← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Spurs-Pistons Reaction: Wemby & Castle DOMINATE + Cade Cunningham learns important lessons
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Malcolm Glauble
The Volume.
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Hoops Tonight Host
All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great beginning to your week. Got a quick show for you guys today. We're going to be hitting one game from last night as we had a showdown between two of the best young teams in the league. As the San Antonio spurs roll up into Detroit, pretty much control them in a big road win there. Got a lot to dig into from that game. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video and sign up for our post notifications. It helps us a lot. And last but not least, if you want to get mailbag questions into our Friday mailbag, drop them under this episode or any of our other full episodes and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So as we said, a very fun showdown between two of the best young teams in the league. The Pistons. They've been both the best team in the league by record and by number of like impressive wins going into the game. They had been by far and away the best team in the NBA this season against the upper level teams and going into the night having the best record. Just very simply, the Pistons had been the most impressive NBA team so far this season. Meanwhile, San Antonio has been fantastic as well. They came in on an eight game winning streak last night was their ninth in a row. They've consistently held down the two seed in a very competitive west. And so it was just an awesome little showdown, little measuring stick game for both of these teams. And the half court dynamic became problematic for Detroit right away. Predictably, Victor Weyama was shutting off the rim on basically every kind of attack that Detroit was trying to unleash towards the basket. Deep drop on any of the pick and roll looks when he was guarding their centers. So when he was guarding Jalen Duran or Paul Reed, just shutting off the guy driving at him and the roller in those, in those particular sequences he guarded Ron Holland some on some sequences when Detroit had their lesser shooters on the floor, they tuck him away on Ron Holland and just have him hang out at the rim. And there are just so many different ways that Wemby can break an offense. He can pretty easily shut off pick and roll but again kind of splitting the difference between the ball handler and the roller. He shut down when Detroit tried to go more towards a matchup attacking type of style. Like we saw Cade searching for answers all night long and we're Going to talk about that in a minute. But especially in that fourth quarter, he started to try to look at a few more ISO looks, a few more post ups, try to find different ways to attack Wemby. And Wemby was just still swatting those attempts away at the rim, even just interior passing in the first half. JV Bigger staff ran this, like, kind of nifty play. Just a little cross screen for Jaylen Duran to try to get him a post catch on the right block. And Wemby ended up, because there was a third screen involved, Wendy Wemby ended up stepping out for a second to show on a different guard screen. And so he got caught off guard and Dern broke free wide open under the basket post entry pass gets made when he just recovers and then reaches over the top, it pokes it away and it leads to a turnover. And I'm like, oh, my God. You literally ran a play to perfection and got Jalen Dern, one of the best under the basket presences in the league, a wide open catch. And Wemby, just because he's got arms that go on for days, just poked it away anyway, it's just he does so much to break offense with his presence around the rim, and that was a problem for Detroit all night. I also want to shout out Steph Castle here. Like, Steph was phenomenal in this game in so many facets, especially on offense, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But his on ball defense on Cade was a real factor in this game. He's big, he's got a high motor, he moves laterally super well. He's very good at disrupting rhythm. He's again, that dynamic with Wemby at the rim was basically turning Cade into a jump shooter. And so Steph's job at that point is to like, because he had forced a bunch of stuff at the rim, and you know, Cade ended up getting blocked six times. Like, that just wasn't working right. So essentially, Cade becomes a jump shooter. Steph's job there is to try to disrupt his base, disrupt his rhythm, and get good contests on the jump shots. And I just thought he did a phenomenal job there all game long. And then in the half court, Detroit managed just a 67 offensive rating last night. And again, that was with them doing quite a bit of damage on the offensive glass. They had, I think, over 20 points in this game just on putback. So, like, a lot of damage on the offensive glass and yet still only a 67 offensive rating in the half court. Just a very impressive defensive performance in the half court for that young San Antonio spurs team. I want to switch gears here and talk about Cade for a minute because there was a lot of discourse about him after last night's game that I didn't necessarily agree with. And look, it was a bad game. He went 5 for 26 from the field. Like we mentioned, he got blocked six times in this game. There were definitely some low lights in there, some bad forced early jump shots in the shot clock, some bad forces at the rim, especially in that fourth quarter stretch. Couple of ugly turnovers. Like I'm not going to sit here and make the case that Cade was good last night because he just wasn't. That's not what I'm trying to say here. But there are two points that I want to make about his approach in this game that I think are worth considering. One, this Victor Weyama problem is still a relatively new and unique problem around the league. Like believe it or not, because Wemby missed both Pistons games last year and then they each were never on the floor together in Wemby's rookie season, there is yet to be a an opportunity for K to go against Victor Wembanya. This was his very first time trying to solve the Wemby problem and that's kind of how this stuff manifests. Like all of the great defenses in the league like look different, right? Like Minnesota's is more based on length and you know, Oklahoma City's is more based on quickness on the ground. San Antonio's obviously a combination of both because they've got some bigger perimeter players, but they also have Wemby at the rim. Each of the great defenses around the league present a unique puzzle for all of our great shot creators around the NBA to solve. And Kate did not solve the spurs last night by any means, but he did come away with a lot of information about what works and what doesn't. He's going to have a lot to learn when he goes to look at the film. And so the Pistons played the spurs again here in less than two weeks and I do think K down when they go to to San Antonio will at least play a little bit better as he gets a little bit more familiar with what this defensive look looks like. Like, to put it simply, Cade isn't the first guy to run into Victor Women Yama and have an oh shit kind of moment where he realizes that this is very different than everything else that he's dealt with. Two, the this Pistons offense is kind of a Nightmare matchup with San Antonio because they don't have close to enough shooting to space the floor. And then when they tried to skew their lineups towards shooting, it ended up causing other problems for them on the defensive end of the floor. There were so many possessions in this game where I saw Cade probing in pick and roll. And there would be, like, two guys in the dunker spot, like Jalen Journer. Paul Reed would be there, but then Asar Thompson or Ron Holland would be under the basket as well. And, like, whoever. You know, when you look at those kind of spacing situations, it. You. You pause this. Like, I did this a lot during my film session this morning. Like, when Cade would kind of get into the decision zone underneath the basket, I'd, like, pause it and I'd look and there would be, you know, the two guys that could shoot on the floor. Like, they would be kind of up on Duncan Robinson or up on, you know, on Tobias Harris or whoever it was that was the other kind of more offensive threat that was on the floor. Cade would be kind of in the middle. Steph Castle would be on his side or on his back. And then there would just be, like, six bodies in the paint, and one of them is Victor Weyama. And, like, yeah, Cade would force something bad and get blocked or take some really tough shot around the basket that he'd missed. But I'd be like, there's not really an obvious read to be made there. There was, like, one late in the game where Ron Holland is actually standing wide open in the left corner, and Cade's kind of driving along that right side, and he ended up forcing it up at the rim and getting blocked by Victor Wenyama. And I'm like, okay, yeah, Ron Holland's the read. But Ron, after making his first three, went 0 for 5 on his next five threes, and several of them were bricks, including a bad airball out of the left corner. So, like, Ron Holland didn't have any confidence in his jump shot. And I'm looking at Cade processing there, and he's thinking, like, well, shit, if I get it up on the glass, maybe we'll get an offensive rebound or something. If I throw it out to Ron Holland, he's just going to miss, right? And so, like, there's a certain amount of. I'm not saying that he made the right decision every single time, but I'm just saying it was a lot easier said than done. It was a very new challenge for Cade, and this Pistons team doesn't come equipped with the Type of guys that you need to really put San Antonio into some tough predicaments on defense. And again they struggled with it, but it's a lot of new additional information in some realities as it pertains to Detroit's roster construct. And then when they went to their more shooting focused lineups, like, you know, there were several times where you'd look out there and it would be like Caris Lavert and Dana Jenkins as the two guys that they would try to provide for, for Kade to give a little bit more space to the actions they're trying to run. And then right there on the other end of the floor, Steph Castle and Dear and Fox are going right at Dennis Jenkins in one on one because he's not close to the defender that a Ron Hollander, a Sar Thompson is and he's a target one on one and those guys were going right through him and getting all the way to the rim. Darren Fox got him a couple of times. Steph Castle was just powering through him at the basket. And so it was a predicament. It was like you could try to space the floor a little bit better, but those guys weren't even making threes anyways. Like the entire bench lineup for Detroit was broke from three in this particular game. It's not like Caris Lavert and Dennis Jenkins were out there, you know, creating a ton of space. So like again, I, I don't, I. Kade had a rough night. I just think when you look at the fact that this wimy problem is relatively new and it's kind of a bad matchup for Detroit anyway, I'm just not overreacting to it. So the question is, how can Cade become more successful against this type of look, it really comes down to surgical over the top scoring. Like if you can do that specific thing well enough, tight space, scoring close range, scoring manufacturing points at the foul line, that sort of thing that allows you to keep your more defensive minded players on the floor. When you have your more defensive player minded players on the floor, you can get more stops and turnovers that allow you to get out in transition more. Like Detroit actually had a ton of success in transition in this game. Of their 103 points, 38 of them were in transition like that. That's, that's a huge chunk. That's over a third of your offense right there. Ron Holland himself had a crazy run in the first half where he'd back to back freaky athletic drives in transition. So like if Cade can become more successful as a mid to short range scorer. He can make J.B. bickerstaff's lineup decisions easier. Just play the defensive players. We'll get out and transition when we can. This is the whole Oklahoma City approach, right? But it only works because Shea is arguably the most surgical tight space scorer that we have in the league right now. Cade's just extremely mediocre at it on short pull up twos, floaters and hooks. He makes about two per game and he shoots about 47%. You compare that with Shea, he's at 56% on almost double the volume and he gets to the foul line a ton to even further reinforce that idea. That's not to say Cade needs to become Shay. That's absurd. Shay's a completely different archetype of player. I'm just saying that by adding more of that to his game, he'll open things up not just for himself on offense, but also in the lineup. Flexibility that can stop J.B. bickerstaff from having to leave his best defenders off the floor for much of that second half. At least within this construct of the team. Until there is some internal improvement with these guys in their jump shots, we or until some roster changes are made. I think that's the biggest area of opportunity for Cade when they run into this look, because maybe it won't be as dramatic as Wemby, but you're going to see versions of this throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs where it's nothing's open except for a bad shooter or a clusterfuck around the basket. And Cade's going to have to try to find a way to generate some offense. So bottom line, like, it's not Cade's best moment for sure, but I don't think last night was a referendum on who he is as a basketball player. It's just a challenge he's going to have to solve within this team construct. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock bet, the official sportsbook partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic? 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Malcolm Glauble
Hello, Malcolm Glauble here. We're here in New York City with T Mobile for business recording another episode of Revisionist history about how 5G network slicing strengthens trust and connections across worldwide industries.
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T Mobile Siemens Energy Representative
Slicing can be used for so many different things. We're here with our friends from CNN from Siemens Energy. The ways that it can be used, frankly, are limitless and are really, really built to think through. How can T Mobile understand the pain points that our customers have? Smash those pain points and help you deliver very specific outcomes.
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Hoops Tonight Host
Now moving back to San Antonio, their half court offense performed pretty damn well against a phenomenal Detroit Pistons defense. They logged an offensive rating of 90 in the half court last night. They had their ups and downs like Detroit was similarly packing the paint like crazy against San Antonio's ball screen, ball screen attacks and their drives. And there were stretches where like Steph Castle or Dear and Fox were forcing the issue around the basket or Fox in the short range area. And that was usually what would spark Detroit's run outs, where that was when they would get going in transition. And that was especially what drove Detroit's early success. They had some leads there in that first half and a lot of that came from their transition attack. But overall I was really impressed with San Antonio's offensive process. Like on their drives for the most part they took advantage of their kick out reads and their roster is much more well set up for that. For the spacing idea there, the, the ability to make the defense pay when they pack the paint like that. Both Julian Champagne and Devin Vassell were amazing in this game spacing the floor. Those dudes ended up going 12 for 19 from 3. A really, really impressive shooting performance from those guys. And there's some like, very specific, there's a specific detail with Julian Champen and Devin V's shooting that I want to highlight here for a second because both Julian Champagne and Devin Vassell like to take contested catch and shoot threes. Both of them, a larger, a substantially larger portion of the catch and shoot threes that they take are contested. Now this drives down their percentages. Both of those guys are in the mid-40s on unguarded catch and shoot threes when they're wide open. But on contested threes they're in the like mid to low 30s, both of them. So both of them, by taking those, they actually do drive their percentages down. But it is far more valuable within the team context because in the team context having a guy that you know will shoot it if he gets any Breathing room will lead to the kind of space that allowed Steph Castle to attack, you know, Dennis Jenkins one on one. That allowed Darren Fox to attack Danish Jenkins one on one. If they're only shooting when they're wide open, and I run into this as a Laker fan, there's two shoot. The two good shooters that the Lakers have are Luke Canard and Rui Hachimura. And it's the exact opposite dynamic. The vast majority of the shots they take are unguarded. If you throw a closeout at them, they're probably not going to shoot it. They'll end up driving it. And by the way, both of them have outstanding three point percentages. But it doesn't bring anywhere near as much value in the team content concept because those guys know, the guys that are guarding those guys know that they can dig down and get into the lane and disrupt things and just throw a hard closeout and that dude's probably going to put the ball on the floor, which gives your defense a chance to recover. So like there is a level of aggressiveness off of contested catch and shoot looks with Julian Champagne and Devin V that bring an insane amount of value to this particular team. And I mean again, like they're like those threes that Devin Vassell hit early in the game. It's like they were on that little back screen for Victor Wyama. Cade comes over, chucks Victor, Devin slips out to the top of the key. Cade gets out there with the contest, but Vell's like, I'm firing tonight. Like there is an aggressiveness that is very important with those two guys and it's an important detail. When we look at jump shooting around the NBA. If a guy's a really high percentage shooter, but he only wants to shoot it when he's standing completely by himself, well, guess what? When you're playing the Detroit Pistons or the Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio spurs or, or really any of these great defenses around the league, there's not really a lot of wide open threes to come by. Maybe one a game for a good shooter. Like you're not going to be able to get to the volume that you need unless you're ready, willing and able to take those threes. And one of, one of the things that helps Julian Champagne has good size. Devin Vassell gets a lot of lift on his above the break three point shots in particular. Like there is a certain amount of, of talent to it as well, but the willingness is a huge part of this. You have to be willing to Take some of those contested threes and those guys did a wonderful job last night. Julian Champagne, lightning quick release from the corner. He was hitting that one throughout the game. Veselmore above the break. I think Devin Vassell's above the break. Three point shooting aggressively off the catch has just been a massive value add to this spurs team this season. Then I'm. I've also all season been so impressed by San Antonio's offensive organization and their execution. They run very crisp off ball action throughout the game. Usually some sort of screening action that involves a big and a guard. This is one of the biggest things that you'll see with Wemby on the floor is just actions that involve guard screening for Wemby because what ends up happening is no one wants to leave Wemby open. If you back screen for Wendy like that first play of the game if you back screen for Wemby and Cage just stays attached to Devin Vassell, Duran gets hit by that screen and you know Steph Castle is just going to float that thing right up to the front of the rim and Victor Wembanyama is going to dunk it, right? And so what ends up happening is Cade has no choice but to step over and chuck Victor because if he doesn't, Victor is going to roll for a dunk. So Kate takes away the dunk but in order to take away the dunk you essentially have to give up that Devin Vassell above the break three or you have to switch. Which now is going to leave a massive size advantage for Victor Wembanyama to attack in some other way elsewhere on the floor. Whether it just be on the offensive glass or in some sort of post seal or quick ISO or something like that. But the spurs run a ton of that kind of action. They'll even run it in their bench groups with Luke Cornett. They even had a center list small ball group last night that we saw that was kind of a unique look that we haven't seen a ton from the spurs this year. But like when you run those actions with a guard and a big it put it creates that indecision, that marginal indecision where the players don't necessarily want to switch because it creates a mismatch and that creates these little bits of openings. Devin Vassell hit a little mid range jumper in if I remember correctly it was like mid third quarter where similar kind of thing off ball action, just a little bit of a hesitation that catches him, a little bit of a closeout opportunity at the top of the Key pump fake, one dribble, pull up little mid range jumper that goes in the other part of it too. Like there's clearly a very a very useful attention to detail on how they run those off ball actions like they're sprinting in and out of cuts. They set really good physical screens, their guards set really good screens which is a big part of how these guys get open. And the spurs have been the seventh best half court offense in the league this year. And I think those two things, the aggressive catch and shoot shooting from their two starting wings and the crisp execution of their sets is a huge part of what drives that success. I continue to be super impressed by Steph Castle's passing ability. There were two things that stood out to me with Steph early in the season that had me view him as a better prospect than Amend Thompson. The consistent playoff of two feet with a strong base. He again last night multiple times in ISO power dribbles off of two feet, bumps the dude off and gets an easy layup versus a physically overmatched guard. The natural playmaking feel in pick and roll. He is so gifted at reading the low man as he gets downhill making that should I throw the lob or the skip pass or are they staying on the like there were a couple plays in the first half or Steph got easy layups because Jalen Dern or Paul Reed are basically hugging Victor Wembanyama on the roll and whoever's guarding Steph is in trail position. He just goes right downhill into the lane and gets a wide open layup. But like if the big steps up he's reading that low man. Am I throwing the lob to Cornett or the lob to Victor? Or am I throwing the skip pass to that opposite corner like he did to Devin Vassell in the corner on that second three that Devin Vassell hit in the game. Cade sagging into the lane. Boom. Skip past to the corner wide open. 3. He's just a natural with it. He plays at his own pace, he knows all of the reads. His passing feel in terms of touch on lobs, like lobs are hard passes to throw and he's just very very good at it. The accuracy of his skips is off the charts and he's only going to continue to get better. He'll like occasionally make a wrong read or force something at the basket and obviously the perimeter shot making piece is still in its fledgling stages. But I just, I continue to be unbelievably impressed by Steph Castle. Like I thought his Shot creation last night, game high 11 assists. I thought his shot creation last night was huge. And then with Victor on offense, you know, he got shoved around a little bit. This wasn't a very good on ball game for him. I thought Jalen Duran just did a good job of just constantly getting away with pushing him off his base. It was a very physical game going both ways. I don't think anybody was getting away with anything. But Jalen Duran, if the game was going to be super physical, is going to have an on ball like strength advantage against Victor women. Yama. But he still gets 21. And why is that? It's because of his 21, 15 of them came through. Sheer vertical plane athleticism. Just him being able to outreach and out jump. Everybody gets like a couple of fouls on just like box outs and like entries. Like there's a offensive rebound foul in the first half where he's just standing there and a guard's like trying to box him out of the lane. Gets a foul because he's switched onto a guard and the guard is has to foul him to keep him off the glass. Boom. He goes to the foul line late in the game, just over a minute left. They're just trying to inbound the ball. No one's open. Well, there's Victor. Just throw it up high to Victor. They all hack him. He ends up drawing another foul. Like there's a. There is so much value that he gets just by being big. He had a dunk on a pick and roll, just slipping to the basket. He got another foul on a pick and roll, just rolling to the basket. He had four points on offensive rebound putbacks. He had one where he made it and another one where he drew a foul like 15 of his 21 points literally just by being in the vertical plane in a way that no one else on the team can match. And when you can get 15 points without having to do any sort of self creation just by being way too big for everyone else, then all you have to do is hit a couple threes and you have 21 points. And that's what he did last night on a night where he was otherwise not great. Like offensively, like really a mediocre offensive game from him and he finishes with 21 points, 17 rebounds and seven stocks. Six blocks in that poke away from, from Jalen Duran that I told you guys about. Just a completely outrageous performance from Victor. Like it's one of those things that I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around with this team to put it Very simply the reason I've had this team as a second tier contender all year in terms of, you know, like, like do I see. Think they're on the same level as like Oklahoma City or Denver or Minnesota? One of the reasons why I've had them on the second tier is just what NBA history tells us. Like we've never seen a team this young compete for a championship ever. In the playoffs are typically a place where weaknesses get exposed like, and it takes time for young teams to identify those weaknesses and to address those weaknesses. Like will teams guard Steph Castle with centers or just go under everything comically low below the screen to just dare him to shoot? Or like, like will teams just physically bully Victor Weyama? That all that kind of stuff like what will happen when we get to the postseason. But while we've never seen a team this young contend, we've also never seen a young player like Wemby. And if in a game like this where a lot of Wemby's weaknesses were on display in terms of physicality, like in him struggling to create his own shot and yet he's still the best player on the floor by a country mile because he can get to 20 points just by being big and because he's the most gifted defensive player ever in the history of the league by, by a wide margin. Like he dominated that game last night and he won good offensively in the half court like that. That is the type of value that this guy brings. And so honestly, like when I'm looking at San Antonio, I might have to recalibrate how I view them as a championship contender just strictly because of the wild card that is a player in Victor Women Yama that we've just simply never seen before. Some quick Pistons notes before we get out of here. I thought Jalen Duran was fantastic. His bowling ball around the basket was as impressive was as impressive as you would hope to see in this type of matchup. 25 and 14 last night had some big highlights at Wemby's expense. Had a big power finish through him early in the game. Dunked all over his face in that fourth quarter run. The only other note I had on the Pistons, Duncan Robinson. And this is, you know, he was 3 for 11 from 3 last night. Missed a lot of good looks. And this is a dynamic I've seen a lot over the years. Like a lot of times the strict jump shooting type of players will get a little physically overwhelmed in games like this and then they won't get the lift that they need. And then they'll miss a lot of good looks and that freaked me out just a little bit for Detroit. Like, of all the guys that you needed to shoot well, Duncan was the guy that you would have expected to perform better in this game given the types of looks that he was getting and he just wasn't hitting. So it was a little bit of a concern there. All right guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We got another jam packed slate tonight, some really fun ones to get into Oklahoma City on the road in Toronto against the Raptors. We're going to be covering that a couple other games tomorrow morning. I will see you guys then.
- [31:53]
Matt Rogers / Bowen Yang / Julian Edelman
This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time and one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete, my identity is something I am proud of, but I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired during the big game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words. And sometimes standing next to someone is enough and you can show support by sharing the Blue Square
- [32:38]
Hoops Tonight Host
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Lavar Arrington
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Hoops Tonight Host
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Verizon Commercial Voice
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- [33:38]
iHeart Podcast Announcer
At cvs, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night, and we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At cvs, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So Visit us@cvs.com or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.