← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Reaction to EVERY NBA Xmas: Spurs/Thunder, Nuggets/Wolves, Lakers/Rockets, Dubs/Mavs, Knicks/Cavs
00:45:49
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Jason
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Jason
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The NFL was graced us with an awful slate thanks to a bunch of teams kind of being out of the playoff hunt leading to some bad football games. But the NBA stepped right into that gap and and provided some awesome basketball. I thought the best way for us to hit on all the games would be to go with one major takeaway from all 10 teams from that slate yesterday. Can't wait to dig it into it with you guys. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Oops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Don't forget to like this video. That helps us a lot. And then lastly, if you want to get mailbag questions, drop them underneath this video. Put mailbag with a colon and write your question. We'll get to them on Fridays starting next Friday throughout the remainder of the season. So like I said, Christmas Day, first major showcase of the NBA season. It is revealing and it's funny because we've actually been going forever. We're over two months into this thing. We've had an whole in season tournament. Every team has played like more than a third of their games already. But in this environment, everyone's playing about as hard as you'll see them play in an NBA regular season game, at least for most of the teams. We'll get to the Lakers later on, but it can be revealing in a lot of ways. And so I thought this would be a good chance to bounce around. Let's start with their first big takeaway. Number one, the San Antonio spurs are the best team in the NBA right now. You don't have to take my word for it. Shea Gilgis Alexander basically said as much after the game yesterday. He said, quote, we have to get better as a group. You don't lose to a team three times in a row in a short span without them being better than you. Now, we'll get to some of the specifics that the Thunder have been struggling with in a minute, but I want to focus on this particular matchup, why the spurs thrive in this matchup, and why the spurs as a team have been better than everyone else in the league to this point. First of all, some stats. So on November 16, the spurs started this run. It was right after those consecutive games they lost to the warriors at home. Those were the two games where Steph was amazing dear and Fox made his return and got badly outplayed in the first game before coming back and being awesome. Victor Wenyama ends up getting hurt. But in that stretch, the spurs really started to find A groove on offense fueled by Dear and Fox playing some of the best basketball of his career. All of the young guards kind of being slotted appropriately as a result of that, starting to get healthy, finding their groove. And it led to this fast pace, devastating drive and kick attack. The spurs were generating a ton of high quality threes, getting to the rim a ton and shooting a high percentage on everything. They were 11th in restricted area makes since November 16th, 11th in made threes per game, seventh in three point percentage. They've been the fourth best offense in the entire NBA in that span. A 120 offensive rating, which as you guys know, that's kind of like the benchmark for elite offense in the modern NBA's. If you can get that offensive rating up over 1 20, which they've been. They've also really started to dominate on the margins. They're plus 3.4 in points off of turnovers every game since November 16th. They're plus 2.1 in second chance points and they're plus 2.1 in fast break points. Those are the three main margins. They are winning every single one of those margins by a decent chunk every single game. Now, obviously there's a little bit of overlap there between things like fast break points and points off of turnovers, but if you're getting like a half dozen points and positive margin every single night, that's going to help you win a lot of basketball games. Now, the defense struggled a little bit while Wemby was out, but I talked at the time, I was really excited to see because even though the defense was struggling, the guards, they were so athletic and scrappy on the wing. I wanted to see that get combined with what Victor Wembanyama brought to the table to see if it would lead to anything. And oh my goodness, a 10 2.6 defensive rating since November 16th. That's the second best defensive rating in the entire NBA. That's what Victor Wembanyama does when he's been on the floor. Just Wemby on the floor in this stretch. They have an 89.5 defensive rating that is like shockingly good and a pretty good sample size. What, six or seven games at this, at this point, even the Luke Cornett groups with Wemby off the floor are defending a lot better than they did before Wemby came back. So you got the fourth best offense in the league in this span, the second best defense over the course of this previous six games. What does that amount to since November 16th? And by the way, I want to add this in there too. That defense has been so good statistically that even if you add it to all of the bad defensive data before Wemby came back in this stretch since November 16th, they're now 10th in defensive rating. That's how good they've been on defense in this last couple of weeks. But since November 16, the spurs are 15 3. That is the best record in the NBA. The Pistons and Thunder are both behind them tied at 13 and 4. So strictly speaking, by win percentage, they've been the best team in the league for about six weeks. And even if you want to zoom out to the entire season, they're only two and a half games back of the Thunder overall in the standings. The Pistons actually are only one and a half games back of the Thunder. It's starting to get a little bunched up between those three young and talented teams at the top. We're talking about a top four offense, top two defense, an earth shattering defense with Wemby on the floor, and an offense that's really starting to bud. And again, like will the, will the Thunder have more to say over the course of the season? We're going to find out as time goes on. But very simply, the spurs have been the best team in basketball over the course of the last six weeks. Now let's talk about this matchup for a minute because this has been not just three and oh, it's been dominance. There have been wild runs in all three games in the in season tournament game. They had a 150 run to end the first half in the game on Tuesday down in San Antonio The spurs hung 43 points on them just in the fourth quarter to blow them out by 20. And yesterday in Oklahoma City, a 13 oh run to end the first quarter that completely flipped the game and the Thunder couldn't even make a run to threaten them down the stretch. They never got any closer than nine points over the final 21 minutes of that game. So this is three straight games, one on a neutral site, one in San Antonio and one in Oklahoma City where the spurs didn't just beat the Thunder, they had runs where the Thunder looked utterly helpless. So why is that? What is the secret formula? Why are they able to pull this off? And this is where I actually want to dig into the offensive end a little bit because the defense we covered at length after the in season tournament game and that dynamic has not changed. San Antonio can really protect the rim. Wemby obviously is the game breaking defensive weapon that we've talked about, but also Luke Cornett who's been phenomenal defensively in this stretch. You're getting 48 minutes of excellent rim protection from those two guys. When you combine that with them being bigger and more athletic on the perimeter. And now those guys have free reign to press up on Oklahoma City's guards, close that space, get great contests on their jumpers. And we're going to dig into this when we talk about Oklahoma City. But they're in a jump shooting spiral now in large part because of them getting those contests. There has been a huge difference in Oklahoma City's efficiency this year between when they are guarded on catch and shoots versus when they are unguarded. And there just haven't been teams that have been able to contain the ball well enough to be able to offer the types of closeouts into disintegrate the quality of their catch and shoot opportunities to actually make them miss shots as they've been one of the best jump shooting teams in the league to start this year. And so as a result, because they're able to take away the spacing, because they're able to press up on these guards, even they're off the dribble shooters are starting to really struggle. Like that was Shea's worst game of the season by far, far yesterday, his lowest scoring total. He was below 40% from the field. Really started to jack up bad shots in that second half and decomposed a little bit in his game. Management like this dynamic isn't changing. Oklahoma City is going to have to figure out how they're going to score against San Antonio if they're going to survive in a playoff series. And again we'll dig more into San Antonio or excuse me, we'll dig more into Oklahoma City in a minute. But the spurs have taken this all time great Oklahoma City defense, they've cut it to pieces in these three games. Again, this is the team with the highest relative defensive rating in the history of the league. So if you take their defensive rating and you compare it to the league average, it's a substantially larger gap than any team in the history of basketball. And yeah, they had played a light schedule, but the metrics were so absurd that even if you accounted for that they were all time great and they had broken every other great offense they had run into before this point. And yet the spurs in these three games have logged a 121 offensive rating. We talked about that 120 number earlier as like the benchmark for elite modern NBA offense. The spurs have now done that against the Thunder in 144 minutes of basketball. And the dynamic on the film is actually pretty clear. And I want to take go away from Wemby here and zoom in on the guards because Wemby obviously plays a role. He's an offensive ceiling raiser in his own way. He, his ability to kind of catch at the high post and just dictate a bunch of attention has inverted the spacing in a way that has allowed their guards to get open on cuts along the baseline. And these guards, they're all like 6, 6, 6, 7 and can jump vertically off of a a jump stop. So they can finish really well on these cuts. Wemb dynamic to this offense as well, but I really want to zoom in on the guards in the wings. San Antonio is legitimately bigger, faster and stronger than Oklahoma City on the perimeter. And all of those dudes can really handle the basketball. That depth of ball handling, that advantage has allowed them to consistently break down Oklahoma City's defense at the point of attack. Dear and Fox is too fast for Alex Crusoe or Lou Dort, and he's too tall for Kayson Wallace. Steph Castle, like, this is a whole thing. Like, Steph Castle is a combination of strength and size and mobility and footwork that is so rare in the NBA that I'm not sure when he gets into his late 20s, like when he's in his prime, I'm not sure that he'll ever run into a defender that makes him uncomfortable when he gets to that point. He's hard enough to stop right now. Devin Vassell isn't really like breaking down the defense off the dribble as much, but he has the size to shoot over the top. He gets great lift on that jump shot. Keldon Johnson is too big and fast and strong for Oklahoma City's bench groups. Dylan Harper is able to get wherever he wants on the floor against Oklahoma City's bench groups. And then you add that wimy dynamic. They all look super comfortable getting to their spots against this Oklahoma City defense. And once you get to their spots, the defense is going to react. Oklahoma City is going to send help. They're going to pack the paint. They're going to send that second defender over. @ that point, it's about the playmaking piece in. All of these guys are really good playmakers like Dear Fox, Steph Castle and Dylan Harper. That trio, all three of them are averaging over six and a half assists per 36 minutes this year. So they not only have all these dudes that can get to their spots, but they're all great passers that's the, that's the dynamic that breaks this defense. It's the ability to break Oklahoma City at the point of attack and pass through their defense. We've talked about this dynamic at all a lot over the last couple of years. We've just focused on big ball handlers. We focused on Luca and LeBron and Nikola Jokic and like these big guys that can punish their smaller guys. These are more like guards and wings, but they're guards and wings that are also huge. They're also bigger than these Oklahoma City guards and wings. And so as a result they are able to generate really high quality looks. And that's where the shooting comes in again. Their seventh and three point percentage since November 16th. And it's because they're generating really high quality kickouts. They're generating the sixth most spot up opportunities in the league this year. Spot ups are a great hallmark for how you're breaking down the defense. Because if you break down the defense, you're going to draw extra defenders. If you're going to draw extra defenders, there's going to be easy kickouts. There's going to be easy kickouts. That's going to be a close out opportunity for a guy to be able to score. That's a spot out, a spot up opportunity. Right. And all of these guys are shooting really well or driving really well out of those situations. Victor Weminyama 47% from three in this run. Keldon Johnson 43% from three in this run. He's been huge. Devin Vassell 42% dear and Fox 41%. Arguably the best jump shooting season of his career so far. Steph Castle is shooting 39% from three in this span. Dylan Harper's the one guy who's struggling a bit among the ball handlers at 24%. And you know there's going to be people who say, oh, this won't last. And I have two counters for that that make me optimistic in the long run for the Spurs. One, as good as the guards are shooting their wings, their forwards like their champagne and Barnes in particular, those are two guys that are like reliable catch and shoot guys. They're both shooting below their normal averages in this stretch. I think those guys will shoot better as time goes on. Harrison Barnes has missed a dozen really good looks over the course of the last couple of weeks and again, these are the second piece of it. And the main reason why I think this is going to sustain is these are great looks again. They're generating the sixth most spot up opportunities in the league. It's not like they're just jacking up threes and they're going in. These are good looks coming out of quality dribble penetration and paint touches. The last thing I want to zoom in on here in terms of the team dynamic is I really thought in this Oklahoma City game yesterday, they did a great job hunting mismatches a lot of their attacks. They're not just like going at Dort every time down the floor for no reason. They're hunting Shea, they're hunting Isaiah Joe. They went at Aaron Wiggins a lot yesterday. And again, these guys aren't necessarily bad defenders, but on Oklahoma City, they are the best vehicles with which to enter their defense. And they are deliberate and procedural with the way they're targeting those guys. And I think that that's helping them maximize their attack. I really want to highlight Dear and Fox here for a minute. Him coming in and playing this well has worked wonders for this offense because of how it's slotted everybody. He's just taken a little bit of pressure off of everyone, including Wemby, but especially Steph Castle and especially Dylan Harper, making their jobs that much easier. I think he's playing the best basketball of his career, and I think it's a testament to the type of competitor that he is. He clearly had a very good summer. And when you're playing with a guy like Wemby, that comes with a lot of pressure, like Wendy's potentially going to be an all time great. You don't want to be remembered as the guy who played with Wemby and underachieved or held the team back from their goals. De' Aaron clearly wants to be remembered as the first great running mate of Wemby's career. We all know how this story ends. It's going to end with Steph Castle and Dylan Harper being the primary guys. Maybe they hang on to Deer and as he goes into being a vet, but like Deer and kind of feels like a stopgap in a lot of ways. And that could go poorly and Dear and like, screw that, man. I want to be the first great teammate of Wemby's career. And it has like him reaching this level, especially as a jump shooter, it has pushed San Antonio over the edge in terms of their aggregate ball handling and their aggregate quickness on the perimeter and their aggregate playmaking ability. That's given them the ability to break the greatest statistical defense we've ever seen. Again, when you're hanging a 120 offensive rating routinely against this defense, you are breaking the Oklahoma City Thunders defense. So I just want to give that extra shout out to Dear and Fox. So yeah, the spurs, they're the best team in the league right now. It's wild stuff. I mean, I know I sure as hell underrated the hell out of them before the season. I thought they'd be like a seventh or eighth seed, but I don't think anyone, even spurs fans, had them as the best team in the league at this point. So congrats to you guys. Really excited for the spurs fan base. I think you guys are set up for a fun decade of basketball and most importantly, you guys are fun to watch. Every time I get the opportunity to watch the spurs play basketball, I feel lucky as a basketball fan. It's going to be entertaining and that is the best thing for this league. The league needs a highly entertaining. There's a huge difference between a juggernaut that's fun to watch and a juggernaut that's not. That's why TV ratings were still good during the phase when the warriors were running the league. You gotta be fun to watch while you're kicking everyone's ass. And the spurs definitely are Want to know where I bet on basketball during the holiday season? It's Hard Rock Bet. Not just because it's the presenting sponsor of our show, but because they make it easy to bet before tip off. And in the middle of the action, with just a few simple taps, I open the app, I find a bed I like, and then, bam. 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Jason
Y'.
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Jason
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Jason
Reserved. Number two the demons of Oklahoma City's past are starting to rise to the surface again as their schedule gets tougher. We talked about this a bit on Monday in our power rankings, but there are three significant areas of statistical slippage over this two and four stretch. 1. Their defensive rebounding. In these four losses, they've given up 53 offensive rebounds, allowing the spurs and Timberwolves to grab 32% of their own misses. That is a reflection of the size disadvantage they have in these matchups, which is something that has popped up over previous years. To the turnovers. Not so much. In yesterday's game they only had seven of them and that's less of a demon from the past cause Oklahoma City has always been good at taking care of the basketball, but it is an area of statistical slippage. In their other two losses to to San Antonio, they gave up 46 points off of turnovers and lost that margin. That is a margin they dominate and the spurs have flipped that on their head and have won that in this matchup over the three game set. But the biggest demon from their past rising to the surface is their three point shooting. And again, a good amount of this credit goes to San Antonio in Minnesota as well as we talk about that game. For their defense, they've done a great job of chasing Oklahoma City's better shooters off the line and tilting things towards Oklahoma City's shakiest contested three point shooters. In these four losses, Oklahoma City has shot 29% from three and you can kind of see it starting to creep back in for them mentally. Guys are not looking confident on some of these catch and shoot looks because they're being rushed. In yesterday's game, you might think Oklahoma City missed all their open looks. Well, they were 6 for 15 on unguarded catch and shoot threes yesterday. According to synergy, that's 40%. Ideally you'd like to be a little bit higher than that, but that's solid. On wide open shots, that's fine, you're not going to lose a game making 40% of your wide open shots. But they were just 2 for 20 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. Same dynamic in Tuesday's game. 8 for 16 unguarded, 1 for 7 when guarded on catch and shoots. That has been a season long trend for the Thunder. Oklahoma City is the second worst catch and shoot team in the league, but they are the fifth best unguarded catch and shoot team in the league. Second worst guarded, fifth best unguarded. The problem is is most teams don't have the athleticism to contain the ball well enough to actually force them into tougher catch and shoot looks. Minnesota and San Antonio do. That's the difference and I really thought it started to affect their decision making in the second half yesterday as well. Like guys including Shea Shay had his worst game of the season by far and really fell apart as a decision maker in that second half. Took some really tough off the dribble jump shots early in the clock. Now does this mean the sky is falling? No, this is all really good in terms of adversity for Oklahoma City now. You know, if you kick everyone's ass, you're you're just sitting there looking at maybe trying to get to 74 wins right now. They have some real clear stuff they have to focus on for the rest of the season to prepare for those potential matchups in the playoffs. As for their defense, I want to look at the defense end for a minute. There's another demon from their past that has risen to the surface. Their lack of perimeter size guarding the ball. Their guards in their wings are small. They don't have six, seven and taller athletes running around. It's a lot of like six, three dudes and six, four dudes. And the six, six dudes that they have are not the quickest dudes in the world. This is not necessarily a lanky and long and tall defense. This is a ground based defense. So when you see teams that have that combination that we talked about in Minnesota falls into this group as well. That combination of aggregate ball handling and size on the perimeter that appears to be the key to beating Oklahoma City. On offense you have to be on the defensive end. You have to be able to protect the rim and you got to have athletes to make life hard for Oklahoma City's guards like we talked about earlier, right? But on offense you need a depth of ball handling. You need three or four guys who have a combination of real athletic advantages and can handle the ball so they can get to their spots. Against this defense. For instance, I used to not like this matchup for Minnesota and I think they've closed the gap quite a bit, and I think part of it is because of their internal improvement. Anthony Edwards is considerably better as a dribble penetrator this year than he was last year, finishing at the rim at a higher level than ever. He's not rushing on his drives as much, he's slowing down and playing with more pace. Jaden McDaniels has taken a leap in almost every phase of his game on offense. Look at how successful Nas Reed and Julius Randle were in that fourth quarter. Julius had a bad box score night, but those two guys were huge in that fourth quarter, punishing Oklahoma City's Mall Smalls, Julius Randall shooting over the top of Case and Wallace at the top of the key, driving down the right side and dumping it off to Nas Reed. Nas Reed spinning out of the post on J Dub and getting a bucket, getting an and one offensive rebound put back. Those guys came alive in that fourth quarter and helped them pull away in that game. When we're looking at teams that can beat Oklahoma City, that appears to be the formula. San Antonio and Minnesota look to be their biggest threats right now. They can protect the rim while being athletic on the perimeter to make life harder on their guards while also having the depth of big athletic ball handlers that can penetrate their defense in the shooting to pay those sequences off. Now Houston and Denver are threats as well, but kind of more in a funky way, right? Like Denver has all the offensive stuff in spades. Jokic is like indomitable right now. He literally had the first 55, 15 and 15 ever in the history of the NBA yesterday. Jamal Murray's playing the best basketball of his career, but their defense obviously doesn't bring rim protection that they need. Houston has the size and rim protection, but we saw that they don't have the depth of ball handling. So I still consider both of those teams threats just in kind of like a non traditional, more funky way because both teams are so strange compared to the rest of the league. Number three, Speaking of a showcase for the NBA, yesterday was a dramatic showcase of Nicola Jokic as the reigning best basketball player in the world. I was exhausted last night so I went to bed in the mid third quarter when it looked like the Nuggets were in control. And so I ended up waking up to an instant classic. Anthony Edwards ends up going nuclear down the stretch to send the game to ot. We saw, you know, we saw that shot that he hit over Kayson Wallace on the left wing in the Oklahoma City game. Similar kind of shot in the left corner. It was off the catch and Turning over his right shoulder. That tied the game and sent it to overtime. But Ant is reaching a level with his shot making combined with the ability he has to just lift over the top of the defense. As an athlete where you basically now just cross your fingers and pray that he misses, he's gonna get a shot that he wants off. And with each passing year it just seems like he misses less and less. He continued that onslaught to start overtime and the Wolves actually built a nine point lead before the Nuggets just walked them down. Jokic's three point shooting was huge down the stretch. Jamal Murray and Tim Hardaway both got in on the action and O in OT hitting down, knocking down threes. And then Peyton Watson, he was getting fried by Anthony Edwards in crunch time. But he made a huge play late in the game when the Nuggets blitzed Anthony Edwards and forced him to get rid of the basketball. He came over and tagged the roller and got a steal. It was a huge play late that really sealed that game. What do I always say when you're having a rough time on the court? Just find a way to make a play and no one's going to care. No one cares that Peyton got fried. The Nuggets won in a big. Part of how they won is Peyton made a huge play tagging that roller and getting that steal. That's a great lesson for young basketball players there. Just keep your head on straight. Try to find a way to make a play to help your team win the game. But jokers was unbelievable. Man. 56, 16 and 15 did it on 71% from the field. Four of six from three. The first 55, 15 and 15 in the history of the NBA. And again, this Nuggets team is ravaged by injuries. You're down three starters. Although I'm glad to hear that Cam Johnson's knee injury was not more serious. He apparently is going to be out four to six weeks. We got to see the bad Jokic off minutes come back with a vengeance. As a result of that lack of depth, the Wolves went on an 180 run in this game. It's just an absolute carry job by Jokic and Murray in this game. I have to acknowledge Murray at 35 and 10 last night. His last 10 games, Jamal Murray is averaging 34 and 7 on 51% from the field, 53% from 3 and 87% from the line. Looking like an all NBA guy. And again, like, you know we're going to talk Lakers here in a minute. Like everyone's talking about the Lakers roster. And I'm certainly going to today. But like, you know what happens when when stuff goes on with the roster because Denver has a much better roster than the Lakers, but they're hurt right now. That wasn't a great roster that went out there last night and they found a way to get a win. Why? Because their stars played like stars. They can cover for a lot when they reach that level. I want to shout out Tim Hardway Jr. Here too. I know he was a bit off last night, but I think his aggressive and accurate three point shooting has worked wonders for helping them maintain their offensive ceiling from different lineup configurations. Especially now with Cam Johnson out. I thought he hit a huge one in overtime. It's that dynamic of having two real knockdown guys on the floor at all times that really brings that ceiling for the Denver offense. They're in for some tough sledding next month with all these guys out, but I think Jokic and Murray are up for the challenge. Number four the Timberwolves continue to be an infuriating regular season defense, super inconsistent in their effort and execution, but I continue to view them to be a better team than the last two years because of that growth that they've shown down the line on offense. Ant's shot profile has shifted slightly towards better distribution at all three levels. A little bit more at the rim, a little bit more paint non restricted, a little bit more short mid range, a little bit more long mid range. About 2 fewer threes per game and as a result because he's become more balanced in his attack, he's become less predictable and because he's added some pace and some patience on his drives, he's dramatically increased his efficiency at the rim and from three and that's made him a more effective and efficient score. His per minute scoring is three points up from last year based on a per 36 rate and his true shooting percentage is dramatically up as well, up over 60% for the first time in his career. He's gone up a level because of that variety and that increased efficiency at every level. Jaden McDaniels real leap on offense as a ball handler and shooter. He was great again yesterday. Gobert has been absolutely fantastic this year and as a group there's a level of continuity and comfort to their offense that makes them really difficult to handle on the offensive end of the floor. Again, this regular season is going to be filled with this type of uneven play that seems to be their personality, especially on the defensive end, but I still think this is the most dangerous Minnesota playoff team from this era, by far, number five, Tari Eason might be the solution to Houston's fifth man problem. I thought he did a phenomenal job right from the opening tip guarding Luka Doncic yesterday. He just brings that combination of size and strength and speed that can cause real problems for a big ball handler like Luka. I thought he made Luca like flat out decompose at the start of that game. He had five turnovers in his first shift. I know it only showed up as four in the box score, but there was a terrible lob pass to Aiden that got logged as a shot attempt that was more of a a turnover. Like he was just bad to start that game. And Tar Eason deserves the credit. He was right up in his jersey right from the opening tip and he was only 1 for 5 from 3 last night. But he's shooting 49% from 3 this season. He's basically just a bigger, better version of Joshua Kogi, which allows Houston to bring that best combination of size, strength, speed and shooting to that fifth man in those lineups. That has caused Houston so many problems over the last couple of weeks as their record has slipped quite a bit. Really nice win for Houston yesterday. They absolutely demolished the Lakers on the offensive glass. They grabbed over half of their own misses. Kevin Durant and Thompson, or Reed shepherd in particular, I thought did a great job of breaking the defense down. KD was consistently bringing two to the ball and starting their four on threes. He did a ton of mismatch hunting, especially hunting Luca and drawing fouls and getting to the basket. And then Amend Thompson and Reed shepherd just using their speed. That's the big advantage in this kind of matchup. The Lakers are slow. Those two guys were getting dribble penetration consistently every time down the floor. And then I know Eme Udoka has been frustrated with their defense. I thought that was their best perimeter defense effort of the season. I shouldn't say of the season, but up this recent stretch as well. Really nice win for them to get back on.
- [37:36]
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- [38:09]
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Chemical. What a matchup we got.
- [38:12]
Jason
Y'.
- [38:12]
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- [38:55]
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- [39:34]
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- [39:54]
Jason
$250,000. This is where mindset comes.
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Jason
Eliminated. Pressure is coming.
- [40:01]
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- [40:07]
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- [40:36]
Jason
Reserved. Number six. The Los Angeles Lakers are at best the sixth best team in the Western Conference right now. As is always the case when a team goes into a funk like this, where you go four, six over 10 games. There are plenty of issues, not just one. Luca has just not been close to as good as he was to start the season. Came out just like he did in the Suns game. Just turning the ball over almost every time down the floor and unable to make shots. Just brutal first shifts that dig his team in a massive hole. In both the Suns game and again in this Rockets game, his win loss splits are wild. In their 10 losses, he's average like their wins, he's averaging 37 points per game. In their 10 losses, he'S averaging just 28 points per game below 30% from three. Averaging 4.9 turnovers in those 10 losses. It's not all Luca's fault. Like he's been. He's been good at various stretches this year and the issues go way deeper than Luca. But he is playing far below the level of a top tier superstar in these losses and he's the guy at the top. And I'm always going to look at the guy at the top first. Why? Because he's the guy who has the power to change the situation. When you look at Jake Laravia and go save us Jake, that ain't going to work. Luke is the guy who can save. You say what you want about the Lakers roster. The Nuggets were down three starters last night and almost all of their athletes were out. And they beat a good team at home because their top tier superstar just backpacked the team. Luka isn't even remotely close to that level right now and it's hurting the Lakers. Austin got hurt again and the injuries are really starting to pile up for us. And he's missed six games already and it looks like he's going to miss a while now. If this calf injury is lingering, I wouldn't be surprised if he's out a month. He's going to miss something like you know, 10, 15 games at this point. LeBron was like embarrassingly bad on defense and on the glass last night. He had just two rebounds. There's this clip on Twitter, you can find it on my tw I quote tweeted it. So it Dan Divine ended up tweeting it out the video. But you can find it on my Twitter feed at_jason lt but it was a kind of a highlight reel of all the rockets offensive rebounds. LeBron was just standing around and watching for the most part. He had a play where I shit you not, where Reed shepherd was dribbling through the middle of the field of floor and LeBron like while Reed was dribbling, just leaked out to the other end, just started running down in transition is crazy. And of course Alper and Shangun's wide open under the basket for an easy little offensive rebound put back. It's unacceptable because this team actually needs him to be a great defender and rebounder based on their current construct. I think this is an area especially where injury, where Austin Reeves's injury has been an issue because it's slotted LeBron into this higher usage role, like when he needs to score 25 and 8. It just. He even gets lazier in those details. But Austin was healthy for most of the first half yesterday, and yet LeBron still looked completely unwilling to get his hands dirty. And I get it, you're old, you're about to turn 41 and you'd prefer if you can chill during the regular season. Too bad you literally can't on this team, especially not with Luka when he's in a slump. He either needs to lock in on defense and on the glass or he needs to be traded to a team that will let him chill. He's hurting the team right now and I hope JJ Reddick calls him out for it in practice on Saturday and then take the stars out. When these stars can't get to that level, it shines a dramatic light on how flawed this roster is. What an incredibly embarrassing job Rob Pelinka has done building a modern basketball team. Talk about a showcase of what succeeds in the modern NBA. Yesterday, all over the tv five games, athleticism and shooting, two teams you absolutely must have to compete in. This roster is utterly devoid of both. Rob should be fired immediately so that he doesn't botch this deadline and be replaced with a general manager who's willing and able to rectify this message. He has over and over and over again demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of what works in the modern NBA. They're 19 and nine and still in the four seed because Luca and Austin were so damn good on offense to start the season that they were routinely pulling out every single clutch game. They are 10 and oh in clutch games. Well, now Austin's hurt and Luke has gone down to a level below that of a top tier superstar. And Rob Pelinka has been exposed once again as incompetent in a barrier between the Lakers and where they want to get in terms of consistent success in this league. Number seven. The schedule is lightened up and the Golden State warriors are finally starting to come up for air and find their footing after an absolutely brutal schedule to start the season, the warriors are at an end of a stretch where they played just six games in 21 days. They haven't, they have two days off now, Friday and Saturday. At the end of that, they will have played just six times in 21 days. And that has allowed them a chance to get healthy and come up for air. They've won three games in a row now. Some of their older players, particularly Jimmy Butler and Al Horford yesterday, have started to look much better. Ironically, the young guys that they went with at the end of the season last year, Pods and Moody, those guys have come back to the surface and started to play much better basketball. And they've started to round out most of their best lineups again. It's interesting because that was the duo that was most successful yesterday. They just bring that best combination of like consistent effort, execution of the game plan and a natural fit in the offense. From a skill set standpoint, those guys seem to round everything out. D' Anthony Melton has been a stabilizer in their bench rotation. He's been one of their best plus minus guys ever since he returned. I think actually the blowup between Draymond and Steve Kerr will be good for Draymond because Draymond was playing some bad basketball and I think he needed a wake up call and I think everything surrounding that moment will help him get back on track. And in this three game streak, Steph has not shot the ball super well, which we know that will shift back in the positive direction. So I think there's an opportunity for this team to really start to go on a run and gain some momentum and gain some ground in the standings. Remember earlier in the year when I said that the Lakers were at best the sixth best team in the West? I said that because I'm not entirely sure the warriors aren't better than them too. I was watching them yesterday and I'm like, they just look like a better basketball team to me. They look faster, they look better on defense, they look more athletic in general. Their star is playing at a higher level than Luka right now in terms of creating offense for the team as a team unit. The, their secondary stars are healthy and are playing better than the secondary stars of the Lakers. Like they just, you know, they're, they're starting to gain some real momentum. I have a feeling they're going to go on a run here and start gaining ground in the standings over the course of the next couple of weeks. Number eight, Cooper Flag is the real deal. Another 27 points yesterday in his last six games. Cooper's averaging 28, 7 and 6 on 53% from the field and 35% from three, showcasing a lot of three level scoring. He started to kind of find his rhythm a few weeks ago with an intentional effort to drive the basketball. Getting him off the ball more off of those guards caused him to look more to be aggressive off the catch instead of managing the flow of games more. That got him going downhill more. He was getting a ton of stuff close to the rim, Short jump shots, floaters, push shots, stuff at the rim. And then in the last couple of games he's really started to add more dynamic shot making off the dribble, mid range stuff. Three point shooting. The Denver game in particular, he was shooting the shit out of the ball from three. There's this like big ball handler dynamic that can also drive the basketball that I think is going to be a big matchup problem for this league as he starts to enter into his prime. And this is something we've seen around the league. Jaylen Brown comes to mind as an example. Denny Avdia. When you have like a big athletic dude who's too big for guards but too fast for bigs and that also brings downhill pressure, like real speed attacking the rim on drives and then you can counter it with something, whether it's like Jaylen Brown's mid range shooting or Cooper flag and all these little push shots that he can make, or Denny Abdia's ability to get to the foul line. But then you can also make the kickout reads that combines into being a very effective shot creator in this league because because of the way the league is shifted towards, you know, you have these slower rim protectors and then you have these smaller guards all over the floor. These types of ball handlers seem to have two or three mismatches at all times on the floor that they can attack. As Luka has trended downwards and Cooper, Cooper's trended upwards. I know it doesn't completely remove the pain from what happened last February, but it has to at least cause a decent amount of optimism for the future. For Mavericks fans. Cooper has been looking fantastic. Number nine, Jalen Brunson seems to have a new backcourt running mate. Jalen had a rough shooting game yesterday in Madison Square Garden. Credit to the Cavs, I thought Sam Merrill in particular and then all of the Cavs five man units, I thought they did a good job of crowding Brunson and making him work for everything. But of course Jalen's been playing at the level of a top tier superstar. For a month or so he's ticked up his TRA true shooting percentage significantly and he's dropped his turnover significantly, which has made him like in that Shay Gil just Alexander territory of like low 30s in points per game, high 60s and true shooting percentage. Super low turnovers, super rare stuff from guards. Jalen's been in that territory for a few weeks now, so I was curious to see as he was having a tough game like will Jalen find a way to flip the script? Because that's the thing like when, when you talk about the top tier superstars, they usually just kind of like even when they're not at their best, they find a way to win the game. How many times have you seen a yokich game where he doesn't put up massive numbers and maybe he misses more of his layups and floaters than usual, but then he'll go 4 for 4 down the stretch with two assists and no turnovers and he just finds a way to steal the game because he's indomitable down crunch time. That's what Jalen Brunson felt like last night or yesterday in the morning. Just nails on his pull up jump shot down the stretch, all off that right side, short little jump around the leyline, a couple pull up threes along the right wing, all heavily contested and it just did not matter. And again, that's one of the hallmarks of a top tier superstar. But how about Tyler Kolek? Brunson spoke about him the other day and how important he's been for the team in this recent stretch and he had some massive catch and shoot threes off the left side of the floor to kind of stymied some late Cavs shot making gave the Knicks a chance to win this game. I've always liked Tyler as a bench guard just because he's solid like he runs action and he makes the right reads and he's just a steadying force with the bench unit. But he's starting to score the ball now. He had never scored in double figures this season. Three times in the last couple of weeks he's averaging 12 points per game to go with five rebounds and seven assists on 50% from the field, 42% from three and 100% from the line in his last five games. Big win for the Knicks against a Cavs team that frankly they looked like they were out for blood yesterday with the way they started that game 18 to 3. Something just feels different with the Knicks this year. They feel tougher. They feel like they're on a mission. They are still my pick to win the Eastern conference. Lastly, number 10. The Cavs did flash their upside finally yesterday. Spend the season from hell. They're 17 from 15 or 17 and 15 now. They're technically in the play in if the season ended today. Their injuries have been a nightmare. There's kind of like a lack of that spark that they had last year and the collapse was discouraging. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it wasn't. Their front line got punked on the glass again down the stretch. That's been a discouraging trend with this team for years now. I'd also credit the Knicks, though, like Tyler Colic and Jalen Brunson just made a bunch of contested threes at the end of the game. That that's tough to handle in a situation like that. Overall, I thought it was a super encouraging performance from the Cavs. They looked fast and disruptive on defense for stretches. Their offense looked as lively as it was last year for stretches. Darius Garland getting those drives and breaking down the defense consistently, which is a sign of his health. And again, you're not going to turn this thing around in a day. I thought yesterday was a good step in the right direction for them, even in the loss. All right guys, that's all I have for today. I had to kind of rush through the end of that because we're getting ready to take a flight back to Denver today, but I'm excited to dive into all these teams with you guys over the the course of the rest of the season. Christmas Day is more or less the start of the NBA season for most. We have a very interesting situation at the top of the league now thanks to San Antonio starting to demonstrate some of the vulnerabilities for Oklahoma City. That makes things way more exciting and and like it's it leaves a lot of unknown hanging over the season, which I think will give us a really fun next six months. Can't wait to break it all down with you guys. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and had an opportunity to spend some time with friends and family again. I'll be back in Denver starting next week and we'll get back to our usual routine starting on Monday. We do have a little bit of a a funky schedule next year surrounding New Year's, but we're going to do a contenders rankings videos with Sam Bassini. So we'll dig into how I feel about the contenders and like my brain is like broken compared to where it was 2 weeks ago thanks to San Antonio So a lot to dig into there. Uh, really excited to kind of take a snapshot of the league again. I hope everyone has a great week weekend. I will see you guys on.
- [54:03]
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- [54:54]
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- [55:25]
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Factors. What a matchup we got.
- [55:29]
Jason
Y'.
- [55:29]
Coca Cola Ad
All. This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. 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. Passionate 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.
- [56:12]
Halion / US Soccer Ad
Going. Everybody has goals and every goal starts with an assist, whether it's on the field or off. That's why Halion is teaming up with US Soccer to launch for the Assist. It's a new campaign that celebrates those everyday acts of support that help people achieve their goals. As the makers of trusted brands like Advil, Centrum, Tum, Sensodyne and Voltaren, Halion knows how to support everyday wellness goals. To learn more, go to helionassist.com.
- [56:42]
Jason
On Fox One now you can stream your favorite live sports so you can be there live for the biggest moments. Touchdown and catch history in the making. Me Fox One we live for live streaming now. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed.