← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Reaction to EPIC Suns win vs. Thunder, Jaylen Brown leading red hot Celtics + NEW NBA Power Rankings
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Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Levar Arrington
Guaranteed Human hey, this is Levar Arrington here from up on Game. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and.
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Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
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Levar Arrington
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Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
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Levar Arrington
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- [02:15]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
The volume foreign. Hoops tonight here at the Volume Heavy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Have a jam packed Monday show for you guys. We had an epic showdown between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Phoenix Suns as Devin Booker wins the game with the step back three from 30ft over the top of Alex Cruz. So a bunch of interesting stuff to get into from that game. After that I want to talk a little bit of Boston Celtics, who on Saturday went in and blew out a red hot Clippers team behind 50 points from Jaylen Brown. Have a bunch of interesting stuff to get into from that game. And then as usual on Mondays we have our weekly power rankings. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the hoop to to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos like this video. That helps us a lot. And then last but not least, if you want to get questions into our Friday mailbag, drop them in the YouTube comments underneath this video and we'll get to them in our weekly mailbags on Fridays. All right, let's talk some basketball. So The Suns win 108 to 105 on Devin Booker's game winning step back three over the top of Alex Crusoe. I thought on the play itself, Devin actually made a really smart kind of impromptu in the moment decision to go to his step back a little bit earlier and to shoot a little bit deeper of a shot. Like when he had the ball in his right hands, his right hand, he went to a scissor dribble back to his left against Alex and kind of hit that aggressive move forward. And Alex took a pretty heavy recovery step considering where Devin made the move, which was like 35, 40ft from the basket. Alex on his recovery step got all the way south of the three point line. Like he created a ton of separation on the move. And so if Devin wanted to, he could have continued to go forward another step and then get into his step back. And, and it could have been somewhere in that like 25 foot range, but instead he stopped a step earlier and stepped back and shot a 30 footer off the bounce. And I thought it was really smart for two reasons. One, if you look on the video, Lou Dort was really digging down into that driving lane off of Dylan Brooks. So like if Devin would have attacked more, he might have attract just a hard double team from Lou Dort there. And that could have made that a more complicated situation. They were rotating up off of Colin Gillespie in the corner up onto Dylan Brooks too. So it wouldn't have been a they might have gone swing swing and it might have been too late to even get a shot off if he would have gone too far. And then the second piece of it is if you take that extra step into the defender in this case, Alex Caruso and kind of get into his body a bit more. That allows Alex an opportunity to get his hands on you, to get physical with you and maybe disrupt your rhythm. Maybe he swipes down on your arm a little bit and you lose control of the basketball and it doesn't get called. And now you're shooting a janky jump shot because you lose control of the ball. Like it's just a little scoring nuance that I think matters. I think it's better to get a little bit longer of a shot with cleaner rhythm where you get great lift and great separation than it is to get a shorter shot that is more congested or that has disrupted rhythm. If a guy's being like super physical with you, it's just like a little thing in that moment where I really liked how Devin went to step back a little bit earlier. And again it's a 30 footer but he gets fantastic lift, snaps the wrist, knocks it down. Thunder get a decent look for AJ Mitchell on the in the left corner on the other end, but he didn't really look ready for it in that spot. So the Suns end up getting out of there with a win. I want to talk about some of the help and recover dynamics in this game for both teams cause I thought it was the story from a tactical standpoint. But before we go any further, I have to bring up Dylan Brooks and his shot making in that fourth quarter. He actually started the fourth quarter with these cleared side isos against J Dub on the right side. And again just think about that like clear side isos against one of the better defenders in the entire NBA and especially a defender in J Dub who's very good at dealing with some of these bigger bully ball forwards because he's a big trunky dude, right? And he just got a couple of buckets. He spun over his left shoulder and hit a fade away right in J Dub's face. He had one where he kind of drove into the middle and hit like a nice little floater where he got a friendly bounce. But then at the end of the game he hit two outrageous pull up jumpers. The snatchback dribble against Kayson Wallace on the right side kind of towards the corner where he just drove hard and just pulled the ball back, got just enough separation and rose up and knocked it down. And then a step back three over the top of Shea on the left wing. Just a massive shot that put the Suns up 1, oh 5 1, 01 before a couple of tough shots from Chet and J Dub ended up tying it before Devin Booker hit the game winner. It's still just a wild experience as a basketball fan to be watching Dylan Brooks be this reliable as a shot maker and to be the. I'm not trying to say that it's illegitimate. Like the sample size is too large at this point. It's completely legitimate. He's taken 204 pull up jump shots this season. He's getting a point per shot, 49% on pull up twos, 35% on pull up threes. He's 18th in the entire NBA in total pull up jump shots made. He's made more pull up jump shots this year than DeMar DeRozan or Steph Curry, for example. So like this is something that we know that at this point through just a large sample that Dylan has become good at this. But still when you're watching it, it's just wild to see all these shots go in. I actually really enjoyed watching Dylan Brooks in his postgame presser. He was talking about how he would watch these videos on YouTube of Kobe shooting 1 dribble pull ups and then fade aways out of the post. And he's talked about how he's like emulating him with some of the work that he's doing out of those spots. And I just thought it was a textbook example of manifesting your preferred reality. Like when you want something to change for yourself, there's an order of operations to make that happen, right? Like you need to see what it is that you're trying to become. In this case, I actually think it really helps to have a. I think it really helps to have like a YouTube video, something that you can watch regularly that kind of gives you a visual representation of the thing that you're trying to become or the thing that you're trying to get better at. And you watch that and motivate yourself. Then there's the phase where you're putting in the work behind the scenes and then there's, you know, depending on what field you're in or what it is you're trying to accomplish, there's an order of operations to implement it. I've talked about it with basketball before. When it comes to scoring, it's like, figure out how to make these shots in the gym, alone, by yourself. Then find someone to play king of the court against and work on them. So if you want to work on a little step back jump shot or a little turnaround jump shot over both shoulders, find somebody to guard you. Go play some king of the court. Go play some one on one with a buddy Whatever it is, it's work on it in the gym by yourself until you can make it at a high clip. Work on it one on one until you can make it at a high clip. Start to break it out in games, right in five on five, in practice first. And then when you have an opportunity, when you've demonstrated the ability in your high school practice, in your college practice, to knock that shot down a few times, that's when you can unleash it in the game setting. There's an order of operations from getting from A to Z, so to speak. And I just thought it was cool to watch Dylan kind of break down, like what his motivation was, what he was trying to become, what he does to motivate himself. And then the work behind the scenes, it's just obvious to see. We've seen clips of him. I am incredibly excited to tell you guys about our new partnership with vuori. Those of you guys who are familiar with Vuori have noticed that I, I wear it on the show and I have done so for years now, almost every single day, because it's become a workhorse for me. My journey with vuor, I started because of a very simple problem. I'd wear shirts on the show and then after I'd washed them four or five times, they would just kind of degrade and turn into something that wasn't anything close to what I had originally purchased. And so I wanted to invest in quality clothing that could become my workhorse for my daily life. And that is exactly what what VUORI is. This is a Ponto Performance long sleeve. I wear the Ponto Performance on this show all the time. It's an incredibly comfortable shirt. You guys who've ever played basketball know when you wear something that can restrict the movement of your shoulders, can make it hard to shoot. I wear these to play basketball in. I wear them because of how cold it is here in Colorado. And my favorite thing about VUOR is all this stuff. All this clothing is so perfect for the active lifestyle that I live, but it's all so high quality and so attractive looking that I can wear it in formal settings. I live in this stuff every single day. And I'm so excited that we have the opportunity to partner with them now. VUOR is an investment in your happiness for our listeners. They're offering 20% off your first purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet@vuori.comhoops.com that's V U O R I.com H O O P S exclusions apply visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 in free returns. Visit vuori.comhoops and discover the versatility of Vuoric clothing exclusions. Apply visit the website for full terms and conditions.
- [11:39]
Levar Arrington
Hey, this is Levar Arrington here from up on Game. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and.
- [12:13]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
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- [13:15]
Richard Sherman
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- [14:39]
Podcast Host
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- [15:42]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Says Phoenix ended up generating 19 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in this game, which is a really good number for them. Their season average is about 16. But again, this is a team in Oklahoma City that again is going to close those gaps a lot faster than most teams with the speed of their rotations and in general is going to just make life difficult with ball pressure and playing in passing lanes to try to force turnovers. It's just difficult. It's difficult to pass through OKC's difference or defense. Now we've talked a lot over the years about how Oklahoma City defense, they get into gaps. They do leave shooters open. They're brief openings because the se the team is insanely fast, right? Like they close those gaps quickly but those openings are there and they're there because they're opportunistic on defense because they'll peel off of a guy to help or they'll dig down or they'll throw a, a late double as a guy's getting into the lane. They do that because they want to force turnovers and get out in transition. These teams, both of these teams actually play a lot of similar, do a lot of similar things on defense in this regard. They're both high. I think they're 1 and 2 in points off of turnovers in the NBA this season. They're teams that have a depth of perimeter defense talent that get up into the ball. They do, you know, they will, they're not going to just openly, you know, double or, or send three on a two in a ball screen for no reason, but they're going to be opportunistic in those situations to try to force turnovers. The key to scoring on the Thunder is to be super diligent with your spacing. So always be in the right spots off the ball as a guy's driving or relocating. You got to relocate with them to make sure that you're in a good position to score. If, if you're, if you receive a kick out and then you have to make over and over again on time and on target, kick out passes, then when those guys catch on the perimeter against the closeout, lightning fast dribble shoot pass decisions. Because OKC is going to close those gaps so fast. And I just thought the Suns did an incredible job all night with that dynamic on offense. Just Devin Booker was drawing too pretty consistently, especially in the second half. And we just saw a bunch of these brilliant passing sequences from Phoenix to capitalize on that advantage. Like Devin draws two in the post on the right block. Easy little kick out to Ryan done at the top of the key, knocks it down. Okay, well, what if they rotate to that secondary pass? Okay, Devin draws two on the right wing, swing to the left wing. They rotate over from the corner. Extras pass to Jordan Goodwin in the left Corner, wide open. 3. He knocks it down. Or offensive rebounds that the Suns did a lot of damage on the offensive glass in this game. That's been kind of a recurring theme with the Thunder. We'll talk about in a minute. But they get an offensive rebound is like Colin Gillespie gets a closeout in the left corner, rips the closeout, draws bodies, makes a beautiful kick out to Jordan Goodwin in the right corner. A lot of their transition passing sequences just moving the ball up the floor click quickly. Guys running their lane. So you always have those outlets in the corners as you're pushing the ball up the Floor. They just are so good at creating wide open shots with the crisp passing out of their good spacing. You know, Phoenix is actually shooting 38% on catch and shoot threes this year, which ranks sixth in the entire NBA. And like, you know, I would argue, like, if we're looking at the reasons why the Suns have been better than we've expected, like I thought the Suns would be competitive. I just figured they'd hover right around 500 or a little below and have like a bunch of kind of signature wins to kind of make the season fun. They're 21 and 14. They're, I think they're two games back from the fourth best record in the entire NBA. Like they're in a fantastic position. And I'd argue the two things that have kind of made that be, you know, dramatically more than I thought been the shooting and the Dylan Brooks piece. Because like the defense, we expected the team to be great defensively. I predicted they'd be top 10 in defense before the season. The reasoning was simple. They have the pieces that you need for a top 10 defense. I did not expect Dylan Brooks to turn into a reliable and efficient 21 point per game scorer. I didn't expect the team to shoot the ball down the roster as well as they have this year. It's allowing them to pay off. We talk about this sequence a lot. I've talked about it a lot with the Lakers in a negative sense. But when you play good basketball, you generate these sequences that end in a certain type of shot. You've got to be able to pay those sequences off. And the Suns have been paying those sequences off at a high clip this season. And then on the other end of the floor, I just thought the Suns did a great job doing the same thing that the Thunder were trying to do on the other end of the floor. Guarding the ball well with quality defenders. Getting into gaps to try to make openings disappear quickly and get into their driving lane so that they can't turn the corner all the way to the rim. You have the rim protection element with Mark Williams. There was actually a, a pull up three that Shea missed at the top of the key late in the game. That I thought was a perfect example of the dynamic I'm talking about with like making gaps feel like they're there but then shrink quickly. So earlier in a possession in the fourth quarter, Shay's dribbling on the left wing. They nail help hard off of J Dub on the right wing. Shea throws a swing pass. He knocks down the three right so like that's an example of that opening existing and staying open for too long and an easy pass burning you, right? But on this particular play that I'm talking about, the one where Shay misses the bad pull up three on the left wing, Jordan Goodwin comes off of Jdub and and sends the double. But there's two things that are different. Jordan instead of just like attacking the basketball for no reason, he really walls up on that passing lane side. So he just kind of gets active with his hands instead of attacking. Shay stops about a foot or too short, gets really active in the passing lane so that Shea can't just throw an easy swing pass. And then also Iguidaro ends up kind of sliding up just a touch to be in position to where if you did throw that pass to J Dub, he can quickly take a step up and rotate to the shot. And so as a result when she catches it and he goes to make that pass, he goes like ah, it's not there. And then that's when he ends up taking the bad pull up three and he misses it. And that gap in catch and shoot three point attempts of for the most part, but it also was just in the total three point attempts for the entire team. That gap was one of the main stories of the of the game for me. Both teams regarding each other in similar ways. But the Suns I thought did a better job of not settling for tough mid range pull ups and moving the ball through OKC's defense for threes. Phoenix took eight mid ranges in the game. Both teams shot well for mid range. Phoenix was 5 for 8. I think OKC was 10 for 19 if I remember correctly. But the difference is is OKC took 19 of them and Phoenix took eight. So when they got the ball to the middle four, it's like there are some shots in there. Dylan Brooks took some mid Rangers, Devin Booker took some mid Rangers. Mid range shots were attempted but it was, you know, kind of a counter to what they were trying to do which is to get through that defense and get to the quality kick out threes. Oklahoma City 19 mid range shots. A lot of tough setbacks from J Dub and Shea. Shea in particular I thought, especially in the third quarter, really got keyed in on trying to draw fouls in the mid range. That wasn't working for him. That was kind of the fundamental difference between the two teams and the way they played on offense. Phoenix generated more threes because they did a better job of diligently moving the ball through Oklahoma City's defense as we Move on to okc. I don't want to get too negative here because I also thought they just played a great game and you just lose to a very good Suns team like that Suns team is 21 and 14 now. They're 12 and 5 at home. As I talked about, they're two games back from having the fourth best record in the entire NBA. The Suns are playing awesome basketball. They're very high in my power rankings list this week compared to where they've been. Like I'm super high on Phoenix. Just overall as a team, that's a tough game to win and you were tied with 8 seconds left. So I don't want to be doom and gloom about the thunder here. There was a lot of good. Like Chet was fantastic again, amazing on defense. 8 for 11 from the field, hit a big 3 on the right wing in the second half at a big little fadeaway. Jump shot off of an offensive rebound where he just slipped off of Dylan Brooks, got the rebound turned over his right shoulder knocked down a quick shot. That was a big part of how they tied the game late. J Dub was awesome. Really comfortable getting into his step back jump shot in the mid range in this game. Hit a big one that tied the game late. You know, there's a lot of talk too about J Dub's first step quickness and I think that's been one of the things that stood out as he's gotten older. Like he's a very good athlete, but he's not a guy that's just going to toast people off the dribble very often. But one of the things he is very good at doing is putting a counter move together on the contact that he generates on his drive. So like he'll drive and he'll get into your body and once he gets into your body he'll like go to a behind the back dribble and kind of shed you off. So if he's driving left, he'll bump you with that right shoulder, shed you off, get to the behind the back. Now he's got another opportunity to hit a driving lane. Same exact thing. If he's going right, bumps you with that left shoulder, behind the back dribble, get back going the other way. That's allowing him to get dribble penetration and to get quality pain attempts even when he's not necessarily the quickest dude in the world. Off the dribble, off that front first attack right like the, the. A lot of good last night for okc. Shay and J Dub look great. Or excuse Me, Chet and Jdub look great. Shay had a rough night. Like I thought he was kind of the primary culprit for a lot of the bad settling for mid range shots. He just like, you know, I saw a lot of Thunder fans complaining about the whistle that Shea got in this game and there were a handful of calls that I thought were missed. Like there was one where he kind of did like a step through in the middle of the floor early in the game and got bumped. I thought it probably should have been a, a foul. There was one in the second in the third quarter run where he got a very similar bump to what Devin Booker had gotten and Devin got free throws and Shay didn't. Then there were others that weren't. Like there was one where he clearly just pushed off of Devin Booker and then tried to, to fade away and get a foul. That's not going to get a call right? Or one where he went straight up and down and tried to like land on top of Devin and you know, he wasn't able to land on his feet so he didn't get the call. Like there I thought it was. There were a couple of missed calls. But like I don't really understand the complaining because Shea's posting the second highest free throw rate of his ENT career. Shay's free throw rate this season is higher than it was last year or the year before. That said, I don't want to be too hard on Shay. I thought he missed a lot of good looks too that he usually makes and he's been fantastic all season. So there's no point in kind of overreacting to that. The only things with Oklahoma City I think are worth mentioning are one, the offensive glass. We've talked about these former issues with the team that have popped up in these losses. Defensive rebounding was a huge part of that. They gave up a 12 to 2 offensive rebounding advantage in that game. Although it's worth mentioning that Isaiah Hartenstein was out and to the shooting. They're just 31% from three in these losses. In the six losses, 31% they're making the open ones. I talked about this in that week that they lost two games to San Antonio like last night, seven for 18 on unguarded catch and shoot threes. That's 39%, that's 1.17 points per shot. That's not bad. But everything that's contested off the catch and everything that's off the dribble for Oklahoma City has been bad from the three point line and I think it's interesting because coming into the season we all thought it would be like the big teams like Denver or Houston that would present the biggest challenges for okay, okc, but at least in the regular season. Cause we'll see in the long run if that ends up being the case. We've seen Houston on opening night, but Denver hasn't even played OKC yet and Houston hasn't played him since. So we'll see in the long run if that's still the case. But what I'm really starting to get keyed in on now is like San Antonio, Phoenix, Minnesota, if you can protect the rim and you have bigger athletes on the perimeter and you rush them at the three point line, they'll miss. So I'm actually starting to look at the tougher matchups as teams that are as athletic as Oklahoma City, but also a bit bigger but that can also protect the rim. Those are the teams that have been given Oklahoma City issues, at least in the regular season. To be clear, I still view Oklahoma City as the best team in the league. I'm just looking at this through the lens of vulnerabilities. Today's show is brought to you by a presenting sponsor, Hard Rock bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. When it's cold outside, that's when you know the hardwood is heating up. 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- [28:35]
Levar Arrington
Hey, this is Lavar Arrington here from up on Game. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit. Offer in minutes subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and.
- [29:08]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
More@Applecart.Com the season's heating up, and DoorDash has a way to keep fans deep in their bag the whole way through. You know how players have their bags that moment when the announcer goes, oh, he's really in his bag tonight? Well, fans have that too. With DoorDash, snacks stay stocked, gear stays fresh, and the watch party vibes stay absolutely immaculate because the games move fast and if you're not in your bag, you're already behind. And honestly, DoorDash is there for the emotional rollercoaster of the season. My team loses and suddenly I'm a dessert person. Doordash always comes through for me after a blown lead. My friends silent DoorDash pulling up with fries and maybe even a face mask so I can process what I just watched. Then there are late night cravings. I'm watching post game interviews at midnight, reliving highlights, and out of nowhere I need chips. DoorDash is built for that moment, and when the group says pull up, DoorDash makes sure I show up prepared with snacks, drinks and even an extra charger from tip off to OT. Stay in your bag and order on door dash. DoorDash in your bag all season long.
- [30:10]
Richard Sherman
Ready or not is on sale now for the holidays, a breakout hit with over 13 million global players. Ready or not is the tactical first person shooter where you take the role of a SWAT commander and feel the weight of the badge. I reunited with my legion of boom teammates Cam Chancellor, Cliff Averill, Mike Bennett and Walter Thurman to go through real SWAT training and experience firsthan what makes this game special. You can watch the full video now at the Richard Sherman Podcast YouTube channel here's what we discovered. This isn't just mindless running gun like other shooters. Just like the Legion of Boom. Operated as an elite defensive unit where everyone had to think strategically and work together. Ready or not demands the same mentality you're commanding a SWAT team, clearing rooms, protecting civilians, making split second tactical calls. With 18 high stakes missions, endless loadout customization, you need discipline and coordination to succeed. On sale now across PlayStation, Xbox and PC with full cross play support. Go solo or lead up to five teammates through operations where strategy matters. Don't miss the holiday sale on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S and PC. After training with my brothers I can tell you this game gets it right.
- [31:35]
Podcast Host
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- [32:38]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
We have to talk some Boston Celtics. They've won now seven of their last eight games. Just an absolutely dominant performance in Los Angeles against a red hot Clippers team. They jumped them early, held up under the Clippers runs that they made throughout the game when they tried to punch back again. The Clippers have been playing super well. And then just an epic scoring run from Jaylen Brown in the third quarter with some ridiculous shot making that blew that game open. And then the Celtics ended up running away with it in the fourth quarter. What a ridiculous performance from Jaylen Brown. A remarkable shot making display. Of his 50 points, 29 of them came directly out of pick and roll and ISO 21 out of pick and roll. He was torching the Clippers bigs in drop coverage just with his shot making over and over again. Especially in that Third quarter I thought he was going at Zubots and doing a ton of did a great job of taking advantage in that late third quarter, especially of like some of the easy kick and drop off reads as cutters and shooters were getting open like oh, Jordan Walsh slips baseline because his man is doubling Jalen as he's kind of snaking through the lane. Ooh, easy drop off. There's a little dunk. Like he's just doing a really good job with that. I thought he guarded Kawhi really well all night. Jalen said after the game that he thought he was the best two way player in the game right now. To be honest, it's hard to argue with him, with, with how well he's been playing at least within the last month or so. I'm going to talk about this all the time. There's a big difference between doing something for a month and doing it for seasons and how that manifests in opinion. Right? Like, you want to know why Jokic is viewed pretty much unanimously as the best player in the world right now? It's because for year after year after year, month after month after month, 70 plus games, every single season until this year, he's just been the same amazing dominant player, right? And so Jalen is flashing that and the if he wants to get that, you know, kind of credibility in the long run, it's going to be through sustaining this over, you know, a much larger sample. But in the last 16 games, 33 points, seven rebounds and six assists, two stocks per game, 52% from the field, 39% from three, 78% from the line. That's 61% in true shooting. And again, he's taking significant defensive responsibility every single night. So to put it very simply, to be averaging a super efficient 33 points to go with seven rebounds and six assists while guarding the one of the leading offensive threats every night. There just isn't a player that's clearly playing better than Jaylen Brown right now. So again, he's not going to get that credit over one month of basketball, but he certainly is showing that level right now. And this opportunity that Jaylen Brown has had to show the basketball world what he looks like in a featured role has been a resounding success. And again, the Celtics have now won seven out of eight. They have a 126 offensive rating in that span, which is the best in the league. 113 defensive rating, which is seventh in the league in that span. The Celtics are 22 and 12. They're now a half game back of the fourth best record in the entire NBA. So what does it mean? What does it mean that the Celtics have been this good without Jason Tatum? I think it's pretty simple. I think it means there's a level of mastery to Joe Missoula's offense that has been years in the making coming to fruition. I was thinking about this especially when I was watching the first quarter of this last game as I'm watching the Celtics starters just school the Clippers right at the start. And again, this is a red hot Clippers team. And the Celtics just took it to them from the jump. And it's this lineup. It's Nimi Keita, but it's Jalen Brown, Derek White, Sam Houser and Peyton Pritchard. And I'm watching them just get in and out of their sets quickly, just always spacing for each other perfectly, always making the right kick out pass, guys trusting each other to knock down shots against help and just generating great look after, great look after, great look. And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, all these guys were on the 2022 Celtics. All of them played minutes for the Celtics in that finals run. Every single one of them has been with Joe Missoula since his start with the team. There's this incredibly foolish idea and it's bred by Stan Culture and just the unbelievable individual support that stars get at the expense of. Like any rational thought that you win championships on the greatness of individual superstar talent. And while you certainly need one of those guys if you want to have a good chance to win the title, the idea that a superstar carries the team could not be further from the truth. Every single champion in the history of the NBA has been won because of a combination of superstar talent with supporting star talent, with role player talent, with a level of buy in to the system from quality coaching that works. One of the many factors that has driven the Celtics success over the past few years has been Joe Missoula system. And it's interesting because it wasn't always perfect, especially in the 2024 season. I was heavily focused on the idea between the difference between quality kick out threes. In settling for mediocre threes. There'd be this idea where they'd have these games where they take early clock contested catch and shoot threes, a lot of early tough transition threes, tough off the dribble threes, a lot of that kind of stuff. And then they'd lose and then everyone would be like, oh, it's Missoula system. It's not Missoula's system. Missoula didn't want them to take bad threes. He wanted them to drive and kick and take quality threes. The team was just still learning the system. They were still in the process of buying into it. Fast forward now. They've got hundreds of games of reps in this system. And now I'm watching a Celtics team that looks like they know exactly how they want to play, how to do it effectively. Here's the stat that I think demonstrates this perfectly. They're generating the same amount of unguarded catch and shoot threes right now without Jason Tatum in the picture as they did in that 2024 season when they were dominant from start to finish. 15 per game. I just think that's a remarkable set that shows how this team is actually. Even though Tatum's out, even though technically an aggregate talent, this team is not as talented as previous iterations of the team they have. Through continuity and consistency of system over years, they've gained a level of comfort within that system that has allowed them to actually play at a higher level relative to their talent than they did in years past. So again, like, when people talk about, like, oh, is the team better without Jason Tatum? No, they've just gotten better. They've gotten better through time and experience and consistency and continuity within their system. Right. And yeah, some internal improvement from some key players. Pritchard's gotten better as the years have gone by. Hauser's gotten better. Derek White. Derek White's been awesome over the course of this recent stretch. Derek. Derek White in his last 16 games is averaging like 21 points per game very efficiently. So, like, Derek White's gotten better. All these dudes have gotten a little bit better within the system and it's causing them to maximize. And what happens is Jason Tatum comes back. If he does at some point this year, which I believe he will, Jason Tatum comes back and he helps anchor your defensive rebounding, and he helps anchor some of the defensive schemes that you weren't able to use against certain opponents, like the Portland game that you lost, where you were getting abused by some of the size. Tatum helps alleviate that. Tatum gives you another vehicle with which to enter the defense and to create those quality catch and shoot threes. And so ultimately, as I zoom out, all I can think is continuity and consistency in a system over years will pay dividends. And those dividends are being paid right now for the Celtics. And Jason Tatum's just going to come back and add to this when he enters into the Picture, but shout out to Jalen Brown, man, literally, literally playing better or as well as anyone in the league at this point. All right, let's get into our power rankings. I'm going to go a little quicker than usual today because I have a, a bit of a time crunch. But we're Starting with number 10, the Denver Nuggets. They got a big win over Toronto on the strength of their defense and clutch offense. An idea that I talked about, I talked about right after the Yokic injury. I think that's their best formula with Jokic out. But then they dropped a couple of tough ones against the Cavs and the Nets, and teams are really starting to throw the kitchen sink at, at Jamal Murray to try to slow him down. I think they need about five more wins before the All Star break to kind of successfully stay above that nine seed. You know, if you're in that eight seed or higher, when Jokic comes back, he's either going to be able to crawl you out of the play in or you have two opportunities to win a play in game, which I trust the Nuggets to do. So. So think they need about five more wins, but it's going to be tough. It's not easy to do without Jokic and the amount of injuries that they've dealt with. It has been good seeing Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon get back out there like they did against Brooklyn. Number nine, the Los Angeles Lakers. Somehow, after their epic blowout filled three week collapse, they sit today in sole possession of the fourth best record in the NBA. And the answer why to why is just because they continue to take care of business against the middle tier and the lower tier teams in the NBA. They're 7 and 8 this season against teams that are.500 or better, 5 and 5 against teams that are in the top 10 in point differential. But they're 15 and 3 against teams that are below.500 after winning a couple of consecutive games against Memphis. Luca in the second half against Memphis last night, 17 points, three assists, only five missed shots in zero turnovers. He always produces, but when he produces while also limiting his mistakes, that's when he looks like the Luca that can compete for the best player in the world. I thought the second half against Memphis was a good sign of progress in that direction. And then LeBron James, I'd been critical of his defense and rebounding during the team slump. He's been great in those areas since the Sacramento game and in LeBron's last 11 games, starting to gain some momentum in his production. 25 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists on 64% true shooting in his last 11 games. Really starting to gain progress towards becoming that all NBA version of himself that is actually capable of changing the Lakers fortunes in the short term. That's the best version of the Lakers will be all NBA. LeBron, all star level Austin, first team, all NBA level. Luca, you know, MVP candidate Luca. Those three together mixed in with improved effort and intensity on defense and maybe a move or two at the deadline, that's where I could start taking this team a little bit more seriously. But they won't move higher on this list for me until they can get a few signature wins against better teams. Number eight, the Phoenix Suns just deep dived into them earlier in the show, so we won't linger here long. But they've won six out of seven. They just beat Oklahoma City. Now they're just two games out from the three seed in the Western Conference. Minnesota at number seven suffered an embarrassing loss to the Hawks where they really struggled against Atlanta's physical defense. But a couple of nice bounce back wins against the Heaton Wizards where their offense looked amazing. Anthony Edwards, 68 points in those two games on 24 from 40 from the field. Number six, the New York Knicks. A 121 defensive rating in their three game losing streak. I'm not going to overreact to a little drop off in defensive intensity in early January for a team that's been as successful as the Knicks have been. The one thing that concerned me was that play at the end of the spurs game when you were in position to win that game and Harrison Barnes is isoing in the middle of the floor. Carl Anthony Towns is guarding Luke Cornett who's in the right corner and Cat's just kind of standing there. He's not double teaming, he's not really helping. He's not doing anything. He's just standing, standing upright. Harrison Barnes misses the shot and Luke Cornett just runs right in behind Cat, gets an offensive rebound, puts it back in and draws a foul and it literally costs you the game. And that's the kind of stuff that like concerns me with Cat in particular. I keep coming back to him is like he's so mistake prone, especially in big spots. Like you lose a game to the Celtics because he's chasing Jordan Walsh off of the three point line when he's made like three corner threes all season. Like those are the kinds of like random late game execution errors that can cost you a series. And that, that concerned me way more than three losses. In January fueled by some in, you know, team wide defensive malaise. Number five, the Houston Rockets four game streak snapped on the road in Dallas. They're just 4 for 19 on unguarded catch and shoot threes in that game. That's miserable shooting. They've actually been surprisingly good on those shots this season, about 41% which is middle of the pack, better than we would have thought. Kevin Durant on a hot streak right now, 29, 5 and 8 on 59% from the field in his last three games, keeping his turnovers down, playing some great basketball. Number four, the Boston Celtics. We hit them earlier in the show so not going to linger here. Just a team that has mastered their system that the coach implemented a few years ago and they're starting to see some dividends there. Number three, the San Antonio Spurs. They've lost three out of five, a 113.5 offensive rating in that span. We covered the spurs offense in a video last week where I went over some of the details with the way they're guarding some of their younger guards, going under, containing, using some bigger athletes and how they need to address that by playing more through Fox and and Wemby and using those guards as screeners when you're in a situation where they're not being guarded the way they're guarded. Obviously injuries have started to factor in as well as Victor Wembanyama has been out. A couple of their guards have had a little bit of nagging injuries pop up, but the offense has been something to keep an eye on over the course of the next few weeks. Number two, the Detroit Pistons. A couple of really impressive wins against the Cavs and Lakers mixed in with three losses to the Heat, Clippers and Jazz. Starting to get a little banged up now. Jalen Duran has an ankle sprain. Tobias Harris has a hip sprain. Here's a crazy stat for you Pistons fans though. The Pistons have the best record in the league against teams that are.500 or better this season, 9 and 4. Even better than Oklahoma City at 9 and 5. And the number one, Oklahoma City, we hit them earlier in the show. Again, some of their issues popping up with allowing offensive rebounds and some of their specific kind of situational shooting. But I still view them, especially with San Antonio starting to lose some ground, as the best team in the league. Number one in the power rankings again like they were for most of the season. 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 had kind of funky holiday schedules last couple weeks, but we're back to it every day now. Back at it tomorrow morning with some game reaction. I will see you guys then.
- [46:31]
Podcast Host
Foreign.
- [46:36]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. Sunday mornings I've got my game day ritual, coffee, lucky socks and now new Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches.
- [46:50]
Levar Arrington
It's all about that 12 gram protein boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed Berry or Up and apple flavors.
- [46:59]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Bright Eye Berries got a feisty receiver.
- [47:03]
Levar Arrington
Energy up an apple. Your classic do it all tight end.
- [47:08]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Soft, pillowy, packed with protein and easy enough for Gronk to grab from the freezer.
- [47:14]
Levar Arrington
Whether you're on the couch, driving to the tailgate or heading to the locker room, New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches are the MVP of snacks.
- [47:27]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Your new Sunday kickoff ritual starts here with new Morning Uncrustable sandwiches packed with 12 grams of protein.
- [47:38]
Levar Arrington
Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20 versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cellular stores. Savings versus Comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits plan features and taxes and fees vary.
- [48:00]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Savings with three plus lines include third.
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Levar Arrington
Line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.
- [48:09]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks. We're back for season four to talk.
- [48:20]
Richard Sherman
To some incredible, incredible small business owners.
- [48:22]
Basketball Analyst / Advertiser
The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. Everyone's a rookie. That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change. So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [48:37]
Levar Arrington
I already love same day delivery with Shipt, but it's so much better since I signed up for target's circle 360. Why? Because I no longer pay price markups from the majority of stores through Shipt. Only a handful of alcohol retailers and items don't count. That means no markups on groceries, pet food, even home goods and makeup. So to recap, I have more time to catch up on life while someone shops for me and I spend less. It's a win win. Order now@shipt.com 360 terms apply.
- [49:07]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human.