← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Brunson's Knicks surging, Austin Reaves leap for Lakers + NEW NBA Power Rankings
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Jason
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Colin
Guaranteed Human if you smoke or dip. I'm gonna give you a few good reasons to try Zynn Zyn Nicotine Pouches first, it's America's number one nicotine pouch brand, and Zynn offers a robust rewards program. There's a lot of options for nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zyn. So if you go to zyn.com find that's z y n.com find to find Zynn at a store near you, this product does contain nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
- [00:32]
Sophie Cunningham
This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, or osa, in adults with obesity? They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snore loudly, or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability and concentration issues, it may be due to osa. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don'tsleep on OSA.com this information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
- [01:10]
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- [01:43]
Colin
Get your mother loving ears on because.
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Jason
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- [01:53]
Colin
Pay online, or pay overtime. What's that?
- [01:57]
Jason
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Colin
Learn more@paypal.com hi, it's Colin from the Colin Coward podcast. I've been around long enough to know quality when I see it, or in this case, when I taste it. Tito's Handmade Vodka. Good stuff. No flash, no gimmicks. Smooth, clean tasting, made the right way. Tito's made in Austin, Texas. Real attention to detail. I like to keep it simple. Tito's Soda one lime, lot of ice. Refreshing, easy summer, winter, spring. Totally versatile. Always works. Listen, baseball season's here. The perfect time to kick back with some Tito's. It's what I pour. You should too. Distilled and bottled by 5th Generation Inc. Austin, Texas 40% alcohol by volume saver. Responsibly the volume.
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Jason
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Got a jam packed show for you guys today. The New York Knicks won their fourth consecutive game last night with a wire to wire dominance of the Toronto Raptors. I want to really zoom in on their three point shooting this year as they have dramatically increased their three point volume as a big product of the work that Mike Brown has done revamping this offense. After that, we got to talk about Austin Reeves. Man, I went through an exercise thinking about how many players in the NBA have played better basketball than Austin Reeves to start the season and it's a very short list. So I want to talk a little bit about Austin Reeves, his development, the trajectory he's been on, just how insanely good he has been this season and again, where he would rank in the NBA if you ended the season today. And then at the tail end of the show like we always do on Mondays, our weekly power rankings, some new exciting teams that I want to hit in the bottom part of the top 10. That middle chunk of the season or standings is really fascinating. This year's NBA standings picture has looked very different than recent years. We've had a lot more bad teams, like really bad teams at the bottom, but there's this very, very deep middle, a bunch of teams right in that like 12 and 8 kind of range that are fighting. And so the bottom of our power rankings is going to experience a lot of turnover week to week, but a lot of interesting stuff to get into there. 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 always. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing incredible work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys keep following us there for content throughout the season and then we will be back to our normal mailbag routine. This Friday we'll have a mailbag. So if you want to get questions in the mailbags go to our full episodes on YouTube. Go into the comments right mailbag with a colon that helps me find the find the questions and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. Couple other quick notes like this video really helps us. If you could take a second, just a quick scroll down, hit that like button and our playback schedule for this week we're going to be hitting a couple games on the Lakers road trip. So on Thursday night in Toronto and then on Friday night a really fun one against the Boston Celtics. So Lakers, Raptors, Lakers, Celtics on Thursday and Friday this week on playback. If you guys want to come hang out, I'm going to reach out to some guys who cover those teams too and see if we can't get someone to come hang out during the stream. All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're gonna start with the Knicks. They won their fourth straight game last night, again dominating the Toronto Raptors on tail end of back to back. So they were without Yaka Pertle, but obviously the Knicks without OG and Anobi. You know, I run into this issue every single time I cover a game on here. Everyone's like, well this guy's out, that guy's out. Just there's people out all the time. That's just the NBA regular season. And so more often than not, these are becoming examples and demonstrations of your team's culture from the top down so that you can maintain some semblance of success with guys in and out of the lineup. And the Knicks came out absolutely guns blazing. From 3 Deuce McBride has been on a special heater over the last few games. He's 14 for 20 from three over his last three games. Hit four more of them against the Raptors. Got hot in the first half. Josh Hart had one of his best games of the season, scored 20 points, hit four threes of his own 12 rebounds. Really killed the Raptors on the offensive glass during their third quarter run. That was kind of the story of the game in a lot of ways. The first quarter was Knicks three point shooting. The third quarter was Knicks offensive rebounding and getting out in transition. And those were the two kind of stretches where they assumed control and Toronto made a couple of runs. Scotty Barnes got randomly super hot and hit back to back to back threes in the first half that kind of shrunk the lead. There was another early third quarter run where Emmanuel Emanuel Quickley got super hot, had like a 80 run by himself that dragged Toronto closer. But other Than that, the Knicks basically completely shut down the Raptors offense. McHale Bridges did an absolute number on Brandon Ingram from the opening tip. He got a steal, chasing him over the top of the screen. And all night long he was fighting him off of spots, fighting him through screens, making his catches tough, attacking his base, attacking his dribble. He looked visibly uncomfortable, had some really ugly misses, had five turnovers. And again, in this four game winning streak, the Knicks have logged a 106 defensive rating. And it really starts with that defensive pressure on the perimeter from guys like Mikhail Bridges, guys like Deuce McBride and guys like Josh Hart. Kind of an old school Knicks win streak in this four game streak, like playing great defense, bludgeoning teams on the offensive glass. A lot of stuff that became a regular part of the Knicks identity a few years ago. I want to zoom in on the three point shooting though for a minute. It was a big part of why they got their initial separation against Toronto. Obviously there was multiple runs to control that game, but it was a big part of their first quarter run when they went up 20. And it's been a major statistical marker for the Knicks this year. And I personally think it's directly connected to the job that Mike Brown has done to revamp this offense. First, some basic stats. Last year the Knicks averaged just 34 three point attempts per game. That ranked 27th in the NBA. This year the Knicks are averaging 41 three point attempts per game, which ranks fifth in the NBA. All while increasing their efficiency from right around 36% as a team to a little over 37%. So from bottom five and three point volume to top five, all while increasing percentage. And this is where Mike Brown deserves a ton of credit for changing the team's approach. There is a very intentional effort to use drives to get the defense in rotation early in possessions so that they can play drive and kick. And it's not any just one thing like yes, they're pushing in transition more. It's kind of a game to game thing. They'll have some games where they just are flying up and down the floor. They'll have other games where they're a little bit more stuck in the half court. But it's a mentality starting with those transition pushes and then in the half court early action that gets one of their players downhill. Brunson himself. And I think Brunson deserves a lot of credit for his leadership and for his versatility by really not just buying into this style but like being one of the driving forces of this style, you know One of those early threes for Deuce McBride was just Jalen Brunson on the right side of the floor. I think he had, I think it was Scotty Barnes. If remember correctly, on like a transition cross match, just a really heavy right hand drive early in the possession collapse the defense, kick out the Deuce McBride wide open three. Just kind of embracing the, the, the emphasis on getting dribble penetration early in possessions either through transition, semi transition or that first action to just unlock the aggregate talent on the team with their driving kick play right as a team last year they were 16th in drives per game. According to NBA.com they're up to seventh in drives per game this year. More drives means more help. More help means easier kickouts. Easier kickouts means more kickouts. More kickouts means more threes. The knicks are generating 35.4 spot up opportunities per game this season. That's the second most in the entire NBA behind the Miami Heat. Last year they generated just 26.3. So more than nine additional spot up opportunities every game compared to last year. I wanted to dig into the play type data on Synergy because I wanted to come up with like a way of kind of expressing the difference in the approach, the difference in the balance of the way the Knicks are attacking on offense. So the Knicks are shooting the ball as the primary ball handler out of ISO, pick and roll or post up situations 3.6 fewer times per game than they did last year. And instead they are generating again. We know they're generating nine more spot ups which is coming out of all sorts of different types of actions. But let's zoom in on those spot ups specifically to unguarded catch and shoot threes. They are generating as a team an additional 3.1 unguarded catch and shoot threes per game compared to last year. So you're taking, you know, roughly three, three and a half, one on one shot attempts and you're turning them into three, three and a half standstill, unguarded catch and shoot threes. And to put it very simply, I don't care if you have Shea or Luka on your team, there isn't a one on one play in the league that is going to be nearly as efficient as an unguarded catch and shoot three. The Knicks as a team are getting 1.25 points per unguarded catch and shoot attempt this season. So to put it very simply, the Knicks are driving the basketball more both in transition and in the half court earlier in possessions, which is helping them to avoid as much One on one play. And it's caused them to completely flip their shot diet from a bottom five three point volume team to a top five three point volume team. So as a result, I mean this was a Knicks team last year that had a 1.17.3 offensive rating, which was good. But this year their offensive rating is over 1,20. This year they've gone up a level, level from a very good offense to a great offense. And again, I really want to shout out Jalen Brunson here. There's a lot of like, you know, narrative and like this is the truth. Like the, the way they were playing in the past was a lot of Jalen Brunson kind of dribbling the air out of the basketball. It's not his fault. It's just the way the team was put together and the way that they were playing under Tom Thibodeau. Right. But it wasn't a Brunson problem, it was a style problem. And what Brunson has shown is that he can still put up the numbers that we're accustomed to him putting up while also playing and buying into this style which empowers the rest of the group and generates better quality shots and scores more points per 100 possessions. This is a simple stat to demonstrate this. Jalen Brown out of an ISO, drove and kicked to a player to knock down a three just 15 times all season. Last year he's done it 11 times already this year. That's again sequences like that early kick out to deuce McBride just beat his man off the dribble draw and help make the kick pass early in the clock. Brunson has been not just buying in, but a driving force behind the success of this new offensive approach. Some other good news for Knicks fans, Cat starting to get his footing. Another nice game from him yesterday, averaging 24 points and 11 rebounds in his last eight games. And again these four straight wins have moved the Knicks up to number two in the Eastern Conference. And with Cleveland faltering, I mean as you look out at the east, my issues with the Knicks were things that, that over the last couple years that put me below teams like Cleveland or below teams like Boston. Although they ended up beating Boston as we know, but as Cleveland is faltered and it doesn't appear to be like there's this clear best team in the Eastern Conference as you start to look around Orlando pretty young, you know, they've improved as a jump shooting team. Still not great. Detroit young, mistake prone, turns the ball over a lot. Cleveland obviously not looking like the juggernaut they were last year. You could make the case that the Knicks are the safest bet out in the Eastern Conference with the way things are shaping up out there. So really, really impressive stretch of basketball out in New York. It's time to have a serious conversation about the player that Austin Reeves has become in the league. There has been this incremental improvement with Austin ever since he entered the league. But the thing is is every time you think he's reached his ceiling, you look up and somehow he's even better yet again. Started with him being kind of just a capable off ball scorer. A guy that could knock down a catch and shoot three, drive a closeout, you know, make a play off the bounce, playing paying like essentially benefiting from the attention that LeBron and AD drew. Right then he started to flash some higher level bucket getting like a crazy move in the mid range for a pull up jump shot that would make a highlight reel. Really started to showcase his ability to get defenders out of position and get to the foul line. Then there was game one against Memphis three years ago. Down the stretch, the Lakers were like, you were on the offense, spread pick and roll and he closed a playoff game and he did it. You know, you guys remember screaming I'm him at the top of his lungs to the rafters as he literally won a playoff game for the Lakers. Then you look up and he had eight 20 point games in that single playoff run. Then JJ makes him the starting point guard and it wasn't perfect at first, but he just kept getting better at it. And then suddenly by the middle of last season, he looks like a bonafide running mate alongside LeBron James. And the Lakers were winning consistently. Then naturally started to get some opportunities to run the show. Whether it was like Luca and LeBron out last year against the Pacers and He goes for 45, 7, 7 in a win. Or that road game in Denver which the Lakers ended up losing, but they were right there at the end. 37 points, 8 rebounds and 13 assists for Austin in that game. But then again, doing it every now and then is, you know, when you're surprising teams and you haven't been scouted really all that well, that's very different from doing it every single night. Austin is a known commodity. People know that he can hoop. There is a game plan, ball pressure him, right? Try to rush him with physicality and ball pressure, right? Like teams know what to do with him now. And yet this year, regardless of circumstance, night after night, Austin is frying Everybody in the NBA. No, LeBron and Luca. He's got a 40 point game and a 50 point game this year. Getting wins alongside Luka, consistent production alongside LeBron and Luca. He's played four games with both of them so far this season. How about 29 points per game on 63% from the field, 42% from 3 and 92% from the line. This is too large of a sample size for us to ignore anymore. And it's all in a winning context. Last year, over his last 32 regular season games, he averaged a super efficient 23 points per game and and the Lakers went 21 and 11 in those games. This year, 29 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 68% true shooting for a game that is for a team that is currently a half game back of the second best record in the NBA. And he's surgically consistent. Guess how many times this year Austin hasn't scored 20 points in 16 tries? Once the OKC game. Every other game he has at least 20. The shot making is outrageous. 75% at the rim, which is just stupid for a guard of his build. Four makes per game, which is 36th in the entire NBA as a guard. 14 for 18 on floaters. One of those was a game winner. And again as I've talked about, one of the most important like pivotal pieces for this Lakers team and their big picture goals are him knocking down unguarded catch and shoot threes. He's been deadly on the catch and shoot threes in the last week. He's up to 46% this season on unguarded catch and shoots, which as we know was the major weakness that he showed in the Timberwolves series in particular. And one of the crazy things is he's not just scoring the basketball. He showcased extremely high level playmaking ability, especially in the games where LeBron is out. Or Luca as well. He can scale up his shot creation as a passer. His three games this year with at least 11 assists. You know how many players in the NBA this season are averaging at least 28 points per game and at least six and a half assists, seven total. Lukashi, Giannis, Jokic, your Mount Rushmore, the NBA currently Kate Cunningham, Tyrese Maxey and Austin Reeves. That's it. That's the end of the list. And he's doing it next to Luca in lower usage. His play type data is off the charts. There are 22 players in the NBA this year to have run at least 200 pick and rolls. Including passes. Austin's getting 1.17 points per possession. That's second in the entire NBA at high volume, even ahead of Luca Inefficiency there and he's an incredibly well rounded player. I was listening to the Laker Film Room podcast over this weekend and shout out to Pete and Darius. I think they do amazing work and Darius was making a point cont comparing Austin to guys like Jimmy Butler, guys who came up in the league more as role players and then became stars, essentially forcing them to become well rounded players. They had to be good at on and off ball defense, they had to be good rebounders, they had to have strong fundamentals on the glass. They had to have an overall willingness to scrap because that's how they stayed on the floor early in their career. And I think Darius is dead on with that. Austin isn't like some of these other high scoring players at the top of the league who give up a good amount of their production on the margins around the floor. He can guard, he always knows where to be in the scheme. He rebounds well for his size. He has some athletic limitations and they can show up situationally here and there. But because he scrapped so hard and because he's got such strong fundamentals, I think he's overwhelmingly a positive player on the margins, is a consistent motor, plays super hard. This is very simply one of the best basketball players in the world right now. I was thinking about it this morning. How many players in the NBA are playing better basketball than Austin Reeves right now? So take reputation and set it aside and just zoom in on this season. Everyone's anonymous. Who's playing better basketball than Austin Reeves? The top tier guys, right? Luca Shay, Jokic and Giannis got to put them up there, the up and coming superstars. Cade's been better, I think Wemby's been better, Anthony Edwards has been better. Some of the established guys, Donovan Mitchell has been excellent this season. Steph Curry still is still with all of the shit happening with Golden State. The warriors have a 119 offensive rating with Steph Curry on the floor per cleaning the glass. Just insane advantage creation still to this day. After that though, it's a whole lot of guys that you would only put over Austin due to their reputation. Like Austin has been flat out better to start this season than guys like Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brown, James Harden, Devin Booker, Kawhi Leonard. Now to be clear, that doesn't mean anything with respect to those guys. Those guys have extended track records of success. It's only been 16 games. No one's about to shake up the hierarchy of the league. I'M just saying, Austin has been the 10th best player in the entire NBA this season through 16 games. Now, he'll have to maintain that for years in order to get that established reputation that some of those other guys have. And yeah, if you ask me, like, do I think when we get to June that I'm going to view Austin as the 10th best player in the NBA? Probably not. I think he's going to land somewhere below that. Probably somewhere in that like, you know, 12 to 20 range, right. Depending on how well he's able to maintain this level of play. But this is just a truly remarkable development. An NBA star who's currently playing firmly at the level of a superstar and it gives the Lakers a solid foundation for their future. You have a player in Luca who's competing for the title of best player in the world currently, and now you have a bonafide all NBA caliber running mate that complements him perfectly. Now, I'll admit part of me is a bit scarred by the Minnesota series. Austin wasn't good in that series. It was a big part of how the Lakers ended up getting dominated the way they did. And ultimately Austin will have to carry that with him until he can get another shot in this year's postseason. That's the burden of being as good as he is. He's so good now that he can have 50 points in a regular season game and everyone goes like, that's awesome. Let's see you do it when we get to April. That is the burden of the expectation that comes with being viewed as a guy who is a potential all NBA level player. But I would just bet on this guy figuring things out. He just keeps getting better and there isn't any sign of him slowing down. All right, let's get into our power rankings and again, all of our lines here. Our championship lines are provided by Hard Rock Bet. Today's show is brought to you by our new presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet. The Hard Rock Bet Sportsbook app is the only legal sportsbook for whenever you're in Florida. And it's also live in Arizona, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois and Colorado. Coming soon to more states too. Sign up today and you could score 150 in bonus bets. Just place a $5 bet and if it hits, you get not only your winnings, but also $150 in extra bonus bets. Want to see what everyone else is betting on tonight? Top picks or parlays across any sport the Hard Rock Bet app literally shows you. It's another reason to download the app just for the info tap Discover and you can see trending picks and parlays at any time. Hard Rock Bet offers new promos daily, plus big legendary rewards drops every Thursday like gifts under the tree. So whenever you're listening, just open up the app and check out what you've got waiting for you. Download the Hard Rock Bet app and make your first deposit payable and bonus bets. Not a cash offer Offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in Florida. Offered by Seminole Hard Rock Digital LLC in all other states. Must be 21 plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee or Virginia to play. 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- [26:35]
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- [28:07]
Colin
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Jason
Its natural habitat helping people customize their.
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Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally Doug.
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Jason
Cut the camera. They see us.
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- [29:36]
Jason
Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts number 10 to start the list today, the Orlando Magic currently plus 4,000 to win the title per Hard Rock. Bet they're 11 and 4 since they're 1 in 4. Start starting to rack up some really impressive wins too. A win against a red hot Pistons team. A complete and utter destruction of the 76ers fueled by their defense. Just like strangling Philly in the second quarter as they ran away with that game. Wins against the Knicks, wins against the Clippers, wins against the Warriors. And in that 15 game span this is easily the most exciting development of this era of Orlando basketball. They have a 120 offensive rating in this 15 game span. They're moving the ball like they never have before. In the last few years, 64% of their makes have been assisted. In this 15 game span they're making 36% of their threes. Now that may seem like a mediocre number, and it is. It was like 16th in the league over that span. But let's not forget this was quite literally the very worst jump shooting team in the entire NBA by a mile last year. So average is an exciting development in that context. It's fueled by some leaps from some key players. Tristan De Silva in his second year has become a over 40% from three type of guy. Wendell Carter Jr. Shooting a career high 45% from three. Anthony Black has been shooting it much better as of late. Jet Howard is hitting 40% so they're moving the ball better than ever and they're paying off more of those sequences with makes than they ever have before. That's breeding the 120 offensive rating. All while maintaining the physical dominance that made them so dangerous even when their offense was limited. Top five in defense, top five in defensive rebounding over this 15 game span and eighth in offensive rebounding. So really controlling the physicality areas of the game. I want to zoom in on Anthony Black for a second. His explosion this season into like a really devastating two way weapon adds yet another layer of talent to this team that is already so difficult to deal with. He's a wrecking ball on defense in the Detroit game. Did an incredible job on Cade Cunningham. Like legitimately frustrated him, made him look really uncomfortable. Was a big part of the eight turnovers they forced him into. He's got super long arms while also maintaining the strength so he can absorb the bump while then also getting his arm around and attacking the basketball, getting deflections, disrupting the pocket, disrupting rhythm. He's a really, really gifted defensive player and he's become a real offensive weapon to counter that. He's constantly beating teams down the floor in transition for dunks, just outrunning people and just, you know, has that vertical pop off two feet and off one foot that can make him really devastating in the open floor. He's hitting his open corner threes especially out of the left Corner this year, 54% out of that left corner. And the on ball stuff, it's not super efficient yet, but he keeps showing little bits of upside there. Like a, a crafty drive all the way to the basket or like a little floater in the mid range after he beats a defender over the top of the screen in action. It's the kind of like development trajectory that makes you feel much better if you have to start shedding salary. And if you look at the Magic's cap sheet, it's, it is. There's a lot of guys who make a lot of money in there. Someone's going to get squeezed at some point here and you know, let's say for instance, you want to move off of a guy like Jalen Suggs and Jalen Suggs. It's, it's, it's a, a mixed bag with him. Like, like the, the Pistons games. Classic example. Just can't make a shot all game. But then like makes the pivotal stretch of the game. There in the mid fourth that puts Orlando up 10. Like, hits a pull up three, goes down and gets a steal, hits a pull up three. All of a sudden you're like, holy, this game looks very different now. Jalen Suggs still has a lot of talent, but like if you had to lose a guy like Jalen Suggs for salary purposes, you become a lot more comfortable with that, with the development trajectory of a guy like Anthony Black. Especially in the context of having Desmond Bain as that shooter since Jalen Suggs was so often used as that kind of inverted screening partner for Orlando's big forwards. One last thing I I know there's this tendency to, to jump on the Palo Bunchero like shit talk fest after the team once again looks great when he's out. But there are a lot of things that the team is doing that they started doing when Paolo was there and they were playing good in that last couple of weeks before Paolo got hurt. And ultimately I think he could only help this situation as he comes back. So I wouldn't view this success as some sort of like, you know, retroactive evaluation of Paolo. I didn't like the way he started the year. I thought he was really bad in that first couple of weeks. He has been a contributor to some of their offensive issues over, over time. But ultimately I do think he'll buy in when he comes back and I want to see what this looks like with him integrated into the system. In short though, a lot of the reasons that I was excited about with Orlando before the season are coming to fruition, but it's also coming with this added layer of them being much better on offense than I expected them to be. Definitely consider them to be not on that top tier with obviously the Denver okc, Houston set out west, but in that Eastern Conference I view them as every bit as good as the other teams at the top of the conference. Like New York, like Cleveland and like Detroit. Number nine, the Atlanta Hawks currently plus 6,000 to win the title on Hard Rock. Bet another casual 41, 14 and 7 for Jalen Johnson last night in double overtime in a win over the 76ers. Ice the game with back to back catch and shoot threes. One off the left wing and one kind of the high part of the right corner. The Hawks, you know, they've kind of figured out this little offensive sequence that they can run at the end of games. They've been a very good late game offense this year. As a matter of fact, they've been the sixth best clutch offense in the NBA. To start the season getting a 117 offensive rating. And basically what they figured out is and to kill Alexander Walker who's really developed into a decent little pick and roll player for them. That's kind of helped fill the void of having Trey Young out, right. But they can run action whether it's you know, a ball screen with a Kong Woo and Nikhil with Jalen spacing on the opposite wing where teams like to dig down and he can hit a shot. It's basically what happened on his first dagger three last night or three man action where all three of them are involved. But because in Congu and Jalen Johnson are both shooting the ball better from three, they can pop out of those actions. Nikhil can get all the way to the basket and he can make the passing reads out of it. They've got a nice little action that they can run at the end of games that is giving them some success. Jalen Johnson is Now up to 23 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists per game for the season. Not a short run. That's the entire season. 54% from the field, 40% from 3, 63% true shooting. The team is defending well, continuing to force turnovers and get out in transition. And as we mentioned they have a little bit of a half court set that they can get into to just, you know, give them some high floor on the offensive end of the floor. Really, really exciting basketball coming out of Atlanta. Big showdown with the Pistons in Detroit tonight. Going to be interesting challenge for them. Number eight, the Boston Celtics currently plus 7,500 to win the title on Hard Rock. Bet they are 7 and 3 in their last 10 games. Some big wins, wins against the Cavs, wins against the Pistons, two against the Orlando Magic in that span. The story has been offense. They have a 122 offensive rating in those 10 games. Third best mark in the entire NBA over that 10 game span. Jalen Brown has been fantastic. Fueled by a deadly mid range pull up. He's making A League Best 3 Mid Range Jump shots per game to start the season. He's the. This was actually really surprising to me, you know, because we think of Shay and KD as the guys that are typically at the top of this list. But Jalen's the only player in the NBA this year to be making at least two mid range jump shots per game and shooting over 50% on them is at 51.7%. I was surprised. Shay's only at 49% from mid range and Kevin Durant is at 47% from mid range according to NBA.com's tracking data. So both down a little bit from where they usually are. But Jaylen Brown, number one on that list. He's getting to the rim more often than he did last year and hitting a higher percentage. I think he's up from about four rim attempts per makes per game to four and a half. And he's up over 60% at the rim this year. When he was below 60% last year. We were wondering what it would look like with Jaylen Brown moving to the top of the scouting report. And how about over 28 points per game on 58% true shooting. Some really, really impressive stuff from Jaylen Brown. Derek White and Peyton Pritchard have both found a nice group. Payton Pritchard was the hero yesterday in the win in Cleveland, 42 points. And then Derek was the hero in the Pistons game at a massive second half. Had like 14, something like that in the third quarter. Hit a bunch of pull up threes and then hit a couple of huge threes late in the game. That ended icing that, icing that one in crunch time again. Like Derrick White loves those little kind of switch interchange threes, right? So like he comes off of like a guard, guard screen or any type of screen. And as the team is switching there's like this gap right as the on ball defender kind of drops back to try to get inside position to avoid any sort of issue with the slip. And then the screening defender, you know, closes out to the shooter and there's a gap in that interchange. And Derrick White loves taking that pull up three right in that gap. Hit a bunch of those in the Pistons games. He's really started to find a groove. We also had one of Baylor Shireman's best games as a pro in the Pistons game in particular. He's scoring out of the corner, hitting catch and shoot threes, driving closeouts. Hit a nice little turnaround over his left shoulder when he got cut off on a drive in there. Celtics are really starting to reach a nice groove on the offensive end of the floor. Nothing dramatically impressive on the margins. They're a little bit better in their defensive rebounding than they were to start the season. It's not like they're winning games with defense though, or winning games on the glass. They're just running extremely high level offense and starting to convert some of these clutch games into wins that they were dropping early in the season. The Celtics are playing some really good basketball. Number seven, the Denver Nuggets, currently plus 500 to win the title on Hard Rock. Bet they're just 4 and 3 in their last seven games. Dropped another really frustrating one against the spurs in a game where they really struggled to deal with San Antonio's guards handling the dribble penetration from Deer and Fox who picked them apart as a passer in that game, and then Devin Vassell who burned him all night long with those wing wing threes off the catch, kept like igniting these quick burst runs by just hitting a couple of them and burned them late in the game with a couple more that ended up giving San Antio six point lead late that they did not give up. Big win for San Antonio, but Denver has a 1.22.4 defensive rating in that seven game span. Really starting to feel the loss of Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown on the defensive end of the floor and you know, I think they're capable of defending better than they have been with the guys that are stepping into those spots. It's a team wide little bit of slippage there compared to where they were to start the season. On the bright side though, Nicole Jokic and Jamal Murray continue to look literally as good as they've ever been. Jamal Murray's been on an absolute heater as of late, and then Cam Johnson, like over the last couple of weeks, he's been a dependably good scorer for them, has really found a groove, especially as a three point shooter, just really confidently stepping into that three point shot. He's been hitting like well over half of them over the course of the last couple of weeks and that's again the bright spot if if you're looking at a statistical marker that shows that Denver's upside is still there. They have a 126 offensive rating in that seven game span despite them going just four and three. So again, figure out a way to get some more stops and they'll be in much better shape.
- [41:54]
Lenovo/Liberty Mutual Announcer
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Colin
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Jason
Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their.
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Fascinating.
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They see us.
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Jason
Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts. Number six, the San Antonio spurs currently plus 5,000 to win the title according to Hard Rock Bet. As before mentioned, the incredible game from Devin Vassel beat Denver. But I want to zoom in on Dear and Fox here for a minute. So Wemby goes down seven games ago. Steph Castle goes down six games ago and in that seven game span the spurs are five and two and dear and Fox is the biggest reason why. He's averaging 26 points and seven assists from 49% from the field and 39% from three in that seven game span. And he is just killing teams with his dribble penetration. I always think he's been a little bit of an underrated passer. He's very good at reading that low man and making the skip pass which is like that pass that is like there for the taking for most NBA passers but just a lot of guys don't see it or they're athletically incapable of making the pass. But if you can skip the ball against an engaged low man, you can generate some really high level closeout opportunities which are either going to give you wide open catch and shoot threes or opportunities for guys to drive closeouts. The driving of those closeouts can even further compromise the defense. You can all sorts of really good stuff out out of those, right? But you have to have a guard who can drive the basketball well enough to effectively engage the low man or shoot the ball well enough to effectively bring the big up to the level which then engages the low man. Right? Some sort of scoring dynamic in pick and roll that will bring that third defender over but also have the ability to make the kick out passes that get the defense in rotation. Darren Fox has run 170 pick and rolls this year, including passes and he's generating 197 points in those 170 pick and rolls. That's 1.16 points per possession. That's extremely good. Devin Fcell has been fantastic. Keldon Johnson has been excellent in this run as well. They continue to be just very athletically imposing. Like they can be very good defensively when they need to because they can just ratchet up with their physicality on the perimeter. That's helped them win a couple of close games in this stretch. They're doing damage in transition. Luke Cornett is back and playing extremely well. Really just a super impressive stretch of basketball considering the injuries from the San Antonio spurs and I will freely admit we're going to do an episode at some point over the course of the next couple of weeks where I kind of look at all of my preseason predictions and there are things that I've been dead on right about. There have been things that I've been extremely wrong about and I will freely admit I was wrong about this spurs team before the season. I really underestimated the talent on this roster. A couple of key leaps from a couple of Key younger guys getting this level of play out of Dear and Fox. How good Victor Wembanyama looked before he got hurt. How wonderful the Luke Cornett fit has been. The contributions from key role players like Julian Champagne and Harrison Barnes. This is a very good basketball team and I mean if they're going to go 5 and 2 with Wemby and Steph Castle down, we would all be foolish to think that they're just going to suddenly dip down into being a.500 basket at some point. They look like one of those established perennial contenders out in the west already. I was wrong about the spurs coming into this season. Number five, the New York Knicks, currently plus 1750 to win the title on Hard Rock bet not going to spend too much time here because we just had a Knicks segment earlier in the show. So if you want to hear more Knicks, just go to our full episode on YouTube and it's actually our opening segment in this one. But the Knicks have won four in a row. The offense has looked fantastic. They're generating way more threes this year with an emphasis on driving the ball early in possessions. Transition, semi transition, that first action, starting those drive and kick sequences to unlock their drive and kick talent of which they have plenty on the roster. Mikhail Bridges has spearheaded an impressive stretch of defense in that span as well, guarding the ball again. If you want to hear more Knicks, go earlier in the episode. Number four, the Detroit Pistons currently plus 2,500 to win the title on Hard Rock Bet. Couple of tough losses to the Celtics in the Magic. Turnovers and points allowed off of turnovers were the real issues in both of those games. Boston also had some success attacking Duncan Robinson in action late in that game. Just something to keep an eye on as they get into some potential playoff circumstances. But a really nice bounce back win in Miami against the Heat. Similarly doing some damage attacking Tyler Harrow in action. I've watched a lot of Pistons in the last week as their schedule has gotten tougher and I've landed on them being completely legit as one of the top tier teams in the East. Again, none of those teams I view in the same tier as Denver, Houston, okc, but in that group there at the top of the East. Orlando, New York, Cleveland. To me, Detroit is right up there with them. Kate is only going to continue to get better. He's obviously had issues finishing at the rim and had issues with turnovers. Turnovers were a big problem in the Orlando games. He struggled with Anthony Black and just some of the swarming that Orlando was doing. But overall all those reps are just going to continue to make Cade better. There's this idea that Cade's, like, not going to be able to become a better rim finisher. I watched him on tape and I see a lot of layups that I think he can make. And so I get it that it's a very large sample size of him not being very good at that. But ultimately it's just. To me, it's just there's like a, like just a. A little bit of slowing down that he needs to do when he gets all the way to the rim, which where I think he's kind of rushing stuff and fumbling the basketball a little bit. And that stuff is going to come as he gets more and more comfortable with every single type of coverage that he sees. So, like, I ultimately view him as a guy that's going to be a better than that type of rim finisher. Like, I think he's going to be able to get up around 60% at the rim as the years go by. And the turnovers, those are like, he's facing a lot of aggressive coverages this year. That's more stuff that he's just going to get more reps dealing with and get better at diagnosing and beating those types of coverages. And then looking at the team, they're big, they're physical, they play super hard, they're built for that postseason environment where you have to be physical. I just am a believer in this Pistons team, Cade's last 11 games, 33 points, seven rebounds and nine assists. Number three, the Los Angeles Lakers, currently plus 1400 to win the title. According to Hard Rock Bet we hit them in the early part of the show as well. So I'm not going to spend too much time here, but we focused on Austin, so I briefly wanted to bring up this kind of hilarious trend that we've seen over the course of their last few games and something that's become kind of part of their progression in games throughout the year. So Luca will come out in the opening quarter and he'll just abuse whatever the opening scheme is. And sometimes he's facing doubles. We saw the Dallas game, they like doubled him behind half court, literally right off of the jump ball. But like, and he's been facing a ton of double teams, but there's been a lot of these, like, first quarters where he's coming out and he's just looking to score relentlessly. As a matter of fact, he's averaging 13 first quarter points this year, which is far and away the Most in the NBA. And what he's doing is he's like making a point at proving early in the game your main on ball guy can't guard me. And if you cover me in a two on two pick and roll, I'm going to pick you apart scoring the basketball. And then what happens is like the rest of the game he's getting blitzed and doubled all over the place. And so then the Lakers are just playing four on three when Luke is on the floor for like three quarters every single game. And so you know, it was a little sloppy early in the year, but with each passing game they're just getting a little bit better at it, right? Like they're not rolling too hard out of blitzes and creating turnover situations where Luca has to make a long pass. They're short rolling and in the short rolls guys are making reads. Jackson's been fantastic with it all season. DeAndre Ayton had another monster game last night. DeAndre Ayton is getting better at those little reads in the middle of the floor. They're paying off the sequences on the kickouts. They missed a lot of good looks last night too. Jake Laravia had a nightmare night struggling to knock down the wide open kick out threes. But they're getting good looks out of those sequences consistently. A lot of opportunities for guys like LeBron and Austin to attack with an advantage out of those four on threes. And again they're going to just continue to get reps there similar to what we were talking about with Detroit. Because ultimately the Lakers have to beat Oklahoma City. That's their, their big, you know, goal, the big measuring stick that they have to reach at some point this season, right? And what is OKC going to do? They're going to blitz, they're going to double, they're going to pressure the ball, they're going to try to speed you up. And the more reps that the Lakers get against blitzes and doubles and aggressive coverages throughout the season, the better chance they're going to have to navigate that ok, Oklahoma City problem when they get there. I personally am very glad that the Lakers and the Thunder ended up making it to the in season tournament. I did not want to wait till February to see OKC versus the Lakers again. If the Lakers can take care of business against Phoenix and if OKC can take care of business, I think against San Antonio, if I remember correctly or it might be inverted, actually I think Phoenix plays okc, San Antonio plays the Lakers. But as long as those two, those two teams can take care of business and San Antonio could very easily beat the Lakers. So I don't want to sit there and pretend like that's a done deal. But like would love to see the Lakers get a shot against OKC again in a couple of weeks here as an opportunity to kind of take that measuring stick as they've won I think like seven in a row since that destructive blowout to OKC. Number two, the Houston Rockets currently plus 900 to win the title on Hard Rock. BET didn't miss a beat without KD as he missed a little bit of time with a personal issue, strangled Phoenix and Golden State with their defense, played Steph into one of his worst games of the season and Steph's been fantastic against just about everybody in that Golden State game and then in each of the two games, high level shot creation from one of their two young stars. In the Phoenix game in particular, it was Amen Thompson doing damage off of those slot drives and those slot pick and rolls, showing that short range shot making, getting into the 7 to 10 foot range, popping up off the ground for little floaters, hitting you know, mid range pull ups against drop coverage, doing a ton of damage in the middle of the floor as a play finisher and as a play connector. Hit a corner three in that game as well right like dominant performance from Amendment Thompson. And then in the Golden State game Reed shepherd has one of his best games as a probably his probably his very best game as a pro to this point, 31 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists doing a lot of damage to the warriors in pick and roll. And then Kevin Durant comes back against Utah and pours in like the easiest 25 points you'll ever see in a blowout win. The Golden State game was funny too because Alpert Shangun didn't have an impressive statistical game but he had like three or four plays where he went right at Draymond and scored on him one on one that were just examples of just what an absurd offensive talent Sengun continues to demonstrate himself to be. Again still in his early nice little three game win streak in response to the disappointing loss to Denver from the Houston Rockets and the number one the Oklahoma City Thunder currently plus 180 to win the title. According to Hard Rock, BET finally had a couple of games against above.500 teams last week against Phoenix and Minnesota and both were actually super interesting and super competitive games in both cases. Shea once again just absolutely brilliant down the stretch refusing to allow his team to lose, running the offense his step back three is becoming a super reliable look for him to go to at the end of games and he's like getting hyped on it. He's hitting these tough step backs and he's running back to the bench showing like a level of emotion that reveals that he very clearly has put in a ton of work behind the scenes to add that to his game. And it's literally helping the Thunder continue to rack up wins here. And the Chet Holmgren's right there with him at the end of these games making big shots. They just look unbeatable right now. And now J Dub is back. So and look, look, he's been sloppy a little bit in the early going, which is to be expected, but he's getting to the rim like crazy in his two games 19 shot attempts at the rim, which is an exciting continuation of the trend we saw in the second half of last year's playoff run when he was getting to the rim consistently. So much tougher schedule in in December from Oklahoma City they're going to have at least two showdowns with San Antonio, maybe a third of the San Antonio if if the spurs beat the Lakers, if the Lakers get them, they'll get another shot against that team. A lot of tougher games in this month and I'm just honestly really excited to see if they can run that gauntlet because they're certainly capable of it. All right guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We will be back tomorrow with some game reaction to the Monday night slate. I will see you guys then. Foreign.
- [57:42]
Colin
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- [58:43]
Lenovo/Liberty Mutual Announcer
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Eva Longoria
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Coca Cola Announcer
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Jason
All.
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Coca Cola Announcer
This is that classic HBCU vibe non stop. The band is rocking and the crowd lit chance echo drum beat everybody showing that school pride game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. As you fans, school colors everywhere and an ice cold Coca Cola. That's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.
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Jason
This is an iHeart podcast.
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