172. Suns prove the Lakers are nowhere close to contending

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Gambling problem called one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, in Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential

help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee, visit www one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Lakers Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. I'm Jason Tip. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope you all had a great weekend. I thought this game was the home run bet of

the century. The Sun's very much enjoy beating the living shit out of the Los Angeles Lakers, and for good reason. There's an interesting backstory there. As all of you guys know, they had a strange playoff series last year. Started late regular season when Lebron was still nursing that ankle injury. Anthony Davis went into Phoenix and demolished their entire front line by himself, which kind of set a weird tone for that series as they've played in the first round.

Then we have Game one where DeAndre Ayton kind of man handles and out plays Anthony Davis a little bit, but then orders restored over the course of the next two games, when Lebron and Anthony Davis physically man hand the Sons again on their home floor and then back in Staples to take a two one series lead. And then in Game four, Anthony Davis poles Is Groin and the talent and physical dynamics of the series utterly shift in the other direction and suddenly the Lakers can't handle

anything that Phoenix was doing. There was an underlying current in that series to the Lakers were not shooting particularly well, so obviously when Anthony Davis was out of the picture, that became an even bigger problem. But if you guys remember in Game three, at the end of that game when Lebron was kind of toying with Jay Crowder a little bit, a lot of the bench was into it. There was obviously a little bit of like a big brother little brother thing there that was happening between those

two teams. The Lakers were the defending champs, they had all the momentum, they were in control of the series. I personally think that if Anthony Davis stayed healthy, the Lakers would have won that series. I know some people disagree. I know some people want to point out the Chris Paul thing, but to me, it's apples in orange is comparing the Chris Paul need for the Sons to what Anthony Davis brought to the Lakers, especially with what the

Sons were getting out of Campaign at the time. Campaign arguably was every bit as good as Chris Paul in that playoff run. He before the ankle injury was a devastating matchup problem because he was just getting into the paint at will, which was causing massive problems for for everybody that they faced. But that Chris Paul injury was kind of taken away from the fact that the Lakers

were physically dominating that series. And one of the big reasons why I think the Lakers would have won that series is just like what happened with Milwaukee in the finals. Even though the Sons did have a depth advantage, even though the Sons did have a skill advantage, the Milwaukee Bucks just pulverized them physically, and over the course of

that series it wore on them. Not just be honest, not just what Janice was doing to the back lad I should say, the backup front court guys like Frank Kaminski for the Sons, but also what he was doing DeAndre and putting him in foul trouble, but also elsewhere in the floor, Drew Holiday was giving Chris Paul really big problems with his physicality and his size on the defensive end of the floor. Honestly, the bright spot of that series was Devin Booker and what he was able

to do to create shots. But I believe that that physical dominance that the Bucks inflicted on the Suns would have happened similarly in that first round series with the Lakers as things progressed, but it didn't. It won a different way. And ever since that moment, ever since that Game three moment when the Lakers were showboating a little bit, the Sons have had a personal vendetta against the Lakers.

Every time they've played. They've played, they've thrown their best punch and it's been too much for the Lakers to handle. It's a kind of a thing that happens occasionally in NBA history. It's just usually when it when it happens like this, when there's a talent gap, it can be a problem. Like, for instance, after the Mavericks beat Lebron

in two thousand eleven. Even though the MAVs kind of descended into irrelevance after that, every time Lebron played Dirk from that point forward it was personal, and he stomped him into the ground just about every time they played after that finals. It was personal for them. That's the

way it is for the Suns. So when you get a bad Lakers team that has severe matchup issues with any NBA team, not just a team as talented as the Sons, and a team like the Sons that are so motivated to kick their ass, you're gonna get that. And I'm not surprised that this was the outcome at all. Like I said, I thought it was the home run

bet of the century. You know, it's funny because over the course of the last couple of weeks, one of the silver linings for me personally, with the Lakers struggling so much is it's given me a bigger excuse to dive into the rest of the league, and I've spent a great deal of time trying to familiarize myself with the same level of intimacy that I do with these Lakers, try try to really learn what makes these teams tick.

And it is flooring how big of a gap there is but wing the Lakers and their basic basketball fundamentals and the rest of the league. I'm watching Mavericks Celtics today, and they're two really different teams because the Celtics are switching everything, but they're kind of staying and letting guys guard one on one. The MAVs switch everything to but they do a lot of double teaming and a lot of rotating on the back end. But those two teams

have their defensive schemes down to a science. Every single player on the team knows exactly where they're supposed to be, they know exactly what's expected of them, and they do their jobs. And as a result, both of those teams are trending in the right direction, looking more and more like a team look looking more and more like teams

that could win the title. And it's so interesting to me because if you look back to the beginning of this Lakers season, before the injuries, before anything went south for them from day one of preseason. You guys remember this too. They were un serious from day one of preseason.

They looked like they were coast thing. From day one of preseason, they looked like they were taking the easy way out of NBA basketball, doing the bare minimum of what was expected of them, and it manifested right away with the Lakers losing every single game in the preseason. Go back two years to the Lakers. They smacked the Warriors in that first game. There's this weird intensity that was palpable with that Lakers team. They crushed the Warriors.

And then remember the Lakers social media team tweeted out, consider this awarning NBA and everybody slandered that all season long until the Lakers had the trophy at the end. But the trophy had everything to do with the tone that they set at the beginning of the season. From day one of training camp. There was an intensity and a professionalism in a in a championship character that was baked into what that team was building. That very same

thing was missing this year. And it's funny because there are some parallels. You go back and look at the Kers. That's with Kobe and Dwight Howard and Steve Nash and Palkasol and those guys. If you look at that team, same thing from the opening days of training camp, something was missing. And what's so important about that is from day one of training camp, that's when you established those habits. That's when you established a work ethic. That's when you

established discipline, That's when you established expectations. You know, when there is a list of responsibilities attached to a defensive scheme, you don't in day one of training camp. You have to make it established that the players on the team are expected to check every one of those boxes. It becomes a habit. It's just like anything else for us in our lives as we try to form habits. They

don't happen overnight. They have to be established. And so one of the hardest parts about this situation for the Lakers is, like, hey, Anthony Davis is probably coming back in a couple of weeks. Lebron is trending in the right direction. The biggest silver lining from tonight is, like I said, I was worried the last time Lebron had a big scoring performance like he did against the Warriors.

His knee blew up on it. But he had another big, dominant scoring performance the other night, and he was fine to play tonight. I thought he looked pretty explosive tonight. So you've got Lebron trending in the right direction, You've got Anthony Davis maybe coming back, but it probably doesn't matter because from day one, the work wasn't done, the habits were not established. The basketball character of a champion

was not built with this roster. So it's fundamentally impossible for them to go into a playoff series against the team like the Phoenix Suns, even with Lebron and Anthony Davis, and do the job well enough to win that series. In fact, this is why I thought it was so important for them to fight for that eight seed, which they just punt it on and let the Clippers have.

The reason why I thought it was so important for them to fight for that is I thought that if they got any other team, Golden State, Denver, any of these guys, Dallas, any of these teams, I thought, if they got them in the first round, Lebron and a d would be enough. Phoenix is too much for them. This version of Phoenix is too much for this Lakers team.

At full strength. And it's unfortunate because had they got to that eight seed and they won that first playing game, they could have got Golden State or Memphis and more time to try to establish those championship habits that I'm talking about that are so vitally important to a team getting to the final destination of holding the trophy up. And it's a damn shame because it's a waste. But this is something to keep in mind for every team that we watch moving forward. Watch the way they approached

the preseason. Watch the way that they establish habits early in the season. The NBA regular season is long, it could be frustrating, it could be boring at times, there can be a lack of urgency. But the teams that take it seriously from day one and through the entire process, those are the teams have the habits necessary to get

to the final destination. Before we move on from the Lakers, I wanted to talk about Russ for a second because I thought I was thinking about this yesterday talking with some Laker fans on Twitter, just about where does Russ go from here? Because every everything we've heard through the grapevine tells us that Russ has gone under no circumstances will he be a Los Angeles Laker next year. That feels like like a near zero percent chance. So where does Russ's career go from here? And you know, I

tend to be more optimistic than most. A lot of people have said, this guy's done, he's declining too fast physically, he's too stubborn, so on and so forth. But this is where I think the really really ugly nature of this season can be a positive in a weird way. A silver lining is probably the better expression to use, but I think in a weird way, this season could be the season that wakes Russ's, wakes Russ up, that

humbles him. You know, it's funny. I was when I was after I finished playing basketball college, I signed a professional contract with the league in India, and it was good money. They were gonna pay me a thousand bucks a week. But they were like, Hey, before we go over, we're gonna do this camp up in Phoenix. We're gonna have you scrimmage with some of the players from India, and we're gonna get the television partners out there so that they can do like a promo video for the season.

All this stuff so they fly us up to Phoenix and they put us up in hotels and we play basketball for like two weeks. I up until that point was accustomed to a certain level of work ethic, and it worked for me. Six six put my head around the rim my work ethic was enough for me to be successful in college. I was an all conference player. When I was playing in college, I had big scoring nights. I I had success at that level. But this was

a different level. This was another level of talent and professionalism. And I remember I ran into this guy. He was an Indian American who was living in Toronto at the time, and he utterly embarrassed me in this camp, like he was better than me at every single area of the game. And he was too, is just taller and more muscular.

And I remember leaving that camp when I was done. Unfortunately, the league in India ended up folding, so I never actually made it over there, which happens all the time with overseas hoops, that's just the nature of the business. But I remember taking that so I could. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks. I was It was a wake up call for me to realize that what I was doing was not enough. What I anticipated would be enough of a work ethic to succeed at that

level was wrong. And in the years since then, I have adapted adopted a professional level work ethic. I had to be utterly humiliated for me to learn what was needed for me to succeed at that level. And it's so interesting because that's the way I look at this Russell Westbrook situation. This has been ugly, like talked about for There's been death threats, there's been name calling, which

is deeply personal to the Westbrook family. There's been booing, there's been altercations with teammates and coaches, coaches according to reports that we've heard. Whether or not that's legitimate, we will see. But it's been a very ugly season for us. But this is what it takes for a prideful person to understand that what they're doing is not enough. Russell Westbrook is no longer close to skilled enough to be

a good NBA guard. Look at just a random, like replacement level NBA guard, a guy like Monte Morris, the level of skill that he has at the point guard position is leaps and bounds ahead of where Russell Westbrook is what Russell Westbrook has done to this point in his career in skill development was enough because of his athletic tools, but as he has faded on that front, his lack of skill has become a problem. He is the worst jump shooter in the league at volume. That's

a problem. He is absolutely no finishing moves other than his extended right handed lay up going to the rim. In that one dimensional finishing approach, combined with his lack of athleticism has directly led to his rim numbers going down the toilet. All of that is related Brussel Westbrook, in my opinion, he's only thirty three. He's going to have another phase of his career in my opinion, where he is a productive starting point guard for a team

with real title aspirations. I believe that because I believe this season was humbling enough for him to realize, Hey, you have to adopt a level of skill development you have never developed before. You can't finish in traffic anymore. So you have to have a floater package, or you have to learn to attack pay con rolls and attack the basket more like a Chris Paul. Use your size to your advantage, get by your first vendor and then put him in jail and try to operate with slow

pace in the mid range. These are the kinds of things that Russ has to do to adapt. He has to understand that what he's been giving defensively was not enough. He has to understand that in order for him to maintain a spot of legitimates in this league, he has to he has to embrace all these things. So as ugly as this has been, I am I am optimistic that this will be a turning point for us. This is how ugly it has to get sometimes for people

to wake up. It's just the natural order of life and in the cycle of of agent, that's just how it works. And so I'm I am optimistic that Russ has another day to fight in the future, and that it won't be too far down the way. Start your bracket with a bang right now. Fandal Sports Book is giving new cust Mer's a one hundred and fifty dollar

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FanDuel dot com. Gambling problem call one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel

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eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. For those of you are just joining us, this is Lakers Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. I wanted to move on to the Brooklyn Nets so they win against the next today. Katie scores fifty three hits what basically is the game winner. It was just under a minute left. Katie looks amazing. I said on the show the other day, I think he's the best player in the world. We

don't need to get into that the most. There are two interesting things about this game that I wanted to hit on. First of all, I I don't think the Nets can win the type with Kyrie playing part time, And it really comes down to me about the margin for error. I talked about this a lot with the Lakers early in the season with Russ. You know, I'd say, like, what worries me about Russ in late game situations is

playoff series is at the highest level. Like conference finals and finals, they are determined by the slightest of margins. Think back to how things can go differently. Anthony Davis doesn't make a game winner over Nicola Yokich in the second round of the Bubble. The Nuggets are up two games to one. How does that change the series? You know they could lose. That's how thin these margins can be. Sometimes. I don't have to lay out the half dozen times over the course of NBA history that a team won

a title by a tiny margin. Lebron blocking, Andre Guadalar, Kyrie Irving hitting a step back jump shot over steps. These titles are determined by the slightest of margins, and the slightest advantage can make the difference. I think the Nets as currently constructed are the best team in the East.

If they have all their guys. I I learned a lot about them in the last week, with the way that they play, how good Kadi looks, the way their defense is modernized, and the way it can effectively stagnate people. Kyrie is still showing defensive flashes. I love the idea of the Ben Simmons fit. That's all great, But the Brooklyn Nets might just be just slightly better then the Milwaukee Bucks. They might be just slightly better than the

Miami Heat or the Philadelphia seventy sixers. And if you toss them three games or four games with Kyrie not playing, that could be a difference maker in a vacuum. Yes, the Brooklyn Nets are the best team, but when you're punting three games of your second best player, you are giving away an advantage that will not be a big deal. Maybe in an early round series, maybe not in a playing game, but when you get to the highest levels

of NBA basketball, the teams are too close. There is no runaway favorite this year, and you can't weather that type of loss. And so, and what's nerve racking about it is we just saw the clip getting shared around on Twitter yesterday of the New York City mayor basically saying like, hey, if Katie Kyrie wants to play, you can play tomorrow. You just gotta go get vaccinated. Now,

it remains to be seene. This might not be an issue if they do clear that up, but the mayor doesn't seem to be the mayor doesn't want to do it for Kyrie. He wants to do it if he wants to do it, And so there is a chance that this still ends up happening, and if it does, the Nets are in trouble because I don't think you can punt three games or your second best player against the top tier teams in the East. Really quickly. I

wanted to to talk about the Knicks. There are six and nineteen in the last games, their fifteenth and defense on the season after being fourth last year. I thought it was really interesting how their team has pulled away from TIBs in a similar way to the way the Lakers did with Frank Vogel. And it's kind of one of my long standing theories. When you have demanding coaches, coaches that ask a lot of their players, particularly on the defensive end of the floor, particularly physically with wear

and tear, eventually it's a burnout effect. Like, look at Lebron and Anthony Davis. Those two guys were playing nearly the same level of defense they did just two years ago. Because that's what happens. You get burnt out on a coach that is very demanding it. Some of this is personnel. The Knicks have taken on some offensive minded personnel. That's

been part of the issue. But this was the fourth best events in the league last year and they've fallen off a cliff in that department and it's been the nail and the coffin for them, And I think it comes down to coach TIBs being very demanding. I think with guys like that, you have to have more personnel turnover each year to keep things fresh because it can be difficult. Really quickly, moving on to MAVs and Celtics,

this was a really interesting game. You know, I think the Celtics are a better team overall, but the MAVs have a puncher's chance to be everybody because of the way that Luca has the ability to to dictate outcomes at the end of the game. This game was very make or miss. If you watched it got really slogged and slowed down at the end. It basically came down to making and missing shots. Luca don Chech had a

step back over Robert Williams, he made it. On the next possession, Jayson Tatum shot a fade away at the free throw line, one that he's been making all season long, one that I've seen him make a ton recently in his recent run, and he missed it. Then on the other end off of a Luca double, the ball ended up back in Spencer din what his hands, Spencer din What he made the three. The Dallas Mavericks sent a bunch of double teams that Tatum late in the game.

The ball ended up in Marcus smarts hands a lot, and Marcus Smart was missing. The basketball is a maker miss sport that can go either way. But it was a very interesting matchup. I think if the I think if those two teams played again tomorrow, the Celtics would absolutely have a chance to win. It's not the Dallas is not necessarily a better team. It was a maker

miss type of outcome. This one went to Dallas. What I thought was really interesting was the different styles Because Boston, as we've talked about a lot, they have so many athletes on the floor. They are so defensively versatile that they can double less than any team in the league. Any switch that they give up is a good matchup for them. If you want to attack Robert Williams, they like their chances there. If you want to attack rob

Al Horford, they like their chances there. If you're a big defender trying to post up Marcus Smart, they like their chances there. And god knows, you don't want to attack Jayson Tatum Jalen Brown. So they are comfortable operating in isolation defense. But Dallas doesn't have that type of personnel. Spencer Dinwittie and Jalen Brunson and Luca Dontage, they're all targets.

Maxine Kleiba is even a target. But what's so interesting about it, though, is their defense is still dominant because you can make up for individual matchup issues as long as you rotate on the back end. Dallas is constantly doubling and rotating, which is very consuming of energy. It's very tiring. You have to cover a ton of ground. The communication has to be ridiculous. There's like an instinct level to it too, that is built up over the

course of the season. It's very difficult to do, but if you do it right, it works, and especially in a situation like with Dallas h Boston tonight, they have an issue with spacing. Robert Williams can't shoot. He's a vertical spacer, so he's not a complete useless threat under the basket. But there were several possessions in today's game

where half of Tatum double teams. They were swinging the ball around, but it ended up being jump shots because Robert Williams and his man are sitting right under the basket. There was a play at the end where Jalen Brown literally got blocked by Maxine Kleeba right under the basket because he's driving into another defender just waiting under the basket because of Robert Williams is facing. So it's interesting to see these teams. There is no perfect team this year.

There is no runaway title favorite. Every team has flaws. Boston has an issue with shooting at the center position and they're not a great playmaking team. Dallas is a great playmaking team and a great isolation team, but they don't have the same defensive personnel there. Every team has holes and it's gonna be a matter of styles making fights in matchups, dictating who wins. All Right, before we get out of here tonight, I wanted to really quickly

talk about the Warriors. They're coming off of back to back huge winds on the road in Denver and then at home against the Milwaukee Bucks. The big indicator to me of this recent success is Jordan Poole. In his last six games, he's averaging twenty five points on sixty from the yield, fifty seven percent from three and from

the free throw line. An all time efficient scoring run from Jordan pool And one of the things that's really interesting about that is he is starting to dictate attention defensively. That is similar to what's happening with Steph. They're running a ton of dribble handoffs and pick and rolls with Jordan Poole, and he's dragging multiple defenders with it. What makes that so important is this Warrior's offense has consistently

struggled when Steph is off the floor. It's been an issue since the beginning of this era, even when Katie was there. They were always better with step on the floor. But a big part of that is their role players that Clay Thompson's, you know, the Jonathan Cominge is the

Andrew Wiggins. All of the guys who operate off the ball, they're used to getting a certain type of offensive opportunity playing with Steph, and guys like Clay Thompson and guys like Kevin Durant just dictate a different type of defensive attention. That's why that was always a strange kind of transition. They would play a style with step on the floor and then they play an entirely different style without step and it would be part of the reason why they

had issues. Well, Jordan Pool dictates defensive attention similar to Steph, not to the same level Steph. Obviously it's like panic chasing everywhere. But when you've got a guy who's drawing doubles off a dribble, handoffs and picking rolls, he's getting similar looks for his teammates that they're getting with step on the floor, and so as a result, it's more of that same flow that they're getting with Steph without Steph, which is a huge part of that. And then their

defense has finally woken up. They had a big defensive lapse there for a while without Draymond. Draymond actually rejoined the team. I think that helped to just having that intensity and that that leadership on the sideline has kind of woken them back up again. And then honestly, Steph is starting to play better that he hasn't shot the ball as well as he did early in the season.

I still don't think he looks the same as the guy that was very clearly one of the top two or three players in the league last season, but he's not as bad as he was in January. That's a big part of why they're starting to play better as well. I'm gonna dig more into their film. I want to look at their their game against Milwaukee because that was an incredibly dominant performance. I'll get a video out about that tomorrow for you guys. But I'm really really excited.

I don't think I still don't think the Warriors are in that top tier of contender because I still think they're gonna struggle creating shots against the best defenses to the same extent that some of these top tier contenders can. So I'm not I'm still not as high on the Warriors as Warrior fans are. But they're trending in the right direction, all right, guys. That is all I have for tonight. I appreciate your support. As always, Lakers are

playing back to back, so they're playing again tomorrow. We will be here right after the final buzzer. I appreciate your support and we'll see you tomorrow. The volume