← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - SGA & Thunder HANDLE spiraling Wolves + LeBron & Lakers hot streak, Spurs questions | NBA Reaction
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This is an iHeart podcast. 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 more@applecard.com when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Peace to the planet. Charlamagne Tha God here. And listen, we are back. The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back in Atlanta on April 25th at Pullman Yard. Yeah, and the full lineup is nuts. We got the Grits and Age Podcast, Deontay Kyle and Big Ice Cup Cat. We got Club 520 with Jeff Teague and the gang. Don't Call Me White Girl. Mona will be there. Keep it positive, Sweetie with Crystal Renee. We got Reality with the King with Carlos King. And yes, Drink champs will be in the building. Ok. Plus, you know we gonna have a lot of guests, so you need to join us. And we got the Black Effect Marketplace, the picture podcast and everything you expect from the Black Effect Podcast Festival. Tickets are on sale right now. Go get yours@blackffect.com podcast festival. Don't play yourself. Okay, pull up. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season two podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumprite became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Heavy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Got a JPEG show for you guys today. We're gonna do a deep dive into Timberwolves, Thunder our main national TV game from yesterday. And then at the tail end of the show, because we haven't done a mailbag in a couple of weeks, we're gonna do a mini mailbag. I've got five questions that we're gonna hit. We're gonna talk some spurs, we're gonna talk a little bit of follow up stuff on some Lakers, some big picture NBA stuff, then we'll get out of here today. You guys know the joke before we get started? Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video and sign up for post notifications. It helps us a lot. And then for future mailbags, drop your questions in our full episodes on YouTube. In the comments, right mailbag colon, write your question. That helps us sort through them in the comments. We'll get to them in mailbags throughout the rest of the way. Also, we're not doing power rankings because we're doing contender rankings on Wednesday. So we're going to be shifting our gears more towards the playoff picture anyway. And we're going to be doing a ranking of the teams on Wednesday. So that's why we're not doing a a power rankings video today. All right, let's dig into Timberwolves Thunder. So for the first time in this entire season, Shay Gilous Alexander hit less than a third of his shots. Shay has been one of the most consistent players in the league this year. Obviously you guys know about the 20 point streak where he just recently passed Wilt. He kept that alive with a 10 point fourth quarter yesterday against the Timberwolves. But one of the big reasons why Shea has a ridiculous 67% true shooting percentage this season, which is off the charts, is that he just doesn't have bad games. And again, that 67% is insane. To give you an idea, the last time we had a high volume guard hit that number was literally Steph Curry in 2016. So we are in really rarefied air there. That was when Steph won unanimous mvp. And you could argue Shea should be unanimous MVP this season. We'll see how that goes when we get to the end of the season. But one of the biggest reasons why Shea has that true shooting percentage is he's hit at least 50% of his shots in 41 of the 56 games he's played this season. That's 73% of the time. For some perspective, even Jokic, who's a center who takes the majority of his shots right at the front of the rim, hits 50% of his shots, 78% of the time. So Shea is near Jokic level in his night to night consistency with his efficiency and he was awful against the Timberwolves, especially in that first half. It was honestly strange to watch because I want to give the Timberwolves credit, they did defend him well. Anthony Edwards in particular logged a half dozen or so excellent ISO reps against him. Lots of different guys had great contests on his pull ups or managed to twist his feet up on one of his moves to disrupt his base. So he didn't get as much lift as he usually got. He got blocked at the rim a couple of times, but I also thought Shea was just playing a bad game. He was forcing the issue and taking some bad shots. It was just bizarre watching Shea play a bad game because he just never plays bad games. To his credit, I will say. And just like we talked about in the Saturday night show, for those of you guys who missed it, we covered Lakers nuggets in a episode that went out very late on Saturday nights. You can find that a little bit further back on our feed if you want to get the reaction to that game. But in that show I was talking about how with Luca, like Luca, because Lucas had just a really bad second half in that particular game, it's like you just got to stay with it. You got to find a way to make a play and he found a way to make some big plays in that second half. I don't care much for the 10 fourth quarter points that was after the game was basically out of reach. But in that third quarter things were teetering. The the Wolves were going on a little bit of a run. They had pushed it out to I think about nine and they just looked like the much more comfortable and confident team on both ends of the floor. It was teetering. It looked like it could go either way at that point. It could have gone the other way and Minnesota could have gone up by 15 and they could have got out of there with the win. In that run, Shay made two big time help side rotations at the rim. One on a lob to go bear and one on a drop off where he blew up what should have been dunks. And they were a big part of what sparked OKC getting back into that game. We talked about this about a week or two ago, but Shea has had some real defensive utility as a secondary rim protector and it's because he has long arms. We talked about this. Secondary rim protection is very different than primary rim protection. Primary rim protection, usually you're the first line of defense, usually the guy's coming screaming downhill at you and you're making a play, but you can get him to drop the ball off or you can get him to miss a layup and then the big is out of the play now, so somebody else has to come over to either defend that drop off or to defend an offensive rebound, right? And so these two examples with Shay were drop offs or lobs, but that secondary rim protection, one of the reasons why Shea is a smaller guard is able to still have success there is because he's got really good length for the position, right? So a lot of the secondary rim protection sequences are more based on like flat footed vertical leaping rather than like a running start kind of thing, right? Like if Gobert gets a pocket pass, catches it at the semicircle, and he's screaming downhill and he takes off two hands, two feet, Shay's not blocking that, right? But if Gobert's in a straight vert right under the basket, Shea is actually physically capable of making a play there. That secondary rim protection. Secondary rim protection tends to be more of that vertical leaping kind of thing. But I was impressed again. Like, I thought Shea was mostly terrible in that game. And I'm not going to be too hard on Shay because he just doesn't have bad games for the most part. It's not like this has been a recurring issue, but let's call it what it is. He had a terrible game, but he kept his composure and made a couple of big plays in that third quarter that helped his team on the defensive end of the floor. The defense was obviously the star of the game, particularly their ability to force turnovers. Casen Wallace, Alex Caruso, AJ Mitchell, Shay, Gil, Chet Holmgren all had multiple steals in this game. They had 13 steals just between those five guys. As a team, the Thunder force 25 turnovers and scored 29 points off of them running out the other way. Like, if you want to ask, how does a team have as much success as they did in this game, comfortably beating a championship contending level team in Minnesota, despite your superstar being unable to make a shot and having a bad floor game, you do it by dominating the margins. They were 20 to 7 in second chance points and 25 to 7 in points off of turnovers that literally flipped the entire game. Alex Caruso had a cool quote at the end of the third quarter. He was getting interviewed and he elaborated about how, like, he was asked, like, hey, Julius Randle's having success. What do you guys got to do? And Alex was talking about the idea of making them uncomfortable. It's such a simple concept, but it makes all the difference. How does a defense force turnovers? You'll sometimes just take the ball away from the perimeter, the primary ball handler, right? Like sometimes that'll happen, but it's not the most common thing in the world, right? Like Casey Wallace ripped Anthony Edwards in the back court, got a steal, went out and got a layup. But that's generally rare. Why? Because NBA ball handlers are really talented. They're usually not going to lose the ball there. For the most part. Your goal with ball pressure is to just try to speed up the ball handler, cause him to rush a little bit right from there behind him. You want to have aggression, right? So maybe you send a double team on a drive. Maybe you are denying swing passes or denying the easy reads that are available when high post guys are trying to catch the ball like around the elbow, three quarter front, get around and make it so that there's not much of a passing angle. You create scenarios where there are openings, but the offense has to execute perfectly in order to beat you, right? A pass to a three quarter front is tough. If they are denying the first reads and sending help on a drive. A skip pass is tough. Doing all that while handling ball pressure is tough. That's the point. Like, right, like it's really hard to execute perfectly when you're rushed. So by getting up into the basketball to make the guy uncomfortable and by taking away the easy reads, you make the offense be extremely disciplined. They have to be perfect and that's difficult to do when you are rushed. That's why you get up into the basketball even in just one on one situations. So forget about like team defense like that. Let's say, hey, we don't want to help off because this guy can really shoot, or we're having a trouble with the roll man, or whatever it is that situation becomes even statically in a one on one situation, it's still about making them uncomfortable. If you allow a player who behind the scenes is doing workouts or he's chaining together dribble combinations and hitting tough shots off the dribble and you allow him to do that in an NBA game, he's going to make them, you have to get up underneath them to make them uncomfortable, to make it so that they don't feel like they're just in a groove in the gym by themselves, but rather they're in more of a rock fight type of environment. That's why it's so important. It's one of the defining characteristics of this Thunder team and then they add on to it with very specific personnel strengths that make it exceptionally hard to deal with. Like having a real rim protector in Chet Holmgren, right? So you have real length at the rim, having a ton of speed and rotation so that even when a team does make their correct read, they can recover out of it much of the time. Outside of that second quarter where Randle got going, OKC pretty much handled Minnesota's offense. I'm super excited to tell you guys about our new partnership with Vuori. Those of you guys who are familiar with Vuori have noticed that I've been wearing it on the show almost every day now for several years. Today I am wearing the Ponto Performance Half Zip, one of my favorites from them. It's straight up the most comfortable hoodie that I've ever worn, but it's also super versatile. It's something that looks very nice that I can wear out when I'm running errands or going to get lunch with my wife, but it's also like this super stretchy, dry fit fabric that I can wear when I'm going to play basketball here in Colorado. It's cold as heck and so sometimes I get up at 7 o' clock in the morning to go play basketball. 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And then the offensive glass was huge. I mean again, 20 to 7 in second chance points. They got 15 offensive rebounds. They really kicked Minnesota's ass on the offensive glass. Started early. Isaiah Hartenstein was just basically manhandling Rudy Gobert. Kind of a weird Rudy Gobert game. We'll get to that in a minute. And then from there the perimeter players just guys just out hustling that speed just out hustling Minnesota to lose balls again. That bought OKC the margin to survive a bad Shay game. You go into that game and you go, hey, Shea's going to have this type of game. You think Minnesota is going to win, right? They bought themselves a massive margin for error by controlling those two margins. And then I thought the Thunder just got enough offensive juice down the line, right? Like I thought Chet was amazing in this game. He poured in 21 points. Did work on the offensive glass. Hit a couple of really nice like short pull up jump shot jump shots against contests like little 10 footers that are really impressive shots that I think are going to help Oklahoma City in the playoffs. Did some work as a role man. Did some work in transition. Obviously was great on defense. It's a beautiful two way game from him. Isaiah Joe Port in 20 obviously hit four threes, but he also got open on cuts a few times. He's actually sneaky. Really good at this give and go kind of thing where like he'll run towards the ball and he'll catch, you know, pump fake and then he'll pass the ball and just immediately back cut. He ended up getting a couple buckets out of those in this game. And then Jared McCain, man, he catches a heater in that second half. Really blows the game open. He already has natural chemistry with Isaiah Hartenstein, is like a DHO partnership kind of thing. Hartenstein's really good at those, like Draymond passes, right? We've seen this with him with Steph for years where like Steph is sprinting off and then Draymond would like throw between the legs pass and then just rock the dude with the screen or behind the back pass and just rock the dude with the screen. Hartenstein was doing that with Jared McCain in this game and helping him break free. And then McCain. Those shots, those are like extremely difficult movement shooting shots where like he's sprinting full speed into perfect footwork, right? Like he won. Going left and going right and slow him down. The one going to his left, right, left. The one going to his right, left, right, squaring up in midair. That's all textbook, fundamental movement, movement, shooting, footwork. But it's also really difficult to do. It's really difficult when you're running full speed from a leg strength standpoint to stop yourself on a dime and get straight up and down and knock the shot down. Just really, really impressive shot making from Jared McCain. They blew it open and the Thunder never looked back from there. Last note on the Thunder before we move on. I can't say enough about how important Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso are to this team. Obviously, Sam Presti pulled off a really impressive rebuild. The Paul George trade to get Shay Gilaxander, all the gems he found in the draft, the culture that him and Mark Diagnolt have built in that organization. But they also, like Sam Presti, absolutely nailed those two moves in the summer of 2024 for those two guys. And they have just perfectly rounded out this team into a perennial contender. Make that eight in a row now for the Thunder as they ramp up for their title defense on the Timberwolves front. First of all, I have to talk about this stuff. With their effort, the Wolves looked like absolute garbage all week. I know the Lakers needed a signature win, but when I talk about the Lakers signature win, I'm really wins. I'm looking at like the Knicks game and the Nuggets game. I watched that Wolves game last Sunday against the Lakers and I was appalled at how bad they looked. They turned around the next night and gave 150 points to the Clippers. They might be the worst regular season effort and energy team of any real serious contending team that I've ever seen. The closest thing I can think of because I was thinking about this this morning, like is, can I remember a team where they like straight up weren't playing hard most of the time? The 2017 Cavs was what I came up with. I remember that entire season people were talking about the Cavs like potentially going to be losing in the Eastern Conference playoffs because of how mediocre they looked all year. I never was really worried and they were never worried. But that's because nobody in the east was capable of beating them. They knew Golden State was the only team that they really had problems with and they were right. They mailed it in all regular season and if it wasn't for Avery Bradley hitting that little game winner, we got a favorable bounce off the front of the rim. They would have swept to the Eastern Conference. This is not the 2017 Eastern Conference. The west is brutal. Oklahoma City is clearly better than them. And then Denver, LA and San Antonio at least, and maybe Houston are all right there with you. You need to be at your best for these matchups. And it deeply bothers me how often the Timberwolves literally practice playing bad basketball. They talk about, oh, NBA teams don't practice. Yes they do. That's what the 82 is for. It's 82 full length opportunities. Obviously it has importance in the regular season standings, but as we know, thanks to the plan you can get away with a lot of bad basketball in the regular season and still make the playoffs. These are your practices and it just bothers me how much they practice playing poorly. It feels like they're trying to cheat the process. And you guys know how high I am on Minnesota. I think they have a real shot to win the whole thing. Their talent levels off the charts. But there is a process to becoming a championship team. A six month long regular season practice. And I just wish that the Timberwolves cared more about becoming the best version of themselves. It keeps bringing me back to Chris Finch because I also hate the way they play on offense. They don't play fast, they don't play with pace, they don't play with verve. They don't move the basketball around. They don't move around off the basketball. They rarely run organized offense. They rely almost solely on the ability of their stars to break the defense down off the bounce, which can lead to some horribly ugly stretches of offense from them. Them rarely playing hard and having such a rudimentary offense relative to their talent, it reflects poorly on Finch. Now it may not all be Finch's fault. We've talked about this before. Sometimes locker rooms just tune out their head coaches. Sometimes you just need a change. But if the Wolves end up losing in a first round or second round series this year, I would seriously consider making a change ahead. Coach try to bring in a new voice, someone that can get more consistent engagement out of them in the regular season and that can help revamp this offense. I thought Julius Randle was mostly great. That was a bright spot in this game. I've talked about this before with Oklahoma City, but if you're a big ball handler that can handle and shoot and make basic passing reads, you can have a lot of success against the Thunder because they're kind of small and one of their bigs is kind of thin. Julius was able to turn the corner on Chad a couple times yesterday. I thought Julius was more or less getting wherever he wanted on the floor today. It's proof of concept in a lot of ways to me as I look at a potential Minnesota Oklahoma City matchup in this year's playoffs, it really comes down to turnovers. If their stars can keep getting to their spots and if they can read the floor well enough to make Oklahoma City help or pay for helping, they can score against these guys and we know they can guard them. Today was another example of them having a pretty solid half court defense game against okc. But if they're turning the ball over constantly and they're getting killed on the offensive glass, if they're getting demolished in the margins, they're drawing dead in this matchup. But we've seen time and time again Ant can get to the rim against these guys. Julius Randle can get wherever he wants against these guys. I was pretty disappointed in Ants third quarter in particular. I thought the game was there for the taking. Shay was having his worst game of the season. Julius is playing really well. Ant had found some success over the course of the first half, like getting to the rim Hit a couple of jump shots. If he would have had a great third quarter, the Wolves would have gone up by 15 and they probably would have won that game. But instead, I thought Ant was brutally bad in that third quarter, especially on offense where he repeatedly missed easy reads. Forced the issue with some really, really bad shot selection. Doris Burke correctly called out one in particular where Julius Randle, who's hot, and his jump shot feels good standing wide open on the right wing and Ant just forces his way down the lane. Again with Ant, we all know the talent level is absurd, but it's about him playing mature basketball, reading the floor, making the right play more often than not. The clips about him, you know, post game pressers talking about how him shooting is always the right decision. It's funny and it's endearing and I do want it to be aggressive. I think that his kind of like, spectrum for what I consider to be a good shot for him is very different than it is for most stars in the league. But it has to be focused a little bit more. And I thought he hurt his team in that third quarter with the shot selection. Rudy Gobert. Rudy's had a good season overall, but he was incredibly frustrating in this game. He actually defended really well. His ability to shut the rim off on most of those sequences was causing problems for Oklahoma City. Had a couple of, like, lingering switches where he helped show slow down some shade drives too. I thought he was defending really well, but he got his ass kicked on the offensive glass. Seven rebounds with how well Oklahoma City was crashing. That's bad. And then he can't finish anything around the rim on drop offs and lobs, which is kind of always been the case with Rudy. But he's been better this season with that stuff and it was dramatically undercutting his defensive success in this game. I did think I odesunmu was a rare bright spot. He just came in and played with a lot of pace and speed, which this team desperately needs when they're stuck in the mud offensively the way they can get at times. I still believe in the wolves, but I'm teetering a little bit. I'm super disappointed with how they've looked in the last 10 days or so. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock bet. Florida's sportsbook march is here, and that means college basketball takes center stage. The stakes are rising, the shots are falling, and now's the time to hit the hardwood with Hard Rock bet. Sign up today and double your winnings on your first 10 bets. Max $50. That's right. Your winnings are doubled on your first 10 bets. So if you would have won 100 bucks on your bet, make that 200. That's how you start March hot. And the welcome offer is just the tip off all tournament long. 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A big part of the Lakers success this first question. A big part of the Lakers success in the playoffs has to be LeBron. Of course Luka has to be playoff. Luca Reeves cannot be the playoff Reeves of the last years. He has to step up in the playoffs like he has this year in the regular season and the role players have to star in their roles. But LeBron is already looking gassed in a regular season game. He has to be at least 80% of the LeBron James we know he has been previously in the playoffs. If he is gassed in a game against Denver at home by halftime, how will he play a seven game series against the young spurs in Oklahoma City? Very good question. I want to dive into this concept just a little bit. Specifically the boxes that have to be checked in order for the Lakers to achieve their goals this year. Which I think honestly if even if you ask the guys in the locker room on some truth serum, I think they just say like they want to have a competitive showing. They want to look like a good playoff team regardless of where they lose. If they lose in the first round, second round, third round, they want to look like a good competitive playoff team. They're checking lots of boxes along the way. Box 1. Luka Doncic has to play like an MVP for the most part. This year he has, but he's had some downstretches, particularly surrounding the Slovenia trip, which now we understand there was some backstory there. And then two, he had this weird stretch surrounding the All Star break on both ends, basically early February to early March, 10 game span where he 30 only twice out of 10 games. But other than that, he's been pretty good. And I would say, especially over the last couple of weeks, he's been fantastic. And the big thing is, is. And I have Luca fans all the time. They're like, well, what about his numbers? It goes deeper than that. He's trimmed his turnovers down. He's been at just three turnovers a game since. Since coming back from his little brief hamstring scare. That's really impressive. He's cleaned up his turnovers from. They were up to almost five at a point in the middle part of the season, right? And then two. The three point shot's been on for a long time, so he was missing a lot of step back threes early in the year, which was sparking transition opportunities. He's cleaned that up. He's been like nails on his pull up three for a while now. And then three, he's been playing really good defense ever since the. Ever since coming back from his hamstring injury. So, like, this is the Luca that is capable of helping the Lakers reach their goals. 2. You need Austin Reeves to be in full rhythm. I, I really think that the biggest part that was missing from the Lakers during that couple of months there where everyone was out on them, including myself and the conversation even surrounding LeBron and like his fit, most of it came down to the fact that Reeves was just hurt and out of rhythm. Like this stretch right here. These last four games or five games from Austin, this is the first time since early December that Austin Reeves has had consecutive 20 point games. It's the first time since early December that Austin Reeves has actually been healthy and in rhythm. And he just completely changes the flow of the team offensively because he's one of the few guys that can consistently get to the rim. Luca doesn't get to the rim. He gets to the room about half as often as he did a couple of years ago. So, like, Austin's ability to get to the rim is vitally important to this team. Austin being back and being in rhythm has made the team look substantially better. That's the second box checked, right? That one of the most important things to remember as it pertains to the data, because you guys keep hearing, oh, the Lakers can't play with LeBron. The Lakers can't play with LeBron. It is true that the numbers with LeBron, with the guys early in the season sucked. They were bad. Why? Because LeBron had sciatica and he missed training camp and he jumped in and ramped up in the middle of an NBA season in November. And yeah, all the data from back then sucked. The Lakers got their butts kicked with those three on the floor. That, that. But that was a very different LeBron than the LeBron that's healthy and in rhythm right now. The LeBron Austin Luca Trio in 222 minutes since Austin returned from his calf injury is outscoring teams by 12 points per 100 possessions. They've been fantastic since then and that's with only a 115 offensive rating, which I think will skyrocket now that Austin's actually in rhythm because for a while there he wasn't in rhythm. If you had Marcus smart to those three guys, that foursome on the entire season has a plus 15 net rating. So, like, I don't think there's any debate anymore as to whether or not Luka and Austin can be in rhythm alongside LeBron. We just saw two examples in the last two games and again, we have a pretty large sample size of data here. Right. The third box that needs to be checked is their defense. We needed to see the Lakers actually play mediocre defense. They don't have the personnel to be a great defense, but can they be a mediocre defense? They're 12th in defensive ratings since the All Star break. I've been telling you guys, 12 to 15 is that range they need to be in there. It's not the same as doing it for a whole season. We'll see if they can sustain it over the final month. But the Lakers have finally found their individual defensive ceiling as a team and they're finally getting to that level. The fourth box, actually, I'm going to add one more. So the fourth box before we get to LeBron. The fourth box is role player shooting. They were having a huge problem paying off sequences throughout the regular season with guys hitting shots. Marcus Smart has been over 40% from 3 for a few months now. Marcus Smart is hitting. Rui Hachimura is healthy in the lineup and hitting Austin Reeves healthy in the lineup and hitting Luka Doncic now is hitting like his threes at a much higher rate than he did in the early part of the season. And you get a deal for Luke Canard done that brings in another guy that's shooting. So as a team, the three point shooting is dramatically better than where it was. The fifth box is LeBron, and I would argue this is the box that has to be checked if the Lakers are going to like surprise everyone and win a playoff series. Like if we were shocked and it was like, oh my God, the Lakers are playing against the Thunder in the Western Conference finals and probably losing, it would be because this fifth box gets checked. Okay, so Luke has reached the MVP level. Austin Reeves is back healthy and in rhythm. The team has found a groove defensively and role players are hitting shots. The last piece is the LeBron piece. Now, I think in terms of play style, LeBron has done a great job since he came back. He has been great defensively, he's been great on the glass, he's been great as a connective playmaker. The last piece for LeBron is, like you mentioned, he did look fatigued. He's got to be able to get back into shape from his little break that he took and stay healthy throughout the rest of the season. And then I think there's a higher level offensively that he needs to get to the catch and shoot threes. He's got to shoot the ball better from three and then two. He's got to start converting some of these post ups in that Nuggets game, for example, a couple of those post ups where he just gets stonewalled by Bruce Brown, he's got to win that battle. The reason why he does is because if you look at the Oklahoma City matchup in particular, but any matchup that has really good ball pressure, guards, that can cause problems for Austin Reeves, all of a sudden, Austin Reeves, his value offensively shifts a little bit and LeBron becomes more valuable because he can attack out of the post. If that option isn't there for the Lakers, that's a problem. And so the final box, this fifth box for the Lakers is LeBron's got to find a higher level offensively as a catch and shoot guy and as a post up player. If he can do that and all those other boxes stay in, in a good spot. Role players keep hitting shots, Defense stays mediocre. Austin and Lucas stay in rhythm. LeBron brings a little bit more offensive punch. That team is every bit as good as all of the second tier contenders. That team can beat anybody, right? As an upset, do I think they'll win four playoff rounds? No. I would be stunned if the Lakers won four playoffs. Like absolutely stunned. I'd be stunned if they won three. I'd be Stunned if they made it to the Western Conference finals. But that group, checking those boxes, I do think can win a first round series and look competitive in a second round series before getting eliminated. This is a really good one. Do you think the Lakers regret rescinding the Mark Williams trade? I think he'd be a better fit than Ayton and his defense has improved a lot. Your biggest critique of him last season. Love the show. Been listening for years. Thank you so much for supporting the show. This is a really interesting question. Now, to be clear, I don't want to take a victory lap here because I did not think Mark Williams was a good defender when I was watching the tape from Charlotte. So I'm not sitting here saying like, oh, the Lakers should have traded for Mark Williams. No. But the Suns correctly identified an opportunity with Mark in his potential on defense. And the health stuff has so far to this point not been a major issue. Mark Williams, the Mark Williams we've seen in Phoenix, that's been an elite drop coverage, big. That has been a guy that's had utility as a rebounder and as a finisher on offense. That guy would certainly be a big help for the Lakers. Now the one complication I'd add here is the Suns are running a lot of drop coverage, like deep drop coverage with Mark Williams, and it's working. The Lakers do a lot more switching and they don't have a lot of guys that are like great at getting over the top of screens and funneling. So I don't, I don't think it would have looked as good defensively with the Lakers as it did with Phoenix. But yeah, in retrospect, given new information, which is that turns out Mark Williams is a good defensive player and turns out he was able to play this season. Yeah, like, in retrospect, he would have been a great fit for the Lakers. But again, we only have the information we had available at the time. And the information at the time was he had really bad defensive tape in Charlotte and he had health issues. So I'm not going to like blame the Laker. Like, I don't think Rob Polinka missed out on Mark Williams. I just think in retrospect, now, knowing what we know, he would have been a good fit. Next question. How do you feel about San Antonio's experience? I know they haven't made the playoffs as a unit together, but they have two championships winning Vets and Cornet and Barnes. Fox is a playoff. But Wemby carried his team in France to their Finals as a teenager and he carried France in the Olympics to a silver medal versus the US In a really good game where he was the entire game's leading scorer. He is no stranger to high pressure scenarios. So I will say specifically with Wemby, you got to take like the Wemby part and kind of set it aside. And then there's like the rest of the team, because my kind of recalibration with the spurs in terms of their youth separates Wemby from the other young players. Wemby is so good defensively right away that, like, I don't think he's going to have as much of a difficulty translating to the playoffs. I'm not going to read harp on this because we've talked about it a lot. The comp that I would use is Anthony Davis in New Orleans walked into the playoffs and was a monster. Why? Because he's a defense, a defensive player who's an awesome play finisher. So there's just like a ton of damage that he's going to do no matter what. Even if he does struggle to shoot, even if he does struggle with some physicality, he's just still going to be deeply impactful. It's the other younger guys that I worry about. The playoffs have such a unique feel in the sense that, like, the pressure mounts immediately. You can see players crumble mentally. Every team you get to the postseason and you have like within. Within the first half of the first game, you're like, oh, that dude can't play in this series. Or oh, like this dude's got a great matchup. Right? Like certain things scream off the screen right away in the postseason. There are going to be very intentional efforts to play the spurs guards into their weaknesses, even though there are experienced players there. Cornett has experience, as you mentioned. Harrison Barnes has experience as you mentioned. Even Wemby has been in some big games, as you mentioned. But I specifically worry about, like, Steph Castle, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, Dylan Harper, these guys having like, oh, they missed their first two or three threes. And now the pressure is mounting and it just gets really tough. And what happens is the defenses almost exaggerate the way that they tilt their game plan towards those weaknesses until you prove that you can beat them. And so again, I will say, to be clear, we're about to do our contender rankings. I absolutely think the spurs can win the championship. I do not think it's the same as, like, OKC two years ago. I think that this spurs team, because the Wemby problem is so unique. I think they're very capable of going on a title run this year. But I do think it'll have to be with them dealing with some down downturns from their younger players. Because NBA history just tells us guys, again, like my dad used to say this to me and it's the truth. Like, the best indicator of future performance is past performance. Like that works for individuals, but it also works when we look at the rest of the league. We got to learn from history and history just tells us that these teams tend to struggle a little bit. Now what usually ends up happening is like the second playoff run. A lot of times teams can be ahead of schedule. Okc last year, the Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, OKC teams, right? Like sometimes they can be ahead of schedule once they start getting playoff experience. But is I straight up cannot think of an example of a team having their very first playoff run together as a bunch of young players just ripping through and winning the trophy? It's just exceedingly rare. But again, like, if you're a Spurs fan, what you've got to cling to there in terms of your hope is specifically the Victor Wyama thing. Like, so, for instance, like Steph Castle, the Hornets game, Victor Wyama dominates the the Hornets game literally just because he shuts off the rim against Musa Diabate and Ryan Calbrenner. And it's kind of another side thing that I've been thinking about with the Spurs. I don't think you can beat the spurs if your centers can't provide real offensive utility. I mean like not just dunks, but like have some sort of high level shooting talent or some high level posting up talent. Like your bigs have to be skilled against Wemby because if Wemby can guard your center and just park his ass underneath the basket, you're drawing dead against the Spurs. And the Hornets were a classic example of that. Their offense could not sustain anything against the spurs because of what Wemby was doing to Moussa. Diabatte and Ryan Calbrand are just camping out in the paint, right? How many times did we see Musa Dibatti catch on the role and be like, oh fuck, like what am I going to do? Right? Like, it just is really difficult. Steph Castle demonstrated his amazing lob chemistry with Victor Wembanyama in that game. We've talked a ton about that. He just has such a great natural feel for where and when to hit Wemby on his roles. So like right out the gates in the postseason, I think Wemby is going to get four or five lob dunks a game and be the best defensive player in the history of the entire league. When he's shutting defenses down, that just gives him such an enormously high floor that even if he doesn't hit threes, which he's been shooting the three extremely well as of late, and even if he doesn't do well in his ISOs, he's just going to have such a profoundly impactful performance. So their margin is big, their defense is great, which will keep them in all their games. I just worry about their guards. I think a lot of it's going to kind of disseminate down to Dear and Fox pick and roll, and he's just not as good as some of the other ball handlers that they're going to face around the Western Conference. Two more and we're out of here. Love the show. You're one of the few people I consistently go to for in depth and thoughtful basketball analysis. Really appreciate the dedication to the attention and the attention to detail in each game. Love it when you call it specific plays in each game. What other channels podcast shows would you recommend for your listeners to tune into? I often go to channels like JD for his nerd highlights, Zach Lowe, nerd sesh, et cetera. Okay, so this is complicated. First of all, thank you for the kind words and for supporting the show. So I used to listen to a lot more basketball content before I worked in the space. I my entire life involves basketball to the point where it can get to be a little much sometimes. Obviously I cover the league and I watch a ton of games. I also am a fan, so like, you know, Lakers games in particular, like I watch them as a fan, you know, like, I like a lot of the games that I watch for the rest of the league. I watch in the mornings and I watch on watch the film and I like deep dive into the film and I deep dive into numbers. A lot of times, like I'll just hang out with my wife and watch a Lakers game and I'll relax and try to like enjoy it. Right? I play a ton of basketball. I'm playing pickup twice a week and I play in a men's league twice a week. So I'm playing four times a week. My wife used to play in college. We do shooting workouts together. So like we do like I go shoot with her. So like I live and breathe the game of basketball all the time. And so I was kind of looking for a spot where I could get a break and that downtime when I get to listen to stuff is when I've been taking that break. And so I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I listen to a lot of music during that sort of time. So I don't listen to anywhere near as many basketball podcasts as I used to. The two that I regularly listen to are one, Zach Lowe, who I think is excellent at his job. He's just kind of like a role model for me, someone that I look up to. So he's a guy that I watch a lot of and then not as much as I'd like to, but I would say that I probably catch a Zach Lowe episode about once every other week. And then the Laker Film Room podcast with Pizzais and Darius Soriano. If you're a Laker fan and you're not listening to Pete and Darius, you're missing out. They are die hard, real Laker fans that go back decades and decades and decades. They do such a fantastic job of capturing like the culture of the Laker fan base in their show, but at the same time, it's just a pure love of the game that comes out in the way that they break it down. Pete and Darius each kind of bring their unique element to it. I just think they're awesome. If you're looking for a team specific pot, as a Lakers fan, I'd highly recommend that one you mentioned Nerd Sesh guys. Those guys are just my buddies. Like I, I, I was texting with Carson literally during the the Thunder Wolves game. I just love talking basketball with him. Like he came on the show to do the a bam 83 thing the other day. I just love the Nerd Sesh guys. They're, I'm just really big fans of their work. But yeah, again, I don't listen to anywhere near as many basketball podcasts and things like that as I used to, just simply because I've been looking for a break. Last question. Hey Jason, love your show and the depth of analysis you provide. All of us viewers keep up the great work. Thanks again for the kind words. My question to you is about NBA offense sequencing. A big baseball fan and something that is obviously so important for pitchers is how they sequence their pitches. For those of you guys who don't know what he means when he says sequence pitches, it's just like setting up like fastball off speed in, in a way that tries to get the batter off balance, essentially. When I watch NBA offenses, I always wonder how teams go about calling their actions. Now, what points in the game are they most effective? Do teams have a first 15 reference to football. Like a set of plays that, that like a script that you run on your first drive or a set of actions that they know they'll start the game with. And as the game goes on, do they adjust accordingly or do teams have different actions for different opposing team lineups? Even on a possession to possession basis, most teams have a couple of actions that they know are advantageous for them. So how do they decide how to sequence them? I never hear this being praised or criticized about a team, so I'm very curious about your thoughts on this. Thanks again for all you do. Jason. Thanks again for the kind words. So they, to your point, the pitch sequencing, that's literally my favorite part about baseball. I grew up playing baseball. I grew up playing little league and I was a pitcher for most of my childhood, so I always like, loved that. And when I'm watching baseball, it to me is the most fascinating chess match part of it. The script part in the NFL is really fascinating, right? So like you have a list of 15 plays or whatever that you're going to run on your first drive. And they're all meant to build on each other and set each other up, right? Basketball games have so much more flow side to side that it's difficult to do that. But what teams will do is one, they almost always have a play that they're going to run to start a half or a quarter, right? So like in and out of timeouts too. So out of any sort of stoppage, whether it's first play the game, first play out of a timeout, first play of a new quarter, you're going to have a set play. And that set play is going to be something that you want to start the game with, set the tone with, right? Usually it's going to be designed to drop for a wide open three or four dunk, right? But from there it's all flow. And what will end up happening is a coach in their game plan will, in the shoot around especially will be like, hey, here are like four or five different actions that we want to run tonight because they, we think they will work against this team, their personnel and the way they're guarding, right? So like, maybe it'll be a drop coverage beater, maybe it'll be like a specific play to attack a certain matchup that they think that they have a favorable matchup in. Maybe it's a high drop beater or a blitz beater, right? Like you, you look at the team you're playing, okay, we're playing the Lakers they're switching a lot. Okay, we're playing Boston. They're running deep drop coverage. Okay, we're playing the Nuggets. They're going to be up at the level. Okay, we're playing the Warriors. They're going to be playing three small guards most of the game. Like, whatever it is, you're going to have like a little kind of set of like four or five actions out of your playbook that you're like, these are the ones we really want to get to tonight. And those actions have multiple reads. So, like, a lot of times, to your point about sequencing, a lot of times the sequence is actually just the same play over and over again, but you're just looking for a different read. So, like, maybe it's a play where you run an inverted ball screen for your big. Like the one that they constantly run in Charlotte with, like, LaMelo back screening for Moussa Diabate at the elbow as he rips, right? That's a play that Charlotte starts almost every game with. The first play you run it, you might get a dunk, right? But what you do is usually if a play works, you keep running it, because what ends up happening is usually a team makes an adjustment. So maybe you run the exact same thing, except for this time, LaMelo Balls man hangs back to help on Musa Diabate's drive. And now all Musa has to do is turn around and pitch it back to Lamelo and he's wide open. If Lamelo catches there, it probably flows into another part of the action, right? Like we've seen that with the Lakers Horn sets, right, like the LeBron will have. The post entry will come in to LeBron at the elbow and Luka will cut off of him and LeBron will look for Luca. And if Luka's open, he'll hit him. But if he's not, he's going to flow into that ball screen off of Jackson Hayes or Deandre Ayton. If LeBron can get a look there, he'll take it. If the big man shows and Ayton's open, he'll throw the ball to Ayton in the pocket. If they successfully defend it, it flows into this dribble handoff with Austin Reeves coming out of the corner, which then flows into another ball screen. Like all these plays, a lot of times, what you'll see is, okay, this plays working. We're getting a good look out of it. Let's keep running it until they show they can stop it and just take the different reads that are available and then if that doesn't work, maybe you try something different, but you have like four or five different plays that you'll periodically go to. A lot of times they'll go to them off of made baskets, so off of misses if there's a transition opportunity you want to push. But if there's any sort of slow walk the ball up, the coach might call a play from the sideline and they'll try to get into their action. And I generally think the teams that run more organized offense perform better. But again, you're not going to have a script like 15 plays. You're usually going to have a play that you come out of every time out or dead ball situation with or in a slowdown walk the ball up the court and again, you're usually just going to spam that action until they show that they can defend. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. My voice is going to get a rest for a couple days. Hopefully when you guys see me on Tuesday, I sound a lot better. I'm recording this on Sunday. Again, I always appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We got some fun game reactions for Tuesday planned. I will see you guys. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.