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The Volume.

Jason Tatum (1:17)

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Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code Hoops. That's H O O P s. That's code hoops for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler in New York. Call 877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE and WHY to 467369 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, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Got a quick show for you guys tonight. We're just going to hit that really bizarre game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers that featured players from both teams playing in opposite jerseys and a really weird vibe from the crowd. Fire Nico Chance Very interesting quote from Luka Doncic after the game as well. Just a really strange night in Dallas as Luka Doncic drops 45 points and Lakers get a much needed win for them in the seating situation. We are going to cover that game in detail and then after that we're going to take a Q and A from the chat. So if you're here, make sure you subscribe to the channel, drop your questions in the chat. We're going to do a good 15, 20 minutes of questions at the tail end. The quote from Luca I love these fans. I love this city, but it's time to move on. If that quote doesn't encapsulate what was a strange night in Dallas, I don't know what does. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. Also super helpful if you leave your rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you follow Hoops Tonight there. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We get to them once a week. We already did ours this week, but you have plenty of time. Get your mailbag in for next week. All right, let's talk some basketball. So it was such a weird vibe in the arena because usually when we see these types of situations, there's been at least somewhat of a case that, you know, that is built over time where it's like, yeah, we might need to move on from this guy, or maybe we should move on from this guy. And so, yeah, the player will come back and everyone will give them their moment of appreciation. But then it's like, all right, let's get down to basketball, let's compete. Screw these guys, we're going to get a win. And could not be a vibe further from that because the most absurd trade in NBA history, the trade that sent one of the most accomplished 25 year olds in the history of the league away from a team that he was completely and totally committed to, as evidenced by, by his reaction to the tribute video. The trade has left a bad taste in a lot of these fans mouths, right? And the way they reacted was to effectively cheer on Luca all night long to the point where you could literally see it have an effect on several Mavericks players. I thought Anthony Davis and Klay Thompson in particular, for being the competitors that they've been for the majority of their career. There wasn't a ton of fight there. You can tell. I thought they were affected by it. The game just had this super weird vibe. It never kind of took on the energy level in terms of Dallas and the energy they play with that I think they could have won this game. Dallas has some advantages. Their guards are really athletic. They have the ability to get to the rim on this team. And the Lakers are worn down. Fourth game in. In. Or excuse me, third. Third game in four nights. Just had to play a couple really emotional games in Oklahoma City. This could have been a game that could have gone a different direction, but it just felt like there was never enough, like, energy and life for Dallas to feed off of. It was just a really strange night, the tribute, you know, it was funny when I was watching the tribute video, it's just a casual reminder of how much Luka Doncic has accomplished in his brief time in a Dallas Mavericks jersey from the series against the Clippers, where he's just scoring on dudes and talking shit every time down the floor. The myriad of crazy shots that he hit over the years to win games, to extend games at the end of quarters, end of shot clocks, the Western Conference finals run with what he did to Phoenix, what he did last year, the. The insane regular season, high scoring games. There's just so many things that Luca got done in such a short period of time that even though he's only 25 years old, it just took on this feel like this great bit of history was wasted. And you could just see it really affect Luka. And I was just so impressed because I can't imagine going from a situation where you're as emotional as he was to going into a game where the entire success of the Lakers depends on Luka Doncic, his ability to break down the defensive coverage that Dallas was using, which we're going to get into in a minute. It's a lot of pressure. You factor in not just the responsibility that he had in that game, but the emotions at play in the situation, and the fact that they're on their third game in four nights and the fact that they really needed that game. They lose that game, they suddenly absolutely must beat Houston on Friday and absolutely must beat Portland on Sunday, which, again, Portland, you know, do you feel like they can take care of business there? But that's not an easy game against Houston. Houston's beating everybody as of late. This was a very, very important game. 45 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists. Carried the offense in the first half when the Laker defense was a complete no show. And then finally the Laker defense was able to take control of the game in the second half. A scoring burst from LeBron James in the fourth quarter, some cherry on top scoring from Luca, and the Lakers ended up getting the win that they so badly needed. Now, I was really curious to see what kind of game plan that we would see from Jason Kidd in this game. He's got a bunch of drop coverage bigs on his roster, Right. And as we know, the Lakers have struggled over the majority of this stretch of the season against switching. And one of the big reasons why has been Luca has struggled to beat bigs on an island compared to what it, you know, looked like in years past. Right. What's super encouraging is this is the third game in a row there wasn't as much against okc. We saw a couple of possessions in the second half on Tuesday. Famously the one right before he got ejected where he faced Hartenstein on a switch. There were like three or four other switches in that game, but OKC did run a good amount of drop in that game. However, between tonight's game, the few reps against Hartenstein, and then the game on Sunday, Luca had those big, big dudes dancing. They had no idea what they were doing out there on the perimeter. And he was cooking them. Cooked Hartenstein over and over and over again on Sunday, a few more times on Tuesday. Tonight, Derek Lively right out the gate. Interestingly enough, Jason Kidd will run a lot of drop with those guys. And he's a guy who famously has liked to blitz over the years, particularly liked to blitz Laker ball handlers in ball screens. And so I was expecting them to come out and maybe consider blitzing, but went was switching with those fives. And Luka was just no problem at all, getting Lively on his backside and jumping straight up and down as Lively's pursuing from behind and committing fouls, getting easy dribble penetration. I've always been amazed by Luka's ability to use just little change of pace moves and using his size and leverage physically to get drill penetration on basically everyone. But he just demolished the Mavs in switches over and over and over again. And then one of the other things too, like the, the short range shot making isn't there yet. I felt like it got a little closer today. Today was. I feel like his short range shot making has been off, off a lot over the course of this phase in the season. But I thought tonight he was just getting a little closer. The misses were just a little closer to going in. A little bit more confidence, a little bit more crispness in the release. I feel like he's getting closer, but the step back three, he's got it going over these like six four to six five dudes. He just doesn't see them when he takes that pullback dribble and he's getting it off whenever he wants. Just an unbelievable sequence from Luka Nachic. And it was so important because early in the game the Lakers were not very good defensively. It kind of reminded me a lot of the Oklahoma City game on Tuesday. LeBron James has an enormous amount of defensive responsibility on this team. Since Anthony Davis went out, the entire identity of the defense has shifted. Now when Anthony Davis was on the team, they didn't have much of a defensive identity. They started to play a little better towards the end, but they had a rough defensive season. But in years past, the identity with AD has been Anthony Davis at the rim. That's been the identity of the defense and his ability to at the end of games switch on to perimeter players. Just Anthony Davis being the wrecking ball that he is on the defensive end of the floor. Since AD left, it's completely shifted to much more of like a connective defense. A we are all in this together. We all have to fly around and rotate. And LeBron is the captain of that ship. He's the guy that is, you know, sussing out actions as they're taking place and calling out coverages, anticipating things before they happen. And so when LeBron kind of lets his foot off the gas in that department, the defense has tended to fall apart. Even going Back to when LeBron was out of the lineup entirely, how poor the defense looked at stretches. And in both games, in the second half of the Oklahoma City game and in the second half tonight, LeBron came out of that halftime locker room and was like, it's time to go. And in both games, he completely took over defensively and was able to reestablish the team there. I thought the Lakers had a very, very smart defensive game plan for Anthony Davis. Overall, big shock. JJ Reddick coached the guy, so he's familiar with his strengths and weaknesses. And Anthony Davis over the years has made moderate improvements handling double teams, but historically, it has not been a strength of his. And JJ Had a very simple game plan. Same game plan that he used against Nicola Jokic earlier this year, the same game plan he used against Carl Anthony Towns earlier this year. They used a similar game plan against Giannis earlier this year. They will front the post to try to deny the catch and try to get you to just bail on it by fronting the post and situating a defender right behind him so that it looks like you can throw that over the top pass. But if you do, you're running the risk of that defender from behind coming over and blocking that pass away. And so what ends up happening is you're preying on the indecision of the guys who make the entry passes, and they were just, in many cases, looking to go another direction. And then when they did get Anthony Davis, the ball, he would get immediately doubled from the baseline side. Same exact concept they used against Jokic and against Carl Towns. Soon as they managed to successfully get the post entry, the guy that's fronting quickly disengages, overplays the middle shoulder towards the middle of the floor to try to force Anthony Davis to spin to the baseline or face up. And as he does, then the double comes from that baseline side, and they're preying on that indecision from Anthony Davis and rotating out of it. There was a couple of adjustments around the way, like they tried having Anthony Davis just bring the ball up the floor himself and dribble into a post up, still ran into the baseline double team and turned it over. They did actually get an easy bucket for Anthony Davis on a flash Cut from Daniel Gafford. And this, by the way, is just a, a, a counter that Dallas should have used more frequently that they just didn't go to. But fronting the post, Gafford's on the back line. Gafford's man is bracketing on AD Gafford flashes up to the semicircle. As he does, the backside helper has to follow him, or he probably shouldn't, but he goes with him as he does. When Gafford catches, suddenly there's no one behind AD he could just float it over the top. He gets an easy layup, but they just never were able to repeatedly make the reads or the adjustments necessary to handle that action. And then AD Just kind of disappeared from the game. And I was talking with our, our guys before we went live, like, you know, as someone who's rooted for Anthony Davis a lot over the years, and this is just something for you Mavs fans to just, just kind of keep in mind as you're embarking on this journey, rooting for Anthony Davis. He is always going to struggle with double teams. That's been a pretty consistent thing that he'll struggle with. But he'll also have games when he's healthy, when he's like, really healthy and in shape and has something to play for, where even when he's struggling to get the ball in a situation like that, he'll just be a wrecking ball in every other facet of the game. He'll get like six offensive rebounds and fly around on defense, and he'll end up with like 19 and 17 and like three blocks and four steals. And he'll find a way to impact the game even when he's not playing well. Now. He will also have games where that fight and competitiveness is just not there. And that can happen from time to time, even when he is healthy. I think it happens a lot more, as I've noticed over the years, when he's banged up, when he doesn't really feel like there's as much to play for. And so honestly like it like AD Got game planned out of this one and when he got game planned out, he didn't have any sort of second punch to go with. And, you know, like, as LeBron engaged things for the defense, because that's the thing, they did a good job with their defensive game plan with Anthony Davis in the first half where they did a poor job was containing the ball and their backside rotations on dribble drives. And so they just got diced up in the pain. I Think they gave up like something like 28, 30 something points in the, in the first half, just in the paint. Right. But in that second half, LeBron gets engaged, he gets going, really helps them regain control of things defensively. And then in that fourth quarter, it was kind of a perfect example from LeBron of what I was just talking about with Anthony Davis. LeBron's been struggling with his rhythm since he came back from his injury. LeBron has been a guy that's been inconsistent offensively in this last couple of weeks, but he was just like, I, I'm 6, 9, 2, 60, with still great athleticism at my age, and I can just play really hard and cut and crash and post, seal and drive and just do everything I can just through sheer force of will to impact the game. And he ends up lighting the scoreboard on fire in that fourth quarter. Everything just right at the rim. And again, like, LeBron has something to play for right now. That's the big difference. But like, I thought LeBron demonstrated an example of how like in defensive rhythm or when you're, when a defense gets you out of rhythm, how you can kind of play yourself into rhythm as an athlete just by playing super hard. That's the advantage of being one of the supreme athletes in the game is like, you can make up a lot of lost ground just by getting your body moving around and doing as much as you can with it. Outside of what has variance, there's variance in running action against a loaded up defense, there's variance in jump shooting, there's not variance in how big and strong LeBron James is. That's going to be their every single possession. And I thought that fourth quarter stretch from him was a classic case of like, he was obviously tired, he was budgeting in his energy all game. He stepped it up. Defense, like, it almost made sense. Luka carried things offensively earlier. LeBron carried things defensively late in the game. And then he just was like, I've noticed this a bunch since Luka came to the team, but, you know, it used to be that LeBron led the early fourth quarter unit even when Anthony Davis was there. It was a very similar type of rotation. LeBron would lead the early fourth quarter unit and he would come out of the game with like, you know, seven or eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. Anthony Davis would come back in and then LeBron would come back in for the last four to five minutes to close. And in times past, LeBron James would manage that early fourth quarter shift with more of an emphasis towards conserving energy, and he would do his thing and he would try to help the team as best as he can, but he knew, like, when I come back in with five minutes left, I'm the guy that has to try to make all of this stuff happen. And Luka Doncic has just alleviated that. And I've just seen so many examples now where it looks like LeBron starting that early fourth quarter shift with a completely different mentality that's like, I'm going to let everything I have in the gas tank go right here, right now, because Luka's coming in with seven minutes left and I'll be playing with an advantage the rest of the game, or just a handful of touches here or there when Luka needs a rest or when Luka has gets his first action shut down or something along those lines. And so this, I like that kind of, you know, pattern that we're seeing from LeBron in terms of the, that early fourth quarter aggression. And I do think when we get to the postseason, we'll see more consistent defensive engagement from him when he doesn't have to do something absurd like play three games in four nights and deal with some of the scheduling quirks like, you know, we got to cut the Lakers a little bit of slack in terms of just how many games they've played between March 1st and now. It's kind of crazy. They've played like 20 something games literally in the last, you know, five, six weeks. And it's, you can tell it's wearing on them a little bit, but they're just finding ways to get as much done as they need to get done. You go into that road trip with two games in OKC and a game in Dallas that's got all the weirdness surrounding the situation with Luka. And for you to go two in one and to have a one point lead when Luca gets ejected in the OKC game. I thought they played some really, really impressive basketball. I thought the defense in general was super encouraging over the course of this three game stretch. I thought they looked awesome start to finish in the Sunday game. I thought they looked awesome in the second half against OKC on Tuesday, and I thought they looked awesome in the second half tonight against Dallas. The so call that what that's four good halves out of six on the defensive end of the floor. I don't think they played four good halves of defense in the previous 10 games. So, like, it's a really good sign that they're starting to regain some of that defensive identity that they had earlier on, before LeBron James hurt his groin, I thought it was really nice to have Rui Hachimura back. He was a little bit out of whack early in the game as the game was a little bit faster. But there in that second half he just kept getting these wide open looks and to his credit he just kept trusting his work, trust in his release and hit several big ones there. He's just so important for the physical profile of the team too. I didn't even think he was particularly great tonight as a defensive player and in some of read and react situations, but just having another guy who's, you know, six nine and big and strong and can move a little bit just changes that physical profile of the team. Couple big picture things with the Mavs. As I mentioned, the the Anthony Davis process will look different from matchup to matchup. Teams that switch there is a tendency with Anthony Davis to either post up and struggle with double teams or to settle for a lot of contested mid range jump shots. And then the when he doesn't have it going offensively, it's kind of like a 50, 50 shot. Whether or not you're going to get I'll still be an athletic wrecking ball or I won't. And I think that's going to be just kind of part of the process of, of of learning how to build around Anthony Davis and finding ways to cover for him on that front. And that's one of the things that I like about having him in some of those two big looks is that it allows him to kind of change the way he wants to play defensively depending on how he's feeling on any given night. I thought Najee Marshall was great tonight. Naji's consistently been one of my favorite players in the league as a role player. I was a big fan of the signing when it happened last summer. To me he's like one of the more versatile role player guards that you have in the league in the sense that like he can be a spot up guy but he can also run some action for you. He can beat switches against smaller guards because he's a good athlete that has like a pretty underrated handle compared to a lot of role player guys that you have in the league. And then he's pretty big strong athlete for the guard position too, which gives him some defensive utility. I thought he had a really fun game tonight and he was one of the few Dallas Mavs tonight that really brought the competitive energy in a game that so desperately needed it on the Dallas front. Big win for the Lakers, though, they got a an even bigger one coming up here on Friday. The that game, we will have an instant reaction to or working the weekend this week to make that happen. So essentially the way that the schedule will work out is we are going on Saturday morning to cover the Friday night slate. We will hit multiple games from that slate, including Lakers Rockets. The way that I would expect J.J. redick to handle it is to go to his guys and be like, here's the deal. If you beat Houston tonight, you guys can have the weekend off Saturday, Sunday, fly out of town on Friday night, go to Cabo if you want, spend some time with your families, get a break. We'll come back. This coaching staff will spend the weekend prepping. You guys get ready to come back on Monday and work. If you lose to Houston, Sol, you got to come back and beat Portland on Sunday and we're starting our prep right away. Maybe you get Monday off, but no one's allowed to go on vacation because they got to be in town. We start practice on Tuesday. Find some way to motivate those guys and create more of a must win environment around that Houston Rockets game because then you get the three seed no matter what, and you can allow yourself to effectively punt that Sunday game or not have to worry about it at all whatsoever. And you get seven full days off guaranteed before your first round playoff game. Potentially eight if you end up playing on Sunday. So I think that should be the plan heading into that Houston Rockets game. I also just think it's a another opportunity for Luca and LeBron specifically to get some reps against their perimeter guys. Houston is high risk for a first round upset because they have so many, you know, issues on the offensive end of the floor. However, there is a pretty decent chance that we get Lakers Rockets in the second round. At least a chance that's worth, you know, considering. Right. And so if it ends up being Rockets Lakers, that was a matchup where even though the Lakers won last time, they had some difficulty dealing with their bigger, stronger perimeter defenders. It's not the same type of matchup as okc. They're bigger, their perimeter guys are bigger, and they have more of a sizing position on the front line as well with Shangoon and Adams. So it might be another opportunity for the Lakers to get some reps against that team so they can get some more footage to improve their game planning heading into a playoff series. I think they should go for it entirely in that Houston game. The counter case, I guess, would be these guys play crazy physical we don't want to get hurt. Let's save it for Portland. But I think you're messing with the basketball gods if you do that sort of thing, too. I would try to beat Houston. All right, guys, before we get out of here, let's get to our chat mailbag. Jackson's going to hop on and we'll get to about 15, 20 minutes of questions.