← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Luka Doncic & LeBron lead epic win over Nikola Jokic
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- [00:00]
Colleen Witt
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.
- [00:32]
Bobby Bones
Acquired card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [00:36]
Colleen Witt
Are you hungry? Colleen Witt here and Eating While Broke is back for Season four every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network this season we've got a legendary lineup serving up broke dishes and even better stories on the menu. We have Tony Baker, Nick Cannon, Melissa Ford, October London and Carrie Harper. Howie turning Big Macs into big moves. Catch Eating While Broke every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. IHeartRadio Apple Podcast Podcast Wherever you get your favorite shows, come hungry for season four. Dressing. Dressing.
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Bobby Bones
Oh, French dressing.
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Colleen Witt
Exactly. Oh, that's good. I'm A.J. jacobs and my current obsession is puzzles and that has given birth to my podcast the Puzzler. Something about Mary Poppins? Exactly. This is fun. You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to the Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. That's why we love it. Listen to Goat Greatest of Their era on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:12]
Bobby Bones
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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. Gamb 1-800-Gambler in New York, call 8778 Hope NY or text Hopeny 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 Saturday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your weekend. Well, the for as long as I can remember, the Denver Nuggets have completely owned the Los Angeles Lakers. As someone who roots for that team, I've had to do some pretty uncomfortable shows over the years, including last year having to come up onto this stream right after Jamal Murray ended games with buzzer beaters as the Nuggets have seemingly won a million games in a row against the Lakers. The one that they won was the down 30 in the series last year game in Los Angeles. It's a matchup. The Nuggets have dominated even as recently as this season as they blew them out in Los Angeles in a second half avalanche that they didn't seem to have any chance to control. We're going to be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams as the Lakers go into Denver and blow them out tonight. 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 underscore. Jason LT So you guys 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 and a review on that front, don't forget about our brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook where we release content throughout the year. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can get to them on our Friday shows throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I want to be clear up front here. I don't think any single regular season matchup is any sort of sweeping decoration about what two teams could look like in the postseason. I would even go as far as to say a Dominique. A dominant entire regular season series between two teams wouldn't make that much of a difference. Famously, last year the Phoenix Suns owned the Minnesota Timberwolves all regular season. They had a specific game plan that worked against them in the regular season and then they got into the playoffs and got swept. Because the dynamics can change. And more often than not, what I'm looking at in these regular season situations is not so much what Cap can what can happen in one single game, but rather the problems that either team present for each other. Those problems that they present are the things you can lean on during a two week long playoff series to try to gain an advantage, right? I had a debate with a fellow Volume co worker of mine, Carson Breber from Nerd Sesh the other day as we kind of talked about Denver versus LA and got into a bunch of different dynamics in that in that show. And one of the things that I was trying to emphasize was simply that everyone's focused on whether or not the Lakers can guard Jokic. And there's no doubt that Jokic presents a huge problem to this team. No one, no one wearing a Lakers jersey can guard him one on one. And we're going to talk in a little bit about the defensive game plan the Lakers had because I actually thought they did a really nice job on Jokic in this game. But one of the things that I kept trying to harp on was like everyone's focused on whether or not the Lakers can handle Jokic. Why is no one paying attention to the simple fact that on the other end of the floor, how is Denver going to guard the Lakers? There's a simple dynamic taking place in this game that was leading to the Nuggets being in rotation constantly and the Lakers being able to move the ball around for wide open threes for guys that are all pretty damn good knock down, catch and shoot three point shooters. And it was the simple fact that When Luka Doncic would come off of a ball screen, Michael Malone was bringing Nikola Jokic up to the level of the screen. This is the coverage that the Nuggets use most frequently. This is the coverage that the Nuggets are going to use when they get into the playoffs. This is how they defend teams. They force you to skip the ball and then they plan on their rotations, trying to funnel you into shots that they're okay with. Right. Well, when you, when you bring Jokic up to the level, when you bring him up onto Luka, out 25ft from the basket behind that is a four on three. And it really starts with a simple dynamic which is Jackson Hayes rolling to the rim in Denver having to decide whether they're going to tag it. When they tag him with Gordon, the skip passes open. They try to play early in the game where they didn't tag him. Jackson had an easy uncontested layup, a seven footer under the basket with nobody within 15ft of him on any side because they didn't tag him. So then Denver started tagging him with Gordon. Now it's a skip pass every single time. And who's in that corner? It's either Rui Hachimura who's shooting over 50% on catch and shoot threes this year, or it's LeBron James who can drive it for a dunk or drive it to make the next play. They, when they used Rui as a screener on Jokic, when Jokic was on Rui instead of Jackson, he's just popping the pick and pop is always wide open unless you switch it or you rotate from the weak side. Rui was catching up at the top. Wide open three or rotation, moving the ball around, someone else is getting a wide open shot. Luka Doncic has this. He's one of the very best in the world at this. The Lakers have had guys like LeBron who can do this in the past, but because Luka can do it, it puts LeBron off the ball. And when you're dealing with an offense that has Jackson, Hayes who can dunk everything under the basket, and LeBron, Rui and Austin, who can all be knocked down, catch and shoot guys, but can also drive closeouts and make plays that can also cut along the baseline, that can also, oh, you threw a good rotation, but guess what? Austin's a score, he can get buckets. LeBron a score, buckets Ruiz a score. So even when you rotate, well, these guys are in advantages. You're asking high level offensive players to score with a nugget sprinting at them from like 10, 15ft away. They tried a bunch of different things in this game. They tried going to a 3:2 zone there in the late third quarter, which was the only thing they actually did in this game that made the Lakers a little bit uncomfortable on offense. And it was because Jared Vanderbilt was in the game. And the 32 kind of forces Van do to do a lot of high level skill stuff in the middle of the floor, which is not his game. And they were able to get a couple of stops there, but even then they just took him out. Then they started screening the top man. They got a couple buckets against the 3:2 to start the fourth quarter. Then in the fourth quarter they tried switching with Jokic, but that doesn't work. So they ended up having to double to help Jokic. They ended up just passing out of that and getting wide open threes. The Lakers are built for every single coverage they could possibly face. Even the two primary coverages. We didn't talk about switching in a deeper drop coverage come with their own set of issues. If you switch, you're now asking jokic to guard LeBron Luca and Austin on the perimeter all series. How's that going to work out for you if you try the deep drop coverage? That force. The deep drop coverage involves Jokic sitting further back in the ball screen. When he sits further back in the ball screen, he can keep the roll man in front. Well, there's two problems there. If it's Rui, he's popping, he's still wide open. But let's say you run that against Jackson, you've got Jackson running at you, you're keeping the ball in the front, you're staying out of rotation. But I'd argue Austin Reaves, LeBron James and Luka Doncic is one of the best personnel groupings you'll find in the league for attacking a drop coverage. You want to let LeBron come screaming, screaming downhill against Jokic, backpedaling towards the rim. Rim protection is not his strength. You want to let Luca methodically work downhill. What does he do every single time? He just drops that shoulder, bumps you off and hits that little bank shot from 5ft. Austin Reaves is like a magician in the middle of the floor, hitting little 10, 15 footers, drawing fouls, doing all of the scoring stuff that he can do there in the middle of the floor. Like, there's a lot of like overthinking it that I've seen in terms of the way the Lakers have been Covered. Look, I don't leave this game tonight thinking they're Boston. I don't leave this game tonight thinking they might be that. But we need to see a lot more basketball. But there's a simple basic reality with this roster now that people need to acknowledge and that's that LeBron, Luca and Austin are as good a set of shot creators as you find in the league. They lean into Luka on the ball, which we're going to get to when he's on the floor. But LeBron and Austin are so great playing off the ball and then they've got all these guys that are play finishers. Dorian Finney smith, he's a 40% catch and shoot guy. Rui Hachimura, he's a 50% catch and shoot guy and a great baseline cutter and a guy that's got some high level scoring moves. Jackson Hayes can finish everything around they're in. Even the guys like Gabe Vincent that you would look at as a somewhat average shooter, he's been shooting the ball pretty well. There's not really an answer there. We like. I don't need to see much more to know that the Lakers are going to score. Whether or not they have the potential to get to the ultimate goal is going to come down to their ability to achieve peak unguardability. And that will require them to show a lot of success against elite switching teams. Them to show a lot of success. Like what if it is a team like Dallas and they sit Anthony Davis down in a big drop coverage and he's a guy that's sitting around the rim and that ends up being a problem. Like they'll need to, they'll need to check a lot more boxes to get to that point. But I absolutely think, think that they can achieve that. They have the personnel to attack all of those different things that they can see. The last thing I want to talk about with the Lakers on offense before we move on, I loved how when Luca was on the floor, they leaned into him as the on ball creator. This is something that we talked about a lot in the first week after the trade, which is that LeBron's like turned himself into one of the best catch and shoot guys in the league. And you saw what he can do driving closeouts. He drove that close out on the baseline and got a dunk. He drove a closeout, dunked all over Mark Williams last week or earlier this week, I should say. They, the LeBron can play off the ball, Austin can play off the ball, all these guys can play off the ball. Luka can, but it's not like his strength. So I love the idea of like, Luke is on the floor, let's just give him the ball. And he has one job. Just make the first read. They chase over the top, they sit back in a deep drop. His read is to methodically work downhill and get a nice easy shot closer to the rim. They bring the screen defender up to the level. His job is to either is to read the low man. Okay, they're tagging Jackson. I'm making the skip pass. They don't tag Jackson or I ball fake to the skip pass. I'm dropping it to Jackson. He's got a dunk. He just has to make the first read. Oh, they're switching. Okay, well, I'm going to get a lesser defender on me now. Now that I got this lesser defender, I'm going to work to a place on the floor where I feel comfortable. And when I get there, I'm either going to take the easy shot that I can get, or if they bring a second defender, I'm going to make that next read. It's a pretty straightforward process from there. And then when Luca comes out of the game, LeBron and Austin can scale up their on ball aggression the way they need to. And then they have just these short windows of time where they really need to test their bodies to create advantages. LeBron was super aggressive to the rim tonight. There was a, there was a specific play, a late shot clock, A late, a late shot clock play in the early fourth quarter against Zeke Najee where LeBron kind of had a predicament. Clocks running down and he had a triple threat against Najee at the top of the key before Luca came to town. LeBron's taking that three. You know why? Because he's got a lot of basketball left. And when you get to 5, 4, 3, 2 minutes left, he's going to be the guy that has to create all the shots. So, like, he didn't really have a choice in times past but to try to conserve energy by settling from time to time. That's no longer the case. He can go like it's the early fourth quarter. I just got to carry this unit till about 7, 6 minutes left, then I get to go sit down. And when I come back, Luke is the guy that's going to be able to help me down the stretch. So you know what he does? He puts his head down and he tries to drive to the right. And Najee does a great job sliding with him. He's being physical and he's holding him up. And LeBron just, just keeps backing him down, backing him down. Fake Zeke leaves his feet, patiently waits for him to come down and banks it off the glass. It's an exertion of energy that LeBron would not have made in times past because he was trying to save his legs. One of the most jarring things about this game is like, you're like, okay, Jokic is checking out. Let's see who's on the floor now. Well, it's going to be Luka and LeBron, or it's going to be LeBron and Austin. Or it's going to be Luka and Austin. It's wave after wave after wave of high level shot creation. Again, they're going to have to achieve a level of peak unguardability from matchup to matchup, and they're going to have to maintain this type of defensive game planning that we've seen. But I think we would all be foolish. Even though we don't know how good they're going to be yet, I think we would be foolish to not consider this team a threat. Of course they're a threat. How are you going to stop him from getting good shots? There's this interesting thing that happens in basketball games where everything is intricately connected. The offensive end is connected to defense, transition. Defense. Transition is connected to defense. Defense is connected to offense. Transition, offense, transition is connected to offense. If you can create an advantage, you can play off of that. All four phases of the game are, are attached to each other. When you continually get great shot after great shot after great shot, it has an impact on the flow of the game. It has an impact on the rhythm of the game. Like, for instance, one of the things that we're going to talk about when we talk about the Lakers defensive scheme, they were trying to shade everything towards Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown, and Aaron Gordon making threes, just like I said they would. That's. That's exactly how teams are going to try to guard Denver in the postseason. And they made eight threes. Those guys made eight threes. And it still didn't matter because it doesn't become about making them pay a couple of times. It becomes about keeping up. You're in a. You're in a foot race now. You're in a shooting contest. It's. It's a shootout. And you're asking Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon and Russell Westbrook to keep up making shots that. When I look back to some of the most dominant Luca playoff performances ever, Game 7 against Phoenix, Game 5 against Minnesota, many of them come down to he sucks the life out of the other team by strangling the flow of the game, by continually generating fantastic shots and it allowing you to set your defense, it leading to the opponent not being confident. Because how do, how can you be super confident when Luka is like strangling the game? It becomes very difficult to do. And there's only a handful of players in the league that have the ability to go punch for punch with a guy like him. And with Luka or with Jokic, JJ had a game plan.
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Colleen Witt
Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Cassel 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 the Star. So where else are you going to find a show with that much athleticism and football insight? Based in Nashville, we're more than just your basic NFL show. We talk sports, but we talk pop culture and music and a little bit of everything because we got lots to say. I texted you and you text me back. Now I don't know if you have the update, but like all the little thumbs up and heart and stuff, like it's all colored. They changed it and the, the heart's a little pink. It felt like I told you I loved you. I'm going to be honest, it was a little pink.
- [20:08]
Bobby Bones
There was something sentimental when you, when you send it. It was like, do I send the heart now?
- [20:14]
Colleen Witt
Because I don't like the color edition.
- [20:16]
Bobby Bones
It's extremely pink.
- [20:17]
Colleen Witt
Listen to Lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get podcasts. I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. The five families did not want us.
- [20:31]
Bobby Bones
To shoot that picture.
- [20:32]
Colleen Witt
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 the first interview I've done in bed. We sift through, through innumerable accounts.
- [20:50]
Bobby Bones
35 pages isn't very much.
- [20:52]
Colleen Witt
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. Not only is not going to work, you gotta get rid of those guys. It's a disaster. Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, James Caan, Talia Shire, and many others.
- [21:13]
Bobby Bones
Yes, that was a real horse's head.
- [21:15]
Colleen Witt
Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 a 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. Hey. This is Mel Reed, LPGA Tour winner and six time Ladies European Tour winner. And Kira 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 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 Kira, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep.
- [22:41]
Bobby Bones
Blue Sports and Entertainment.
- [22:43]
Colleen Witt
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.
- [23:03]
Bobby Bones
So let's talk about that gameplay. One of the things I talked about. For the record, I actually do think that in the big picture, Denver will find more ways to score against the Lakers. They have too big of an advantage in Jokic. One of the big things I think they could do is just when they're bringing that double from the baseline, y just got to look to score. Like he just needs to shoot and shoot and shoot and even when he misses, he can follow it and get the rebound. He's too much. He's too much bigger than all Those guys, he's got to try to like try to force his way through sometimes I think a little bit more. But one of the things I talked about, even though Denver presents issues to the Lakers for 17 games coming into tonight, and I haven't seen the updated stats, but I would assume it's tonight after 18 games too. The Lakers have been the very best defense in all of NBA basketball. That doesn't mean they're going to strangle Jokic for a seven game series, but what it does mean is they're probably going to get some stops. The two things that I talked about when we talked about the Laker defense were they've got good defensive personnel, better defensive personnel than people think. Vando's a great defender. DFS is a good defender. Gabe's a good defender. LeBron when he's engaged, is a good defender. They Austin, when he's engaged, he's a good defender. They've got good defenders. But the second piece of it was defensive game planning, which has been a strength, an under discussed strength of JJ Redick's coaching job this entire season. The game plan with Jokic was simple. Started with Rui on him, put Jackson on Aaron Gordon and help, but regardless of who was on him because there were transition cross matches and other different things where the Lakers would end up with kind of different matchups. But it started with fronting the post anytime anyone else had the ball. If Jokic was trying to post, the guy guarding him was getting in front. Funding the post is a very difficult job. Jokic is good at sealing people on his backside. You got to use swim moves, you got to use move your feet quickly, you got to sit low, you got to squat down and push him back to force an over the top pass. What happens with an over the top pass? The Miami Heater, the best at this, you bracket it with backside help to shrink the passing window. It makes it much harder. Now one of the ways that Jokic was countering that was he was catching the ball further out, which is one of the upsides of fronting. When you front the post a lot of times it forces the offensive player to come further and further out so that he has less traffic behind him that he can create a passing angle. Once the ball came into Jokic, they did the exact same thing every time. The guy who was fronting the post would quick disengage and get behind. Then he would start playing the inside shoulder, the paint side shoulder of Jokic and try to force him towards the baseline. As soon as Jokic Spun out of the baseline. He would spin down towards the baseline, and the Lakers would double off of Aaron Gordon or whoever it was that was in the dunker spot from the baseline. Then whoever was guarding the weak side shooter would dig down on Aaron Gordon. They were packing the paint, doubling on that baseline side. They did a good job of attacking Jokic with that double. So they got a lot of deflections. That was a big part of turnovers. Turnovers were a huge part in this game as Denver and Jokic tried to solve this problem and kept throwing the ball into arms as the Lakers would go running out the other way looking to score. And look, here's the thing. You got to concede stuff. You're going to front Jokic, bracket Jokic, double him on the baseline side. Guys are going to get open and guys made shots. There's a version of this game where Aaron Gordon, Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook don't make eight threes. And the Lakers are up 25 in the first half. They gave up. They. They gave up some of those looks, but they never overreacted. They stuck to their game plan. They stayed disciplined and did their jobs. They tilted the shots towards other players, and that's, that's the game plan for jj. What JJ Is saying is we're going to have to give up some stuff, but good luck keeping up with us on the other end of the floor because you're going to have Aaron Gordon taking jump shots, you're going to have Christian Brown taking jump shots, you're going to have Russell Westbrook taking jump shots. The Lakers are going to have Rui Hachimura, LeBron James, Dorian, Finney Smith, Austin Reeves, Luka Doncic, reigning threes. And they're all going to be pretty open. And all of Those guys are 40 plus percent, except for Austin. And you. You tell me how you feel when you're a fan rooting against Austin Reeves when he has a wide open look. Tell me if you think it's going in. I thought it was a really, really well executed game plan. The Lakers battled on the glass. They did a great job of digging down and deflecting the ball away from the bigger Nuggets players. Like, that's the other big chess. Chess piece here, right? Is like, can Denver use their size to dominate the Lakers on the Glass? They had 12 offensive rebounds. Lakers had nine. It wasn't a substantial factor in this game. I want to start on defense for Denver because there's going to have to be something they do. Bringing Jokic up to the Level I don't think is going to work. I don't think they're going to be able to stop the Lakers from getting wide open threes if they do that. They were very fortunate in the first half that Gabe, DFS and RUI were 2 for 11 from 3 in all, 11 of them were wide open and eventually they stuck with that coverage and in the second half they started going in and it caused problems. So the two potential routes that we talked about earlier are switching or a deeper drop coverage. I don't think switching would work. I think asking Luka Doncha or excuse me, Nicola Jokic to guard on the perimeter against LeBron Austin and Luka all night long would be a terrible mistake. So that really leaves it to a deeper drop and I tweeted this at halftime. I actually think it's possible that Mike Malone is going to hold this for a potential playoff matchup to try to mix things up. What's the difference between a deeper drop and an at the level coverage? In an at the level coverage, when you bring Jokic up to the level, meaning as the ball handler is coming off the screen, Jokic is waiting there. When you do that, the roller gets behind Jokic. If the roller gets behind Jokic, you're creating a two on one between the skip pass and the lob pass that Aaron Gordon has to account for. If you sit Jokic deeper back then Aaron Gordon can stay on that skip pass and now Jokic can keep the roll man in front. There's a way for Jokic to guard that to where he can force luka Doncic, Force LeBron James, Force Austin Reeves to make drop coverage shots. That's a lot of shots in the mid range right now. To be clear, like I mentioned earlier, that might be the best group of drop coverage attackers that we have in the league. But at least you're taking, you're making them take contested twos instead of wide open threes. When all those dudes are wide open 40 plus percent shooters, we didn't see much deep drop tonight. There was a late possession in the late fourth quarter where Austin Reeves hit a pull up three. But again that's a tough shot. That's what you got to ask yourself. Do you want to watch Austin Reeves take tough contested pull up threes and ball screens or do you want to watch Dorian Finney Smith and and Rui Hachimura just standing completely wide open at the three point line all season long or all series long? Right. That's the type of decision that they're going to have to make. I think that's probably their best bet is to go with a deeper drop. As for the offensive end of the floor, again, there's certain things you can do with your spacing to try to make it so that when Jokic spins, he's got easier reads. They did some stuff with Russell Westbrook in the second half where they had him tee up or like basically cut right in front of the rim so that Jokic would have two cut reads as he's spinning to the baseline. He has Gordon on the baseline waiting and he's got Russ right in front of the rim. Do you remember that play where Russ got the layup right by LeBron and then he fell down and slid into camera row? That's a perfect example of that type of sequence where you can try to at least attack it with cutting instead of all of these skip passes to mediocre shooters. But like, I think Jokic is going to have to just start trying to be a bowling ball. He's going to have to just pound and spin off of that first defender, try to go through the double and just get those arms out wide, start hitting bodies, get offensive rebounds and put backs. Like Jokic is going to have to start trying to attack this as a score. I think that's something that they're going to have to look into. They did get good stuff with Jamal Murray. That was an encouraging piece. The Lakers were doing a lot of going under actions with Jamal Murray and just forcing him to make those mildly contested pull up jump shots. And he was hitting them. I think he had six threes in this game. Again, if you're going to piece together a successful offense, it's got to be multiple different things you can do. The Jamal Murray stuff worked. I thought Michael Porter Jr. Got some decent looks coming off of curls that he missed. There's a version of that where some of more of those go in. You actually hit quite a few shots with your mediocre shooters. You're gonna have to get Jokic to provide more scoring pop though. And the only way he's going to do that is if he looks at the double and says, screw that, I'm trying to score anyway. Really interesting game. We're going to see a lot more from the Lakers and learn a lot more about them in time. Their schedule is brutal at this point. They're going to face a bunch of different types of teams that are going to force their offense to try to shape, shift and score in different ways. But I thought that this was kind of a proof of concept tonight that like teams that don't have elite personnel defensively at all five positions are going to struggle to guard the Lakers. And if the Lakers score enough, their defense just has to be good enough. And this was a Denver offense that had been annihilating everyone for months and the Lakers did a great job holding them in check tonight. After 17 games of being the number one defense in the NBA, I think it's time to start taking this team seriously as a championship contender. All right guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We are taking tomorrow off but we'll be back on Monday to cover a jam packed Sunday slate and a bunch of other stuff. I will see you guys then.
- [33:28]
Colleen Witt
The Volume.
- [33:30]
Bobby Bones
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.
- [33:44]
Colleen Witt
Are you hungry? Colleen Witt here and Eating While Broke is back for season four every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. This season we've got a legendary lineup serving up broke dishes and even better stories on the menu. We have Tony Baker, Nick Cannon, Melissa Ford, October London and Carrie Harper Howey turning Big Macs into big moves. Catch Eating While Broke every Thursday on the Black Effect Podcast Network. IHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your favorite shows, come hungry for season four. Dressing. Dressing.
- [34:19]
Bobby Bones
Oh, French dressing.
- [34:20]
Colleen Witt
Exactly. That's good. I'm AJ Jacobs and my current obsession is puzzles and that has given birth to my podcast the Puzzler. Something about Mary Poppins? Exactly. This is fun. You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to the Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Trevon Edwards, co host of the new podcast Got E the Greatest of Their Era with Seth 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. Love it. Listen to Goat Greatest of Their era on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:19]
Bobby Bones
Hey, you guys, I'm Katherine Legge. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet.
- [35:25]
Colleen Witt
And I've got a new podcast.
- [35:27]
Bobby Bones
It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm competing in some of the world's most notorious racing events. Tune in to my new podcast, Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legge, 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.
- [35:45]
Colleen Witt
Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.