← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Wolves beat Celtics w/ out Ant, Lakers win, Kuminga vs. Warriors, NCAA tourney | 10 Reactions
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- [02:45]
Basketball Analyst / Host
The volume foreign. Hoops Tonight here at the Volume Happy Monday everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. I hope you guys got a chance to watch as much basketball as I did this weekend because we had a bunch of highly entertaining NBA games. Jam packed weekend of college hoops. We're going to talk a little bit about all that today. I figured the best format for us to hit on all the things I wanted to hit at would be for us to do 10 takeaways from a wild weekend of basketball. We're going to stay focused on the NBA at the top. I'm going to be hitting a bunch of teams from both conferences for our first eight takeaways and then at the end I'm going to talk a little bit about my initial takeaways from this weekend of college hoops. 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. That helps us a lot. And last but not least, if you want to get mailbag questions into our mailbags, drop them in our full episodes on YouTube in the comments underneath and we'll get to them throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. Number one first takeaway from a wild weekend. The Minnesota Timberwolves continue to be a weirdly feisty, at least regular season team without Anthony Edwards. The Timberwolves wrote a massive fourth quarter run to essentially blow out the Celtics in Boston yesterday. They went up by as many as 16 points in the fourth quarter. The run started after Boston had gone up three on a Derrick White driving layup. The run started with Bones Highland cooking up Boston's drop coverage. Look with Nemi K on the floor. Very simple stuff. Just some good solid set screens, some quick moves from Bones to get Hugo Gonzalez. Hugo Gonzalez into trail position and then from there just, you know, you doing classic drop coverage stuff, right? Like putting him in Jail bumping him with that off shoulder. Gets to a little short jump shot on the right side. On the next one it's like, okay, Hugo knows the bump is coming so he's overplaying it a bit. And he's kind of like draped and leaning on Bones. So Bones just doesn't even bother going for the bump. He just jumps straight up into him, picks up a foul. Minnesota was defending really well all night. They were doing a lot of switching when Gobert was off the floor. Now I've, I've talked about this before. Boston can be a little bit vulnerable against drop coverage looks, but the Gobert units were actually getting crushed last night cause they couldn't score. And so Naz Reed ended up a plus 26 in this game. Chris Finch tucked Nas Reed away on Hugo Gonzalez in the corner and he put Kyle Anderson on Nemi Keda. And then essentially what he was doing was he was having Kyle Anderson switch any of those ball screens. And then when Jalen Clark would get switched onto Nimi Keda as Nimi Keda would roll to the basket to try to get offensive rebound position, then Nas Reed and Jalen Clark would switch. And so that way Nas Reed could keep Nimi Keda off the glass and Jalen Clark could close out to Hugo Gonzalez in the corner. And so it would just basically putting the, the Celtics into a lot of one on one situations and they were not good at it at all last night. Kyle Anderson is kind of the perfect switch defender for a Boston matchup because he can just give space and he's long enough to give good contests on pull up jump shots. The Celtics took like a half dozen pull up shots over Kyle Anderson yesterday and they literally missed every single one of them because Kyle just has the length to close that space and make them uncomfortable. Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, Derek White and Peyton Pritchard combined to score 70 points on 68 shots, which just isn't going to cut it. Boston shot poorly from three, but it was kind of a classic bad Boston shooting game where when you dig into the numbers, it was like they were 4 for 9 on unguarded catch and shoot threes, which is over 40%. That's 1.33 points per attempt. But they were 5 for 24 on contested catch and shoot threes and off the dribble three. So the defensive game plan worked really well for Minnesota. Minnesota scored in transition quite a bit off of some of those misses in the fourth quarter. Bones Highland got a three on the right wing in transition. Nasrid had an and one trailing a play in transition. Julius Randle had a brutal shooting night overall. He started the game 1 for 10, but he got a couple of his isos to go late. He drew a foul on Luca Garza in the lane, hit a pull up three in his face and the Wolves basically just methodically pulled away. And Boston looked pretty helpless there in that fourth quarter. And so the Wolves are now nine and five this season when Anthony Edwards is out of the lineup. Now, just like I've said with so many other star players this year, I don't think the Wolves are a better team without Anthony Edwards. I'd give them almost no shot to win a playoff series if he was injured for whatever reason in the playoff series. But I do think the fact that they do have a higher win percentage with Ant or without Ant than with ant. So they're about 64% without ant this year, about 60% with ant. I think that's interesting and informative as to where Minnesota's potential fixes are in the future. So the question is, what drives this success? And I actually think the answer is pretty simple. I think it comes down to effort. This is an extraordinarily arrogant Wolves team and when they are fully healthy, they seem to think they can just coast to victories. And there isn't really any team in the league that can coast to victories with how talented the league is, not even Oklahoma City. They just happen to have an extremely strong culture where they play super hard all the time. Where you see the Anthony Edwards off the floor numbers really show up is on the defensive end of the floor. The timberwolves defense is 7 1/2 points better per 100 possessions with ant off versus on. Now before you just go, oh, that's because Ant's a bad defender. It is a very limited defender that has some real shortcomings, particularly off the ball. Like if you, if you ask Ant, like, hey, just go guard, shake elders Alexander on an island for this one possession. He might be the best guy in the league for that, but like, that's just not basketball. Basketball is movement and flow and on and off ball sequences and a lot about attentiveness and game plan discipline and all these little things. And Ant can be pretty weak in those areas. But that seven and a half point discrepancy is. Discrepancy is way too large of a discrepancy to just simply blame on Anthony Edwards. I think some of it is on Chris Finch and the way that he has failed to motivate this group to play super hard when Ant is on the floor. And I also think some of this is on Ant and a lack of maturity and him not being the leader that is driving the level of defensive effort. The bottom line is when Ant is off the floor, they go. We have to win with defense because we're not good enough on offense. The Wolves offense is way better with Ant on the floor versus off. It's not like the Wolves are just getting absolutely destroyed when ants on the floor and winning when he's off. It's just their defense gets way better when he's off the floor. And so I've said this before, but I think the Wolves probably need a coaching change. I just think Chris Finch, between one, his susceptibility to switching schemes and the way his team can just get really stagnant, I think that that just shines a light on him not getting the group to move and flow enough to actually make defenses pay for those, for those schemes and how stagnant they can get in those situations. And I just think in general, between the effort stuff and how rudimentary their offense can look at times, I think they probably need a different voice in front of the team. And I do think that if the Wolves end up losing, especially in the first round, that will probably see Chris Finch get fired this summer. But I also think Ant has a lot of maturing to do. Like this is again, like when you're talking about leadership, it's one thing when we're looking at really old stars like the Steph Curry with the warriors this year, or LeBron James was some of those older last couple of years flawed Lakers teams, or Kevin Durant on that Suns team where you're like, okay, I'm 38 or 40 years old and this team has no shot. Like, okay, I'm not bringing my best effort every single night like that. I see and I go like, oh, that, that. I can kind of see why those guys are doing that. But when you're a 23 year old star, 24 year old star, who's like ascending and has the energy and the wherewithal to actually bring it every single night, and you have a team that has legitimate championship potential, it's on you to bring that energy. Like what is LeBron doing now when he sees, oh crap, we have a chance to win the title this year? LeBron's like bringing it every night and setting the example. Like Steph Curry before the Jimmy Butler injury. Look at how engaged he was at the tail end of the season last year on that stretch. Run like leadership is when you know you have a shot, you've got to set the example and you've got to bring it. And I think that Ant has a lot of maturing to do, especially with the example that he sets night in, night out in the regular season with his effort. We've talked about this a lot, but like margin for error in the playoffs is extremely small. And so if you practice playing bad basketball, even if you are a good switch flipping team and there are good switch flipping teams, Denver can flip the switch, Minnesota can flip the switch. We know that. Right. But like if you're a switch flipping team, you're not going to be as good as you could be if you just simply practiced playing good basketball every single night. And so I do think that some of this is on Ant and a lack of maturity there. Last note before we move on. I do love Kyle Anderson on this particular team. So funny how, like we're going to talk about this a little bit when we get to Luke Kennard later in the show, but your value as a basketball player is unique to your team and what they need from you. And it's so interesting to see how Kyle Anderson has been kind of like a odd man out everywhere he's been recently, but in Minnesota it's like he's just a super valuable role player here. He unlocks a lot of their defensive versatility. We talked yesterday about his ability to play alongside Nas Reed and put Nas Reed on a weak side shooter because Kyle Anderson can switch ball screens, but he's also big and strong enough to hold up reasonably well on the glass. The Nas Reed Kyle Anderson lineups without Anthony Edwards are outscoring teams by 7 points per 100 possessions so far. I also think he's just a natural ball mover, which I think helps grease the wheels a little bit for Minnesota's offense. It's been fun watching Kyle Anderson in this group. He had this hilarious play last night where he hit like four in and out dribbles with his left hand consecutively. Like I think it was Luca Garza was guarding him if I remember correctly. And he was just buckling the whole time before he hit his little float floater. Just classic slow mo stuff from Kyle Anderson. Number two. The Boston Celtics continue to really struggle against the best teams in basketball, even with Jayson Tatum. After last night, Boston fell to just six and 14 against teams in the top 10 in point differential, a dynamic that has continued even after adding Jayson Tatum to the formula. And it happens on both ends of the floor. Their offensive rating plummets down to 112 in those games and their defensive rating rockets up to 1:18. We saw a lot of their flaws on display last night. Their bigs can be vulnerable in drop coverage, their struggles generating quality 3 point looks part it's a combination of several things. Like they all of their stars with like Jalen Brown is their best first step quickness guy but he's the worst passer. And then Derek White, Peyton Pritchard and Jason Tatum are way better at making the reads but they struggle with first step quickness. So against really good defenses that can switch, they can get into matchup hunting and then they can struggle to score in their one on ones as Jalen Brown just forces the issue into traffic and misses easy reads or their other three ball handlers can struggle to generate advantage. Some of it's confusing process too. Like I rewatched the start of that fourth quarter again last night or this morning after I watched the game I went back and just rewatched the fourth quarter because I'm like why weren't they targeting Nas Reed more and Naz Reed's just standing in the corner guarding Hugo Gonzalez and I'm like that's the one guy there that like you're all your dudes have the first step quickness to get a step on and they just weren't really insisted on attacking him. Instead they kept going at Kyle Anderson, which has felt like a suicide mission. So it's a process thing, it's a personnel thing there. They're really weak at the center position in terms of their scheme versatility. There's been a lot of buzz surrounding the Celtics since Tatum's return and a lot of it is well founded, right? Like the top tier in the east is really flawed. I was super high in Cleveland post trade deadline, but they've looked terrible since the hardened trade. They've been awful, awful, awful on defense. Part of that is the Jared Allen injury. I'm I'm not writing Cleveland off because I want to see what they look like with Jared Allen and apparently he might come back at the end of this road trip. But the consensus seems to be oh like Boston's the best team, they're going to win it. And here's the thing, like if you put a gun to my head and you were like who's going to win the East? And I had to pick somebody right now I'd probably pick Boston, but I wouldn't feel super confident about it. I don't think they've shown anything that would separate them from that group of four teams. They just seem like another flawed contender at the top of the east, just like Cleveland, just like Detroit, just like New York. I don't think any of those four teams has demonstrated themselves as above the rest at this point. Again, that doesn't mean they can't win. And as I said, if you told me to pick one, I'd probably pick Boston. But I separate from the consensus a bit, a bit in the think that I in the way that I don't think that they're like on some other tier than those three teams. I think they're equally as flawed as those three teams and I think we've underrated over the last few years just how important Al Horford was to their defensive versatility. I'm super excited to tell you guys about our new partnership with Vori. 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 also like this super stretchy, dry fit fabric that I can wear when I'm going to play basketball here in Colorado. 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One year with monthly dosing EBGLIS Librekizumab LBKZ, a 250mg injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection searching for real relief.
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- [20:07]
Basketball Analyst / Host
Number three, Luke Kennard is the classic example of a basketball player and how their value is unique to what that specific team needs from them. The Los Angeles Lakers extended their win streak to nine on Saturday with an incredibly entertaining win against the Orlando Magic. It was an ugly game, extremely poorly officiated. Shout out to Mark Davis. I'd be cool if I'd never had to see him officiate a big playoff game, but unfortunately that's probably what we're going to have to see for the next several years. The Magic, I thought, got hosed on a couple late calls, and there are two 50, 50 calls. The LeBron Strip on Palo. Like, if they call it off LeBron, it doesn't get overturned. So it would go back to Orlando, but they called it off of Palo so it didn't get overturned. So it stayed with the Lakers. And then that other 50, 50 call on the Palo Bunchero strip on the baseline where, like, it was a classic, like, Rorschach test play where, like, Palo gets ball first. So if you're a Magic fan, you're like, oh, he got ball first. That's off of LeBron. But then like Palo, like blatantly rakes across LeBron's arm with his left hand. Like one of the most egregious rake calls there. So, like, it's all an interpretation thing because I wouldn't call that marginal contact. So, like, you could go again, it's a 50, 50 call. If you would have said, hey, Palo, stripped it clean. It's off of LeBron, I'd been like, okay, I get it. Or if you would have been like, hey, Paolo rakes LeBron across the arm, I I would have got that too. So like it. The refs kind of compromised by just giving the the Lakers a baseline out of bounds. But Orlando definitely got hosed on a couple calls late in the game. I thought the Lakers got hosed for a lot of sequences throughout the game. Like Austin Reeves just getting absolutely like truck sticked by Wendell Carter Jr. A few times and then Austin getting called for fouls there. Marcus Smart picked up a technical on a play where he did absolutely nothing to go get. I thought that the double texts on Goga and Luca were ridiculous. Like players trash talking is part of the game of basketball. Like, what are we doing? There's a conversation to be had about how Luka talks to the refs and him getting 15 texts to this point is a valid criticism. He'll eventually get suspended and he'll probably deserve it. But I thought that particular set of texts was ridiculous. Like, those refs just need to grow up. It was a very poorly officiated game, but the game basically came down to a series of baseline out of bounds plays drawn up by Lakers assistant coach Greg St. Gene. The plays were designed to cause several quick interchanges and force Orlando to rapidly make several switches. And in both cases, Orlando botched the switches on the first one. They lost LeBron on the slip. That's where we got that 5050 call that went towards the Lakers after Paolo made that impressive recovery. And then they ran it again, a different play, but they ran another baseline out of bounds. And the Magic botched yet another switch as Paolo tried to, I don't know, get another play on LeBron. So as LeBron cut down the middle, Paolo ran with him and left Canard wide open. Paolo was fantastic down the stretch and then made a brutal defensive mistake on that specific play. Left Luke Canard wide open. And guess what? Luke Canard is shooting 55% this year on Unguarded Catch and Shoot 3. So you know that one was going in. He made it. And the Lakers escaped with the win. My last take on the officials. Again, if you're a Magic fan, I totally understand why you'd be upset that two 5050 calls went LA's direction in the final minute. If you're a Lakers fan, I totally understand why you'd be upset about the other calls throughout the game and just the general physicality that Orlando got away with. But what do I always say? Complaining about officiating is a loser's mentality as a basketball player or as a basketball team. You know every time you go play a game that there will be bad calls and there Might be some bad calls at the end that might go against you. There's. It's an eventuality that you have to be prepared for. And especially when you know that Mark Davis is in control of the game. You know damn well that that game is going to probably have a dozen calls that are awful that go both ways. And that's exactly what happened. And the bottom line is if you guys could inbound the ball cleanly, you get fouled, you go make free throws and you win. If you can successfully execute your switches on those baseline plays, you probably forced Lakers into a heavily contested heave. Luka was way out of rhythm down the stretch. Austin's probably not athletic enough to get a good look. You probably win that game. So as a team and as a player, you got to focus on what you can control. And for those of you who think I'm just being biased toward the Lakers here, just ask Lakers fans. I've said this exact same thing to them several times over the years when they've been on the wrong end of late game bad calls. But alas, Luke hits the shot and the Lakers win. Luke Kennard has brought real value to the Lakers because of how bad this team needed 3 point shooting. Pre all star break, the Lakers were 20th in 3 point percentage. Post all star break they are 4th. And Luke Kennard is a big part of that. There's other elements of it. LeBron's shot the 3 better since he came back from his couple of injuries. Marcus Smart has shot dramatically better. Obviously Austin Reaves being healthy and back in the lineup has helped their three point shooting. But Lucanard is a big part of that. I've been critical of Rob Polinka over the years, as you guys know. I. I think that if you look at the big picture and what he's done with this team over the last few years, it's been a gross mismanagement of superstar level talent. But this was a move I liked for the Lakers immediately after it happened for several reasons. First of all, I didn't think the Lakers really demonstrated enough before the deadline to be worth a large aggressive investment. Like some sort of like if they would have, let's say that for instance, they would have made a first round pick for like IO Dasunmu swap. Like they would have won the bidding war for with Minnesota if they would have put a first round pick on the table. That would have been super aggressive. Right. I thought it was completely defensible to be like we're not trading a first for Iota Sun Moo we're not trading a first for Andrew Wiggins. Like this team isn't close enough. Let's just wait. I thought this move, the Luke Canard move, was a really nice compromise from Rob in that it clearly helped the team in the short term, but it was also relatively inexpensive in that it only cost them a second round pick and a player in Gabe Vincent. That was deeply frustrating for the Lakers over the last few years. And secondly, it represented the Lakers doubling down on the strength. This Lakers team was really good on offense, but they lacked jump shooting talent. In other words, they could generate shots, but they couldn't make the shots. As I always say, your value is unique to your team. So while I think Luke would be far less valuable in other situations, he's very valuable in a Lakers jersey because he represents something they didn't have, a knockdown three point shooter. I try to be as fair as I can. I don't think Rob has done a good job running the Lakers basketball ops. But that criticism is unfair and falls flat if we just pan every single move he makes. Regardless of what it is, we have to be fair. Luke Canard helps this team, at least in a regular season context. And he cost almost nothing. So it was a savvy move on Rob Pelinka's part. Number four, the Orlando Magic are an example of why the Minnesota matchup is so tough, was so tough on the Lakers last year. And it represents something that they might potentially have to overcome this year. The Lakers struggled a bit with Orlando. As I mentioned earlier, The Lakers got two big 50, 50 calls to go their way late in the game. As I've talked about in that last segment, that's part of the eventuality of playing in a basketball game. Your calls could go with you, they could go against you. So like if that LeBron strip gets called off of LeBron and they review it and they go, hey, we can't overturn this, then Orlando gets the ball and they probably win, right? Or if the baseline official, when both teams were out of challenges, calls that ball off of LeBron. When Paolo rakes LeBron on the arm, they give the ball to Orlando, Orlando wins the game, right? So it's at least worth digging into why the Lakers streak almost was snapped. Lakers were obviously tired from a long road trip, is their third game in four nights, a lot of travel. But that's not all that happened. Orlando is very big in physical and they switched most of the Lakers screening actions. Orlando switches more than just about any team in the league. I was talking about this in the Lakers collective pod on Friday. But like if you look at the top of the NBA and isolations defended Luka Doncic is number two on that list because the Lakers do a ton of switches and the teams have been hunting Luka, although it's worth mentioning they hunt Luka a lot less than they used to. But number one on that list is Wendell Carter Jr. And it's by a gap by like almost 30 isos. Wendell defends a ton of isos and he defends them pretty well. He holds teams to just over 0.8 points per ISO when they attack him on an island. Orlando does a lot of switching. They tend to stay home off the ball to take away easy three point looks and they ask you to beat them one on one. And after Luka torched them in the first half, they made an adjustment in the second half where they pressed up a little bit more on him on the three point line, kind of chased him off the line into some drives. And so Luca forced it over some of those press up defensive sequences and took some really tough contested threes which kind of got him out of rhythm. And on a lot of those drives Orlando rotated pretty well and the Lakers were struggling to convert them. And so Luka had his first bad half in a long time. The Lakers offense stalled out and they almost lost. It wasn't all bad. Austin found some nice rhythm in the second half after having a rough first half. He had some really impressive shots off the dribble, a nasty step back three over Palo and Caro, a nasty like hesitation driving lefty layup over Tristan De Silva, had another like kind of soft touch floater driving down the lane on another one like Austin found some rhythm as a team. The Lakers were able to score in crunch time on a couple of those Luca drives after they were overplaying his 3. LeBron had a really nice driving up and under finish off of a a Luca drive down the stretch and a win is a win. So it wasn't all bad, but it was an example of a challenge that the Lakers could face in this year's playoff run. Orlando is big and they can switch now. The Lakers will almost certainly not play the Magic in a playoff series. The Magic are entirely too flawed to win their conference. But Minnesota brings a lot of those similar conundrums to the table. They're big and they can switch now. When the Lakers beat them a couple weeks ago, they didn't switch in that game. They ran drop with Rudy Gobert, but I actually thought Chris Finch did that on purpose. I thought he did that on purpose to prevent LA from getting reps against that. Look, we saw in the first round series last year he was switching with Gobert so I would expect him to do the same if they were to match up this season. Now the Lakers could end up avoiding Minnesota this year too. Minnesota could end up landing in the 4 5. As a matter of fact, I think that is not entirely likely, but it's very possible, especially if Minnesota can win their head to head against Houston coming up. I think they play here in the next week but like if Minnesota gets up to the 45 and they would have to beat Denver and beat Oklahoma City in order to meet the Lakers. So it's possible that they don't want to play Minnesota either. But we saw a Houston look in that Monday game last week where they went small without a big on the floor and they switched everything and they caused some issues for the Lakers offense. Now I would argue with Houston in particular, they would just really struggle to score if they went small. So like I think the Lakers would fare better in that type of matchup. But the point is, it's worth mentioning the Lakers have shown some vulnerability against really big teams that can switch. And the two teams in the west that they could face that could end up doing that are teams like Houston and Minnesota. Now teams like Oklahoma City. If they were to switch, the Lakers could attack Smalls. Denver is going to have Jokic on the floor so much so they're not going to switch as much. So it's more of a Houston Minnesota problem. But it's at least worth discussing that the Lakers have shown some vulnerability against that. Look, the key is going to be getting Austin and Luca to be in rhythm at the same time. On the Monday night game against Houston, Austin was off, but Luka was able to carry them home. On Saturday, Luca was off, but Austin was able to get them going in that fourth quarter. I think in order to win a series against those teams, the Lakers will need those two guys to be great. Number five, Cam Johnson is starting to find his footing in Denver's offense. The Nuggets got a couple of big wins this weekend against a feisty Toronto Raptors team and a Portland Trailblazers team. Last night it was their bench groups that carried them against Toronto and their starters that carried them against Portland. But I want to zoom in on Cam Johnson for a minute. In the last seven games he's averaging 16 points on 59% from the field and 57% from three. But the biggest Thing that's standing out to me is actually his level of aggression. Go look at his shots that he was taking against Portland last night. They were aggressive off the dribble, pull up three in transition, a step back three along the kind of like, right wing area off of an offensive rebound. He took like a jab step three off of a triple threat from like 29ft from the basket off of the right wing, like, very, very aggressive. In general. Lately, the threshold of what Cam Johnson considers to be a good shot has shifted towards being more aggressive. I thought early in the year, Cam was just way too focused on not rocking the boat, taking the open catch and shoot looks that would come naturally in the offense. And the problem is, is that that small forward spot is a very important spot in Denver's offense where they need him to be aggressive, I think, especially for them to reach their ceiling this season. And so it's just been really good to see Cam Johnson power through that shooting slump he had when he came back from his injury and define some groove as an aggressive score in that Denver offense. Like, we talked about this a lot with San Antonio, but there's an empowerment thing that can happen when every guy on the floor feels like he can be aggressive, especially when you trust your defense. Now, Denver obviously has some ground to gain on the defensive end of the floor, but. But like, when every player on the floor feels empowered, like, you watch it with the spurs, right? Victor will take any open three he gets. Harrison Barnes and Julian Chimpani will take any opening three, open three he gets. Steph Castle's been more aggressive from three as of late. Even, like, Keldon Johnson will be, like, super aggressive on catch and shoot threes even when he's not like, super, super open, right? But what happens is, is it pushes up their volume and guys feel more confident when guys are hesitant, when they don't want to shoot, that's when you can really get into some slumps. And so I think it's very important for the Nuggets to reach their ultimate ceiling. If you look at the lineup and it's like, if Jamal gets a look, he's taking it. If Christian Brown gets a look, he's taking it. If Cam gets a look, he's taking it. If Aaron Gordon gets a look, he's taking it. And if Jokic gets a look, he's taking it. When you've got a guy in there in one guy in the mix that's hesitant, that's when things can start to tilt in that direction in a bad way. And so I think, you know, and especially when you look at what it looked like with Michael Porter Jr. I mean, he was arguably the most aggressive catch and shoot player on the team. So I think Cam kind of tilting in that direction has been good for the team. Lastly, I think people are underestimating how good this Denver Nuggets team is because they've succumbed to their schedule a little bit, obviously the peak being that bad loss in. In Memphis against a team that's basically trying to lose. But I saw some stats the other day shared by my friend Adam Mares, who was demonstrating just how insane Denver's schedule has been this season. One, they have the most back to backs and the most road back to backs in the league. They have three more back to backs than 22 of the NBA teams. Their longest home stand this entire season has been just four games. They've had 11 one game home stands. Imagine that, like you're on a road trip and you come home and it's like, all right, we're home, we're with our family. I'm sleeping in my own bed. Play a game. Back on the road, they had a six week stretch without playing two games in a row in the same city. Think about how insane that is. Think about how hard that would be on you mentally to be away from home for six weeks. It's so funny. My wife and I were. Were re. We rewatched Ad Astro yesterday. I watched Project Hail Mary and so we were in a little bit of like a sci fi space travel kick. And I really did not like Ad Astra the first time I watched it. Neither did my wife, but we were like, let's try giving it just like one more shot. I equally did not like it the second time, but it's got this like, interesting kind of plot line in the sense that, you know, Brad Pitt's father goes out to Neptune on this mission to try to pursue evidence of extraterrestrial life and his crew mutinies on him because they're too far away from home. And it gets a little bit more complicated because you find out when you get to the end that the reason why they mutinied is that he didn't find any evidence of extraterrestrial life. So they had essentially completed the mission. So it was time for them to go home. And Brad Pitt's dad would not let them go home. So they mutinied and he ended up killing all of them. Right. But throughout the movie there's these weird like, psychological evals where they're like, Constantly causing making Brad Pitt do these, like, quick, like, interviews essentially, with what seems to be like an artificial intelligence entity where he's just answering these questions about his mental state. And then you find out, oh, the reason why they're doing these psych evals is Brad Pitt's dad basically said the reason why they mutinied is they all went crazy. And so the government is now essentially focused on keeping them mentally healthy as they travel across the solar system. And like, I was really thinking about that when I was looking at that stat this morning. I'm like, I would probably go insane if, like, I didn't get to spend any large chunk of time in my house for six straight weeks, if I was just popping in for a day or two. And then I had to get back out on the road like it was a Not like every NBA team goes through tough stretches of schedule. But what Denver had to go through this year was an extraordinary stretch of extremely tough schedule. And like, I as I said this with Golden State early in the year, and that ended up being derailed because Jimmy Butler got hurt and then Steph Curry got hurt. So no one really knows how good that Golden State warriors team was. But I think they got really beat down by their schedule early in the year, and it has chewed up and spit out various teams at various points this year. It's one of the weird things that has me kind of optimistic about this Lakers team is their march is their brutal stretch of the schedule. They had 11 games in the first 19 days of the month. They're on this long road trip now, and they're just chewing up and spitting out every team that they run into. But a lot of these teams, especially the thing with the difference with the Lakers is the Lakers are like discovering their ceiling right now. So they're all stoked. They're addicted to winning. They're having a great time. Denver won the championship in 2023. Golden State won the championship 2022. When you've, like, already been there and you already know what the ceiling is and you're kind of just getting to the finish line, it's really hard to slog through some of these stretches. And Denver definitely succumbed to their schedule a little bit. I haven't checked it since before these last two weekend games. But before the Toronto Portland games this weekend, Denver starting lineup, when healthy, was outscoring teams by 20 points per 100 possessions. So take a chill pill and relax. I do think Denver is a lot better than their record would lead you to believe at this point. In time. I still think they're in that same tier with San Antonio and OKC at the top of the league. If you ask me. If the Lakers are in that tier, I don't know yet. I need to see a little bit more over the course of the next couple of weeks. I'm really keyed in on that Oklahoma City matchup that's coming up here in the next week or two. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, Florida's Sportsbook. If your bracket is already busted, you're not alone. But don't worry, you can still call the next big upset and turn your picks into payday on Hard Rock Bet all tournament long. Hard Rock Bet is rolling out daily dance and boosts featuring a live profit boost and a parlay profit boost every single day. That's more ways to shoot your shot and cash in with boosted odds. And you know those heart stopping zero on the clock moments. Now they pay. Hard Rock Bet is giving out 25 bonus bets throughout the tournament if a team you bet to win or cover hits a buzzer beater. If you haven't joined Hard Rock Bet yet, now's the time to check in the game. New signups can double their winnings on their first 10 bets max $50. That means if you would have won a hundred dollars on your first bet, now it's 200. 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Basketball Analyst / Host
Number 6 the Darius Garland trade is starting to pay dividends for the LA Clippers. So when we talked about the James Harden trademark. Very clearly up front, it was not like a, oh, James Harden's just better than Darius Garland. This is the easiest, simplest trade ever. No, like the, it was a health versus upside trade off. I've talked extensively about how like when Darius Garland is healthy, he's one of the most gifted offensive engines in the league because he can get so much triple penetration and he's such a great passer at times over the last couple of years when he was healthy in Cleveland, it looked like the best offense in the NBA, but he could never sustain his health long enough. And so for Cleveland, it became a very simple proposition. We feel urgency to try to win right now with the group that we have, especially given how expensive our roster is. So why don't we flip Garland for a player that might have a slightly lower ceiling, but that's definitely having a better season and that's far more likely to be healthy when we get down the line because last year Darius Garland got hurt in the postseason. In all of the previous seasons, Darius Garland was kind of banged up and didn't look very good in the postseason. So they thought whatever the known commodity of what James Harden is as a healthy ball handler was a safer bet for Cleveland than the up and down kind of risky nature of having Darius Garland as your secondary ball handler. Right? But we all know Darius Garland, when he's healthy, can be an excellent player. That's why it made some sense for the Clippers in the sense that they were staring down the barrel of a matchup with a one or a two seed at the top of the conference. That's if they get out of the play in. Right? And so the Clippers are like, well, we can trade Zubots, get all this draft compensation. We still have Brooke Lopez, we can trade James Harden, get a second round pick out of it, and we still get Darius Garland and we could take a chance, like maybe Darius Garland gets healthy. Maybe we end up with a player that is a foundational player for us in the coming years. Darius Garland looks very healthy right now. 24 points and eight assists on 63% true shooting in his last seven games. Dropped a 40 piece. Since joining the Clippers, they are outscoring opponents by 13 points per 100 possessions. When he's on the floor shooting the shit out of the basketball, 62% on pull up threes, 52% on catch and shoot threes. Has that burst where it feels like he's getting wherever he wants to on the floor. They're getting in 158 ball screens, including passes. With Darius Garland, they're getting 1.24 points per possession, including passes. Really, really impressive shot creation from him. So the Clippers, again, it'll all depend on whether or not he stays healthy. And that's the risk, right? Like, if you don't think Cleveland knew that Darius was capable of that, of course they did. They made the trade because they didn't think he could stay healthy long enough to actually achieve that sort of production when they got to the postseason. But for the Clippers, they're getting to see that upside now. And if he can sustain that health, it all of a sudden becomes a very useful trade for the Clippers. Now, if the Clippers can stay healthy, they're staring at a road game. Phoenix is pretty much locked into that seven spot. So they'd have to go on the road and beat Phoenix. That'd be a tough matchup. Phoenix is a good team, but if they can beat Phoenix, if they lose to Phoenix and they have to win that second playing game to get into the eight matchup, and then now you're looking at Oklahoma City. You're not beating Oklahoma City even with how good Kawhi is. Just Oklahoma City's got too much of talent advantage there. But San Antonio, as we talked about, I'm higher on San Antonio as a playoff team, but like, San Antonio is at least young and unfamiliar with that setting. And so they would have an upset shot versus a team like San Antonio because of a guy like Kawhi Leonard. So I think that like Kai was, look, Kawhi looks amazing. He seems to have recovered from that ankle injury. He was amazing down the stretch that Mavs game. Had a big driving layup that sent the game to overtime and then dominated the game in ot. His ability to just beat that first man off the dribble and play off two feet around the basket was really difficult for Dallas to guard in that particular game. But if they can somehow beat Phoenix in that first playing game, they have a shot against San Antonio. If you beat San Antonio, all of a sudden you're playing against that middle tier of the West. That's pretty flawed. And, you know, I wouldn't count them out. Neither of those matchups. So this is actually shaping up kind of nicely for the Clippers in the sense that, like, you managed to convert James Harden and Evita Zubots into draft assets. And you also get Ben Matheran upside potential guard. You get Darius Garland upside potential guard. And because you have Kawhi and you have the Brook Lopez insurance on, on Zubots like you still have a shot to at least be a fun playoff team. So for how bad things started this season for the Clippers to be looking at like, hey, we have potential to have a fun playoff run and we're now stocked up with stuff that can use to improve the team in the future. Not a bad spot to be in if you're a Clippers fan. And with how good Kawhi Leonard looks like now all of a sudden you can look at your building as you move forward. Is like, hey, let's just keep building around Kawhi. Why not, right? Number seven. The Jonathan Kaminga revenge bowl just made everyone look bad. Kaminga ends up going 1 for 9. Looks largely ineffective against a Golden State defense that looks like they really wanted him to, to not score, especially with ball pressure just kind of making him uncomfortable and testing his handle. Just, you know, it was Steve Kerr knows what Jonathan Kaminga sucks at. And so the game plan was very much built towards trying to play Jonathan into those negative tendencies. But at the same time it didn't feel like much of a victory lap when the warriors roster without Steph is just so devoid of high end offensive talent that they have been a chore to watch since Steph Curry went down. And so it was just kind of like this weird empty feeling as I was watching some of the tape from that game and I'm like, JK looks bad, the warriors look bad. Now Kristaps Porzingis is back in playing Steph Curry is allegedly ramping up and scrimmaging so he could be back soon. And the warriors, similar to the Clippers, if they could somehow find a way to get into a playoff series, they always have that upset shot. But the problem is, is the warriors, if you kind of look at the way that the tail end of the season goes, Portland has this incredibly easy schedule and who knows when Steph is actually coming back. So it looks like it'd be really difficult for them to get out of the 10 seed. And if Golden State's 10 seed, they have to win to play in games just to face an Oklahoma City team in the first round. So I don't think they have anywhere near the potential for the fun playoff run that a team like the Clippers have. But at least they get to be at least feeling somewhat confident that they made the right decision. As it pertains to Jonathan Kaminga, number eight. The Charlotte Hornets might get the fifth seed. They've won five out of six. Some nice wins in that run too. They beat Orlando and They beat Miami, and those Grizzlies and Blazers teams that they beat have been a lot feistier than people realize as of late. Lamelo, Brandon Miller, Kobe White, Con Cannibal and Miles Bridges are all averaging over 16 points a game in that span, and they're all shooting over 40% from three. That's been the formula for Charlotte during this entire run. Like Charles Lee's running a lot of really savvy action that gets the guys into positions that accentuate their strengths. There's this incredible depth of ball handling and shooting talent that makes them extremely difficult to guard. Their bigs just absolutely feast on the offensive glass from all the advantageous inside position they get as bigs have to show at the level to handle all of their shooting. And they're a lot better defensively than you would think because they're scrappy and they're athletic and they compete. Now they're the 10 seed right now, but only three losses separate them from the five seed. And most importantly, I don't really trust any of the teams above them. Like, if you ask me right now, who's the best team in that group, if you you're looking at Toronto, you're looking at Atlanta, you're looking at Miami, you're looking at Orlando. I think Charlotte might be the best team in that group. Now, will they actually get up to five? It's statistically unlikely. We talked about this when we talked about the lakers on the 3 seat, where when you have that much of a game advantage with, you know, 10 games left, 11 games left, you just have to go like 500 and then the other team basically has to go undefeated. So it's statistically unlikely. But I think they'll climb out of 10. I think they'll be somewhere in that. Like, I think that should be your goal if you're Charlotte, is to get into the seven seed so that you can win one play in game to advance to that first round of the postseason. But the fact that they're like realistically in reach of the five seed is just a truly amazing feat for a young and talented Charlotte Hornets team here down the stretch of the season. Before we get out of here today, we're going to talk briefly about the NCAA Tournament. And as always, all of our lines are provided by our partner, Hard Rock Bet number nine. The Michigan Wolverines were the best team that I watched this weekend. This weekend, and I'm a little bit worried about Arizona. Watched a lot of college hoops this weekend and I really enjoyed it. High point versus Arkansas was my favorite game of the weekend. Just incredible pace up and down, incredible athleticism. The shot making from both teams basically came down to shot making at the end. That Johnston kid ended up getting two pretty decent looks. For him. They look like super tough shots, but for him they're like makeable shots. He missed both of those and Acuff ends up hitting a pull up three at the top of the key. You got a couple of big driving layups to go late and so Arkansas gets out of there with the wind. But that was like such an incredible basketball game if you guys had a chance to watch that one. I think that was the most entertaining game of the weekend. And as an Arizona fan, I'm a little nervous about Acuff in that Sweet 16 game. But as we look at the one seeds real quick, I was very unimpressed by duke. Hard Rock Bet currently has them at plus 450 to win the national championship. I you know all the talk about Cam Boozer as I started to dip my toe into the draft earlier a couple, a couple weeks ago. Every all the talk was about Cam Boozer being like kind of like the power forward version of Jokic, right? Like really good touch like and shoot threes, can shoot mid range jump shots, can handle the ball better than you think, has good touch on hooks and floaters and like a guy that can physically dominate players but that reads the floor really well. What's been really disappointing for me is I don't think Cam Boozer has handled the double teams and handling the ball in traffic as well as a lot of the scouts had been leading us to believe coming into this process. And I think so far in this tournament he's been downright bad at handling double teams and like seeing how the defense is overloading on him when he's trying to attack in the post. Generally I think their offense is pretty limited. It wasn't all bad. I thought Kaden Boozer saved their ass against Sienna Dame. Saar is a really interesting kind of like defensive athlete who made several huge plays over the weekend, but I think Duke is destined to lose at some point. Florida was the obvious weak link out of all the one seeds before the tournament started. They're a great defensive team but they can't shoot and they were like the most limited offensive team out of the three. Out of the four one seeds. They can go cold and they ended up losing to Iowa. I thought the final play was really fascinating. They had been running a lot of denial on Bennett Sturts and they ran a really Fascinating play where they ran him off of a set of screens around the opposite elbow. Opposite elbow meaning furthest away from their basket. And as he curled around him, they were still kind of in a lock and trail, which was a really dangerous thing to do. But that's part of taking advantage of the way Florida was guarding him all game. And the imbalance pass was perfect. Catches him in stride. It was a really tight window. And since it hit him in stride and because the defender was locking and trailing, all of a sudden he has a head of steam rocketing up the floor. Alvaro Fulgaris is hanging out in that right corner and he does that Ray Allen footwork. Really nice pass from Bennett Sirts that Ray Allen footwork. Steps behind the line while keeping his eyes on the rim, knocks down the three. Then on that final play, I really didn't like it. They go the length of the floor and I thought they over penetrated just too. Like there wasn't enough time to drive all the way to the basket and not shoot right. So like as soon as he realized he didn't have an angle, he either needed to pull up or get rid of the basketball. And then there's a really impressive read from Tavion Banks. He's guarding a shooter at the top of the key and he reads the whole thing happen and he sees, okay, he's driving and he doesn't have an angle. He's not going to see my man way across the court. And they don't even have time to kick all the way back there. His only shot is something at the rim and so he ends up coming down. And so when the drop off pass gets made, he's able to disrupt the drop off pass and Iowa ends up winning the game. So Florida obviously weak link. Of all the one seats, they end up going down. As an Arizona fan, I was a little disappointed against Utah State in the second half especially they ran this like full court zone press and a lot of like issues with just dribbling into bad spots on the floor like that. You always want to avoid against the press, the corners, particularly the corner closest to your basket. So like the two corners after you inbound the corners right after half court you want to avoid that. And then the deep corners on the opposite end of the court, those are the, the six areas on the floor you really want to avoid when you're going against the zone press. And they just kept dribbling right into those spots. I thought Anthony Del Orso and Braden Buries in particular were really sloppy against the press in that Stretch getting them into some issues. Utah State is famous for turning opponents over. That's what their defense does. They forced a ton of turnovers against Arizona, got outgoing in transition against it and Arizona almost blew that game. They were up 18 and I think, I think Utah State cut it to four before Arizona regained control. Now I'm not counting them out. Arizona's 325 to win the title right now on Hard Rock. Bet they're really mentally tough. That's been a thing all season long. They've had these cold stretches on offense where they can't score and they give up big leads. That's been happening a lot, especially in their Big 12 schedule. And part of the reason for that is they don't really have an elite athlete who can get to the get to his spots. Like Buries can really shoot, but he's not a apex athlete like beating people off the dribble. Jaden Bradley's got a little bit more of that quickness, shiftiness to get to the basket, but he's nowhere near the shooter that Braden Buries is. And their bigs are very skilled, but not as skilled as say Michigan's bigs are, right? So like they can go cold on offense. Thankfully they're mentally tough and they powered through it. Krivos was a monster in the offensive glass down the stretch. I also thought he hit a bunch of clutch free throws. Jaden Bradley a couple of huge late driving buckets. Braden Buries hits that massive step back three at the top of the key and they're just so physically imposing that they can dominate the offensive glass and keep them in games. And very mentally tough. They powered through, they got the win. But I think Michigan was the best team that I saw out of all the teams I watched this weekend. They're plus 300 currently the favorite to win on Hard Rock. Bet they have this combination of three bigs that has a lot of the physically imposing defense that you get from Arizona but a lot more of the refined skill at those positions. And so that gives them a lot more ability to create offense. When things really bogged down in the half court. Adamara Yoxel Landenberg and Morris Johnson feel like the best trio of the tournament to me. Again, I'm holding that hope for Arizona. I still think they can win, but I think Michigan's the best team. Just being objective. I thought that was the best team that I watched this weekend. Number 10 college basketball is loaded with more skill than ever before. The size and skill of modern college basketball is really starting to reflect some of the improvement that we've seen in the NBA over the last 10 years, which again inspires the youth to get them to improve in some specific skill areas that are starting to reflect in college troops. I just wanted to share some stats with you guys that I thought were really interesting. So there are 127 Division 1 players this year that made at least 50 jump shots off the tribble 10 years ago. In the 2016 season that number was 76. So 51 more players did it than 10 years ago. There were five players this season that made over 100 off the dribble jump shots. 10 years ago that number was one. The emphasis on just pace and playing fast like we saw in that high point game. There were 107 teams this year that attempted at least 2000 shots. 10 years ago the number was 83. So massive increase in pace, nowhere near as many post ups. There were only 19 teams this year that took 200 shots out of the post. Ten years ago that number was 68. Despite the massive increase in pace. I just thought it was interesting to see just the improved level of skill, ball handling and shooting that we see all over the floor in the way that that's manifested in like a very refined skill level in college basketball that was missing in previous seasons. And I think it makes it more fun to watch. As we all know, the industry just continues to get better. The game of basketball continues to get better. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with some game reaction. I will see you guys then.
- [59:17]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBGLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EVGLIS achieved ITRA relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [59:35]
Pharmaceutical Information Narrator
EVGLIS Lubricizumab LBKZ, a 250mg per 2ml injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies, EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection searching for real relief?
- [60:10]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Ask your doctor about epglis and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
- [60:17]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's Stock Up Savings time now through March 31st. Spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Lindor, Chips Ahoy, Gatorade, Host, Ziploc and Zoa. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go, pick up or delivery restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions.
- [60:47]
Verizon Advertiser (Alternate)
Think Verizon is expensive? Think again. Anyone can bring their AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal deal. So bring us your bill. Walk in running pogo sticking teleport if you can, ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or fly in on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way you can bring your AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the Best network Based on Root Metric's Best Overall Mobile Network Performance US 2nd Half 2025 all rights preserved Must provide a very recent postpaid consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply.
- [61:18]
Basketball Analyst / Host
T Mobile has the best plan on the Best network. Just ask Kevin Bacon Today, business happens virtually everywhere. That's why you need Super Mobile from T Mobile the best plan on the Best network letting you run your business from your phone like never before. In moments of high demand, T Mobile's network adapts to put your business connection first. Discover more@supermobile.com best business plan based on
- [61:41]
Pharmaceutical Information Narrator
combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best Network Based on analysis by Ooglip
- [61:44]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
Speed Test Intelligence data 1H 2025 oogle
- [61:46]
Pharmaceutical Information Narrator
trademarks use under license and reprinted with permission.
- [61:48]
Basketball Analyst / Host
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.