177. How LeBron has turned the Lakers' offense around

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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. Ye. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here on the volume, I am Jason Timp Happy Monday, everybody. I sincerely appreciate you all coming to hang out and talk some basketball with me.

We are going to start with the Lakers tonight, but we're also going to get to the Brooklyn Nets, demolishing the Utah Jazz, who are frauds, as I always say. We're gonna get to the Timberwolves finally playing against a good basketball team that has all their stars and that resulting in a loss, and then we're going to get into our power rankings. This week's Timp's Top ten. So I sincerely appreciate you guys come to hang out. Let's get started with the Lakers. So this is starting to

look a little bit like a good basketball team. They have fixed their offense. The Lakers have an offensive rating of a hundred and twenty six points per one possessions in their last three games, which ranks third in the league. In a few minutes, I want to get into why I think that's the case, because I think it's an interesting example of scheming, which is something that has been a huge pet peeve of mine with the Lakers over

the course of the last few seasons. But I wanted to start with Lebron because you know, as Lebron fans would tell you, I've been very critical of him over the course of the last uh like month or so. And it's because I hold Lebron to a very high standard, because I think he's potentially the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. Because I throw his name around in conversations about who's the best player in the league, and I think there's a list of expectations that come

with that. And after the All Star break, he came out and looked like a guy who didn't believe in this team, and and and just essentially didn't provide the necessary effort for the Lakers to be competitive. Well, over this last stretch of games, he is one thousand percent dialed back in, is bought back into everything the team needs him to do. I think a huge part of it has been a little bit less him at the center for stretches of the game, so he doesn't have

as difficult of a defensive job. But at the end of the day, at the center position, when he's engaged and he's actually doing his job defensively, that's when this team is at their best. He had an absolutely vintage dunk.

It was hilarious. I I I got into the game a little bit late because it was such an early start, and I was fast forwarding like little ten second increments as I was trying to work up through the game, and I skipped ahead right as he was at the top of his dunk, like literally extended over the top of Kevin Love, and I was like, hold up, something crazy is about to happen. And I rewonded and I saw the dunk. It's absolutely wild to me that he can make a play that athletic in his nineteen season

at age thirty seven. That is, he is uh the greatest example of athletic longevity that I can remember seeing in my time following sports. That was one hell of a vintage highlight. But to make a long story short, lebron recent search is perimeter shooting coming together, but a big part of it is him making a concerted effort to get to the rim. The Cleveland Cavaliers are one of the best interior defenses in the league. I've laid this out on the show before. They block a ton

of shots. They have a ton of size and their length will bother you around the rim. Now, some of this was Lebron taking advantage of Evan Mobley when he was off the floor, but a lot of it was just their five out system. Lebron killed the calves inside Lori marken In could not handle him on his drives to the basket, and that was the fulcrumb for so

much of what they did offensively. So much of what this whole team has done offensively over the course of the last three games has to do with Lebron making a concerted effort to get in the paint. I was talking about this with some of my family as I was family and friends as I was watching the U of A get their big comeback. When last night over TCU, like,

there is no such thing as bad rim pressure. If you get into the basket and you attempt shots around the rim, even if you miss them, they have the positive effect that comes from rim pressure. So for instance, last night, the TCU guards kept getting into the rim and Christian Coloco had to step over and try to block shots, and he kept and TCU was getting offensive

rebound putbacks. A huge part of what is making this offense work for the Lakers is Lebron putting in the work it takes, because it takes a lot of work. When when when everyone says like, hey, why doesn't Lebron drive to the basket every time? Because it's exhausting, That's why he does it. Do it every time. But he's making a much more concerted effort to apply more rim pressure as of late, and that is opening everything up

for this team. In addition to that, he's shooting from three on like nine attempts over the course of the last couple of weeks. That's a huge part of it too. He's got it working at every level of the game. He made a bunch of mid range jump shots today. That little fade away over his right shoulder as he drifts through the lane as he's snaking the pick and roll is turning into one of his go to moves, and he's he's just got it all work on all

cylinders right now. He is a testament to the the ability that that basketball i Q can replace basketball cute and skill development can replace waning athleticism. As he's aged, As his athleticism has fallen off, he has replaced that with remarkable skill and shot making, and he understands the angles and the approach to offense so well at this phase in his career, it's like he's a step ahead

of everyone else on the court. For those of you are just joining us, this is Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here on the volume. I wanted to move on to Russ for a second. I have some positive things to say about Russ. You know, Russ has a ton of bad that comes with him that's never gonna go away.

He's going to drift in and out focus defensively, he like even though he played mostly good against the Wizards a couple of nights ago, there are a bunch of these, like key possessions where he made mistakes that I don't think is ever going to go away. We have too much evidence of the kind of guy that Russ is on the basketball court and where his head's at when he's out there for us to expect some sort of

massive change from him. But as is the case with most guys like this, and Russ isn't the only guy like this in the league. There are guys that I call good play bad play guys their players where they bring a lot of good, but they also bring a lot of bad, and so whether or not they impact winning has a lot to do with that scale shifting

one way or another. Well, as of late, Russ is getting to the rim a lot as well, very similar to that rim pressure concept I was talking about with Lebron, but with his shot selection in his ability to get to the rim, he's slowing himself down. He's starting to

make layups that he's usually missed. That has added a scoring element to Russ's game, which is allowing him to create shots for his teammates, spreading the ball out to the perimeter, and now he's starting to make a few more good plays every game, and over this recent stretch, we've tipped into Russ being a positive player, which has taken a lot off of what Lebron needs to bring to the table in order for them to win. There for a while, it was like, if Lebron doesn't score fifty,

the Lakers are gonna lose. Well, now, how it's starting to look a little bit more like a functional basketball team. So I wanted to shout out Russ. I can be very critical of him at times. He's one of my least favorite players in the league. I had a fan asked me on Twitter today like, Hey, what does this change your opinion about Russ coming back? Hell? No, I want him off the team. I cannot wait to be

done with the Russell Westbrook experience. But while he's here, I'm gonna compliment him when he plays well, and we might as well try to win a championship while we're at it. So I wanted to shout out Russ. So I wanted to move on to the role players for a second, because this is a huge part of why the offense is where it's at. So Lebron is obviously playing really good offensive basketball of late, but he's been playing really good offensive basketball the vast majority of this season.

But coming into this recent stretch, offense has been a massive problem for the Lakers. They just simply haven't been able to score the basketball. It's certainly not, you know, commensurate to what their talent was. They added all the shooting, they added Malikue Monk, they added Carmelo Anthony, they added these guys that were allegedly going to help them on the offensive end of the floor, and none of it materialized. A lot of the had to do with personnel, Frank

playing weird combinations of nonshooters with the group. A lot of it had to do with them playing big the entire first part of the season. A lot of it is Frank not understanding that in the modern NBA that five out basketball is what has success. But in five out basketball, it's more complicated than just can Lebron get to the basket or can Rust get to the basket. It's the concept of breaking the defense down. So this is where I want to shout out Stanley Johnson and

Austin Reeves. So if you ask Stanley Johnson and Aston Reeves to come down against the set defense and to create a shot for a teammate, they would really struggle in that department. Austin Reeves doesn't have the talent or excuse me, Astan Reaves doesn't have the physical tools, and Stanley Johnson doesn't have the skill. So those two players are gonna struggle with that that type of role. But if I let those two guys attack a compromise defense.

So if Austin Reeves is catching the ball wide open on the wing and the dude is sprinting at him and the defense is shifted over to the other side of the court, all of a sudden, Austin Reeves is great at making plays in that environment. Same thing goes for Stanley Johnson. So that's where this is so important. There is a there is a process to running five out basketball. You've gotta have somebody at the beginning that can break down the defense and force that first rotation.

But then you have to have guys after that first rotation that can continue to further compromise the defense. That's where Stanley Johnson and Ossa Reeves have been so valuable. Lebron and Russ are playing really good offensive basketball right now. To start possessions and they're gonna score a lot of the time, as you've seen, but most of the time

there's gonna be helped sent their way. And in order for that whole system to work, that second guy who attacks as the defense is compromised, that is the guy that is the key to creating the great shot. And the Lakers are getting great shots as of late, and a lot of it has to do with Lebron and a d excuse me, Lebron and Russ at the beginning of the possessions, and guys like Stanley Johnson and Austin Reaves at the end of possession. Specifically Austin Reeves. I

wanted to give him a big shout out tonight. He what he did to start that game offensively is ridiculous. You can tell he's got a whole other set of offensive moves and an offensive repertoire that is beyond what we've even seen with this team, and as of late, he's starting to unleash that little by little. He's very gifted at drawing fouls, he's very gifted at using his

body to gain angles and gain position. He's got little floaters and push shots, and he's got the passes he was making in that first quarter two open teammates was really really impressive to me. I have to shout those guys out there a huge part of why this offense

is humming the way it is. And it's a really really interesting example of how you can scheme your way around personnel shortcomings, just like the Clippers did last year in the playoffs, as without kawhilan Or, they went on that run to the Conference fine, as it was all about scheming around personnel shortcomings. They had solid players. The Clippers are solid, but they didn't have all these stars that we're gonna go out and create everything. But it

all just happened. It all just worked because Reggie, Reggie Jackson and Paul George could make that first defensive rotation and everyone else was just feeding off of that. And the Lakers are starting to capture a little bit of that, which is something I've been begging for literally four years. So it's good to see. So the question becomes, this is half of the issue, right because the Lakers were a bad offensive team and they were a bad defensive team. Well,

they seemed to have fixed their offense. Those were two of the five best defenses in the East that they just went in and just ran over offensively in this last three game starts the calves of the second best defense in the East and the Raptors are the fifth best defense in the East. And the Raptors defense is a lot more intimidating than the numbers would have shown you because they've dealt with injuries a lot this season.

But the Lakers offense that seems to be remedied, and Anthony Davis is a clean and an easy plug into that system. We saw that when he came back from the knee injury. I'm not worried about fitting in Anthony Davis offensively. So you have this other half of the

pie here, the defensive end of the floor. The Lakers obviously have to make significant strides on that end of the floor to have any chance of making it out of the plan and beating Phoenix in the first round, and obviously they have a lot of work to do on that front. But that's where the Anthony Davis potential return makes that a much more achievable outcome. There was issues with personnel earlier in the season where even when those guys were healthy, none of this was getting But

now Avery Bradley's basically out of the rotation. DeAndre Jordan's not even on the roster anymore, Trevor Rees is not playing anymore. A lot of the guys that were part of the that issue aren't around anymore. We've brought in guys like Stanley Johnson, who is a great defensive player. We've brought in Austin Reeves, who obviously brings a ton of the user reasons around all this this time, but he of late is now a consistent guy in the

starting lineup. So that's a big part of it. When you in Gabriel raises our athletic profile, so the entire roster now has a little bit more athleticism, a little bit more foot speed with those lineups. So all you gotta do is combine this little bit of magic that you've captured here with Anthony Davis coming back and good defensive habits, and you can do this again. It's a long shot. I would certainly like their chances a lot more if they didn't have to go through Phoenix in

the first round. This is what pisces me off about the way they approached the season. If you're a seven seed or literally anything other than having to roll into Phoenix, then maybe you can weather through these injuries and get your stuff together in the playoff run. But that's not the case. This is they They they have to basically beat the team I'm picking to win the championship, the Phoenix Suns, the team I think is clearly the best team in the league. The Lakers are gonna have to

go through them in the first round. So now it requires perfection. You need to get Anthony Davis back. You need to spend this next month establishing all the habits that you let slip by the wayside this entire season. But the most important part of this entire thing that I'm laying out here is it's a realistic outcome now.

It was very much not a realistic outcome in the past. Now, even if you want to call it a one in a million, whatever you want to call it, there is a realistic outcome to this Laker team making your run. It's Lebron James being the best player in the world.

It's Anthony Davis being Anthony Davis. It's Russell Westbrook being a net positive instead of a net negative, and young, enthusiastic, energetic role players that fit within their scheme do their jobs and make the five out, dribble driving, driving, kick offense work makes sense. Now I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. Start your bracket with a bang right now, fandal Sports Book is giving new customers a one hundred and fifty dollar instant bonus guaranteed.

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net in West Virginia. All right, I wanted to move on to the Brooklyn Nets for a little bit, who have been one of the most impressive teams in the league as of like, they're six in one in their last seven games. K D dropped thirty seven nine and eight to nine. In his last seven games, he's averaging thirty seven rebounds, eight assists on this is insane. Fifty six percent shooting from the field, forty three percent from three,

and from the free throw line. It continues to be completely mind boggling to me that Kevin Durant can be away from NBA basketball for extended stretches, whether it was his achilles injury that kept him out for a couple of years or this most recent knee injury that kept him out for a much shorter period of time. He just doesn't miss a beat. This guy is the most natural, like he's the most natural hooper that I can remember watching in this league. He just is comfortable all the

time on a basketball court. And it's leading two wins now, but it's it goes beyond KD. So in the last seven games, Seth Curry is averaging fifteen points on fifty five percent from the field from three and a percent from the free throw line and Kyrie Irving, who has only managed to play in three games because of his vaccination status, is averaging forty four points four rebounds in five assists on sixty from the field, sixty three percent

from three, and eight six percent from the line. So what do you get when you have three offensive players like this that are playing out of their minds on the offensive end of the floor. Well, you get a team that in their last seven games is averaging a hundred and twenty seven points per one possessions. They are far and away the best offense in the league over this stretch, and they're actually defending a little bit. In

the seven game stretch, they are eleventh and defense. So they are the They are a great example of this thing that I'm trying to lay out with the Lakers. The Lakers floundered all season with injuries, but they built all these bad habits around the way. Well, the Brooklyn Nets floundered all season with injuries and bad habits, but they kicked out some bad guys like James Harden, Right. They kicked out some guys that didn't that weren't a good fit with their culture. They brought in some new

guys and now they're just bought it there. Now they're just trying to fix and rectify all of the issues that they built over the course of the early parts of the season. And it's working. And that's what the Lakers have to see. I mentioned in the show UH the other night that the Lakers needed to view this next stretch of games like a training camp. Well, that's what Brooklyn is doing. Brooklyn is approaching this as a

training camp. They don't care where they are in the standings, they don't care about anything that happened earlier in the season. They're just trying to become a good basketball team right now. And the Lakers have that same opportunity, and the Nets have provided a great model for them. The team the Nets beat tonight the Utah Jazz. They were fifteen and five in their previous twenty games before tonight. They UH

they have the fifth best record in the league. So you would think, with everything that I just said, that this team should be someone that we considered a bona fide contender and a team that that we should be taking very seriously. I continue to think they're frauds. I don't trust their defense at all. Anytime they play a real offensive team, that can spread them out, their lack

of perimeter defense becomes lethal to them. I I just I've been trying to think of what I would need to see from the Utah Jazz to take them seriously, and honestly, I can't think of anything. They just simply don't have the defensive personnel to hang with the best offensive teams in the league. The Brooklyn Nets lit them on fire tonight, and every good offensive team is going to light them on fire, especially when they have time to scheme around all the issues that Rudy Gobert presents

as a defensive presence. Alright, moving on to the that game between the Timberwolves and the MAVs. So, as I laid out in our show the other night, the Timberwolves had won ten of their last eleven games. They were on a big run. They had beat a ton of

good teams during that stretch. But like I laid out, every time they played one of those good teams the other two one of the other team's best players sat out, Like they beat the Bucks, but they didn't have the honest they beat the Acres, but they didn't have Anthony Davis. It was like that every single time they played a contender over the course of that stretch. Well, here was your opportunity, Here was your opportunity to add legitimacy to

your recent stretch of basketball. You're playing a Dallas Mavericks team that's just came home from a very long road trip that has been slipping in a lot of areas of the game, which we'll get to in a second, and that's a completely beatable team. It's on the road, but that's a winnable game. To add legitimacy to what you're doing, and they couldn't out execute Luca at the end of the game, which was what I said was

their biggest issue. When you're relying on a super young and volatile guard and Anthony Edwards and a slightly older volatile guard in in D'angela Russell, you're gonna struggle when you go against the chess masters, and a guy like Luca is a chess master. He even though he had a really rough night, Luca looks a little banged up. He struggled the other night as well. He's he's in

a little bit of a slump. He just made all the plays that need to be played at the end of the game, and there was a weird play right at the end, the Dorian Phinney Smith dagger when they were up on a four one o three, where Anthony Edwards is like picking up Luca at forty ft and just gives up a straight line drive. And then again, that's youth, that's inexperience, that's not understanding the the stakes of that possession and understanding that you can't get jan

Kie against that smart of a player. He's gonna make you pay every time. So, very impressive stretch of basketball from the Wolves. They're a completely respectable basketball team, so I don't want to undercut that by any stretch of the imagination, but hey, this is the big boys now. If you want to be consistently beating these good teams with all their players, there are some things that they have to sharpen up. Now. With the MAVs, they've had

a couple of ugly losses recently. They they're an interesting case and fatigue as it pertains to defense, so their defense is slipping big time in this last stretch since our last power rankings, which we'll get to in a minute.

But what's interesting is I laid out at length how the Mavericks were compensating for a lack of personnel on the defensive end with a really smart scheme and a ton of effort in buy in from inferior defensive players, guys like Jalen Brunson and Spencer Dinwodie and Luca don Cheich. We're simply trying harder on defense than they ever have and it was resulting in good defensive results for Dallas.

But when you don't have defensive personnel, you have to make up for it with effort, and effort is really difficult to maintain during the dregs of the regular season. And so what you're seeing is the MAVs are entering a rule where the effort is fading. It's hurting them on the defensive end of the ball. It's not an issue for them in the long run as they get to the playoffs. It's just this is the kind of

thing that's gonna happen to a team like this. When you have a ton of defensive personnel and all your guys are good defensive players, effort is less of an issue for them. Defensively. They're gonna they're not gonna have as many rules during the season. That's why that Lakers team for the previous two seasons was so good defensively, night in and night out. They just have personnel, so the job is a little bit easier for them, so

they don't get fatigued as easily. The one other thing you gotta look at with Matt with the MAVs is Luca looks a little banged up, and at this time of year, when we get to the end of March early April, there are little details that start to shape this whole outlook like we're gonna get to with the power rankings, Like I don't have the Warriors in my power rankings right now because Steph is hurt. And that's

how this goes. You're either getting healthy at the right time, or you're getting hurt at the right time or the wrong time. And Luca looks a little banged up and some other teams are getting healthy. That's something that they're gonna have to keep an eye on. Really quick note this wasn't on our list, but really quickly on the that Bulls Raptors game report came out today that a Lonzo Ball tried running and his knee is not doing well.

I talked at length the other day that the only chance that the Bulls have to go on a run was if a Lonzo Ball and Alex Crusoe were healthy, because they carry so much of the defensive load and without both of them, um, I don't think that they have enough defensive like athleticism to cover for their scores so that they can go to work to cover for Levine and for DeRos. And they got a good win

tonight over a good Raptors team. But that Raptors team is on the tail end of a back to back and they've been, uh, they've been playing a lot of games lately. I thought that was fatigue related. One of their note with the Bulls Patrick Williams. Just having that other six eight athlete on the floor just kind of raises that physical profile the team makes them more athletic, which is a big deal because they don't have a ton of size and athleticism in the front court. All right,

let's get to the power rankings. Tip's top ten. You'll notice I've dropped out the Warriors, like I said, because of their recent struggles, UM, the a couple of other teams. I dropped out the Denver Nuggets. They took another beat down to the Boston Celtics other and I'll get to that in a minute. UM number ten Utah Jazz fifteen and six since February, second, fifth in offense, fourth and

defense over that span, fifth and net rating. Donovan Mitchell is attempting eleven threes per game over this stretch, and he's making forty of them. So why do I have them so low? Because of all the things that I laid out earlier. He this team doesn't have a playoff translatable attack. In the regular season, you can scheme around like I'm gonna get to this with the Denver Nuggets

here shortly when we talked about the Boston Celtics. When you have a drop coverage big and you have weak perimeter defensive players, you can take your sweet time, uh, chasing guys around on defense and funneling them into the paint. You don't have to put in a ton of effort. You can give up drives because Rudy's just waiting down there.

He's gonna clean everything up for you. But when you get into the postseason and a really smart offensive team can rotate the ball a couple of times, all of a sudden, Rudy's not under the bat asket anymore, and now Jordan Clarkson is getting beat to the basket for a layup and there's nobody they're helping. That's been the proven downfall of this Utah Jazz team. They've done absolutely

nothing to address it. So I can't fairly in my right mind put them higher on this list, even though their results in the regular season would suggest that and my power rankings, I'm always going to factor in the playoff translatability of a team, and the Utah Jazz, to me, are a regular season machine that can't win playoff series. Number nine the Dallas Mavericks, like a laid out earlier,

their defensive slipping in their last six games. Coming into tonight, they had a one fifteen point five defensive rating, which is a huge drop off from where they were in their previous stretch of games. A lot of this has to do with them just getting back from a super long road trip. Road trips where teams out and then everything.

Like I just said before, with them on the defensive end of the floor, they have to make up for their lack of personnel with effort, and effort is a is a lot harder to maintain over the course of an eight two game season. The MAVs are in a little bit of a dip right now. I'm a little worried about Lucas health, but I still think they are in that second tier of contenders. They have a legitimate puncher's chance to win the title number eight the Philadelphia seventies.

So they actually got a big win tonight without Joel Embid or James Harden against the Miami Heat. But I don't know what to make of that. How do I factor in the fake version of the Sixers that doesn't even resemble what they're gonna look like and apply that to projecting them forward? Uh? You know in the postseason, great win. Proud of those guys for fighting without their stars. Just hard to really translate anything about that. With James

Harden and Joel Embid, they've been struggling lately. They lost to the Raptors, they lost to the Denver Nuggets, they lost to the Nets, all at home in this recent stretch. Their defense is bad. Coming into tonight, in this last stretch of games, they've got a defensive rating of a hundred and fourteen point three, which is nowhere year good enough given the personnel they have a lot of that has to do with James Harden and his laziness on

the defensive end and Joel Embiid struggling with transition. Teams have figured out that you can run on the Philadelphia seventy sixers, and when you do, I've laid this out in a lot of film on my Twitter feed lately. When you run on Joel Embiid, Hey's he can be slow. He complains about fouls a lot, He lingers around under the basket on the offensive end of the floor. You can run on Philly and it makes them beat aful. They are not playing anywhere near as well as they

should be with the amount of talent they have. So right now, I've got them at number eight, even though they're definitely not the eighth most talented team in the league. Number seven, I've got the Toronto Raptors. Recently, they just beat the seventies Sixers, the Clippers, the Nuggets, the Sons, and the Bulls all on the road. They are they are at the UH. Nick Nurse obviously is a great coach.

But the combination of Nick Nurse UH with Massi Yu Jerry and his talent for finding really athletic young talent has turned this team into a royal pain in the ass to play on a night in, night out basis. They make everything difficult on both ends of the floor. They shoot over the top of you on offense, they go through you on offense, and then on the defensive end of the floor, they've got they they'll they'll pick you up full court, they'll challenge every swing pass, they'll

try to front every post up there. They overhelp on every single drive. They make you beat them by being extraordinarily fundamentally sound, and if you start to force things against them, it only gets worse. They're a huge paint of the butt uh Scottie Barnes and uh in Pascal Siakum in the coming into tonight. In this recent stretch of games, we're averaging forty five points per game on

fifty percent shooting. That they've been doing all this with van Fred van Vleet being pretty banged up and with O g n and Obi out with a with a broken finger. I don't think this team has any chance to win the title. I would not put them in a tier of contenders, but they are a royal pain in the ass and a team that knocks them out of the playoffs. Is gonna come out of that banged up and worn out and exhausted. Credit to the Raptors.

Number six, the Miami Heat, who lost again tonight to the Philadelphia seventy without James Harden and the beat They just recently lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Phoenix Suns as well. They're beating their bad teams right now. A huge part of it has to do with with health. Jimmy Butler is basically playing every other game now. I don't know what his deal is. I feel like that dude is just never available to play in games. I'm

not sure what the deal is. Since the last time we did Power rankings, which I believe is in March eight, they're twenty five in offense, which was the huge thing that I was laying out to you guys at that point and the reason why I was pessimistic about this team when you play that many non shooters. P J. Tucker not a great shooter, team a guy that teams are gonna ignore. Jimmy Butler not a great shooter, guy

that teams are gonna ignore. Bam At a bio. Everyone tells me he's a good mid range shooter, but he can't make them, and he's shooting terrible percentages there this year, and teams aren't guarding him out there, so it's janking up everything for their offense. That's gonna be their downfall in a playoff series. They they have an outside chance of making a run, obviously, if things go great and Jimmy Butler gets healthy and goes on a great playoff run.

But I think this team is going to be knocked out when they can't score against one of the best teams in the league. Number four, the Memphis Grizzlies, excuse me a skift one. Number five the Milwaukee Bucks. So the I told you in the last rankings that my main concern with the Milwaukee Bucks was that they don't defend like a team that can win a championship. We have all this history, all of this data in NBA history that tells us that if you don't have a

top ten defense, you are going to lose. That's just unless you have an overwhelming talent advantage. With the Bucks definitely don't have. Well, I kept saying, eventually, they're gonna have to show us something. Eventually, they're gonna have to put together some stretch of good defensive basketball. Well since our last rankings, they have a defensive rating of one seventeen point four, so they've made negative progress on that front.

They're losing to the good teams they play. They lost to the Warriors in the Minnesota Timberwolves, although Jannas didn't play in that game. This season, they are seventeen and nineteen against teams that are five or above. Everything would tell you this is a bona fide championship contender when you look at the roster, in the pieces and what

we just saw last year. But everything in the results and what's actually happening on the court tells us this is a team that loses in the first or second round. So what's gonna happen? I'm not sure I got them at number five right now. Number four the Memphis Grizzlies, So they're in a weak part of their schedule right now. They had a bad loss in Atlanta the other day, but they're taking care of business everywhere else this season.

They are fourteen in two without John Moran. So stan Van Gundi, obviously former coach of the Orlando Magic and the Orance Pelicans, tweeted out earlier today basically talking about how the Grizzlies pay play better without Job, so I dug into that a little bit. They defend better without Jaw, which makes sense because Jaw is a not a great defensive player, and they have a ton of length and athleticism. So if you can substitute a good defensive player in

where Jaw was, obviously they're gonna guard well. But that the fourteen and two is a little misleading. They've played almost no good teams during that stretch. They're They're just a good basketball team, just like the Philadelphia seventy sixers are. So when stars sit out, they just continue to play good basketball and they can overwhelm limited teams. To make no mistake, John Moran, like I talked about earlier with the Lakers in there, you have to have that first

guy who can compromise the defense. Desmond Bane is a good player, but he is a slasher, not a score meaning he can attack closeouts, but he's not a guy who's gonna isolate and break you down off the dribble. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is great attacking mismatches, and he can attack guys off the dribble and he can get to the paint, but he's very reckless. He's got tunnel vision.

He doesn't see help very well. So that's a little bit of fools goal because when they get into a playoff series and they play a good defensive team that scouts them really well, they're gonna take away all those easy opportunities for Jaren Jackson Jr. So what they need is for John Brant to be able to make that first attack of the defense, that initial breakdown. That's why John Moran is indispensable, and that's why I'm not trying to hear anything about how this team is better without him.

Moving on to number three. The Brooklyn Nets like this out earlier six and one in their last seven, best offense in the league. They are the pinnacle of modern basketball. They don't play a ton of front core guys. It's all five out. They They'll do a little bit of Andre Drummond in the dunker spot, a little bit of Bruce Brown in the dunker spot. But for the most part, when this team is at their best, it's just Kevin Durant, Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving just being unbelievably talented offensive

players playing off of each other. They are a well oiled machine, and they're getting enough stops in their last seven games. Like I said, they are eleventh in defense. That is more than good enough to go on a

run when you have their type of offensive talent. Like I talked about before with the Bucks, you can have a little bit of a weaker defense if you have an overwhelming offensive talent advantage, and when you're staring down Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving in a series, they're just way better than you offensively and they can get away with it. I'm nervous about the Ben Simmons thing. This thing with

his herniated disc in his back is deeply concerning. I would bank on him not playing this year, and it might actually be the best decision for them because Ben Simmons, especially with spine stuff. Ben Simmons is an awesome player to plug in in training camp next year to make a really strong run at things next season, So you don't want to bring him back to further exacerbate a spine issue just for the sake of this season. They

have enough talent to do it. I'd like their chances more if Ben Simmons was here, but it looks like he's not gonna be this is what it looks like they're gonna have. They have some details they gotta figure out. You can't play Bruce Brown and Andre drumming at the same time. They have spacing issues with that little details that they got to iron out. But they are trending massively in the right direction and they are definitely a top tier contender for me. Number two the Phoenix Suns.

They're also in an easier part of their schedule, but there dominating without Chris Paul, so I can't continue to undercut that. There's seven and one since the last time we did power rankings over that span, Mikhail Bridges and DeAndre Aighton are both averaging nineteen points per game on over fifty shooting. Like I said, those two guys are the future of this franchise. They are really good players

that are overqualified for the roles that they're in. You're starting to see a little bit more of what they're capable of with with with Chris Paul out, this is the most talented team in the league from top to bottom. They are my championship favorite right now. They are at number two. Number one the Boston Celtics. The reason why I have them at number one of my power rankings is as of late, they continue to be playing the best basketball. I definitely think they're a top tier contender.

I just don't think they're quite as talented as the Phoenix Suns. Since the last time we did these rankings, which was when I laid out just how great the Celtics have been in recent stretches. Just since then to today, they have the best net rating in the league. They have the best defense in the league, their sixth in offense just in that span, so they've only continued to play better. I mentioned earlier that Jayson Tatum wasn't even

shooting well and they were winning games. Jalen Brown wasn't even shooting well and they were winning games well. Since our last rankings, Jason Tamum's shooting from three. So there you go. Now, Jayson Tatum is making shots. Wait till Jalen Brown does, it's gonna get even nastier. I was really impressed with the way they utterly demolished the Denver Nuggets in Denver the other night. This is a great example of what I was talking about with drop coverage

with bigs. Nicola Yokit just turned himself into a good drop coverage big in the NBA, which has made him a positive defender in the regular season. But it's only It only works because on the vast majority of nights you're not playing a player the caliber of Jayson Tatum that can consistently make you pay for running a drop coverage. Well, Jayson Tatum lit them on fire in the first half

the other night, Nikola Yoki was utterly victimized. If you go to my Twitter page and you scroll down, I did a video breakdown of this this morning, laying down laying out specifically what I was talking about, the really interesting element of it. One of the reasons why coaches love running drop coverage with guards is guards are really good at evading screens and getting over the top, and they can apply back pressure which allows your big to

sit lower. But because Jayson Tatum is six eight, they had to guarden with Eric Gordon, excuse me, with Aaron Gordon. And one of the things that we know about basketball is that bigger players are much easier to screen. They struggle getting around screens. Well, Aaron Gordon was getting caught on screens all night long, and it was Nicola Yoki camping at fifteen feet and Jayson Tatum shooting practice, you shots over the top. They absolutely demolished Denver Nuggets. It

was a super impressive win. I don't think they have enough offense to be my favorite, but they're absolutely in my top tier of contenders, and they are number one in timp's Top ten for the second edition in a row. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. We will be back Wednesday. I believe the Lakers played the Philadelphia seventy sixers on that night. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and we will see you in a couple of days. Volume