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- [00:00]
Trevon Edwards
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. I'm Trevon Edwards, co host of the new podcast Got Greatest of Their Era with Steph Curry. You don't want to miss our first episode that's out now. We went live from All Star Weekend and had special guest appearance by Steph Curry himself. Steph talked about what separates the truly elite NBA shooters. You might as well just count that and get on back on defense. And we ranked our top five shooters from the 2000s. That's so tough. That's why we have these conversations. Yes, absolutely.
- [01:01]
Steph Curry
Love it.
- [01:02]
Trevon Edwards
Listen to goat greatest of their era on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to My Legacy. I'm Martin Luther King III and together with my wife Andrea Waters King and our dear friends Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives. Join us for heartfelt conversations with remarkable guests like David Oyelo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Billy Porter.
- [01:30]
Steph Curry
Listen to My legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is My Legacy.
- [01:38]
Trevon Edwards
I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. This podcast is based on my co host Mark Seals best selling book of the same title. Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, James Caan, Talia Shire and many others.
- [01:58]
Steph Curry
Yes, that was a real horse's head.
- [02:00]
Trevon Edwards
Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:10]
Steph Curry
The volume 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 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. 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 Connecticut. Help is 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 responsible gaming resources, see DKNG Co B Ball all right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Thursday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Got a jam packed show for you today. We got back to some NBA basketball last night as the Lakers put up a stinker against the Charlotte Hornets. Some brilliant basketball from Lamella Ball. Miles Bridges down the stretch. They steal that game. We're going to break that game down from the perspective of both teams. Then at the tail end of the show, I got a little bit about Shake Hill just Alexander in his current MVP case. 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 podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you guys leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there so you can get more content throughout the rest of the season. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions we can get to them in our Friday mailbags throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I honestly thought this was a really sloppy game from both teams outside of a few short stretches. Like the Lakers controlled the first two and a half quarters, but I didn't think they were playing particularly well. Really sloppy, especially on the offensive end. Still a lot of guys feeling each other out. Here's the thing. When you trade Anthony Davis, who's one of the very best defensive players in the history of the sport, for a player who is an MVP level offensive player and you get poor play on the offensive end from that player, you're going to see some talent discrepancies start to show and we're going to talk about it later. But there are also some issues that the Lakers are having with their small ball groups and spacing as they kind of try to figure out how to play a different brand of basketball than they've been playing the rest of this season. We'll get to that in a little bit, but just a lot of sloppiness, right? Yet somehow they're in control for the first two and a half quarters despite not playing well. And it's because despite everything I just said, the Hornets were playing even worse. JJ Redick talked after the game about some of the realities of teams he's been on post All Star break and how they can run into just a little bit of funk because you're just not used to playing. Basketball is very much a rhythm sport. And like he's been on teams where they've come out of the break and they've looked great and he's been on teams where they've come out of the break and look terrible. It's kind of just part of the sport, right? So they're playing some sloppy basketball. The Hornets come out in the late third quarter, finally start playing what I thought was the first stretch of good basketball that either team played last night and they promptly want any went on a 23 to 1 run that really changed the dynamic of that game. And Charlie got going on offense in that stretch. I thought Nurkic was really the catalyst of this portion of the game, getting a, you know, Nurkic is a guy that got a bad rap for, for a lot of things in Phoenix and he's a really flawed player. And I'm not trying to sit here and pretend like he's some sort of savior for the Charlotte Hornets or anything like that, but Nurkic has some skills and he can play. Like I was impressed in years past in Phoenix at some of his drop coverage defense, he had a couple of big drop coverage stops. One on LeBron James where he stonewalled in the play where Austin Reaves got ejected. He stripped him down low. And it may, may or may not have been a foul, but like a lot of times, contact right around the basketball refs are going to let that sort of thing go. It's kind of like a 50, 50 call. And he got a good strip there that led to that, that, that ejection, the free throw is also a stop. Like I've been, you know, generally keyed in on a couple of things that Nurkic can do well. And he did those things well during this run. He facilitated a back cut to Miles Bridges on like a Spurs cut, which is where post player has the ball right around the elbow and the offensive player just cuts off his shoulder. Nurkic will pivot into his space and drop it over the top. Now all of a sudden you got dribble penetration. JJ Redick and the Lakers were double teaming Yousef Nurkic in the post against this centerless Lakers group, which by the way, Nurkic had zero points last night. So I would have probably like made him score once or twice before I started reacting the way that they did. But he made really nice passes out of the double team. Got a wide open three for Miles Bridges on the left wing that he knocked down. Got Another wide open 3, 1 pass away for Seth Curry on the right wing that he knocked down. I thought Nurkic was definitely the catalyst of that run, at least the initial part of the run as the Hornets took their initial leads. Shout out, Seth. Shout out to Seth Curry too. He had a couple of huge plays in that stretch. Kept two possessions alive too. Stripped Jared Vanderbilt after a defensive rebound right underneath the basket. He beat LeBron to a loose ball that generated an extra offensive rebound. They go on this run, they take a three point lead going into the early part of the fourth quarter. Then LaMelo comes into the game and immediately hits two threes and suddenly they're up by nine. It was kind of like this fancy screen and re screen action with Seth Curry where Lamelo ball like screens down for Seth Curry who comes off the screen and then immediately turns around and screens for Lamelo again. It's just designed to confuse switching and Gabe Vincent and Dalton connect. Were the two players involved. And Gabe was kind of waiting for whoever went in towards the paint. And Dalton should have been waiting forever who came for whoever came out. But Dalton wasn't paying attention. Lamelo just flashed to the top, caught the ball, knocked down a three point shot, and then the other three hit was just simple drop coverage shot. Alex Lens on the floor, he's sitting back in a drop. Just get that ball screen gets a little bit of separation at the top of the key, knocks it down. Suddenly the Lakers are down by nine. That was how quickly things turned around. That whole run, that whole 23 to 1 run took place in just a little bit over five minutes of game time. So that was like the first stretch of real serious basketball that either team played. Leads to an avalanche. Suddenly we got ourselves kind of like a Lakers back against the wall type of fourth quarter. And then we get this just completely absurd run from LeBron who I think was really the only Laker who played well last night. Just an absolute freight train to the rim. A driving spinning floater against Seth Curry, a driving layup against to Jane Salon, and a driving layup through Lamello. Ball in transition. Then a post up double of Luka. LeBron drives the closeout instead of taking a three and throws down what I think was the dunk of the year against Mark Williams. Just completely absurd. It actually reminded me of the dunk that he had back in 2018 against Nurkic. Different dunk because on that dunk LeBron was going down the left lane line and kind of dunked off to his right side, whereas this one, he's dunking over his body to the left. But it reminded me in the sense that he kind of went around the center and then just extended like LeBron is a very underrated wingspan. He just kind of extended over the top and finished just a completely ridiculous dunk. If there's any sort of like encouragement or, or optimism that you want to take from the early returns of the Luka Doncic experience with the lakers, it's that LeBron looks absolutely fantastic. And if LeBron is going to play at this level and you eventually get MVP level Luca into this mix, it's just a lot of top end talent for teams to contend with. But he follows right up after the dunk on, on Mark Williams with a three against Mark Williams on a switch. He had another nice play later in the game in clutch time where he drove Mark Williams on a switch and got a foul hit. The three that gave them a shot late in the game, although he ended up missing the shot that could have tied the game. But just an unbelievable run from LeBron James kind of re instigate some control for the Lakers as it turns into a clutch battle. But then down the stretch, Miles Bridge, Miles Bridges and Lamella Ball, they just out dueled LeBron and Luca in large part because the Lakers again, not getting anything from Luca on the offensive end of the floor, at least by Luca's standards. Like, Luka had a bunch of really nice plays in pick and roll and out of the post where he generated advantages. You know, that's the thing with players of his talent level. Like we all think he played like garbage. And here's the thing, he did by his standards, but like he still did a lot. They still won his min. There's a certain level of, there's a certain level of pop that you're going to get from Luka offensively that you just haven't seen yet in a Lakers jersey. A simple way to put it is their offensive rating right now as a unit in three games is like 111 and change. Like that's, that's obviously just a tiny fraction of the type of offensive impact that you should get from that group in the big picture. But on the other end of the floor, Lamelo was picking on Luka and switches. Something that we need to get used to seeing as we watch the Lakers. That's definitely going to be a huge part of the way teams attack. And the Lakers were just struggling on the back end to handle that. He got downhill and drew a foul against Jackson Hayes. Another one where he dropped it off to Mark Williams for an easy two under the rim. Miles Bridges hit a bunch of big shots in this stretch. I always talk about the idea, Derrick White is the best in the league at this, in my opinion. But the idea of like switch interchange in the gap that takes place there. So like basically if, if Miles Bridges is dribbling against one player and a hornet comes up and sets a screen and that player is going to be the guy who's guarding the screener is going to be switching out to Miles Bridges. But there's like an interchange, right? There's a gap as the on ball defender disengages and the new switching defender engages. Now really good switching defense there. You're usually closing out in those situations and switching with aggression. You're switching with ball pressure to close that interchange gap as quickly as you can. But the Lakers were really sloppy on that. By the way, some of this stuff like I want to cut the Lakers some slack on in terms of the game plan because like Lamelo ball, a jump shot for Lamelo ball has been worth less than a point this year. A jump shot for Miles Bridges has been Worth less than a point this year. So, like, some of this is like I could. I can imagine the game plan was close out, a bit shorter on some of these types of shots. But it doesn't matter in the moment when Lamelo is hitting and has been hitting all night and Miles Bridges is hitting and has been hitting all night. Like, you kind of have to make that adjustment. And there were three times in the second half where Miles Bridges hit threes against those switch interchanges. Particularly Jared Vanderbilt and Jackson Hayes on those switches were slow to get out to the perimeter and knock those shots down. Those were all huge shots for Miles Bridges that really kind of helped Charlotte maintain control of the game. Then the two biggest plays of the game. So again, LeBron draws a foul against Mark Williams, and then Luca gets an offensive rebound put back. Suddenly the Lakers are up by one in the final minute just because of a couple of plays made by LeBron and Luka. But the Lakers just couldn't contain LaMelo. Two times in a row, he generates a bucket. The first one gets Luka on a switch. Dorian Finney Smith doubles. When Dorian Finney Smith doubles, he waves Luka out of the switch. Now when he waves Luka out of this or out of the double, Luke has got to rotate. Everyone's got to rotate. So on this particular possession, LeBron is hugged up to Miles Bridges in the left corner. You've got Gabe Vincent on Mark Williams right underneath the basket. And you've got Rui Hachimura on Josh Green on the left wing. And Nick Smith Jr. Is wide open in the left corner. So when Dorian Finney Smith waves Luka out, if everyone's on a string and they're connected, it's an easy rotation. Luca drops To Miles Bridges, LeBron drops to Mark Williams. Gabe drops to the corner to Nick Smith. And if they're on, I call them windshield wiper rotations. When they're connected, when guys are rotating at the same time, those openings close up immediately. But when there's a delay, that's when things fall apart. Both LeBron and Gabe just seemed completely aloof and weren't paying attention. They stayed hugged up. Gabe had this crazy, like 20 foot closeout to the left corner and Nick Smith made the shot. He made him pay for that defensive breakdown again. We'll talk about that in a minute. But the Lakers are going to have to have a plan for how to handle these Luca situations, and they're going to have to execute better. And then the second one, you put Vanderbilt in as a defense, offense sub so that you can get a stop. And Vando just gets cooked by Lamelo. It just gets completely cooked on a little left to right crossover. The Lakers were offering a lot of nail help where they were like digging down from the wing, but guys were just swiping instead of actually like containing the drive. Rui and Gabe had really bad examples of this in crunch time. And Lamelo just cut right through the lane and just shot that little scoop shot. And that put the Lakers in a bind. And yeah, LeBron hit a three that gave him a chance late, but that ended up more or less being the play that did them in. And I just thought Lamelo and Miles made more plays than LeBron and Luca did down the stretch and it was enough to get a win on the road. My only thought on the Hornets that I wanted to share after this one. Lamelo is such a polarizing player for me when I watch him because he does a lot of things that drive me crazy. Dribbles the air out of the basketball. He kind of has like a. I just did like a general air of unease, like unseriousness. Like he's just kind of. He's just kind of floating around. There's a lot of like unorthodox footwork. There's a lot of like. It kind of just seems like he's playing around a lot of the times. But the talent level is completely absurd. Just has a ridiculous handle. He might sit there and make 35 fakes before he actually tries to drive past you, but he's probably going to drive past you once he gets past you. He's just such a great finisher. He's such a great playmaker. And if you sit back and contain the drive, again, he hasn't been shooting super well. But when he has this jump shot going, he can make you pay for sitting back off of him. Right? And last night he was hitting and he consistently made the Lakers pay. Just a really tantalizing prospect. Strictly from a talent perspective, even if he can drive me crazy sometimes on the Lakers front, I'm going to say the same thing I said after the Utah loss. The loss itself doesn't mean anything. Like, we all know that the Lakers could easily dispatch of the Charlotte Hornets if they were in a more urgent type of situation. The Lakers traded for Anthony, traded Anthony Davis for Luca, and they haven't really gotten Luca yet. I'm not worried about it at all. I see a lot of people trying to bury Luca after these first couple of games. I think that would be a huge mistake. Like he's just going to play much better in the big picture. And honestly, aside from a couple of small things that we'll get into involving spacing and some stuff with Jared Vanderbilt, I'm actually super encouraged by what I've seen from this group on offense so far. You know, this just. It worked. It all makes sense to me in terms of the advantage creation, the play finishing. Other than Jared Vanderbilt, it seems like everyone is kind of like a perfect fit on the offensive end of the floor. So like, I'm not worried about that at all. But again, like I said after the Utah game, I do think there's value in looking at how you lost the game in what in that mix you can take away as like a legitimate area of opportunity for you to improve as a basketball team. Jared Vanderbilt is the guy that's sticking out like a sore thumb so far in the LUCA era. In the three games that he's played so far with Luca, they have a -21.4 net rating with him on the floor, 103 offensive rating, a 124 defensive rating. And that's the main thing I want to highlight right away. Like he's been really bad on defense, which is so unusual for him. Right? Like a lot of dumb stuff last night. Like he had a play where he in the third quarter where he hard closed out on Daquan Jeffries on the left wing and it's like Daquan Jeffries can't shoot. He's like 30% on catch and shoot jump shots this year. Hard closeout ends up giving up a drive and Daquan hits a little scoop shot over the top of him. Or like on that final possession losing Lamello ball on a, on a straight line drive. Or he several times over the first couple of games where he's gotten defensive rebounds, but he hasn't had good awareness of what's happening around him and he gets stripped from behind or fumbles the ball away. A good chunk of Jared Vanderbilt's impact can be improved by him just doing what he gets paid to do, which is be one of the best defensive players in the league, which is what he hasn't been over the course of these few games. Right? But on offense it's pretty simple. The teams are putting their centers on him, parking that center under the rim. And this is a real problem that isn't going away with these centerless groups. It's been so interesting thinking about the center position as much as we have over the course of the last couple of weeks. Since the Luca trade because the centers have looked good with exception of Alex Lynn in that Utah game. Like The Lakers were plus 12 last night with Jackson Hayes on the floor. They were plus 8 with Alex Lynn on the floor. So they were plus 20 with their centers on the floor. That's how bad their small ball groups got butchered. And this team has a lot of good small ball personnel. JJ believes in small ball. It wouldn't matter if you had Mark Williams or if you had a better center. JJ is going to play a lot of small ball with this group and they're going to have to figure that part out. There's a couple different things I want to look at there. First of all, like Vando's got to find his space within this fit on the floor without a center on the offensive end of the floor. This extends beyond Vando, by the way, because there were small ball groups that have struggled even without Vando over the course of this stretch. One of the things that changes when you shift to this style of offense, which is again, I've, I've talked about this a lot on the show, but like in when you're running a motion and you got the ball constantly flowing from side to side and you have your big operating as a screener, dribble handoff, fulcrum at the top of the key, which was the right way to play with Austin, Dlo and LeBron. And that's why it worked so well last year under Darvin Ham. When you have that five out motion concept, your dunker spot, your roll man type of stuff around the basket, it's always vacant until someone cuts into that space or rolls into that space. Once you start playing more like this style, where it's like a lot more of like LeBron, Luka, spread the floor, ball screens, post ups, where it's more brute force, it becomes easier to space the floor in more of a four out, one in context. Meaning like if LeBron's going to be attacking a matchup, like a one on one matchup on the left wing, if everyone's standing around the three point line, the gaps get pretty shrunken, right? And then suddenly people are helping in driving lanes and it gets pretty difficult to play. So you want to take one of those guys that's at the three point line and you want to tuck them underneath the basket right? Now, a way that a lot of small ball teams will confront this is instead of putting a big man down there, they'll put a guard down there. It's very simple reason why if you have a guard in the dunker spot, the guy guarding him is probably a guard. So if you beat your man off the dribble and get into the paint, the first line of defense you're going to run into is most likely a smaller player. And so one of the things the Lakers are having issues with is Jared Vanderbilt in many cases isn't even in the dunker spot. Like he's kind of floating around. Not even as a screener. He's kind of floating around. So part of it is like getting Vando into the dunker spot or get Vando out of the dunker spot, have him operate out of the corner as a crasher, as an off ball screener and try to have more situations where you have a guard right underneath the basket where you can quickly catch and finish. Have a, have a Rui Hachimura who's been drawing smaller defenders and did a lot of damage in the post last night. Have a Gay Vincent down there in that spot. But Vando is going to be the issue. There will be a lot of sequences where Vando is in the dunker spot, but he has a center on him and that center feels comfortable splitting the difference between helping and contesting Vando at the rim. So what do you do in that situation when Vando is your issue underneath the basket? That is where having Luka at MVP level makes such a huge difference. Luka is one of the very best shot makers in this league. Luka can be impervious to spacing at times because of his ability to score in the short to mid range. Right. And so again, like just by having Vando play much better on defense and by having Luca play much better on offense, these lineups can work a lot better than they have. However, I do think it's important to at least factor in that Vando could be an issue there. It's something that against the best teams in the league that have elite rim protection, it's a problem that the Lakers might have to face and that they might have to deal with. And again, what you can do there is if Vandos off the floor, you can try to make up for that by having guards in the dunker spot to create spacing. Like we talked about earlier, that's what the Celtics do so incredibly well. But again, just having Luca play better, having Jared Vanderbilt play better on defense will go a long way. Austin too, like I talked about this after the Utah game, like, Austin's one of the most reliable big game players in the NBA. I trust that dude so much when it's an important game against a good team, but he can throw out some stinkers against some bad teams. And like I thought Austin was really bad last night. And then he compounded it by complaining about a foul call, which by the way, like I talked about earlier was a 5050 call. It wasn't like a rake on the arms, it was a rake kind of right around the wrist ball area. And when it's a bang bang sequence in a basketball game, that's a call that refs will miss. Like I talked about earlier, I view that as like a 50, 50 call. Sometimes you're going to get it, sometimes it's going to be called a strip. And for you to lose control, run up on the ref, say whatever you said he said, he said it three times. He bumped him on the elbow like you, you made it so that you had to get ejected and now all of a sudden you're in a situation where you have less talent on the floor down the stretch of the game. So like again, it is what it is. I'm not worried about Austin. Austin's always going to be there as a foxhole guy when, when the shit's hitting the fan against a good team. But Austin didn't do his team and any favors last night by getting himself kicked out of that game.
- [24:56]
Trevon Edwards
I'm Mark Seal. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. The five families did not want us.
- [25:03]
Steph Curry
To shoot that picture.
- [25:05]
Trevon Edwards
Leave the Gun Take the Cannoli is based on my co host Mark's best selling book of the same title. And on this show we call upon his years of research to help unpack the story behind the Godfather's birth. From start to finish, this is really.
- [25:17]
Steph Curry
The first interview I've done in bed.
- [25:20]
Trevon Edwards
We sift through innumerable accounts. 35 pages isn't very much, many of them conflicting. That's nonsense. There were 60 pages. And try to get to the truth of what really happened. And they said we're finished, this is over. It only is not going to work. You gotta get rid of those guys. It's just that Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, James Caan, Talia Shire and many others.
- [25:45]
Steph Curry
Yes, that was a real horse's head.
- [25:48]
Trevon Edwards
Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast the Greatest True Crime stories ever told. Join me every week as I tell.
- [26:06]
Steph Curry
Some of the most enthralling true crime.
- [26:08]
Trevon Edwards
Stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Mel Reid, LPGA Tour winner and six time Ladies European Tour winner and Kyra K. Dixon, NBC Sports reporter and host. You forgot to say warmer. Miss America, by the way. And we've got a new podcast, Quiet Please with Mel and Kira. We are bringing you spicy takes on sports and pop culture, some golf haps and interviews with incredible people who have figured out how to make golf their superpower or just people we like. Plus tales from the road and everything in between. By the way, golf isn't just for the dads, brads and chads. Yeah, it's actually life's cheat code and we're not going to be quiet about it on or off the course. We're bringing on on some of our friends like Michelle We, Heather McMahon, Amanda Baliotis. So if you want to keep up with us and here is yap, tune into our new podcast. Listen to Quiet Please with Mel and Kyra, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. It was a moment that should have broken me, but just because of how I was raised and my bullishness and arrogance to want to be great hardened me. It gave me platform to be so singularly focused on greatness. We all have moments like this. Something happens that's supposed to break us, but it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of. I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's me. I'm Ashlyn Harris.
- [28:00]
Steph Curry
Foreign. I want to move to the defensive end of the four for just a second though, because this is going to be something that is a big talking point for the Lakers moving forward. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not worried about the Lakers offense at all. I. I just. They're gonna work. They're gonna figure it out. They have a 111.5 offensive rating so far. That's going to be turned around at some point over the course of the next couple of weeks. But on the defensive end of the floor, the idea of teams attacking Luka Doncic in space is going to be a problem that they're going to have to address. So first of all, before we get into any, like, schematic stuff, you just have to do better. Like you just have to do a better job of containing the ball. And this goes deeper than just Luca. This goes down the roster to a bunch of different guys. Like Rui got back cut a bunch of times last night. Like, that's a way of giving up dribble penetration just by not paying attention, right? Like you're one of your top tier defenders. And Jared Vanderbilt gives up a key drive late in the game. But even Luka himself, by virtue of getting into better shape, by virtue of just competing more on the ball, if he can flatten out some of those drives, again, like, think of it on a very basic level, a straight line drive is going to be very difficult to react to as a helper. But if you can flatten out the drive so that it's more of a banana route out to the side, that's what delays that enough for you to have easier rotations on the backside. But when you're giving up dribble penetration, you have to be prepared. There were large portions of this game where I thought they looked great in this regard. The Lakers were throwing a lot of low man help. The. And again, in the low man, all that means is when the ball screen defender is stepping up, the guy who's guarding the weak side corner slides up underneath the basket to help guard that action. Three on two. The guy on the wing for the Lakers was doing a good job dropping down and guarding the corner to cover for the low man. They were missing some of that extra rotation though. The rotation to the man up the wing, they were missing some of those extra rotations. And then simple stuff like that double team where Dorian Finney Smith waved Luca out. If you're going to scram Luca out of switches. And that's basically what that is. So like if Luca gets picked on on a switch and you just run a double team over and get Luca out of there, you're scramming him out of a mismatch. You need to be prepared for that scram. And in, in crunch time, they had a sequence where they just weren't ready for it. And so again, different team. You're. You're not used to having a guy like Luke on the floor that you have to cover for, but now you do. So you just got to figure out the back end of that. And so that's the thing, like when we talk about the Lakers, they're not going to be some world beating top five defense. It's just they don't have the personnel for it. Even, even before this when they were defending extremely well, like a lot of it was playing really hard in the month of January and February, right? So like I, I, I want to be clear, like I never thought this team was elite, but they should be better defensively than they have been. And again, that's all they have to do. They have so much margin for error on the offensive end of the floor. They just need to get to the point where they get enough stops, where they get enough defensive rebounds to allow their offense to push them over the top. And a lot, a lot of that will come down to everyone competing better on the ball, getting actual high level defensive impact out of your high level defensive players and having a plan for Luca, got to have a plan for how to react to those situations when they start picking on, picking on Luca in space. The one last thing that stood out to me the much of this team and their potential success this year will come down to the play of younger players like Rui Hachimura. Rui's played great for the most part as of late, but he's a young player and he can make a lot of mistakes. I talked about him losing Lori Markkanen as a shooter a lot in the game right before the All Star break. He was lost a lot in this game. There's a play with Nurkic where he was on the right wing post entry to Nurkic and his man just cuts right off of him and he's just like, he's not double teaming, he's not guarding any anybody. All of a sudden his man catches the ball in the back cut. It gets sprayed out to Miles Bridges. Then he just throws this crazy reckless close out of Miles and Miles Bridges who just kind of shows the ball. Rui goes flying by and then Miles hits the three. A lot of possessions like that where Rui's just kind of like all over the place on the defensive end of the floor. And here's the thing, he's such a good offensive player that usually he can start to minimize that by adding margin for error, right? But he goes 1 for 8 from 3, misses a couple of important free throws in the final minute that could have tied the game that like shines light on all that other stuff. And so another potential weakness we need to keep an eye on for the Lakers in the big picture is just simply that Rui Hachimura is a young player. There's some guys in this rotation that are young players. And you know how I feel about young players. When you get to the postseason, it's something that could be an issue. But again, this team will demonstrate a much larger margin for error once they figure out things on offense. And again, I expect them to be a team that when I wouldn't be surprised if from now through the end of the season they were well north of a 120 offensive rating once they actually kind of get their sea legs underneath them. And I think it's only a matter of time. All right, before we get out of here tonight, welcome to Course Correction, brought to you by Microsoft. Just like the star players and teams navigating performance hurdles, business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management, and trustworthy, responsible AI. When you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face. In this segment, we explore the challenges faced by teams or star players and how they can turn things around. Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on. This week we're discussing the challenge faced by current MVP favorite Shay Gil Alexander. Two things happened this year that made life substantially tougher on Shay Gildous Alexander and the Thunder. First, Jaylen Williams, really talented young player. He's been embroiled in a season long shooting slump. His true shooting Percentage is a full 6% lower than it was last year, which is not entirely uncommon for a young player. Young players go through growing pains. This team has a lot of young players on board. That's been a issue for the Thunder this year. Secondly, Shea loses his second or his most talented co star in Chet Holmgren to a broken hit. Misses a huge chunk of the season, but it hasn't mattered at all. I saw this crazy stat that my friend Carson Breber from Nerd Sesh tweeted out yesterday when Shai Gil Just Alexander is on the floor this year with no Chet and no Jalen Williams. So just imagine Shay Gildis, Alexander and a bunch of really young role players. Good young role players, but young role players that have flaws, that have offensive limitations. 1258 possessions, a massive sample size. A plus 29 net rating, 133 offensive rating, a 104 defensive rating. Just unbelievable work from Shea this season. His half court shot creation metrics have been off the charts. A pick and roll from Shea including passes has been worth 1.12 points per possession. That's in the 90th percentile. An ISO for Shea including passes has been worth 1.08 points per possession. That's 87th percentile. A post up for Shea including passes 1.13 points per possession including passes 74. 30 percentile just picking teams apart, you shoot 44% on all pull up jumpers 51% on pull up jumpers if you weigh them for threes 48% on floaters, 63% on layups, which is insane for a guard. Some of the best athletic wings in the league hover in the high 50s at the rim on layups over a block and a steal per game. He's right around three stocks per game right now. He's minus 500 to win MVP on draftkings and I think he absolutely deserves it for overcoming adversity this season to lead the most dominant team in the league this regular season. That's it for this week's course correction. Remember, Microsoft's AI Solutions empower you to take bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward. Microsoft, as your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft.com challengers to learn more. All right guys, that's 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 some breakdowns from another slate of NBA games in a mailbag. I will see you guys then.
- [36:25]
Trevon Edwards
The Volume what's up guys?
- [36:27]
Steph Curry
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.
- [36:40]
Trevon Edwards
Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check for the nearest bathroom first before the game starts. Now you're heading in the wrong direction and it sounds like your team's taking the lead. Checking first is smart, so check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate Savings. Vary subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates Northbrook, Illinois welcome to my legacy. I'm Martin Luther King III and together with my wife, Andrea Waters King, and our dear friends Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives. Join us for heartfelt conversations with remarkable guests like David Oyelowo, Mel Robbins, Martin Sheen, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Billy Porter.
- [37:29]
Steph Curry
Listen to My legacy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or Radio.
- [37:32]
Trevon Edwards
Wherever you get your podcasts, this is my legacy. What if you ask two different people the same set of questions? Even if the questions are the same, our experiences can lead us to drastically different answers. I'm Minnie Driver and I set out to explore this idea in my podcast, and now Mini Questions is returning for another season. We've asked an entirely new set of guests our seven questions, including Jane Lynch, Delaney Rowe, and Cord Jefferson. Listen to many questions on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seven questions, limitless answers hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me at former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday for our new podcast, Lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle. Between us, we have over 17,500 passing yards, multiple New York Times bestsellers, and one mirrorball trophy from Dancing With a Star. So where else are you going to find a show with that much athleticism and football insight? We talk sports, but we talk pop culture and music and a little bit of everything. Listen to Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.