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I'm going to be breaking down the Clippers Lakers showdown from last night as the Lakers after getting dominated by the Clippers for a long time, they've actually won five out of seven in that matchup. Another super interesting example of the Lakers dealing with the switching defense. We're going to talk about that. After that we're going to get into a showdown between the two teams that I believe will eventually face off in the Eastern Conference finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers survive two massive runs from the Boston Celtics to tie the season series at 2. Getting a big win on the road in Boston. Then at the tail end of the show, I want to talk a little bit of Denver Nuggets. They've had a uneven stretch of games here recently. They're two and one I believe. On the road trip so far. I want to talk about two concepts with them. One, the concept of inverted spacing as I watched Jokic pick apart the Pistons off ball defenders through just acting as a passing fulcrum at the top of the key. And then I want to talk about the stuff that Denver has to get better at on defense if they want to make a legitimate run to get back into championship contention. 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@_jasonlt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever. Get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. And the last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's Talk Some basketball so when I looked at the initial matchups to start this Clippers Lakers game, I saw that Ty Lue put Zubac on Dorian Finney Smith and so my first impression there was oh, we might have a repeat of the Knicks game when they put Carl Anthony Towns on Dorian Finney Smith and the Lakers just spammed a bunch of pick and pop action to get Dorian Finney Smith in space. But there was a very smart defensive strategy that Ty Lou implemented in this game. After watching a bunch of film of the Lakers struggling against switching, he just decided to have Zubot switch all those screens. That's why you saw so many of those isos out around the top of the key with either LeBron or Luka attacking Zubot in space and I thought generally did a good job. He pretty much contained dribble penetration for the most part and forced those guys into a lot of jump shots over the top. LeBron was really carrying the load in the early part of the game by just settling into that mid range jump shot right around like 1718ft out kind of by the top of the key area. But again like I the Lakers did struggle again for the most part and you know, I don't think they're going to really generate a ton of offense against switching defenses until Luca gets back to the Luka Doncic that we know he's capable of being an MVP level shot maker, right? We saw even just a tiny little touch of it at the end of the game when Luca made a couple of big step back threes that led to an adjustment from Ty. We'll get to that in a second. But until Luca really gets back to his MVP level form on the offensive end and until the Lakers start knocking down their catch and shoot attempts, this is their third straight game where they got less than one point per catch and shoot attempt, they've been struggling to shoot the basketball a lot. I do Think they'll shoot better in the long run, but until those two things turn around, until Luca gets going and until they start knocking down their catch and shoot shots, they're going to struggle against defenses. That switch and they struggled for long stretches in this game, but we did see a little Luca run in that fourth quarter. That was a taste of what things should look like in the long run when Luka gets going. So it's a couple of step back threes over Zubac and switches one on the left wing, one kind of out on the right side of the floor. Now, at that point, Ty Lue had to make an adjustment. He started putting two on the ball. Once Luka puts you on the ball, then they were able to get the defense into rotation and generate quality looks out of that. An open look for Dorian Finney Smith in the right corner that he knocked down a dunk for Jackson Hayes on a slip to the rim. They started to get good looks because they got two to the ball. Again, like, we're going to talk about this a lot when we get into the Celtics game as well, but there's like a, an order of operations. In order to break down a switching defense, you have to start getting a matchup you like and attacking it well enough that you score at a rate that is untenable for the defense. Once you start scoring at a rate that's untenable for the defense, then you can start bringing two to the ball. Once you can start bringing two to the ball, then you can start to generate the same type of opportunities that they got in the Denver game, where it's like, now we're getting a lot of these four on threes and the ball's popping around. We're getting wide open shots for people. They actually handled the double teams better in this game than they did. It was the, I believe it was the Dallas game, if I remember correctly, that they kind of struggled against double teams. But again, like, that's a little tiny taste for Lakers fans of what that could look like in the big picture. Luca going on these scoring runs against switches leading to him getting blitzed. Then you have all this opportunity on the backside of that. Now, again, like, it got a little tricky in this game because it's not Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves leaves the game with a calf injury. He's going to be getting an MRI on that. Hopefully Austin's okay. We'll find out soon. Rui Hachimura, JJ Redick talked after the game. Is dealing with patellar tendonitis or tendinopathy. If I remember correctly. So, like something's going on with the front of his knee. He's going to be out for about a week. So take those two guys out of the rotation. You're bringing guys into the rotation that are lesser offensive players. You know, Trey Jemison basically operating as the backup center when that's been a lot of small ball looks anchored by Rui. And then you're getting a lot more Jordan Goodwin because Austin Reeves is out of the lineup. Right. Those guys are not as good in terms of offensive threats, although they scrap tonight. We're going to talk about it in a little bit. So they're going to be a little tricky in these four on threes in the next couple of weeks as LeBron and Luka have to kind of shoulder more of that offensive load and there's just not as much offensive talent off the ball. But in general, I thought you got to see a little taste of what it could look like in the big picture as Luca starts to get going. That's the beautiful thing about all of this. They've been winning with defense. This is the sixth consecutive game where the Lakers held their opponents to 102 points or fewer. This is now a 21 game span of the Lakers being the best defense in the NBA. That's over a fourth of the season. It's a beautiful thing for the Lakers fans because the thing that I've been most excited about with this team in the big picture is what they're capable of on the offensive end. I imagine a five man grouping with LeBron, Luca and Austin Dorian, Finney Smith and Rui Hachimura. That could achieve a level of unguardability in a playoff context. When Luka gets back to the level that we all know cape that Luka is capable of reaching, right? LeBron was fantastic again in this game, by the way. He's been doing a great job of just kind of like pulling the weight as Luke has been working his way back into rhythm. It's just wild to me how he's consistently night to night playing at an MVP level. I was in awe of him again tonight. He soundly outplayed Kawhi Leonard, soundly outplayed James Harden, a couple of stars that are a half decade younger than him. Just LeBron continues to just be amazing. I wanted to shout out the Lakers bench in this game though, because obviously Rui Hachimura was out. Then we find out Austin's out, the lakers are down two starters. So I ended up being just LeBron and Luca and a bunch of discounted role players. But one of the things that I've been preaching about for a while is the value of high motor athletes on an NBA roster, especially on your deep bench. The reason why I'm into this concept is when your main guys are out of the lineup, just playing super fucking hard will go a long way towards keeping your floor up high and giving you a chance to win games. Jordan Goodwin was insane again in this game. One of the best scrappers that I've rooted for in my time as an NBA fan. Jared Vanderbilt was great. Trey Jemison came in and just played his ass off. Dorian Finney Smith always plays hard game. Vincent always plays hard. I just think that's how you should build a team. When you have championship aspirations and you're trying to survive the regular season. Make sure the guys that are outside of your normal rotation are guys who play hard because that is something you can count on every single night. When you have like offensive players that are not very good and that's why they're end of the bench guys, they could be terrible on a night when they don't have their jump shot going or when they don't have, you know, a matchup where they're facing switching and they have to create more shots for themselves. Like you're going to run into a lot more weaknesses in that regard. And here's the thing. Jordan Goodwin struggled to knock down spot up threes today. Trey Jemison had a couple plays where he, you know, fumbled the ball away in traffic. There are go, you know, a lot of Jared Vanderbilt, right? There's going to be moments where you're dealing with those guys in their offensive limitations. Come to the surface. Jared Vanderbilt still struggles to catch anything in traffic, right? But like just by competing and playing their ass off like I thought, one of the biggest plays of the game was when the Clippers took that lead off of, I believe it was off of a Kawhi Leonard three at the top of the key on the left side where I believe Luca goes down and scores. And on the inbound, Jordan Goodwin gets a steal in another layup and it reversed it back to the Lakers being in the lead, it like completely flipped the momentum and Luka ended up taking that group into having a small lead going into the fourth quarter. That's a scrappy play that made a huge difference. Jared Vanderbilt scrapping, getting on, on the floor, taking the ball away from James Harden and drawing a foul. Gabe Vincent, he committed a kicking violation on this play, but applying ball pressure and speed, kicking the ball Away from James Harden. And again, if you don't hear the whistle, you just keep playing. And he just ran, beat everybody to the basketball, got that ball, ran it out in transition and got a layup. Those dudes scrapped all game long and it gave the Lakers a chance to win even down two of their most important offensive players. And LeBron and Luka just grinded out enough buckets against switches out above the break in order to get enough to win that particular game. The I thought the Zubot matchup matchup was interesting. I mean it's the same type of player as Jokic in terms of like a guy that's just way too big for any Laker to guard. But it's a very different type of matchup because Jokic was the center of the game plan. And everything they did was built around like helping off of these non shooters and containing Jokic, right? And like even with Jamal Murray, they were willing to concede these like mildly contested pull up jump shots out above the break. Right. With Zubach though, like he's not the focus of the game plan. The game plan was focused around Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. A lot of similar stuff to what we've seen in other matchups where they were sending all sorts of help at Kawhi Leonard, particularly when he would turn his back so that when he would go to spin off of a guy you would just run into bodies. They just did a great job of making Kawhi Leonard feel like he was playing in a crowd. They pressed up on James Harden's right shoulder so that they could contest without getting up underneath his landing zone so he wouldn't get to the foul line. Although Jackson Hayes did have a really, really bad foul in the fourth quarter where he reached in on, on James Harden, just stuck his hand right on James Harden's left arm. And that's just James. James has been just had an automatic trigger to just rise and fire when he sees that for the last half, you know, you know, five, seven years of his career to draw additional foul shots, right? So like, but for the most part they played Harden's right shoulder. They tried to funnel him into help where Jackson Hayes was always waiting and he was trying to take that floater. I think he ended up going 1 for 10 from 3. They did a good job of closing that gap and keeping things difficult for him and it worked. They held Kawhi and James Harden to 39 points on 39 shots. They forced him into eight turnovers. I thought it was another impressive defensive game plan. From J.J. redick. But again, you end up giving things to take things away, right? Just like in the Denver series or Denver game, the Lakers were conceding wide open looks to Aaron Gordon, Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown, right in this matchup, it was like Zubotz was getting some catches, was getting some catches on the roll. And like, the Lakers were constantly reacting to Zubac when he'd already have deep post position, as opposed to denying Jokic fronting the post, forcing him to catch the ball further out so that they could mitigate some of his size. With Zubac, by the time he caught it underneath the basket, most of the time, they were just dead to rights already. And Zubac was just able to shoot a little hook shot over the top, where he's so deadly. Too much is just an awesome player, I think. What do you have, like 27 and 16, something like that in that game. The thing that has been really impressive to me with Zubac in particular, is like his floater touch. Like, when he would catch and there wouldn't be somebody on him, he'd be 7, 8ft from the basket, he'd just turn and shoot like a little floater that would just softly go in the basket every single time. He's just a really good player. And that was where the Lakers decided to have their defense bend without breaking. And they gave up a ton to Zubot. They held everyone else in check and again held another opponent to 102 points or less. The Lakers are now 17 and 4 in their last 21 games. That's the best record in the NBA. They're 10th in offense, first in defense, eighth in defensive rebounding on the Clippers front. The only thing I wanted to get into there, the biggest concern for me that stood out was just the amount of lift that Kawhi Leonard was getting on his jump shot. Kawhi was shooting a really flat ball tonight, and it was barely getting over the front of the rim unless he was wide open. Like, if he was wide open, that thing was going in and Kawhi just has a very robotic jump shot form to where, like, if he kind of gets into his energy transfer from the ground up and no one disrupts that, he's gonna knock it down, right? But like, just about everything that was contested and everything that involved him trying to shoot through, you know, congested defense around him, he struggled to get lift. And again, like, when Kawhi's at his best, he's always powering through guys, bumping them off with his shoulder, getting to his spot, rising cleanly and just, it just pops in off the back of the rim over and over and over again when he's at his best. And like he's up to 17 games this year and he's just not getting lift. I think he's actually up to 18 games this year. He's not getting lift. And that's the part that concerns me as part of as, as far as like his base goes and, and just like whether or not his knee is capable of getting to where it needs to be for the Clippers to make a real run. But big one for the Lakers again, five out of seven against the Clippers, they flipped that script. The one thing I'll, the last thing I'll say on the Laker front, guys like, like I talked about after the Minnesota game, my biggest concern with this team is injuries. They've been playing their asses off, they've been competing, but guys are starting to drop. Brewery goes down, Austin goes down. We haven't even gotten to the 40 year old or the dude who's, you know, was significantly overweight a couple weeks ago and has already dealt with calf issues throughout the season. So like, I'm a little worried about the Lakers on the injury front. Basically the main piece of pessimism that I'm contending with right now as a fan of the team. But they are playing some really good basketball and I do think they have a formula to where they can keep things afloat until they get guys back into the lineup.