar Arrington from Up on Game. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every Purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods and Apple. Watch at Apple through this special referral offer. When you get a new Apple Card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at Apple Co. Get daily cash Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City. Branch offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply.
- [00:36]
Ana Navarro
I'm Anna Navarro and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now we are all cursing and asking what the BLEEP is going on. Every week I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein In 2018, the Justice Department
- [01:05]
Rebel.com Advertiser
through we counted four presidential administrations failed these victims.
- [01:11]
Ana Navarro
Listen to Bleep with Ana Navarro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:17]
Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
When segregation was a law, one mysterious black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules.
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Hoops Tonight Host
Segregation in the day, integration at night.
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Ana Navarro
It was like stepping in another world.
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Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero?
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Hoops Tonight Host
Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.
- [01:38]
Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
Charlie's Place from Atlas Obscura and visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:47]
Valley of Shadows Narrator
On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.
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Hoops Tonight Host
Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury him, what are they gonna do to me?
- [01:56]
Valley of Shadows Narrator
What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hoops Tonight Host
The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Got a jam pack show for you guys today. We had a fun Tuesday night slate and so I'm going to bounce around to that slate of games with five big takeaways. You guys know the Drip. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video as well as sign up for post notifications. Helps us a lot. And then if you want to get mailbag questions into our Friday mailbag, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube in the comments right Mailbag colon, write your question. We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. Our first big takeaway from the Tuesday night slate the Cleveland Cavaliers continue to look like the best team in the east while still having so much that they can improve on. They dominated the Knicks from start to finish last night. Little bit of a sloppy game. There were 19 turnovers between the two teams in the first half. I don't think I've ever seen a game with as many botched fast breaks as we saw last night. Whether it was like kick ahead passes that went too long, throwing the ball right to the other team. There were 40 transition possessions between the Cavs and the Knicks last night for the game and they totaled just 28 points on those 40 possessions, which is legitimately hard to do where you're typically expecting that number to be almost double that because that's how efficient transition offenses tend to be. But anyway, it was sloppy game, but Josh Hart gets a little basket on a cut in the middle of the lane on the one of the first possessions of the game and the Cavs responded with an Evan Mobley catch and shoot three in the left corner and the Cavs never trailed the rest of the way. They cruised. They took a double digit lead early where Dean Wade got super hot, ended up hitting back to back to back threes. They work their way back into it. Cat has a little run in the second quarter. They end up cutting the lead to one, but the Cavs basically cruise from there. They go up by as much as 20 in the fourth quarter before finishing with a 15 point win. It was a defensive run in the third quarter. I thought Jared Allen and Evan Mobley in particular did a phenomenal job on the backline all game. Donovan Mitchell, for having a rough shooting night, I thought he came out with a great deal of intensity defensively, especially playing in passing lanes and making plays, you know, attacking the basketball. He had three steals. The Cavs held the Knicks to just 11 points in the third quarter as they pulled away and again, a couple of just key scoring bursts. We talked about the Dean Wade one early. I thought Jaylon Tyson had a really nice burst in the middle. Third quarter there's kind of this weird stretch where Neither team could score for a little while and the lead was hanging right around, I think like nine. And they ended up going on a run. James Harden hits a catch and shoot three off of the right wing. And then Jaylon Tyson makes a couple really nice plays. He has a relocation off the right corner to the right wing, A skip pass from Dennis Schroeder where he hits a three, and then a nice little two man game with Sam Merrill where he kind of sets the screen slips out of it. Both guys linger with Merrill for a second. Merrill throws a really nice pass over the top and Tyson hits just a sky high floater in the lane. Jaylon Tyson's actually becoming one of my favorite young role players in the league. He got pulled from the starting lineup as the team has gotten healthier. He had a handful of not so great games and occasionally he was trying to do a little bit too much off the bounce. Don't blame him. He's had some big offensive bursts this year, you know, so like a lot of that is just confidence in him trying to dive into that part of his game. But again, this team is so talented and has such big goals this season. When he plays in the flow like he did yesterday, that's where he can be a profoundly useful player because he's a knockdown catch and shoot guy who also understands off ball movement. On that third quarter kick out three, for example, Muhammad Muhammad Diawara is the one is guarding him. He's kind of like sinking into the lane in low man help. He relocates up to the right wing because the right wing was vacated off of the way that that action had set up. And it just created a longer closeout. And that longer closeout's harder to make. He ends up getting a really good look from three and he knocks it down. As we know, Jalen Tyson has been absolutely deadly on wide open catch and shoot threes this year. Dennis Schroeder, by the way, I want to shout him out here. His drives have been immensely valuable to the Cavs already in this segment of the season. Since he made the move over. He was the one who drew that low man help with his drive off of the left wing. He had a couple of really nice drop off passes to both Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Tyson for dunks in this game. Cutting along the baseline once again off the attention drawn from his drives. That cut is another great example of that off ball movement from Jalen Tyson just kind of slipping along the baseline when he sees that Runway slipping out of that screen with Merrill like I talked about that's a really nice little spacing ready? He had a really nice roll to the basket on a Donovan Mitchell kind of guard, guard screen in the first half where he got down the lane, slipped and ended up making a little right handed layup. And then he just does so many little things. He's an absolute scrapper who rebounds like a machine. He's a capable perimeter defender as long as he keeps that at the top of his mind. When he's in this role where he's just focusing on playing in the flow on both ends of the floor and just doing his job, he's becoming one of the most useful young role players in the league. I've really, really enjoyed rooting for him. And again, like the Cavs are just one of the best cutting and spacing teams in the league. This is a big part of why James Harden has been such an efficient ball handler for them, which we're going to talk about in a minute. This is a big part of why Dennis Schroeder's drives have brought a ton of value to this particular team. Dennis Schroeder has 33 assists to just 11 turnovers so far in a Cavs jersey and the Cavs are crushing teams. They're plus 16 points per 100 possessions when Dennis Schroeder is on the floor to this point in the season. Donovan Mitchell again had a rough night shooting the ball. I thought he had some pretty good looks that he missed. There's a run there in the middle of the game where he got a couple of really good looks at step back jump shots that he just happened to miss. He's been in a little bit of a three point shooting slump lately, but again I appreciated his defensive activity and then got to the foul line a lot because of just his physical aggression and getting defenders out of position. And then I thought James Hardy had a couple of sloppy turnovers early in the game. He was part of that kind of sloppiness that I was talking about, but he was fantastic after that. Just created so many advantage advantages for this offense and his play type data with the Cavs so far is off the charts. He's run 157 pick and rolls isos and post ups. He's generated 180 points including passes on those possessions. That's 1.15 points per possession, which is about as good as you'll see in the league for high volume shot creation. Not the least bit surprising considering how talented this team is. This is a team that is stacked with play finishing and Kenny Atkinson has them as as attuned as you could possibly be in terms of understanding where to space and relocate when to cut. This is a team that is consistently one of the best cutting teams in the NBA. Not the least bit surprised that they've had as much success with James Harden and with Dennis Schroeder and with guys that can create advantage and pass the ball as well as those two guys can. And James has been shooting the lights out so far with the Cavs. Yesterday was more catch and shoot stuff and he's been great on catch and shoots all season. But he's also 13 for 27 so far on his off the dribble threes with the Cavs. That's obviously insanely good. I know it's the honeymoon phase right now, but the fit I think made sense before the trade and I'm not surprised that it's going well because it really is a picture perfect fit for a team that is built with a ton of play finishing and spacing concepts that will capitalize on advantage creators. And now this Cavs team has a bunch of them. Between the additions of healthy James Harden to a team that couldn't keep Darius Garland on the floor and then obviously the addition of Dennis Schroeder, who's just been a much better backup guard than Lonzo Ball ended up being, I was high in the Lonzo Ball move before the season. It just didn't pan out because he just couldn't shoot the basketball. That has been something that has been an issue for him as of late. I again, I also just want to shout out Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. Jared Allen's been absolutely killing it statistically since James Harden came over in his last. In his last nine games, he's averaging over a 2010 double double. That's insane. Him and Evan Mobley did a great job defensively last night. The Cavs are 13 and 2 in their last 15 games. The offense with James Harden on the floor. This is an insane stat. The CAVS are scoring 127 points per 100 possessions so far with James Harden on the floor. That's an off the charts offensive rating. That's in a pretty large sample so far. Already 456 possessions because James just plays in every single game. The defense has been great. They've been top 10. The off the the really the only thing that I can like nitpick is the defensive rebound and they're giving up an offensive rebound on about a third of their opponent's misses and that's something that has been kind of a recurring issue over the Mobley Allen era. I'm curious as to whether or not that's why Atkinson's been leaning towards Dean Wade with the starters, just trying to give him a little bit more size. Although Jaylon Tyson's such a good rebounder, I'm not necessarily sure that that's a huge upgrade there. But Dean Wade did have a great rebounding game last night. And the beautiful thing is, is one of the things that I've seen with all of the great, you know, modern coaches is they confront margins by attacking the other side of the margin. So for instance, like Boston, bad defensive rebounding team, but they're so good on the offensive glass, they actually have a positive margin there. Right. Or like teams like Oklahoma City, they commit a lot of fouls and they give up a lot of catch and shoot threes. But the flip side of that is they attack the margin on the opposite side by getting a lot of turnovers and scoring in transition a ton. Right. Like a lot of times a lot of people will think about attacking a weakness by addressing the weakness when there's an alternative method which is playing more into your strengths and trying to attack the opposite end of the margin to cancel out that issue. And so, for example, despite the fact that the Cavs have been such a bad defensive rebounding team in their last 15 games, they're actually getting outscored in second chance points by just 0.1 points per game because of how good they've been with their corner crashes with Mobley and Allen under the basket. Again, a lot of that also is the advantages created by their stars, which will keep defenses in rotation, which will keep them out of rebounding positioning. But they're actually doing pretty well in that particular margin because they're canceling it out on the offensive glass. But again, 13 and 2 in their last 15 games, that's the best record in the league in that span. Some big wins. Again, that was a red hot Hornets team that they handled the other night. Again, a huge win over a Knicks team that had been playing some pretty good basketball as of late. And there's just still so much they can improve on Donovan Mitchell's in this like three point shooting slump that's eventually going to turn around. Keon Ellis has been making all sorts of hustle plays, but he hasn't really started hitting his catch and shoot three yet. That's something that I think will turn around over the course of the next couple of weeks. We mentioned the defensive rebounding I think that'll get cleaned up at least a little bit. Max Stru, if he can return, will provide more movement shooting for a team that really only gets that from Sam Merrill. Right now. Things are on the up and up in Cleveland. It's a team that I have currently as my favorite to win the Eastern Conference. I think they're the most complete team in that Eastern Conference right now. I love the quote from James Harden about what they're trying to build after the game last night. Like they just seem like their heads are in the right place. They see the opportunity that's in front of them. They're playing some special basketball. This kind of even started before the trades went down and they're just kind of following that thought through to fruition, really playing some special basketball in Cleveland right now. As you guys know, I've been playing basketball my entire life and it's safe to say my energy in recovery isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago when I was playing in college. And I've always wondered about what supplements could benefit me as I try to keep my basketball playing days going for as long as possible. That sounds familiar to you? Check out Mars Men. It's a potent natural testosterone supplement that optimizes your body's ability to absorb it. It gives you the same benefits of TRT but without synthetics, needles or dependency. Mars Men Testosterone only has real natural ingredients that support healthy T levels, stamina and recovery. Something that can give you the benefits of increased testosterone but without the scary long term issues. Plus, it's made in the US it's third party tested and there's a 90 day money back guarantee. Check out the reviews on the website to see for yourself. For a limited time our listeners get 50% off for life plus free shipping and three free gifts@ Mengotomars.com it's a perfect way to kick off the new year. Strong. That's mengo2marms.com for 50% off and three free gifts. When you check out. After you purchase they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.
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Valley of Shadows Narrator
On June 11, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing.
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Hoops Tonight Host
It's an all out manhunt for John Ajay. Every search and rescue team in LA county has been called in to help.
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Valley of Shadows Narrator
Within days tips started flooding into the Sheriff's department.
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Hoops Tonight Host
The ruler around the drug scene was that a deputy was taken care of.
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Valley of Shadows Narrator
Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert or of a cover up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department.
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Hoops Tonight Host
A homicide captain saying, detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that?
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Valley of Shadows Narrator
Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance?
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Ana Navarro
I wouldn't do it alone.
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Valley of Shadows Narrator
Listen to Valley of shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:50]
Hoops Tonight Host
Segregation in the day, Integration at night
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Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
when segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.
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Ana Navarro
We didn't worry about what was going on outside.
- [16:02]
Hoops Tonight Host
It was like stepping in another world.
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Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
Inside Charlie's Place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it.
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Hoops Tonight Host
You saw the kkk.
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Ana Navarro
Yeah, they was dressed up in their uniform.
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Hoops Tonight Host
The KKK set out to raid Charlie,
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Ana Navarro
take him away from here.
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Hoops Tonight Host
Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.
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Podcast Host (Guaranteed Human)
From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch and visit Myrtle beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:49]
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Hoops Tonight Host
Big second big takeaway from last night. Zach Lowe is right. Luka has been a hard watch this year and he absolutely needs to stop grifting and complaining as much as he has. So the Lakers end up losing a heartbreaker to the Magic last night. A rare clutch loss for them. Clutch basketball is all about execution. When you cut it down to a handful of possessions, it usually just comes down to limiting mistakes and Then executing your offense in the, in the half court to generate quality shots. All of the Lakers stars had huge fuck ups down the stretch of that Magic game last night. LeBron inexplicably leaves Desmond Bain off of the left wing to send unnecessary over help on a Palo Bunchero drive. That leads to Desmond Bain hitting a wide open catch and shoot three. That puts the Magic up two. The Lakers end up going up one on a. After a sequence of plays, LeBron draws a foul and a little post up. Then he ends up getting a back cut dunk on a baseline out of bounds play where really nice back screen gets him wide open. He gets a dunk that puts the Lakers back up by one. Paolo goes down and forces a tough mid range jump shot and he misses it. Austin Reeves inexplicably just stands there not paying attention. And Anthony Black just cuts right past him, gets an offensive rebound. This ball gets stripped away from him, goes to Wendell Carter underneath the basket. Wendell Carter Jr. Ends up hitting the game winner. And then on the final play, Luca, they run this kind of like weird football wide receiver like route concept thing that ends up getting Luka the ball pretty much wide open 30ft from the basket. And instead of taking the wide open 30 footer, he just throws a grenade to LeBron with two seconds left in the game. And LeBron has no choice but to just turn over his right shoulder and take an Impossible 3, which is like, okay. Luca said after the game, like, I thought it was a bit far away. Yeah, I get that. But like what, what did LeBron have that was better than what you had right there? Especially since like Luka, when he's in his groove, seems to like those deeper off the dribble threes. And so just like again, winning clutch games is all about not making mistakes and creating good looks. And again, if LeBron stays home on Desmond Bain, does Paolo have a shot attempt at the rim in traffic? Yeah, but it's a lower percentage shot. And then after the shot goes up, LeBron can crash and try to get the rebound maybe at that point. But leaving, leaving Desmond Bain like that, that's a really poor defensive decision. That's a mistake that contributed to costing your team the game. Austin put a body on Anthony Black, you get a defensive rebound, you're getting fouled, you're going down to the other end. Now you're making two free throws and you're probably going to win that game. That's a simple basic thing that Austin didn't do that cost this team the game. And Then lastly, Luca, like the one thing that you do better than basically everybody in the league is create a shot for yourself in the half court. And that was what you were asked to do on that final possession. You didn't seem interested in doing it. So a lot of just mistakes down the stretch that ended up costing them the game. I have some other frustrations. Like I don't understand why JJ Redick closed with Rui Hachimura who had zero rebounds in that game, despite it being a bloodbath, we need to get a rebound kind of game when Marcus Smart was the obvious fifth man to go there, just more of a scrapper. Not to mention that starting lineup that they've run with Rui, LeBron, Austin 8 and Luka has been one of their worst lineups all season, just consistently gets crushed. So that didn't make any sense. I don't understand why they didn't play more through Austin down the stretch. Austin had some good rhythm in the second half. Luka didn't really have it going. LeBron didn't really have it going. They kind of played too much through LeBron and Luka down the stretch. So I didn't understand that either. But all those are conversations for another day. Zach Lowe, someone that I really look up to in this business and someone that I have a great amount of respect and admiration for, he created some waves yesterday with some criticism of Luka Doncic that I think is worth digging into a little bit. And he basically just went off about how Lucas complaining to the refs is at an all time high and that it's been really hard to watch. And then he also said that his impact has not lined up with his statistical production this year. And I completely agree with everything that he said. I want to dig into each of those ideas individually for a second. Number one, has Luca been less impactful than his individual statistical performance this year? Yes, and there are clear statistical markers for that. Despite him putting up insane individual numbers in both the box score and also in his individual play types. There are two obvious indicators that show it hasn't been as productive as it should be. One is the turnovers. Luca leads the entire NBA in turnovers per game at 4.1. It's twice as much as Shay Gilders Alexander for comparison. And the Lakers are so unathletic that they allow one of the worst transition offensive ratings off of turnovers in the league. They allow 139 offensive rating in transition off of turnovers, which ranks 20th in the NBA. So with how unathletic they are taking care of the basketball is incredibly important to this Lakers team and Luka just hasn't done that compared to his peers around the league at the top of the league and then two team success. Believe it or not, the goal of an offensive engine isn't to average 35 points per game. It's not to average 10 assists per game. It's not to have a really efficient points per possession on pick and roll. It's to create quality offense for a five man unit. And the Lakers with Luca on the floor this year score just 117.8 points per 100 possessions. This crazy stat. There are 13 players in the NBA this season who have played in at least 30 games and who have usage rates over 30. So guys who've played for the majority of the season and have a usage and are super high usage players, 13 of them. Lucas tied for last on that list in team offensive rating when he's on the floor. And before you just go, oh this Lakers roster has issues. And by the way I've taught those Laker roster issues are well documented. And by the way I think it's complicated. The role players are limited but Lucas pretty regularly playing with a better co star than just about anybody on that list. And before you just blame the offensive talent, Cade Cunningham has led a more efficient offense with really limited offensive talent in Detroit. Shay Gilders Alexander is has probably a little bit more offensive talent than the Lakers, but not by much. And the Thunder have been way more efficient with Shea on the floor than the Lakers have been with Luca. Giannis has posted over a 120 offensive rating this season and he's playing with a bunch like arguably the worst roster in the league for a star. Victor Wenyama is not exactly playing with a ton of offensive talents. A lot of young, still pretty flawed offensive players. He's got a better offensive rating this year than Luca does. Steph Curry is literally in like basketball purgatory in Golden State. That offense has produced more than this Lakers Luca offense. The guy he's tied with at the bottom of the league is Kawhi Leonard playing with less offensive talent than Luka's been playing with. The bottom line is is that in this season the Lakers offense has been mediocre. I talked before the season about how I thought they'd be top five. They haven't even been top ten. Even though Luca has put up big individual numbers. Part of it is he doesn't play in transition much at all so he doesn't capitalize on that margin. Part of it is he does. He just dribbles the air out of the basketball and that can kind of disrupt the rhythm of his teammates. Part of it is he's had a lot of bad games this year relative to his peers. After his baby was born, he had a couple weeks where he was really bad and he's in another really bad stretch right now. He's been awful in the last two games, but it is what it is. The bottom line is his individual performance has not led to team success. Zach Lowe was correct in pointing that out. Number two, has it been hard to watch? Yes, it just. It just has. I talked to a lot of Lakers fans and people who cover the team. Most of them haven't enjoyed the Luka Doncic viewing experience. They all, including myself, have tremendous respect for his talent. We're all aware of his upside. I said on the Call and Coward podcast on Monday and I've said on my show before, like, I think his ceiling is the highest in the league. When he has all the parts of his game going when he's like taking care of the basketball and he's hitting his step back three and he's got his mid to short range game going and he's talking shit and playing good team defense, he's legitimately the best player. Whenever he's in that type of game, he no one can meet that level because he can create his own shot from three. So it's like this weird Steph Curry efficiency piece from three mixed with like the short range shot making that you get from Shea mixed with the playmaking you get from Jokic. You get it all with Luca when he's at his best, but he's not at his best enough in the overall experience has not been fun. It's been dribbling the air out of the basketball. He's not a high motor player who's going to invigorate the crowd with effort plays or hustle plays. In watching him work down the lane line and pick and roll and twerk for fouls and then at the refs all damn game and not get back on defense, it's downright infuriating at times. I have not been having fun rooting for Luka Doncic, which takes us to the third piece. Yeah, Luca has to stop worrying so much about grifting and bitching at the refs. It is horrible to watch. When I was younger, when I was in my early 20s, I also used to bitch at the refs a ton when I would play in like men's league games. And summer leagues and things like that, pro ams. And my wife literally started having these, like, intense conversations with me where she was like, I'm not going to go watch you anymore if you're going to do this. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to watch you do that. I, I, it's not fun to watch. I don't want to come to these games if you're doing that. Thankfully, I grew out of it, but, like, that's what we're all thinking when we're watching Luca. It's embarrassing. It's not fun to watch. And most importantly, what you're doing in the basketball side, remove all the fans from the equation. Look just at the basketball. When you index your approach towards something that is out of your control, like the whistle versus something that is in your control, like putting the damn ball in the basket, you are going to be in a situation where you're going to be frustrated when the thing that is out of your control doesn't go your way. If you go down the lane line like that. I'll just take a single example from the Celtics game two nights ago. Luca works down the lane line. Jalen Brown is back pressuring, and he's kind of like hugging up on Luca. And Luca just kind of jumps backwards into him. And Jalen stopped right before he did it. And he might have been semi moving, but I thought it was good. No call. Luca jumps back into him, kind of bumps Jaylen in the shoulder, shoots the shot, doesn't get the call. The Celtics are running out the other way. Have I seen that get called before? Yes. And by the way, you want to know why Luca and Shay and Jaylen Brunson and all these dudes twerk along the lane line for fouls? Because it has worked in the past. I, I have personally noticed, especially post all Star break, there's been a little bit of a, of an indexing in terms of the leagues officiating away from rewarding, grifting. I think that's great. I think the league should just completely stop all that stuff. All these dudes would stop, but what ends up happening is every once in a while, like once or twice a week, Luka will have a game where he gets 12, 14 free throw attempts because of his ability to twerk along the lane line for fouls. And it keeps him in that frame of mind. But most often when you get into a big game, and we see this all the time in the postseason, but we see it a lot in the regular season when you end up in These games where you're playing against one of the better teams in the league and the ball gets thrown up at center court and everybody starts kicking ass physically from the opening tip, it sets a tone. And when that tone gets set, the refs aren't going to slow the flow of the game down and blow the whistle on some grifty bullshit. And so what happens is, is in lower profile games with less physicality, Luka draws a lot of fouls. Clippers game, classic example. Down the stretch, Kawhi's not even on the floor. You're playing against a team that's in the bottom of the play in, yeah, you can get away with some stuff. And also the Clippers did some favors with Ben Mather and reaching in all the time. But like you, when you're in a situation like that, it works. Then you run into a better team who brings the physicality from the opening tip and sets a different tone. Those calls aren't getting made and now it's not going your way. And the Celtics are running it down your throat while you and moan at the refs. It's out of your control. If Luca jumps back into Jaylen Brown in a pickup game and he wants to call a foul, yeah, they'll give you the ball after they all yell at you and call you all sorts of names for trying to ruin the game doing that. But that's because you're in control of the whistle when you're playing pickup. When you're playing in real organized basketball, it's the dude with the whistle. He is not someone you have control over. If you approach the game more towards what you can control, which is Jaylen Brown's on your backside, go make a damn shot. And if you make a regular basketball shot instead of twerking, it's going to be a higher percentage shot. Play towards what you can control. Luca needs to completely shift his approach offensively away from the foul grifting and towards trying to get the ball in the basket. It will make him better in these higher profile matchups. It will make him a better playoff player, and he's already a damn good playoff player. So to kind of tie this up, it's not over for Luca. I'm still a huge believer in his upside. But the version of Luka who can win mvp, who can hoist the Larry o' Brien trophy, who can be a player that every casual basketball fan enjoys watching when they're on tv, that version of Luca is on the other side of some kind of wake up call. And I don't know when or if that wake up call is coming. Getting traded less than a year after making the finals should have been that wake up call and it just hasn't been. And again, like Luca has been very good this year. There's been bad parts of his game. There's been things that again, all that stuff I'm talking about, that's what puts him somewhere in the third to fourth best player in the league range instead of the first to second. Shay and Jokic have just been better. I'm not trying to sit here and pretend like he hasn't been a top tier superstar this year. He has, but he hasn't been fun to watch. He hasn't been as impactful as the statistics would lead you to believe. And this business with him dealing with the refs is becoming a problem. It's been a problem. And again, I There is a version of Luca that we would all turn on the TV and watch and enjoy. There's a version of Luca that actually can win the MVP instead of just getting promoted before the season before he finishes. Way outside of the MVP picture. There's a version of Luca that can hoist the Larry o' Brien Trophy, but it's going to require him making these changes. 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Desmond Bain was phenomenal in the fourth quarter. Their center rotation kicked ass. I like I thought Wendell Carter Jr. Was a beast under the rim all night early in the game as a driver and as a cutter. Some critical offensive rebounds including the game winner last night. Mo Wagner had a great second half shift where he just kicked deandre Ayton's ass on the offensive glass. Anthony Black had a rough shooting night but again made the biggest play of the game, cutting past Austin Reeves for that huge offensive rebound. I thought their defense was fantastic down the stretch as they basically prevented the Lakers from getting into anything. They want some really smart switching, really good individual defense against switches. But again, Paolo was the best player on the floor. He's had a very up and down season, but there was a specific pattern to his success last night that I thought was revealing as to the path he needs to be on, both in his individual skill development and in his approach when he's attacking with the basketball. He did almost all of his damage in the short range last night. He did hit a couple of threes. He had a little ISO 3 against Luka Doncic on the left wing, hit a huge catch and three catch and shoot three out of the right corner in crunch time, but everything else was within 14ft of the rim. When you look at a breakdown of Pa's shot making last night, it's 5 for 7 in the restricted area, 5 for 6 on twos that were outside of the restricted area but inside of 14ft. Then he was 2 for 9 outside of 14ft. That close range shot making is an area where he can be downright impossible to deal with. When he was getting to those looks, those little short twos, there's really nothing the Lakers could do with him. He's had a hard time with that this season. Synergy inside of 17ft has Paulo at just 36% on jump shots this year. On short Range jump shots. So he hasn't been making them this season. He's been just 43% on floaters and hooks. But we have seen him be more efficient on those shots in the past. And again, that's the piece that I think is the ultimate counter to his power game, which, like when he's healthy and he's attacking the basket, he's, he's a lot to handle. I used to talk about this with Giannis. There's this belief, especially with some of these really big driving forwards, that the counter to their driving power should be some sort of long distance jump shot. And I'm not sitting here and pretending like, yeah, like if you can take and make threes, if you can add that to your game, you should, it's, it's such a huge value when you're getting an extra point for per shot. It unlocks a lot of off ball utility. Like if you're not able to hit, catch and shoot threes, it makes it really difficult to play you on the perimeter. All of a sudden you become like a small ball 5 or a guy that can cause some real spacing concerns when you're playing on the perimeter. So like, yeah, if you can build out the three, work on it. I don't. I want Paolo to take wide open catch and shoot threes like that one he took in the corner in the fourth quarter last night. But when it comes to his on ball work, the counter to his power needs to be that short range scoring, turning over each shoulder for little 10, 12 foot jump shots, that little hook in the lane or a little kind of like Euro step floater in the lane. He was 5 for 6 on those last night. Those are the kinds of shots that will carry you to a level of offensive volume and efficiency at his position as his archetype of player. Not spamming threes, not spamming, 17 footers, 18 footers, 19 footers. Those are just really tough shots and they're the shot that the defense wants you to take. It's bailing you out at that point. Again, Paolo was his best version of himself last night and outplayed Luka Doncic in a game because he lived at the rim, he made some quality reads out of action and because he scored effectively inside of the kind of like short range area when he did get cut off from the basket. Number four, Jonathan Kaminga is going to have some big nights in an Atlanta Hawks jersey. I still have my big picture concerns about the half court fit with Jalen Johnson. Jalen Johnson did leave the game with a hip injury last night which opened up some opportunity for Kaminga to play bigger minutes. Obviously that was his first game with Atlanta. I do think there will be some games when Jalen Johnson's healthy where Kaminga doesn't play as much. I don't see a universe where they play together super effectively. Kamiga has some half court issues in terms of processing like regardless, so I still don't love that fit. But one of the things that is fun about this particular dynamic is especially when Jalen Johnson is out of the lineup and Kaminga can pump his minutes up. This is an Atlanta Hawks team that generates a lot of runways. What I mean by that is lanes or advantages where guys with athleticism can attack the basket. The Hawks generate the fourth most transition possessions in the NBA off of their speed and just with their defense and how they can force turnovers and get out off of them. And then two they generate the seventh most made baskets on cuts in the NBA in that game. Just three of Jonathan Kaminga's 27 points came as an initiator. Couple of post ups, a little lefty hook and another play where he a left shoulder hook and another play where he drew a foul. 24 of his 27 either came in transition or as a cutter or attacking a closeout. That is the kind of thing that Johnny the Kaminga has always been good at. We had a video last year, I don't know if you guys remember, Jackson did a fun little animation where he actually put literal runways on the screen. When we talked about how when Jonathan Kaminga focuses primarily on attacking the basket when the windows do show up and taking the occasional catch and shoot three. Took a couple catch and shoot threes out of the right corner this in in the game last night when he focuses primarily on quick decision making with the basketball, primarily attacking every time he sees a lane and taking a handful of catch and shoot threes when he sees those opportunities he can be a very useful offensive player. There's a world where he can become a better on ball player out of the post. We've seen that in the past where like he could cause some problems one on one with his quickness and his ability to get to the foul line. But the league is kind of game planned how to attack the basketball especially when it's in his left hand or when he turns his back and he's really started to struggle in terms of his large sample efficiency in his one on ones. That's a area of development that he needs to build out over the next few years right now he can be a useful player attacking in transition, attacking off of these types of advantages. What we saw last night with him in Atlanta was not some sort of like indicator of him finally being unleashed from the shackles of Golden State. It was him doing the same things that he used to do when he would have success in Golden State and an opportunity happened to open up because the player that he's competing with in this particular situation as a power forward left the game with a hip injury. That said, Jalen Johnson is a little injury prone and the Hawks do play so much in transition and they generate so many cut opportunities that I do think Kamingka is going to have some big games like this where he just gets like six or seven dunks off of cuts and in transition and he's just playing with an advantage and he puts up some impressive statistical performances. Number five, last one for today. Case in Wallace's development into an on ball guard, it's going to pay dividends for the Thunder in the coming seasons. The Thunder get a big win on the road in Toronto last night, yet another big win against a good team without AJ Mitchell, without Jalen Williams, without Shay Gilgis Alexander, which is just a testament to how strong the foundation is with this team. Now as we've talked about so much over the course of the last couple of years, the Oklahoma City offense is pretty much predicated on two things. Defense to transition, like just getting all those openings up the floor off of the strength of your defense, your ability to force turnovers and force bad misses and then dribble penetration. The Thunder are also a very smart spacing team who understands where to cut and relocate off the ball. They have multiple vertical spacing threats who can finish around the rim really well. All of their players are actually pretty solid on wide open, unguarded catch and shoot threes and they're a pretty good read and react team in terms of driving closeouts and making decisions when they get into the middle of the floor. That kind of like decision zone, right? All that sounds great. None of it matters if you can't break the defense down again. The two ways they break the defense down are defense to transition in dribble penetration. One of the reasons why their offense has struggled so much when those top three guys have been out is because when they get stuck in the half court they haven't been able to generate as much dribble penetration. Their offense has been substantially better as of late, in large part because of what Kayson Wallace has done on the ball. I'D add some other guys in there. I think the movement shooting of guys like Isaiah Joe and Jared McCain, they deserve some credit for that as well. There's a handful of guys that have done some better work off the bounce in this stretch than they did earlier in the season, but Kayson Wallace is the primary driver of it for me in the last four games. This is the four game stretch recently since J Dub left the lineup. All games without J Dub, without Shay, without A.J. mitchell. Kason Wallace has 57 drives in those four games. That's insane. That's over 14 per game. That's like a really, really impressive amount of like breaking the defense down from Kayson Wallace and then he's also countered it with this three point shooting which has been off the charts. He started really poorly on off the off the dribble threes this season with, but he's made five of five over the course of the last two games on off the dribble threes, hit a couple disgusting ones last night in the second quarter he had this like snatchback dribble off of like a full speed transition, drive up the right wing, snatch back off the right wing, just got tons of separation, went straight up and down and knocked it down. There is a level of on ball creation that is driving this recent run of wins for the Thunder that Casen deserves a lot of credit for. And again, like as you look at the coming seasons, like having redundancies are good when Sam Presti is going to have to make some tough decisions about who to keep and who to let go. So for instance, adding Jared McCain so that you have two movement shooters between him and Isaiah Joe so you can make a decision if cost cutting comes into the equation on which one you want to move forward with. My guesses It'll be Jared McCain. If you have a such a need for dribble penetration and you need to have like, you know, on any given game, two to three guys on the floor that can consistently break the defense down off the dribble. Adding Case in Wallace to that mix, adding A.J. mitchell to that mix gives you some flexibility in which direction you want to go. Case and Wallace's improvement as a or development into one of the better perimeter defenders in the league gives you a redundancy with Lou Dort. I'd add Jay Will in the success he's had this season as a backup center. He's been awesome this season, is just so good at so many little things that makes you more able to, let's say you go into this off season and you're like, hey, Isaiah Hartenstein, we'd love to keep you at this discounted deal. And then some stupid team like the Lakers comes in and offers him 30 million a year and you end up losing Isaiah Hartenstein. That's where having J will gives you the redundancy you need to maintain talent as this moves forward. There have just been so many hits down the roster in specific position groups that that the Thunder have a lot of redundancy, which not only is what allows them to win as guys have been in and out of the lineup this year, but it's also what's going to give them that roster flexibility as Sam Presti has to make some really tough decisions in the coming seasons. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Got a really fun slate again tonight. The Pistons have another big challenge. Think Oklahoma City is coming to town for them. And then we have. We've got Celtics Nuggets tonight too. That's a really fun one. A Celtics team that's red hot and a Nuggets team that desperately needs a win. Really jam packed slate tonight. So we're gonna have some more game reaction tomorrow and then we'll have a mailbag on Friday. I will see you guys tomorrow morning.
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