← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: LeBron & Lakers...back? Knicks-Thunder, Wemby & Spurs beat Nuggets
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The challenge to the best heist movie in years.
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Den of Thieves 2 rated R only in theaters January 10th. The volume it's the most wonderful time of the year for getting in on all of the hoops, football and hockey action at DraftKings Sportsbook. In the season of giving, we're being gifted. College football and basketball, pro football and basketball and pro hockey, too. Almost 24 7. So many games every day. So many opportunities to place your first bet. Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the DraftKings sportsbook app and place your bet. Current super bowl winners on DraftKings right now the Detroit Lions at +260 and the Kansas City Chiefs at +425. And here's a gift for all new customers. Bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets if your bet wins. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app and use code HOOPS. That' O O P S. That's code hoops for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets if your bet wins. When you bet just five bucks. Happy holidays from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler in New York, call 877-8-Hopeny or text hopeny to 467-369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in on to receive award. 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. Quick show for you guys today. We're covering Knicks Thunder, a showdown between two of the hottest team teams in the league. After that, Victor Wembanyama versus Nikola Jokic did not disappoint. Both guys put up monster box score games. Spurs get the last laugh though. Wemby gets a big stop on Jokic late in the game. We're gonna break that game down. And then at the tail end of the show, the Los Angeles Lakers went 20 on a back to back two monster LeBron games. They are now 72 in their last nine games. We'll talk a little bit about what's been turning things around for them. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook where we're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there and then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. I'm probably going to record my mailbag this afternoon. Again, the schedule's a little weird this weekend because I'm getting ready to head out of town for a ski trip on Sunday. That's why we're doing a show on Saturday, because we're probably not going to have shows on at least Monday and probably not Tuesday as well. So little funky schedule here, but still, time to drop mailbag questions for that mailbag episode later this weekend. All right, let's talk some basketball. So New York played a really nice game in Oklahoma City, specifically in the second quarter. Just a really nice job defensively running out in transition. Mikhail Bridges was brilliant in that stretch. I talked a lot yesterday when we were talking about Boston, Minnesota, about the concept of spacing being more than just shooting. It's also about like how to position players off the ball when someone's trying to attack, how to relocate or move without the ball. When one, you see your help defender doing something that should trigger a certain type of reaction or two as somebody cuts, as somebody drives, as you have to kind of like be an amiibo with your spacing around that, right? Like if someone cuts down the lane and you're sitting in the dunker spot, you should probably clear out, right? A simple way to think of it is like if you've got a dude isoing on the right wing and they're shooter in the corner, shooter in the corner, shooter opposite wing shooter, opposite dunker spot. And let's say as that ISO is happening, the guy on the left wing just cuts right through to the basket. If he cuts through to the basket, the dude in the left corner needs to relocate up to that above the break spot. The dude in the dunker spot probably needs to relocate out to the corner so that that cutter can kind of fill in in the dunker spot, right? It's important for, to stay, for you to stay in motion because whenever you have two off ball offensive players just standing in the same spot, you make yourself easy, easy to guard. And that was something, you know, Mikhail Bridges, I thought just did a brilliant job of that all game last night. But especially in that second quarter stretch where like every single time there was a rotation, every single time there was help, every single time his defender turned his head, any single time somebody cut or drove in his direction, that changed his spacing. He's always cutting and relocating. It's like, oh, my man turned his head. I'm going to flash right to the middle of the floor, make myself available for a quick cut. Like, oh, I'm in the left corner but I saw my man step up high to head to tag a roller. I'm going to cut along the baseline and make myself available right there in the dunker spot. Like, oh, I was in the corner but my defender's not paying attention. I'm going to slide up more towards the above the break line to create a longer closeout and to make a clear passing window for Jalen Brunson or whoever it is to make that kick out pass. Just did a really, really nice job in that quarter. Just demonstrating the instinct side of spacing. Part of it is shooting, part of it is scheme. In terms of the coaching staff always having a plan for different types of double teams and help out of different spots on the floor. But a big part of it is just instincts and guys just having a natural feel for getting open. When I talk about off ball scoring, this is a concept I've talked about a lot. What is off ball scoring versus on ball scoring? Off ball scoring is literally the ability to be a threat to score even though the action's not being run for you. And so part of that is like having a natural ability to find open spots on the move. It's one of the big reasons why for a team like Denver, I'm against trading Michael Porter Jr. For Jimmy Butler. Michael Porter Jr's off ball scoring is uniquely valuable to Denver because you're usually running through the Jokic Murray two man game. Jimmy Butler, you're not going to get as much of the on ball stuff out of him because of what they already do on ball. And if he's off ball, he's not going to be as much of a threat to score. Not just to shoot, but to, to score off the ball the way that Michael Porter Jr does. This brilliant effort from OG Ananobi and Mikhail Bridges in that stretch, but it was, it kind of turned into a war of attrition in the second half where all Knicks starters played over 40 minutes in this game and Shea and J Dub in particular both played 37 minutes. The other Thunder starters played in the low 30s. So there was a substantial gap in workload between the Oklahoma City starting lineup and, and the, the, the Knicks starting lineup. Not to mention the fact that for Oklahoma City they have a tendency to kind of like put starters in and out based on what the game calls for. Aaron Wiggins for instance, getting a lot of run down the tail end of this one. So as a result, all of these like effort and fatigue related battles started to go towards Oklahoma City in that fourth quarter. They started to win all the loose ball battles. Isaiah Hardenstein got a huge save on a ball that was going out of bounds that led to Aaron Wiggins hitting a 3. The Knicks lost a huge offensive rebound battle late on the weak side where it was Josh Hart and Carl Anthony Towns vs. Isaiah Hartenstein and Aaron Wiggins and Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Hartenstein just beat those guys to the spot, forced them to fumble it out of bounds. And it was a possession for the Thunder that went, that turned immediately into another three for actually no Shea Gilder Sale Xander hit a little jump shot against Carl Anthony Townsend drop off of that. So like another offensive rebound that led to an extra two points, that's five extra points that the Thunder got in the fourth quarter just off of like effort and energy stuff. Like every Knicks jumper seemed to be short off the front of the rim down the stretch of the game. That's always a big sign that your legs are starting to get tired. And then the Knicks started to get sloppy with their execution. Like they weren't matched up in transition. A few times they left Aaron Wiggins wide open on the left wing on a transition run out. Jalen Brunson, who was doing A really good job handling pressure for the most part. Like made a couple really sloppy mistakes late in the game. The one in particular where he tried to fire that bounce pass, I think to Josh Hart in the dunker spot. That one was obviously fatigued. To me, it wasn't open. And when you see offensive players start to kind of like get rid of the ball, even though people aren't open, it's a sign that they're just tired and they're kind of just like looking for somebody else to do something to try to help them get another turnover against some ball pressure late in the game. So you could just tell that the fatigue element really started to work against New York late in the game, which, by the way, is the strength of Oklahoma City. They have that depth. They don't need to lean on those players as much. You go to the Knicks and it's like Landry, Shamit, Precious Shua and Campaign are the only guys playing for them off the bench. And those guys all have big issues. They're just, they're not as good as the guys coming off of the bench for Oklahoma City. They just have a depth advantage there. And that manifested over the course of this game. Aaron Wiggins was really the guy who iced it. He hit the three off of the Hartenstein offensive rebound. He hit the three on the play where the Knicks didn't get matched up in transition. He hit the three on a relocation, another kind of similar type of relocation. He was in the corner. Lou Dort slipped out of a ball screen, and when he slipped out of the ball screen, all this congestion happened right at the basket. Aaron Wiggins just slid up the lane line or up the the corner three point line and came up to above the brake line. Dort was able to hit him. He knocked down a big three. He got an and one slipping out of a screen of his own. That was kind of the story of the game in terms of late game execution for Oklahoma City. Everything was really just about Shea attacking Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns and specifically in hedges. And so what was happening is Shea would just like call Lou Dort up into the screen. Lou Dort's being guarded by Brunson. Brunson would hedge and right when Brunson would hedge, Dort would slip. And as he's slipping, you can imagine if Shay's dribbling at the top of the key and his on ball defender, Mikhail Bridges is on him and Brunson is briefly on him in a hedge. You have two on the ball and dort slips out of that, you hit him in stride. All of a sudden it's a four on three on the backside. All the Knicks help at the rim. That leads to the wide open three for Aaron Wiggins. Aaron Wiggins, the, the and one that he got. Same exact thing he on that play, I believe was being guarded by Carl Anthony Towns. He, Carl Anthony Towns tosses a hedge, Wiggins slips out of it. Boom, bounce pass hits him right in the the pocket. He goes right up with it and he ends up getting that and one even the final, the final little jumper that Shay Gil just Alexander hit kind of coming off of that curl on the sidelines, out of sideline, out of bounds. It was a drop coverage play for Carl Anthony Towns. Like Carl Anthony Towns is dropping. Shay's got his defender chasing him over the top. He knocks down that little mid range jump shot. So that was kind of like the half court surgery part. Like the, the Thunder were defending, the Thunder were getting out in transition. They were causing a lot of havoc on those offensive rebound sequences, on those transition sequences. But it was a big, a big part of like the half court element down the stretch of the game was just shape picking on Carl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson. And then the dagger, you know, the, the one that kind of ended up icing the game, it was like 1, oh 8103 and they again they had been hedging and slipping and getting stuff out of the hedge with the slip, right? So on this last possession, Jalen Brunson just switched, right? So like if Jalen Brunson is hedging and again all the hedges is as the screen is coming and she's trying to come off the screen. The guy who's hedging, his one job is just to show like to get out there and stop him from turning the corner, right? Because if you aren't there, he's going to come off the screen and he's going to go downhill. So you get out there to stop him from turning the corner and then you sprint like hell back to your man. That's how hedging recovery works. But that brief little instance where he's hedging, if the guy slips, he can get open and that's how they were causing the problems, right? So on that final one, Jalen just switches. So allowing the defender that was guarding Jalen to follow the screener. Right now it's a one on one situation, but the advantage is Shea has New York's weakest perimeter defender on him. He just goes right through Jalen Brunson and gets to the basket and gets a layup. It was really just like a really well closed game for the Thunder. I thought J Dub was brilliant in the early fourth quarter stretch with his athletic aggression. He was just going downhill every time he saw an opening, which was usually on chaos, like, oh, semi transition. I'm going downhill and I'm attacking. Oh, I missed a three, but the ball came right back to me. There's a Runway. I'm going right downhill. I'm attacking. Oh, I'm on the weak side. Guys closing out at me. I'm going right downhill. I'm attacking. Even on defense with that huge block on OG Anunoby at the rim. Yet another big play where he drove and drew a foul and got two free throws like J Dub. Just his straight line athleticism, his powerful straight line athleticism caused all sor for the Knicks down the stretch of this game. And then like again, once things got stuck in the half court, because that's, that was the thing. It was a lot of that pressure from, from J Dub, a lot of really good defense, forcing turnovers, getting out in transition, attacking the offensive glass, all of that stuff that's made OKC OKC over this stretch. And then just that surgical approach from Shea down the stretch, attacking mismatches whenever he could get a chance to other notes on the Thunder, the value of depth within their play style, again, like this is the value of having a guy like AJ Mitchell that can step in, a guy like Aaron Wiggins, a guy like Kayson Wallace, they have so many different guys. Kenrich Williams, they can go. Jalen Williams, I thought had a nice stretch, he hit a big pick and pop three early in the game. Like they have so many good players that can come in and play that it allows them the ability to play a style like what they play. Because when you do apply a lot of ball pressure, when you do a lot of blitzing, when you do a lot of like existing in rotation and covering the ground, running up and down the floor in transition, that tasks your body with a lot, right? And so if you can alleviate that by keeping minutes down and keeping guys in and out of the game so that you have fresh legs, that goes a long way towards affording you the ability to play that play style. Teams that aren't as deep aren't going to play nearly as aggressive defensively in those situations. Like Nick, the Knicks are running a eight man rotation. It'd be really, really tough to try to play with like good defensive pressure for an Entire game in that, in that sort of situation. Right. The value of making shots. Oklahoma City shot lights out in this one. They converted catch and shoot jump shots at 1.57 points per possession for the game. They were 8 for 11 on catch and shoot jump shots. In the second half, they were 5 for 5 on catch and shoot jump shots in the fourth quarter. I've talked about this a lot this year, but this to me is the factor that will determine the fate of Oklahoma City's season for the entire season. According to Synergy, their ability to convert unguarded catch and shoot jump shots ranks 18th. Even after last night, they've been a bottom third type of team or bottom half type of team in terms of the ability to knock down those like concession jump shots. The shots that teams are giving up when they make them, they look unbeatable. When they don't, their offense can stall out. And by virtue of that number 18 rank, that is one of those things that goes to show you that that's a potential outcome. But that's going to be the thing that determines whether or not Oklahoma City can win four playoff rounds. They're going to have to hit shots. They're going to need Aaron Wiggins to hit shots. They're going to need Lou Dort to hit shots. They're going to need Case on Wallace to hit shots. They're going to need Chet Holmgren to hit shots. That was a huge swing factor down the stretch of that game. When you connect everything Shea does as a if. When you connect everything Shea does as a half court surgeon, with everything this team can do defensively, with everything about their spacing principles, the way they run their running principles in transition. When you combine all that with guys paying off the shots at the tail end of those sequences, that's what turns this under team into a championship threat, a legitimate championship threat. Shay and J Dub, I thought, you know, one of the things that we talk about is we talk about the. All these things on the margins, oh, here's what this role player did. Here's what, here's this, you know, random margin, whether it's offensive rebounding or transition scoring, turnovers, whatever it is. Here's this area where they're, where they're doing damage. But a lot of things come down to, like you need guys to just get buckets in certain matchups, right? Like there was a lot of Carl Anthony Townsend drop coverage and how do you beat that coverage? Like a deeper drop coverage where Carl Anthony Towns is not letting the roller get behind him a no roller behind coverage is defending a pick and roll two on two. If you're defending a pick and roll two on two, the kickout reads aren't there. If the kick out reads aren't there, then you have to beat the coverage by knocking down shots. And throughout the game, a lot of good mid range shot making from Shea, from J Dub in that drop coverage like that, that's what you have to do. That's. That is what the Knicks were conceding within that coverage. That big shot late that Shay Gilders Alexander hit against Cat and drop, that's a big one. Another big one is just like attacking your defender. Like there were times there's a big one. In the fourth quarter, Shay was like, I got Mikhail Bridges on me. I'm just going to take him to the basket and get a bucket here. There's a certain amount of like, there's a certain amount of like you have to just beat the coverage sometimes. And there was a great amount of that from Shea and J Dub in last night's game. And then Aaron Wiggins, like we talked about the shooting stretch that he had at the end of the game, it was cool when he hit that last, the last three, the one that, I think it was the one that tied the game. But he had a bunch of threes down the stretch. I can't even remember all of them, but he hit that one on the left wing. He's like running up and down the floor, like jumping and screaming. I was like, dude, it's such a good feeling when like you put in a bunch of hard work behind the scenes and then shots start to fall and then it just feels like the, a lot of stuff coming to fruition. But I thought his success started in his first shift. He came in and Mikhail Bridges was red hot. Mikhail Bridges was doing a bunch of damage attacking like Shay and Isaiah Joe in the post. He came in and cooled him off, forced him into a really tough one, like fade away. That kind of disrupted Mikhail Bridges rhythm. He started to miss some shots during that stretch. He broke up a transition run out with a steal against Landry Shamit. He blocked Josh Hart at the rim in an ISO. Like he got into the game and he started to impact things defensively and again that builds confidence, which makes you feel better about yourself and less pressure to knock down shots which can lead to you knocking down shots. Very, very impressive win for this red hot Oklahoma City Thunder team. Again that everything's going to come down to knocking down shots. That's going to be the Story of the season for this particular team. On the Knicks front, a couple of things. Fatigue is the reality of running an eight man rotation. You know, obviously everyone kind of shrinks their rotation to a certain extent when you get into the postseason. But depth is not a strength of this Knicks team. And that's just something to keep in mind. It's a, it's a reality. As we discussed then compared to other teams around the league. Like they will get tired if they run that type of rotation. And by the way, that's kind of what happened last year. They just ran out of gas, got hurt against Indiana, the attacking of Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns in action. It was how Oklahoma City got all their shots late in the game other than the ones that were in chaos situations. And again, that problem's not going away. You're going to have to come up with a plan to deal with that team. Slipping out of hedges is a problem because you're constantly getting compromised. You got to be more active with your hands. There's to try to. Like here's the thing, if a team's going to slip out of a hedge, then it can't be a hedge. You might as well blitz at that point because if you're going to be stuck with two on the ball, you need to try to disrupt that first pass. If you disrupt that first pass, meaning like if you make it deflected or make them throw a weird looping pass over the top, that buys you a chance to rotate. But if they're cleanly getting out of those hedges with pocket passes, you're going to be picked apart in those four on threes. So like whether it's implementing a little bit more of an aggressive blitz in those sorts of situations to try to disrupt that action, like just tell Brunson, like as soon as the screen comes, just sprint at the ball handler and attack the basketball as hard as you can. Like that sort of thing. But that's. They're doing that. They're attacking Brunson, they're attacking Cat. They're going to have to come up with a plan for how to deal with that in late playoff situations because that's a reality. And then I just want to shout out, Mikhail Bridges thought he played a great game. I talked about his spacing principles earlier in the game. He's doing a bunch of damage posting small guards. His off ball scoring ability is still, in my opinion one of the most valuable traits in the league for a guy who's also playing some pretty good. Pretty damn Good defense as of late. All right, moving on to Spurs Nuggets Wemby. I thought the story of this game was him posting mismatches. It's. It's an interesting type of thing that he's going to have to do, especially as a playoff score, because it's the type of chess match piece that you're going to end up running into a lot. A team that feels comfortable putting someone on Chris Paul and someone on Wemby, that they can switch the action to prevent him from getting easy pick and pop threes or easy slips to the rim. Okay, well, how do you attack that? You take that person to the post. And he was doing a ton of damage in this game, particularly on the left block, although he also got a big one on the left elbow late against Christian Brown, where he had a little step back, but a lot of damage on the left block against guys like Russell Westbrook, against guys like Peyton Watson, against guys like Jamal Murray. Just smaller defenders, quickly getting good position, identifying when a guy was trying to front and creating a passing angle for that over the top pass or for that, like more of an angled pass and then just quick, efficient moves to get easy baskets to beat those switches. I thought he just did a wonderful job of that all game. And then the transition threes, which ended up being a huge part of the game late because he hitting him off the dribble, just like kind of dribbling up the floor, catching a screen at like 27ft and just like crossing over, knocking down a three or those trailer threes. The transition trailer threes are what all the best stretch bigs in the league do, because opposing centers have a tendency to run back and transition to the rim. But he was hitting a bunch there and then he was able to weaponize that with his passing ability to get Keldon Johnson a big and one late. He took like a faked, like he was going to take like a 35 footer up above the break. Three Nuggets jumped at him, and all of a sudden there was just a. Literally a four on two on the backside. He hits Keldon Johnson in stride and he gets the and 1. He made a bunch of huge defensive plays late. He forced Jokic to settle for a bad three above the break, but there was still like eight or nine seconds on the shot clock and he just like heaved one up over. Over the top of Wemby. And then the double, the. The. The late play, the play that led to the. The Devin Vesel steel and the transition dunk. Really smart double Team that doubled to Jokic, his right shoulder and they had one. And this is some of the reality of when Aaron Gordon's out and you're closing with Russell Westbrook, you don't have your spacing principles that you've had literally five years or not quite five years, but for the last, you know, very long time. And so as a result, they, the, the spurs were able to kind of effectively double Jokic out of post ups in the last few possessions without any trouble. So Jokic had no choice when the double came on the final possession, he had to turn over his left shoulder. Doubles coming at his right shoulder, has to turn over his left shoulder. Wemby immediately identifies it and just sells out to that left shoulder move. Ends up getting that steal on Nicole Jokic, which leads to the run out. Just a monster game from Wemby. I thought he showed some growth as a passer. I know you see the turnovers and yeah, he needs to turn, he needs to stop turning the ball over too much. Reminds me of KD where, like when he was younger, where like, he's just so far off the ground that every time he's dribbling, the ball's exposed and then he's got such long arms that the ball's always exposed because of how far the ball is away from his body. Some of that is just the reality, but he'll get better at that in the long run. I still thought late in the game he was getting rid of the ball quickly against doubles, which was leading to good shots. They were getting good stuff out of Wemby, drawing double teams and just quickly getting rid of the ball. The Julian Champagne three in the left on the left wing or left corner. Victor draws a double team. Jokic is the double. Victor gets rid of the ball to Chris Paul. Jokic rotates back down to the paint. Chris Paul just rifles a pass to Julian Champagne in the left corner who caught Jokic sleeping, and he knocks down the three. That was something that came out of the positive effect of Wemby drawing a double team. He's just playing at an insanely high level and that really was the big thing. I was texting my buddy Damon about this last night. I don't think since LeBron we've had a player that has been more of a sure thing to be a at least five years as the best player in the world than Victor weming yam. Since LeBron, we haven't had a guy like that. And I don't think there's a safer bet in all the players that we've looked at since then, there's this combination of talent, which is obviously freaky. You know, Jokic just makes it look so easy against everyone else. And by the way, Yokich still made it look easy against Wemby a few times last night where he just pump fakes a little bit, gets Wemby off his feet and leans back a little bit, knocks down a bank shot or just that drop step into his left shoulder where he can just dislodge Wemby and get to where he needs to go. There were times where he made it easy, but there were times where Wemby won that battle. And he's got the talent to smother a player that seemingly seems unsmotherable right in Nicole Jokic. He has the talent. Like, I. You know what's crazy? I was actually thinking last night, I remember when I watched the first Victor Wembanyama game that I watched, which was that the exhibition game against Scoot Henderson, the two games that they played that were on espn. And I remember the first thing that stood out to me, those of you guys who were following the show at that point will remember this. I was like, this is a movement shooter. Like, everyone was talking about him as, like, the next great center in the league. And I was like, watching that game, I'm like, this is a movement shooter. This is a guy who's very comfortable stepping both directions. Like, left, right footwork, going right, right, left footwork, going left, off the move, off the dribble, turning over each shoulder. Like, this was a guy who very clearly was headed on a trajectory of being an advanced shot maker. Now we're watching him, like, getting NBA teams to triple team him 30 plus feet from the basket. The talent is obviously there, but then you combine it with the fact that he has that, like, competitive, obstinate, that all the greats have had that like, like, oh, yeah, they beat us, but they're not better than us. That, oh, yeah, none of these guys work hard enough. I'm better than these guys. The even last night, just, like, putting his hand on Russell Westbrook's shoulder and kind of like talking down to him a little bit. There's just a audaciousness with Victor Wembanyama. That competitive fierceness that combined with his talent makes him a sure thing. And then the big concern with all tall guys is injuries. And I don't want to, like, we want to knock on wood here. I don't want to sit here and pretend like he's incapable of getting hurt. But this is a guy who spends an enormous amount of time on pliability and stretching and prepping his body for this. It is obsessive work ethic, obsessive competitiveness and insane natural ability. It makes him the surest thing to be the best player in the world for a long time. I like like it feels a certainty that he will win multiple MVPs. It feels a certainty that he will be the undisputed best player in the world for a five to ten year stretch. And it's because of the combination of all those factors. We've seen a lot of guys in the league that have all of the talent, all of the work ethic, but don't seem to have the personality. We've seen all the guy We've seen guys that have the personality, have the talent, but don't have the work ethic. We've seen combinations of those. It's exceptionally rare to have a player that has transcendently great talent, transcendently great competitiveness, and a transcendently great work ethic. And it just makes him a sure thing to be a truly dominant player in NBA history. And I'm excited to see what he can do. Other Spurs I wanted to shout out Julian Champagne. He had 15 points. He's one of their most trustworthy catch and shoot guys. So he's been getting a lot of like big late game opportunities. Hit that huge corner 3. Also had a big play where he met Jamal Murray at the rim late on a play coming off of a screening action where he forced him into a big miss. Really solid role player minutes from Julian Champagne. Chris Paul too, so many big plays. Hit that huge pull up three over Jokic late. He had that pass to Champagne which was genius. Just caught Jokic sleeping like Jokic as soon as he got out of the double. He just relaxed for a second and just sat in the paint for a second. And Chris Paul made him paid for it. That late blow by of Russell Westbrook which you want to be like, okay, what's up with all these blow buys that Russell Westbrook's giving up in late game situations. But very old Chris Paul just toasted Russell Westbrook one on one off the dribble for a scoop shot late. That was a huge bucket in that game. Just having competent ball handling next to Victor Weminyama has made such a huge difference this year. And then Devin Vassell, he had that run out dunk late, obviously. He had this beautiful driving dunk late off of this nasty hesitation dribble against Nicole Jokic in a switch, but I was really impressed by his off ball defense in this one. He's got really good size and quickness and he can cover some ground in rotation. He had a couple plays where he was chasing multiple shooters off the line. He cares, he makes the effort. And specifically his combination of length and effort and athleticism made him an interesting ground coverage option late in that game, which I thought was an interesting kind of like thing to keep an eye on in terms of the spurs and the big picture and how to use Devin Vassell as an off ball defender on the Denver front. So jokic goes for 41, 18 and 9. And yeah, Wendy won some battles, but Yoki Yokic won some battles too. There were three or four times in this game where Jokic scored on him one on one and made it look easy, which was obviously fun to watch. And that's an unbelievable box score. The main frustrating thing for me with Denver watching that game was just their defense, just several sloppy mistakes late. Like yo gets. Like I talked about lingering in the paint for too long when Julian Champagne was wide open in the corner. There was a random play towards the middle of the fourth quarter where like Zach Collins just took Jokic one on one and just busted his ass with a drop set and hit a little bank shot. And I'm like, dude, you got like, you gotta stop Zach Collins there, right? And it's not even like Wimby or it's not even like Jokic can, of course he can't or of course he can. He just, he was falling asleep. He's fallen making mistakes in those situations. And I understand there's fatigue. He's taking 30 plus shots, he's tired, there's a lot into it. But like, he just has to do better. And then like that draw, that drive that Russell Westbrook gave up again, like, like that's multiple times this year where it's a late game situation and Russ is like opening up his stance and just letting a guy go right around him like Chris Paul, like no resistance. Just went right around Russell Westbrook there. They've got to find a way to defend at a higher level. That's been the biggest thing to keep an eye on with them this year. And then San Antonio was able to double the ball out of Yoka, just hand a few times without getting, without giving up an advantage, especially late in the game. And again, part of that's the deal when you're closing with Russ instead of Aaron Gordon, but I thought that that was just something to keep an eye on I said this last night about contenders is the last thing I'll say about Denver. Boston kind of trying to trick us into thinking they're bad. I think they're just tricking us. I still think Boston is, is the favorite. Like mixed in with all of these bad losses that they've had have been these incredibly dominant wins. So it's clear that like, even though they're having a lot of nights where they're relaxing, they just lock in and they get the job done. Which makes you feel like even if you were to take an early playoff series lead against them, that they would be able to just kind of engage themselves and get to the level they need to get to. But at least Boston's at least trying to trick us into thinking things are more wide open. And as a result there have been all these peaks, right, Like Milwaukee and what they did to Oklahoma City in the in season tournament and everything they did during that massive win streak that they had, that was like a really interesting peak as a contender. Oklahoma City in the run that they're on right now. The Knicks have had a couple stretches this year where they've looked really, really good. The Cleveland Cavaliers winning at a 72 win pace. Right. Like all of these teams are like lining up. Denver's or Dallas is a team that like, even though they haven't really had a peak because of injuries, it's a roster that I feel pretty strongly about. Everything feels pretty open. It's again, I think it's a little bit of fool's goal because I think Boston's clearly better. But like there's a. Everything feels open and Denver's one of those teams that like, I can't count out because I know Jokic is capable of doing things that no one else in this league is capable of. But it's a little concerning that they haven't had that stretch yet where they put together, you know, 10, 15 games where they just look like that type of excellent basketball team. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping that we see that from them at some point here soon because it feels like they're due for that type of stretch. All right, before we get out here, I want to talk a little bit of Lakers. So Lakers had a back to back, they go 2 0, they beat a bad Portland team and then they controlled a pretty good Atlanta Hawks team last night. They are now 7 and 2 in their last nine games. 7th in offense, 12th in defense, 8th in net rating over the course of this nine game span. I want to Talk about the offense for a minute. So obviously they're seventh in offense during the stretch. They're also 10th in offense since losing DLO, which was a major concern. Right. And again, when you go that direction, when you go towards defensive personnel as a team, they've gone towards a defensive focus. I was concerned about their offense being able to stay afloat, but it's been pretty solid so far. And the main thing is when, when DLO went out, it just put a lot of pressure on Austin Reaves and LeBron James to be their primary shot creators. And those two guys have just been absolutely crushing it. Look at these numbers. LeBron's last six games. Again, 40 year old LeBron James, last six games, 30 points, five rebounds and eight assists. 58% from the field, 46% from three, 88% from the line. That's. That's insane. Just 2.7 turnovers too. Like, remember, focus was the big thing that he was having a problem with in that bad stretch that he was having. Just turning the ball over just seemed like he wasn't really paying attention. He's been so locked in and so good since he came back from that little break that he took. And again, 58, 46, 88 splits on 35 and 8. That's like top five player in the world type of production from LeBron James. Those are the types of numbers that LeBron was putting up post All Star break last year. That's when I was screaming from the mountaintops like, LeBron's playing at a top five level. Like, is anybody seeing this? And again, they, those two guys, LeBron and AD were monsters against Denver. It just wasn't enough because of the issues with their supporting cast. But like, this is, this is the kind of thing that if LeBron can sustain, this team has an upside that I think we need to recalculate. This is the player that we didn't get over the course of the beginning stretch of the season. Again, it's only six games, so I'm not about to say that this is like, feels like a dependable thing at this point. But LeBron seems to be getting his legs underneath him and he's playing some really special basketball over the course of this stretch. Austin Reeves, last 10 games, 21 points, 7 rebounds and 8 assists. He's now averaging 18.3 points per game this season, 4.6 rebounds and 5.9 assists. There are only 14 players in the entire league that are hitting those numbers. 18.3, 4.6 and 5.9. Like that's the type of production that Austin's giving you. And then what like 21, 7 and 8 in the last 10 games? Some absolutely monster games. A triple double like Austin is hooping his ass off. And so since LeBron James and Austin Reeves have been playing this well on offense, it has allowed Anthony Davis to refocus his energy as a defense first player. And as a result he's back to playing some of the most special defense that he's played over the course of this season. He had another six stock game last night. Six steals and blocks. He's averaging four stocks per game over his last 10. The Lakers have a 106 defensive rating with Anthony Davis on the floor over that stretch. So as a result you're getting defensive player of the year type of play from Anthony Davis, extremely high level offense from LeBron and AD or LeBron and Austin are basically giving you 50 plus points and 16 plus assists hyper efficiently over the course of this stretch. As a result of that, it is creating these small achievable roles for everyone else. And several guys have started to play really well. Max Christie, including what he's doing on the defensive end, he's averaging 12 points a game over the seven and two stretch. 51% from the field, 45% from three, excuse me, 93% from the foul line. That's really, really good. He's doing a lot of work on inverted ball screen screening for LeBron and slipping out of it. He had another dunk last night where he posterized a dude with two hands. He's so good at like quickly bouncing off the floor. Regardless of the, you know, the, the regardless of the footwork that feeds into it, he could just pop up off the ground off of two feet and dunk on anybody. He's playing really good basketball. Dalton finally broke out of his slump last night. Jordan, Finney, Smith, he's, you know, he hit a three last night. He's not quite hitting shots at the level that you would hope for as a Lakers fan yet, but just having a guy out there that's a good defensive player that seems to know what he's supposed to do offensively and as a guy that's guarded as a shooter is already revealing itself as a huge value add to this team. He's closed the last couple of games, which I think is interesting as Rui's kind of been struggling a little bit. I'll say. I don't know if it was the embarrassment, I don't know if it was something else, but the Lakers have Been playing the most consistent stretch of serious basketball I've seen them play in the first half of a season since they were fighting through those injuries in the Western Conference final season last year, it was a lot of like, just chilling until it got desperate and then they locked in and they played really good every night for a long time. But like that last year it was. Or the year before that, the year they made it to the Western Conference finals, they were doing that earlier in the season, but it was because of injuries. LeBron was out for a while, Anthony Davis was out for a while. You knew a trade was on the horizon, and those guys were fighting every night just to stay afloat in the standings. This is like, they're in a good spot in the standings. They have the fourth best record in the Western Conference. They have the seventh best record in the league. And they're just staying focused. And I think that is encouraging. It's way too small of a sample size to take them seriously, but it is absolutely a positive trend for this team. I was listening to JJ Redick's postgame presser last night, and he said a lot of things that were really interesting to me. First of all, heavy emphasis on game plan discipline. He was bitching about the boy. The Bogdan McDonovich slip slips. So we were talking about this earlier with hedging recover as it pertains to guys like Jalen Brunson with the Knicks, right? But like, what they do is they have Brogdon just. Excuse me, Bogdan Bogdanovich run in to pretend like he's screening for Trey and then he'll just sprint pass and run to the three point line. The idea there is you. You hope they confuse like they're about to switch. And then in that interchange, Bogdanovich has a chance to sprint and get open. And J.J. redick went to his guys before the game and was like, the last five times Bogdan Bogdanovich has played, every single time he's run up to set that go screen on Trey Young, he hasn't set the screen, he's just run past. So as a game plan, just stay attached. The on ball guy doesn't need to do anything. The guy who's running up with the screener, tell him, you know, whatever their identifier was, if they say ghost or stay home or whatever it is, they yell that identifier out and they just sprint and they stay. Guy's not open right in the first half, they were that coverage up time and time again. JJ Redick was super pissed about It JJ Redick was super pissed about some of their basic game plan discipline stuff. He's calling dudes out in press conferences. Max Christie, I didn't like your shift the other, the other night. Dorian Finney, Smith, I didn't think you did a good job defensively in the first half. He's calling dudes out. He's holding them accountable. He's understanding the importance of the game plan. He had a speech. He goes to the guys and he goes, he goes, you know why we, why we need you guys to pay attention to this game plan? Because I don't want to coach a good team. I want to coach a great team. JJ is appealing to their pride. He's appealing to their pride and he's holding them accountable as part of a goal to play real basketball. And the part. The last thing I'll say about it, and the thing that stood out to me the most was his comment about playing pickup versus serious basketball. And he was talking about the Hawks and he was talking about the Kings. And some of these teams that play up and down in transition, they're teams that defend and weaponize their athletes in the open floor and they just kind of play off of the advantages that that creates. Right. And one of the things that JJ said is, like, if we play that type of game, if we play a pickup game with these guys, we're going to lose. Why? We're not as athletic or not. We don't have like a bunch of dudes that can just like, thrive in that type of setting. And so what JJ said is like, we have to play serious basketball. What does that mean? That means we do have to get back in transition. Every single time. When we get into the half court, we have to be organized. Meaning, like, we got to run action, we have to set good screens, we have to sell every part of the play. Every cut, every screen, every fake, every relocation. Everything has to be a sprint. Everything has to be a good, solid screen. Everything has to be executed for this team to get to where they want to go. This is something that I've been screaming about from the mountaintops forever. JJ kept emphasizing in the postgame presser habits, establishing habits. Why? Because when you get into a big spot against a great team in a late playoff series, everyone on the floor is good, all the players are good. You know what ends up being a big determining factor over the course of the hundreds of possessions that take place in a playoff series, how often do you not do your job? How often do you give up a wide open something because you're not sharp because you don't have good habits compared to the other team. If they have an advantage there against you on that front, it's a problem. And as JJ has pointed out, he kept saying this Western Conference is really good. Everybody can beat everybody. He's right. I've been saying for the last couple days this conference is wide open because Oklahoma City can go so cold as perimeter jump shooters. This conference is wide open and the Lakers are not the most talented team in the conference. So if they're going to win, if they have a real goal, if the guys in that locker room really want to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy, it starts now. Or more appropriately in the Portland Trailblazers game when they started to turn the season around. It started then and it has to go to mid April. That doesn't mean it has to be perfect. You can have a bad night here or there. I it's like I talked about, what concerned me early on is weeks you go two and five in a seven game stretch and then quit. In against Miami I had many comments like why are you so much more forgiving of Golden State than the Lakers? You guys are missing the point. I think the Lakers have more talent on the roster right now than Golden State. Golden State is a more serious basketball team, or at least they were over the course of the entire season. They have overachieved relative to their talent. The Lakers, hell, they should probably be a couple games better than they are right now. When you look at the games they've blown. I am talking about the overall effort and focus. Golden State doesn't have that issue. They have a talent issue. If they address the talent issue in the trade market, they have a chance to go on a run. It's a slim chance, sure, but it's a chance for the Lakers. They have the talent. They also could use some more talent, but they have more talent. They in the early part of the season they won those first three games and they were in chill mode for the next month. That's not how you play championship basketball. That's not how you establish those habits. This Lakers team has to be so sharp that they keep every game close against the best teams at the top of the league. So that maybe, just maybe the thing that won you would chip. LeBron James and Anthony Davis with the shock creation of Austin Reeves can squeeze out a little bit more than the other team and you can advance. But they are not going to overcome execution errors. LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reeves are not going to be able to outplay Luka and Kyrie, Jada, Shea and Chet, like Jokic and Murray, these guys at the top of the west, they're not going to be able to outplay them enough to make up for a bunch of execution errors. The only pathway for them is attack the regular season and become the sharpest team that they could possibly be. That's what J.J. is preaching. It's up to the players to stick with it and to build that identity out over the remainder of this season. I think Rob Pelinka, by supporting them with Dorian Finney, Smith has provided them with a little bit more belief. I think he needs to further that by continuing to anchor this. I've seen a lot of people talk about like, oh, you don't want to trade. Make a trade that takes Max out of the starting lineup. I'm not necessarily saying that you need to take Max out of the starting lineup, but I would like to have another option for a veteran guy there in case you get to a playoff series and Max pees down his leg and you need to have somebody that you can go to at that two spot. But like, that's the type of move that I still think the Lakers should make at the deadline. Just something preferably to turn Rui into a starting caliber 2 guard that doesn't necessarily need to start if you want to invest in Max and give him all the starting reps and all that kind of stuff. But if it's a close game late and Max isn't the guy, you need to have an option, a starting caliber 2 that you can go into that spot if you bring in that talent. If you make another talent play. If you're Rob Pelinka, you will further incentivize LeBron James and Anthony Davis to stay bought in by virtue of them believing that there's an opportunity here to get this thing done. Excellent stretch from the Lakers to get back on track. Confusing ass basketball team. I can't believe this is the same group that did what they did in Miami, but It's not about 10 games, it's about 82. Got a lot of work to go to get to where they want to go. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. Remember to drop those mailbag questions for the mailbag that we're recording later this afternoon and then I'll see you guys when I get I'll see you guys for the mailbag and then after that, when I get back from Flagstaff. The volume. 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.
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