← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Lakers Smoke Thunder, Rockets Body Warriors, Nuggets Defense In Shambles
00:41:57
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- [00:00]
Jason Tatum
At&t has a new guarantee because most things in life are not guaranteed. Like getting through self checkout by yourself. Not guaranteed. But when it comes to your wireless connectivity, now that should be guaranteed. And with AT&T guarantee it actually is. AT&T is introducing a guarantee with connectivity that you can depend on, deals you want and service you deserve or they make it right. Learn more@att.com guarantee@&t connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details.
- [00:33]
George M. Johnson
I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is fighting words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best selling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back.
- [00:47]
Jason Tatum
Part of the power of black queer.
- [00:48]
George M. Johnson
Creativity is the fact that we got us. You know, we are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [01:06]
Jason Tatum
What's up everyone? Julie Swerbinks here along with former NHL player Nate Thompson. We're doing a new podcast together. Here we go. The name Energy Line with Nate and jsb. Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right? Exactly.
- [01:23]
George M. Johnson
And you'll never know who will drop.
- [01:25]
Jason Tatum
By to join us. Julie is pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe. Listen to EnergyLine with Nate and JSB on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast this is Working can help with that. Here's some advice from Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, on standing out from the leadership crowd. Develop your EQ A lot of people have plenty of brains, but EQ is do you trust me? Do I communicate well? Develop the team, develop the people. Create a system of trust. And it works over time. I'm Dan Roth, link Captain's Editor in Chief. On my podcast this Is Working Leaders share strategies for success. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:14]
George M. Johnson
The volume.
- [02:18]
Jason Tatum
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That's H O O P S. That's code hoops for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling Problem Call 1-800- gambler in New York, call 877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY 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 terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng co/b ball all right, old Twitter hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys had a great weekend. Got a jam packed show for you today. We're getting off the top with the Lakers getting a signature win for the first time since LeBron came back from injury against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kind of a proof of concept of some of the things I've talked about in that matchup, albeit influenced by a absurd shooting performance by the Lakers. That should temper some of the some of the optimism coming out of that matchup. After that, we're going to talk about the Golden State warriors and the Houston Rockets and their showdown last night. The Rockets put Steph in jail, hold him to three points, showcase some of their upside in terms of their perimeter size. I want to talk about the difference between the Rockets defense and the OKC defense and some of the ways that that caused problems for the Warriors. And then at the tail end of the show, we're going to talk a little bit about the Indiana Pacers Nuggets game from last night as the Pacers shredded Denver's defense showed. I have a couple of troubling statistics coming out of Denver's defense. We're going to talk a little bit about the Pacers offense and how they took advantage of those weaknesses. And then at the very end over the weekend I missed it because I was busy, but there was a healthy amount of reopening of the Steph vs. LeBron debate, which everyone is entitled to their opinion. I personally disagreed with a lot of what I heard. I'll give you guys my take at the tail end of the show. You guys know the joke 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 you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating in a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, where Jackson's doing incredible work this year. Make sure you guys follow us there for extra content. Now, last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit them in our weekly mailbags throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Lakers blew out the Thunder last night because they shot extremely well. That was the reasoning for the blowout. They shot 51 jump shots and got 78 points out of them. That's. That's insane. It's 1.53 points per shot. So that was the reason for the dramatic differential between the two teams. But as I always say, as I literally always say on the show, shooting variance or luck or whatever you want to call it, plays a role in shot result. But I always think comfort plays a larger role. The Lakers stars, and by association, their role players, were comfortable in that game, more comfortable than their Thunder counterparts. That allowed them to get into an offensive rhythm that the Thunder were not able to get into. You talk a lot about the Lakers shooting. That's the number three offense in the league that the Lakers held to 99 points last night. And yeah, the Lakers have been somewhat inconsistent defensively since LeBron's injury. But as we saw before LeBron's injury, they are capable of getting to that type of level on the defensive end of the floor. Arguably the most exciting thing about what happened last night was the Laker defense getting back to form. But the only way to flip shot result, like if you want shot result to go from 78 points on 51 jump shots to 52 points on 51 jump shots. You're not going to get that just by rolling the dice again. If you roll that same set of dice and you allow the Lakers to get as comfortable as they did, they may not get 1.53 points per shot. They'll probably be 1.2, 1.3 points per shot if you let them get that comfortable. You have to find a way to flip the comfort dynamic in order to get that luck to play in your favor. Which is why I always talk about that as a subsidiary factor and not the main factor in shot result when we're talking about basketball games. Why were LeBron and Luka so comfortable? They had 49 points on 36 shots, 13 assists to just four turnovers. This is the Lakers advantage in this matchup. Perimeter size. This perimeter size dynamic is the main reason why I've been viewing the Thunder matchup in particular as a matchup that the Lakers are capable of winning. The Thunder are much better at center, but the Thunder centers aren't necessarily physical. They're not going to pass you around like a Jokic or a Shangun or a Zubots, right? So they aren't able to bully the smaller groups. Then when you get out of the center position, the Lakers are just much, much bigger and stronger on the perimeter. And so Luka and LeBron are able to use their size and strength to do two things. Get to spots on the floor because they can dislodge bases and fight for position because of their size and strength. And they can protect the ball. They can keep the ball away from those guys. Only two turnovers for LeBron, only two turnovers for Luka in this game because they're going against dudes that are somewhere between 6, 3 and 6, 6. And every single one of them is given 40 to 50 pounds up at a minimum. To LeBron and Luka in these situations when they're attacking, it wasn't even just the smalls. Luka was having his way with Isaiah Hartenstein at the start of this game. Easily as far as the offensive side of the ball goes, the most exciting part of what we got out of that game, if you're a Lakers fan, is that they had success against a switching defense, an elite switching defense, historically a statistically prominent defense that switched every screen. And Luka was able to punish Isaiah Hartenstein and switches start to force the double teams that led to those kickout opportunities for the quality catch and shoot looks. LeBron and Luka attacking smalls all right in the middle of the floor where it's hard to double team. The short range shot making is such an important piece of LeBron and Luka punishing smalls. The Lakers made nine short to mid range shots in this game. Either floaters or short jump shots or mid range jump shots. That is how you punish those matchups to the point where they start sending extra attention. They ran 37, 37 ISOs and post ups in this game and we're well over a point per possession. That is the version of the team that can be successful against switching. LeBron and Luka both have to and Austin as well to a certain extent have to punish teams in single coverage enough to draw the help that leads to the rotation opportunities that lead to the rhythm and flow of their offense. That gets them those catch and shoot threes that they get much more easily against a drop coverage or against an at the level coverage. But it requires a more diligent punishing of matchups against switching. They did that last night. That's what it can look like. That's what I've been talking about nonstop since this trade. They can be good at beating switching defense. It starts with LeBron and Luka. Like we're going to talk about a little bit more in a minute. But like Luka has struggled so much against the top teams that they played against Boston, against Golden State. This was exactly what they needed from Luka in those games. Punishing one on one attack that leads to the advantage situations that can come their way. The defense was equally impressive. They held the number three offense in the NBA to just 99 points. When the Laker defense was a was dominant before LeBron's injury. They had this swarming feel. Every drive seemed to run into a pre. They would funnel drives towards the sideline. There's a preplanned helper that's waiting outside of the block in kind of like a catch help situation. The guy on the ball will immediately start rotating. Everyone's flying around and the openings that look like openings turn into pretty well contested threes. The lakers allowed just 10 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots yesterday against a team that should in theory be able to cut them to pieces with drive and kick. They kept them out of open threes. OKC shot well on them, shot 5 for 10 on their unguarded catch and shoot threes. But for all of that doubling and all of that swarming, they weren't getting a ton of open looks. Shay was great, got his 26 points. But every other Thunder Player was held in check and the Lakers were able to hold on to their dominant lead. And again, like even in that second half, as the Lakers started to miss more shots and OKC started to turn up the defense, it was like every time okc'd make a couple plays in a row, it'd be like, here's another high post up for LeBron against K's on Wallace or Luca against Alex Caruso right in the middle of the floor. And just they're getting to an easy shot. If they can keep that dynamic, which is containing the ball, defending Oklahoma City well, keeping them out of transition, they can turn this into a matchup hunting contest. And if they turn it into a matchup hunting contest, I like LeBron and Luca picking on their smaller defenders more than I like Shea and J Dub taking contested mid range jump shots over taller players. Because again, this is a team with a lot of length on the perimeter. And so like there's a version of this that can tilt the other way, right? LeBron and Luka, two turnovers each. There's a version of this game where you can imagine LeBron and Luke are a little more sloppy. They have a few early turnovers that lead to runouts. OKC gets a little bit of lead, gets a little bit of momentum. The pressure continues on the defensive end. The Lakers miss a few catch and shoot shots, now they're down 18 to 9. Are they still going to slide their feet? Are they still going to fly around in rotation? There's an enormous amount of mental discipline that it takes for this Laker team to be good defensively and to take care of the ball in this matchup. I don't think the Lakers are going to sweep the Thunder. I think the Thunder should be favored if they were to face in a series. I am just saying the Lakers can beat them if they can. This is what it would look like in the world where the Thunder control the series or in the moments where the Thunder control the series. It will be defense to transition, defense to transition, building momentum, lacking discipline from the Lakers. Then in the half court, them starting to cut them to pieces with driving kick as their defense starts to let go of the rope. Those are the versions of this matchup that will tilt OKC's direction. The versions that tilt LA's direction, taking care of the ball, ruthless matchup hunting, elite shot making, great transition defense and great half court defense. That's the version of it that will go the Lakers direction. I thought it was a particularly important win for the Lakers for several reasons. First of all, they needed it for the standings. They were in some moderate danger of dropping to the plane after the Golden State loss. That win last night makes it so that the Lakers need to do need to go just two and two in their last four games in order to keep the three seed. If you drop both of these games to okc, then you have to beat Houston or Dallas and those are going to be tough games. Houston's beaten up on everybody. The Lakers are one of the few teams to get them as of late. And then you have that Dallas team which is well rested. They don't play on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday before they play on Wednesday. The the Mavericks play the Lakers on Wednesday in Dallas. That's a really tough game. By winning that game last night, you took most of the pressure off. You're. You just gotta get one of the OKC games, the Thunder game or excuse me, the Thunder game, the Rockets game or the Dallas game. Now assuming you can get the job done in Portland. So you did yourself a favor in the standing. Secondly, as a team, they hadn't put together a signature win since LeBron's injury. Were they like that was a team before LeBron's injury that looked particularly exciting after LeBron got hurt in that Celtics game. You start to zoom out. Didn't look good. They were just 14 and 10 after the warriors game since the Luca trade. That's not very good. That was a statement that they are capable of getting to the championship level on both ends of the floor. The defense from before the LeBron, the injury, it combined with the offense that we saw last night. Thirdly, Luka looked fantastic. Luka had been slumping a bit and had looked especially bad in their last two games against top tier contenders Boston and Golden State. He looked rough, the team looked rough. This was an important statement. Best team in the league favored to win the title. Best defense in the league historically great defense statistically at least on their home floor. And Luka looked great. So again, it's not the end all be all. There are going to be tougher elements to this as OKC starts to leverage their advantages in this matchup. But it was a nice proof of concept of what they are capable of. Are the, are the Lakers going to be able to maintain that discipline when they don't shoot as well? More misses equals more long rebounds. More long rebounds equals more transition opportunities. More transition opportunities means more situations where the Lakers have to be incredibly sharp with their game plan. Discipline. Getting back, it's not going to be easy, but they certainly can do this. They just have to drag the Thunder into these matchup attacking half court situations where LeBron and Luka are just better at it than their stars are. And then on the Thunder front, there's only so much they can do on defense with their size disadvantages, like a certain amount of their approach is going to have to be hoping the Lakers miss shots, meaning hoping LeBron and Luka miss their ISO jump shots, hoping that their role players miss their kickouts. On offense though, it is an example of something I've talked about a lot this year, which is big game, team comes in and punches him in the mouth. Really going after them defensively. We saw this in the Rockets game too. How many of these guys do you actually trust to be consistently good on offense? The truth is is it's Shea end of list. And so that's the part that makes it really hard for me to buy into the Thunder as like a traditional dominant runaway championship contender. The way some of the metrics coming out of their look, the way the standings would look. That's why I view them as closer to the pack in the west even if I have them at the top because they're just prone to these like brutally bad stretches on offense when you can keep them out of transition. It's just something to keep an eye on as a vulnerability. Okay. As of right now, I'm not going to jump the Lakers way up just because they played really well one game against a great team. To me, OKC still is deserving to be the favorite in the Western Conference, but they are not invulnerable and I think we've seen that over the course of this weekend. All right, moving on to Rockets Warriors. The Rockets are healthy again and they're back to doing what they did in January when they just started beating up on the top teams in the league over and over again. Back to back huge wins against the Thunder and the red hot warriors in the Bay. All that defense, Fred Van Vliet and Amend Thompson literally put Steph Curry in handcuffs last night. I thought Steph looked a little tired too. It's his third game in four nights. All of his misses were short off the front of the rim and you could literally see like his energy transfer just wasn't quite the same as it was in the previous couple of games. Finished with just three points for the second time this year. But I do want to give the Rockets credit for the job they did defensively. They did not allow him to come free and clear off of anything. Both Fred and Amen. Were physical with him on and off the ball, wearing him down. Everything was contested, everything was off balanced. A lot of his threes were an extra two or three feet further back than he usually gets them as a result of that pressure. This is where I want to talk about Houston's superpower on the perimeter, which is their athletic size. This is the thing that makes them fundamentally different than a team like okc. We think of them both as these young athletic teams. Super fast, young athletic teams that play super hard. And that's their advantage in the regular season. And there's no doubt that's what it is like. I'm not surprised that after having watched these teams all year that OKC and Houston ended up at the top. It was pretty clear after the first like month of the season, it's like, okay, these guys are super young and athletic and these other older veteran teams in the west are going to have a hard time keeping up. They pulled away the way that they did. But OKC's like kind of athletic profile is very different. OKC has rim protection in the form of Chet. Houston does not. I'd argue they have the opposite. Shangun is often the main entry point for their defense because he's the one guy they're not switching with. It's the guy that you can get that baked in dribble penetration as long as you can lay a good screen on Amend Thompson or Dylan Brooks, whoever it is, that's on the ball. Right? But once you get past that center position. Houston's athletic wings are also much bigger and stronger than OKC's perimeter athletes. That size on a fundamental level gives them a better job, a better ability to contest jump shots. I've talked about that in the Thunder Lakers matchup. To me, when it comes to pull up shooting over the top, shooting length is the advantage, right? That's the, that's where you can actually bother shooters. It also allows them to hold up better against wing bullies. I don't think it's a coincidence that Luka and LeBron struggled against Houston in a way they didn't against OKC. It's that extra two inches. It's that extra 30 pounds of muscle makes a huge difference when you're battling guys for position. It's a little different posting up a Kayson Wallace or an Isaiah Joe than it is posting up at Dylan Brooks. You guys get the point, right? That size and strength is. Gives them just a different athletic profile than than OKC does. The theoretical way that you would attack Houston if you Are Golden State is to use Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kaminga to attack mismatches to get them in rotation, right? But Jimmy took seven shots. As he continues to be bizarrely unaggressive. He's driving to the rim and every single time he drives to the rim about right on his last like gather dribble, he just starts looking away from the rim. He's not even looking at the rim. He's just looking for those kick out opportunities. And like there's a time and a place when the offense is in a flow where that makes sense. But then there are times where they need you to be the bigger stronger athlete than the big strong athletes that you're going against. Jonathan Kamingo is four for nine. He had a few really, really ugly turnovers in the backcourt that continue to cause Steve Kerr to lose trust in him. He got pulled after one of them for GI Santos. Thankfully Buddy Heald and Brandon Pajemski had big games to keep things respectable. And that's an upside if you're a Golden State fan. Is pods continues to play super well. He's been shooting 40% from three for like almost four months now. He that's a super exciting piece of it. But other than that it was, it was a pretty brutal offensive performance for the Warriors. On the Houston front, Jabari Smith, his development has been super fascinating to me because he came out in summer league. I remember the first year that I covered him as a guy that was not a good ball handler and it was so fun to. There were two plays in particular that I thought demonstrated just the way that he's gotten better getting to his spots as a basketball player so that he can unlock his talent which he's got great size, great shooting touch. He's got like this like aggressive shot making piece to him too. And in order to get, in order to get to that shot making talent, that size talent, you gotta be able to get your body to where you need to be on the floor. Footwork and ball handling. Footwork and ball handling are these skills that allow you to get your body from point A to point B with the basketball so that you can get to a spot where you can be a score. He had a play where he drove a closeout. Jimmy digs down from the top of the key as he's driving, snapped a push dribble with his left hand up the floor a couple of feet, ran up to the spot, got to it and then popped up off the ground at that spot and made a little 10 footer just a nasty ball handling move from Jabari Smith. He had a little baseline ISO where he looked like Kevin Durant grabbed it. Faced up left foot pivot foot ripped to the left. Wonder of a pull up just rose up over the top of the defender with his size advantage knocked it down. He's turned into a super effective rebounder on both ends of the floor. He had five offensive rebounds in the two games, 26 total rebounds against the Thunder and Warriors. His three point percentage is up to 38% on five attempts per game over his last 16 games. Jabari's just turned into a really useful role player. Kind of a combination of like that weak side scoring forward that we talked about while also having some of those bigger forward defensive and athletic capabilities that you see from like an Aaron Gordon type of player. Just a really exciting young player for Houston in their big picture. Goals. Dylan Brooks was incredible. He was attacking size mismatches out of the post. He went right over the top of Steph for two right shoulder fades early in the game. His three point shot is so much quicker and more fluid now. Jalen Green, one of the things that consistently has stood out to me against these more athletic defenses is that he is able to get to his spots because he's such a good athlete. That's kind of like what you needed from Kaminga last night was like, it's almost like Jalen Green is hectic and going to make some bad decisions, but he's able to rise to the occasion against these super elite defenses as a shot maker in a way that some lesser athletes can't. That's kind of what you needed from Kaminga in that matchup last night is you needed the mistakes. He's going to make three, four, five big mistakes. But you needed 17 points on 14 shots as he was looking to be aggressive throughout the game and that piece just wasn't there. Shangun continued his ass kicking tour. He went right at Draymond several times. He was destroying guards and switches. He had 50 points in the last two games. Again, I don't, I still don't view Houston as a legitimate threat to win the conference because I don't think they have the offensive variety or offensive resilience to be able to win three series with the types of teams that we have coming out of this Western Conference. But they will be a pain in the ass and I absolutely think they're capable of upsetting a team. Like if we saw the Rockets play in the second round, I wouldn't be stunned. Like I wouldn't be completely shocked. I just would be shocked if they ended up winning the conference entirely. AT&T has a new guarantee. Because most things in life are not guaranteed. Like actually getting the rental car you requested or your wedding turning out just like you dreamed it would. And someone making another pot of coffee in the break room after drinking the last drop of the last one. Yeah, don't get me started. Not guaranteed. In a world where Nothing is guaranteed, AT&T is bringing something new to the table, AT&T is introducing a guarantee with connectivity you can depend on, deals you want and service you deserve, or they make it right. So if you want to know more about the ATT guarantee, head to att.com guarantee@&t connecting changes everything. Terms and Conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details.
- [27:09]
George M. Johnson
On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10. Vile.
- [27:38]
Jason Tatum
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [27:41]
George M. Johnson
Grotesque. Oh my God.
- [27:45]
Jason Tatum
Oh my God.
- [27:46]
George M. Johnson
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. Is that what I thought it would? Oh, this is fighting worse. Okay, I put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best selling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we are doing on Fighting Words. We're not going to let anyone silence us.
- [28:35]
Jason Tatum
That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of black history or queer history. Any history that challenges the whitewashed norm.
- [28:44]
George M. Johnson
Or put us in a box. Black people have never ever depended on the so called mainstream to support us. That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [29:08]
Jason Tatum
I'm Camila Ramon, Peloton's first Spanish speaking cycling and tread instructor. I'm an athlete, entrepreneur and almost most importantly, a parreo enthusiast. And I'm Liz Ortiz, former pro soccer player and Olympian. And like Kami, a perreo enthusiast. Come on, who is it? Our podcast Hasta Bajo is where sports, music and fitness collide and we cover it all. De Arriva Hasta sit downs with real game changers in the sports world like Miami Dolphins CMO Priscilla Shumate, who is redefining what it means to be a Latina leader. It all changed when I had this guy come to me. He said to me, you know, you're not Latina enough. First of all, what is that? My mouth is wide open. Yeah, history makers like the Sucar family who became the first Peruvians to win a Grammy.
- [29:56]
George M. Johnson
It was a very special moment for us. It's been 15 years for me in this career. Finally, things are starting to shift into a different level.
- [30:06]
Jason Tatum
Listen to Astavajo on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:11]
George M. Johnson
Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
- [30:15]
Jason Tatum
Moving on to Pacers Nuggets. The Pacers just absolutely shredded Denver's defense in the middle portion of this game. Denver got off to a little bit of a lead early. Jokic was incredible in this game. He had his three point shot going early in the game. They were leaving him in a lot of single coverage situations against Miles Turner and he was just being super aggressive. Jokic went for 41 points. It just didn't matter because in that middle portion of the game, The Pacers hung 74 points in the second and third quarters on the Nuggets. And it all came down to a combination of two factors. One, a reality that I've been discussing a lot on this show, which is that the Nuggets defense is bad. And the reason why it's bad is a combination of two factors. They have to bring Jokic up to the level because he can't switch or protect the rim. So they have to bring him up to the level, which puts two on the ball. Now you're in these four on three situations. Jokic has not been very good with being active with his hands and disrupting when he comes up to the level. So as a result, you're just playing four on three basketball and you haven't been very good in your rotations on the back line with those three guys, that is a death sentence. If you're going to put two on the ball without bothering the ball and you're going to operate three on four but not be a good rotation team, you're going to get cut to pieces. On the other side of that is a red hot Pacers team that's now 14 in a row with Tyrese Halliburton and Miles Turner just running a deadly high ball screen attack. And that just kind of. That confluence of those two events just led to some hilarious basketball in Denver last night. I clipped a thread of a bunch of examples of this concept so you guys can see it. It's on my Twitter feed at Underscore. Jason LT but the Pacers just got either a wide open layup or a wide open three basically whenever they wanted against the Denver defense. A combination of a couple things. Basic pick and pop action with Miles Turner Jokic at the ball. Miles Turner is just sitting at the top of the key. They're not rotating from the weak side. Easy pitch back, he's wide open. Several like transition, excuse me, transition. Trailing types of shots for Miles Turner where like, you know, Halliburton would just do like a probing dribble attack right around the top of the key and the on ball defender would kind of be there, but Jokic would just sink down to like the foul line as like a kind of a token help situation. Just pitch it back to Miles Turner. He's right there at the top of the key. Shout out Miles Turner. By the way, like, it's not just shooting, it's aggressive shooting. I talk about this all the time. There's a huge difference between a guy who hits 40% of his threes and a guy who confidently and aggressively hunts his shot. That is the one that's going to be manifest better for the defense. Right? That manifest with more of a reaction from the defense, I should say. But like they, the. The Nuggets weren't accounting for him and Turner was being aggressive. He ended up hitting like a 27 footer, huge one on the left wing on a play because he got comfortable with all these easy shots and then he went into a tougher one off the left wing. They ended up hitting, but a lot of them though, they were rolling with Turner and tagging Turner. And so when they were tagging Turner, it just created those simple weak side 2 on ones and it was just skip, pass or swing, swing wide open 3. Skip, pass or swing, swing wide open layup. Just over and over and over and over again. Like it. It didn't even matter that Denver was scoring. On the other end, Christian Brown went for 30, slashing them to pieces on drives and transition pushes it like Jokic goes for 41. It didn't matter because the Pacers just got whatever they wanted on the other end of the floor. Obi Toppin, he kind of fits the mold of that weak side scoring forward that I was talking about earlier. He had 22 points in this one. Had a couple of possessions where he was on an island with Jokic. Went right at Jokic with his speed, aggressive, weak side shooting, running his lane in transition. This is a Pacers offense that lives off of advantage creation, advantage extending and play finishing. Everybody understanding their roles. On the plays where Denver rotated better, there weren't many of them, but there were a few on the plays when Denver rotated better. A lot of these like Andrew Nemhard, Aaron Neesmith, closeout opportunities with a defender coming out at him. And it was the same thing every time. Hard right hand drive, defender sliding and putting that hand up, snatchback dribble. On that snatchback dribble, the defender goes flying. There's a wide open 12 footer and both Nemart and Nismith hit a bunch of those in this game. That's what ties it all together, right? Like you need a guy who can consistently get your defense in rotation. That's Tyrese Halliburton. Then you need guys that can be play finishers, right? Miles Turner hit and pick and pop threes. Miles Turner finishing on the roll OB top and hitting threes off of skip passes, things along those lines. But then you also need advantage extenders. There are times when it's not as simple as drive and kick, swing, swing, wide open layup or three. Sometimes you need a guy that can take a closeout situation and turn it into points and that's where you get your closeout attackers in the form of Neesmith and Nemhard. And again, Pascal Siakam didn't even play in this game and he unlocks an entire different element of the Pacers offense in the form of that matchup. Attacking from the post. But they just chewed up and spit out that Nuggets defense. They generated 26 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which is the second most that the Pacers have generated in any game this season. Which brings me to the Nuggets part of this and it's something that we have to be realistic about. The Nuggets since January 23rd with Nikola Jokic on the floor have a 120 defensive rating. To be clear, it's not all Jokic his fault. Like I said, it's a combination of two factors. Jokic constantly having to be at the level of the screen, but then him also not having the energy because he has so much offensive responsibility. He doesn't have the energy to be really active up at the level. So because he's not very active up at the level, the ball handler is able to make relatively easy reads and kick out passes from there. Then you're in all these four on threes and the rotations are just not being made. There's not connectivity even with the athletes, even guys like Aaron Gordon, Peyton, Watson, like they are not doing their job, rotating on the backside. So again, it's both. Jokic is putting you in a compromising position on every single possession defensively, but you don't have the personnel to cover for him. So at a certain point there's like a directional change that this organization needs to go through in terms of anchoring Jokic as he gets older, I don't think he's going to get better at defense. So at a certain point, from a team construct standpoint, if you're going to have Jokic generate everything for you on offense and you're not going to get anything out of him on defense in that at the level coverage, you've got to anchor him with better defensive talent. And I think that's something that they'll have to take a long look at when we get to this off season. But like, here's the thing. I still view the Nuggets as a championship contender. I would be insane to write off Nicole Jokic. However, this is a long, extended half the season long stretch where they haven't just been bad defensively, they've been so bad that it's basically impossible to win in the NBA playoffs with the type of defense that they've been playing. Jokic has said before, I don't believe in a switch, meaning he doesn't think we can just flip the switch and be better in the postseason. I agree. I've talked about this a lot. I you it's your habits. Your habits are what carry you when you run into adversity. When the shit hits the fan and you're not hitting shots and the other team has all this momentum, the only thing you can rely on is the instinctual way you play hard. What habitually? Have you been making these rotations all year? Have you been communicating through actions all year? Have you been crackdown, rebounding and boxing out all year? If you've been doing those things, they will still work for you. When you run into adversity and carry you through rough stretches so that your offense can carry you back to the forefront. This Nuggets team is going to score a lot of points. They can score, but they will have stretches where they cool off and teams will pull pull away from them if they don't have a higher level than this that they can reach defensively. Now, again, I won't write them off because I have seen this group play better defense than they've played. Hell, they played better defense in the early part of the year. But the problem is is they are practicing playing bad defense now. They are deliberately prepping for the postseason by playing a brand of basketball that will not work in the postseason on the defensive end of the floor. So they're playing with fire. What? What does that mean? Does that mean they can't win? Of course not. They could go on a run. They could play better defense. Jokic could go crazy. They could hoist the trophy. But basketball history tells us it's more likely than not that this season ends in deport a disappointment because they're practicing playing bad defense at this point and not really making any sort of serious attempt to improve on that end of the floor. AT&T has a new guarantee because most things in life are not guaranteed. Like actually getting the rental car you requested or your wedding turning out just like you dreamed it would and someone making another pot of coffee in the break room after drinking the last drop of the last one. Yeah, don't get me started. Not guaranteed. In a world where Nothing is guaranteed, AT&T is bringing something new to the table, AT&T is introducing a guarantee with connectivity you can depend on, deals you want and service you deserve, or they make it right. So if you want to know more about the ATT guarantee, head to att.com guarantee@&t connecting changes everything. Terms and Conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details.
- [40:03]
George M. Johnson
On November 5, 2018 at 6:33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleep Hole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found except for a cassette tape. Lodged in the player on that tape were 10 vile.
- [40:32]
Jason Tatum
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [40:36]
George M. Johnson
Grotesque. Oh my God.
- [40:39]
Jason Tatum
Oh my God.
- [40:40]
George M. Johnson
Horrific stories that to this day have been kept restricted from the public until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. Is that.
- [41:06]
Jason Tatum
I thought it.
- [41:07]
George M. Johnson
Oh, this is Fighting Words. Okay, I put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best selling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we are doing on Fighting Words. We're not gonna let anyone silence us.
- [41:29]
Jason Tatum
That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of black history, of queer history, any history that challenges the.
- [41:37]
George M. Johnson
Whitewashed norm or put us in a box. Black people have never ever depended on the so called mainstream to support us. That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [42:03]
Jason Tatum
I'm Camila, Ramon Peloton's first Spanish speaking cycling and tread instructor. I'm an athlete, entrepreneur and almost impress importantly a perreo enthusiast. And I'm Liz Ortiz, former pro soccer player and Olympian. And like Kami, a pareo enthusiast. Come on, who is it? Our podcast hastavajo is where sports, music and fitness collide and we cover it all, the arriva sit downs with real game changers in the sports world, like Miami Dolphins CMO Priscilla Shumate, who is redefining what it means to be a Latina leader. It all changed when I had this guy come to me, he said to.
- [42:40]
George M. Johnson
Me, you know, you're not Latina enough.
- [42:43]
Jason Tatum
First of all, what is that? My mouth is wide open. Yeah, history makers like the Sucar family who became the first Peruvians to win a Grammy.
- [42:51]
George M. Johnson
It was a very special moment for us. It's been 15 years for me in this career. Finally, things are starting to shift into a different level.
- [43:00]
Jason Tatum
Listen to astavajo on the I Heart Rate radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [43:06]
George M. Johnson
Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.
- [43:10]
Jason Tatum
All right, before we get out of here today, I want to talk a little bit about the Steph LeBron debate. So Steph fans re instigated this discussion over the weekend. Basically trying to paint the picture that Steph is the defining player of this era, the greatest player of this era, and they had a better career than LeBron James. Steph fans have felt this way since 2015. This is not exactly a new idea. Many of you might remember the Steph better, the hashtag that used to go around all the time. And to be clear, I don't blame warriors fans for feeling this way. He's their hero. He brought them four titles. It'd be weird if they weren't relentlessly advocating for him in the all time context. I also find debates along these lines to be somewhat boring because no one's changing their mind. There's no warriors fan that is going to budge based on this take that I'm about to unleash. You guys have your way that you feel I respect that I have my way that I feel I respect that. Or I would ask for the same in return. Right? But I have literally never heard a basketball person who isn't a Warriors fan or an outspoken anti LeBron guy make the case that Steph was better than LeBron because it's absurd. Let's set aside the obvious stuff like that LeBron had a hall of Fame career before Steph even entered his prime and that LeBron is still every bit as good as him. Or that LeBron has four times as many Finals MVPs or twice as many MVPs. Or that LeBron is one of only two players in NBA history with four MVPs and four Finals MVPs. Let's set that stuff aside. Just the narrative that warriors fans are trying to build is absurd. Steph won his first title against LeBron in a series where both of his co stars were injured. LeBron literally received more Finals MVP consideration than Steph after that series. I disagreed with that line of thinking because I don't believe in rewarding the loser. I think Steph should have won at Finals MVP. But LeBron literally got more consideration for Finals MVP than Steph that season. Then LeBron beat him in spectacular fashion in 2016 back to back 40 or two 40 point games in Game 5 and Game 6 to extend the series. In that 2016 series, LeBron badly outplayed Steph on both ends of the floor. Then Kevin Durant joined the team and the warriors were so insanely talented that they had a negative odds on sportsbooks before the season to win the title. You had, you were going if you bet a dollar on the warriors to win the title in October those years 17 and 18, you would have made less than a dollar at the end of the season because it wasn't just KD and Steph. It wasn't just the second and third best players in the league joining forces. It was Klay Thompson, the second best shooter of all time. One of the best perimeter defenders in basketball with great size and strength at his position. An awesome role player in this league. Draymond Green, arguably the greatest defender of this era. Andre Iguodala. Such a versatile forward that he got the finals MVP in 2015 and during that era was a do everything player for them. I'm a big fan of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and JR Smith, but it was a different level of talent that was on those two rosters. The way that whole four year saga is now being retroactively rebuild as a one on one rivalry between LeBron and Steph is fucking outrageous. When LeBron was at his best, he was the best parts of Steph and Draymond put together. He was one of the most prolific offensive engines in the history of the sport and one of the best defensive players to ever play the game. What happened in the 2016 finals is kind of the perfect encapsulation of the difference between the two of them. LeBron in that fourth quarter, surgically took the warriors apart in a way Steph was not able to on the other end of the floor. And yet still at the end of the game, LeBron saved it by leveraging his athleticism to make a superhuman play. When Kyrie on the other end attacked Steph because he was the lesser athlete on the court and a player he could get easy separation from. That's the difference between the two. Two all time great offensive engines. I'd even argue Steph was a little bit better as an offensive engine than LeBron. But LeBron brought that Draymond level of playoff defensive impact while also being a five time first team, all NBA, first team all defense player. LeBron was one of the great defenders to ever play this game. Think back to the spurs series and the low man possessions on Tim Duncan and Thiago Splitter at the rim. Think about him in 2016 in the on the famous brick that Steph shot over over Kevin Love at the top of the key. LeBron was lurking in the paint. He blocked nine shots over Game 5, 6 and 7 of that series. Think about the level LeBron was able to get to defensively in 2020 as he helped anchor one of the great defenses in NBA history as he won his fourth championship the year after Kevin Durant left the Warriors. There was a level LeBron could get to in terms of his athletic imposition that Steph could never get to. And that to me is why they are on different tiers. I'm a huge Steph fan. He's, he's. You got to take my word for this. I get it. He's legitimately my second favorite player and I actually like him more as like a dude than LeBron. Half the time LeBron opens his mouth, it drives me crazy. Super corny. There are a lot of things I don't like about the guy. To me, Steph is a more steady leader and a much more likable, just guy. I'm a Big Steph fan, but when it comes down to basketball, he's just not on the same tier as LeBron. All time it's LeBron and MJ at the top, then there's a gap, and then it's Kobe, it's Magic, it's Steph, and it's Bird in that next tier. For me, I don't think Steph is even capable of entering into the next tier. He's never even had an undisputed hold on the best player in the world title the way that LeBron did back in 2013 or that Jokic does now. We can celebrate Steph without rewriting history and journeying to fantasy land. Guys. Like, it was an awesome rivalry between the Cavs and Warriors, and it was fun in a stretch of the, of the NBA history where we got to see these teams face over and over again. But if you're painting that as like Steph versus LeBron playing one on one, that's dishonest and it's just not. It's not reality. So like I, I like, like that athletic imposition element we're talking about. You want to know why LeBron's never had single digit points and, you know, God knows how many games? Or that LeBron hasn't had three points in a game since December of 2004? Because there's a certain floor that comes from being 6, 9, 260 pounds and big and strong and able, being able to leverage yourself in ways that don't strictly tie to shot making. Now, Steph has a gravity element. In the Rockets game last night, for instance, he only had three points. A lot of plays on film where I'm watching Steph run off of an action, someone slip out of it and get open. Steph has value that goes beyond it, but there's more variance in his singular output on the game because he's a jump shooter. Sometimes the shots don't go in. Sometimes he goes 1 for 8 from 3 instead of, you know, 12 for 20. And that's the up and down that can come from that type of experience. Again, like, to me, Steph is one of the greats in NBA history. I have him at five, I have him at the top five player in NBA history. But I just don't think he was on the same level as LeBron. And I thought it was just kind of hilarious the way that that was attempted to be made as a case over the course of the weekend. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. No Hoops Tonight. Tonight we're going back tomorrow but I am doing some stuff with Kevin O'Connor tonight surrounding the national title game. So a little bit of college tube stuff, some NBA draft stuff. We're also going to talk some NBA in that show. So make sure you guys check out Kevin's pod. Otherwise I will see you guys tomorrow. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops Tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
- [51:45]
George M. Johnson
The volume.
- [51:49]
Jason Tatum
AT&T has a new guarantee because most things in life are not guaranteed. Like getting through self checkout by yourself. Not guaranteed. But when it comes to your wireless connectivity, now that should be guaranteed. And with the AT&T guarantee, it actually is. AT&T is introducing a guarantee with connectivity that you can depend on, deals you want and service you deserve or they make it right. Learn more@att.com guarantee ATT Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com guarantee for details.
- [52:23]
George M. Johnson
I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is Fighting Words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back.
- [52:36]
Jason Tatum
Part of the power of black queer.
- [52:38]
George M. Johnson
Creativity is the fact that we got us. You know, we are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
- [52:56]
Jason Tatum
What's up everyone? Julius Ripps here along with former NHL player Nate Thompson. We're doing a new podcast together. Here we go. The name Energy Line with Nate and jsb. Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right? Exactly.
- [53:13]
George M. Johnson
And you'll never know who will drop by to join us.
- [53:15]
Jason Tatum
Julie is pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe. Listen to Energy Line with Nate and jsb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever wonder what it would be like to be mentored by today's top business leaders? My podcast this is Working can help with that. Here's advice from Google CMO Lorraine Twohill on how to treat AI like a partner. I see AI as an incredible co pilot. You may use different tools or toys to get the work done, but AI is just the latest flavor of that. You're still the judge of what good looks like. I'm Dan Roth, LinkedIn's editor in chief. On my podcast this is Working Leaders Share Strategies for Success. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.