183. LeBron sits out, the Lakers are done

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a great weekend. I got out and played some golf yesterday for the first time in about a half year. That went about as you could have expected. I've never seen a sport like golf before, where like you grow up and you're playing sports, and like, if you're playing poorly or you're struggling, the answer is to play harder. And golf could not be a war sport for you to try to play harder, and that's just when things start to get disastrous. But I had fun getting out there,

and I'm actually looking forward to summer. I'm getting all of the cold weather. I'm very excited to talk some NBA basketball today. The Lakers are done. It's over, and we're gonna do a little bit of a miniature eulogy for them today, but we're not gonna dwell on them for too long. We had an incredible showdown between Luca don Chich and Janis Antenna Kopo in Milwaukee between the

MAVs and the Bucks. We're gonna break that game down in its entirely, in its entirety, and for those of you guys who stick around for the end, we're gonna talk a little bit about the Brooklyn Nets, and we're gonna bring my guy Carson on to get into some other stories around the NBA, But let's start with the Lakers. That game today was frustrating for a lot of different reasons.

That came out with this incredible intense effort, right and all you Laker fans you see right through that, because we've seen it all season, this incredible catastrophic loss for whatever reason leading to all of this due in gloom negativity, and then they almost always come out with like a weird intense energy in the next game, like a denial type of energy, but it's it's so fake because it's not there when it actually has an opportunity to to

actually facilitate some sort of change in outcomes. That same effort is not there when the when the Lakers desperately need it. Instead, it comes when it's too late, Too little, too late. Is kind of a theme for the season. Like I said in the show the other day, it's a theme that I I've seen consistently with the with this Laker team, they have tried all season long to tell us exactly who they are and what they're made of, what their championship character is. And the outlier examples have

been the bits where the effort is sharp. The outlier examples have been when they've gone down kicking and screaming rather than laying down. Those are the outliers. The far more common scenario has been a lack of attention to detail, a lack of intensity to go with all of the self sabotage that we laid out in detail in Friday show. And then, yeah, you've got a little bit of a second half lead. I think they were up by seven at one point in that third quarter, but you knew

what was gonna happen. I was talking with my producers during the halftime show and we were like, what's the over under for points allowed by the Lakers in the second half, and we put it at sixty three and a half, just kind of having fun with the guys talking, and they gave up sixty seven, and they gave up sixty four in the second half the other day against the Pelicans. When the chips are down and this team

actually needs to get stops, they can't. Why Because it's hard to get stops in the NBA, regardless of your personnel. There's a level of of effort and focus, but there's also a level of like habits and instincts, and you have to build those. We talked about this with the Memphis Grizzlies the other day. The reason why the Grizzlies are defending so well is because from the top down, culturally, within the franchise, there is an expectation to do your

job within the defensive responsibilities of the team. So regardless of whether one guy's in or one guy's out, Jaren Jackson out doesn't matter. Jaren Jackson's been like Anthony Davis for that team doesn't matter. They without him, they're still getting stops. It's because culturally they have built that out as part of the team, and that's that culture did used to exist with the Lakers and the first two years of the Lebron and a D era. That's why when Anthony Davis went out, they did get a ton

of stops. But this season it's been utterly gone, and that's been a huge part of why when the chips are down and they actually need to get stops, they haven't been able to. And then the Russ A d pairing is an interesting pairing for a couple of different reasons. We saw this a lot early in the season when they lost those two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder. You saw them immediately put um Lou Dort on Russell

Westbrook and you saw them put uh. I can't remember who it was that they put a big, strong forward on Anthony Davis and uh, they just switched the screens every time. And because those guys were quicker than because lu Dort Russell Westber could not bully him physically, and because Anthony Davis doesn't have a quick first step, turned him both into jump shooters and they just couldn't create

shots at the end of the game. And so that was the reason why I wasn't optimistic even when the score looked good today is because you knew at any given moment, Denver was gonna lock it, and as soon as they did, what was inevitably going to happen is they weren't going to be able to get stops because they're not a disciplined defensive team, and they wouldn't be able to score because Russ puts up numbers. We're gonna talk a little bit about Russ here in a minute.

Russ is gonna put up his numbers, but on key possessions and important moments of games. He's a guard that's very limited, and so if you can take away his ability to just get straight line drives to the basket, you can he doesn't really have a counter and Anthony Davis, you can turn him into a guy who has to shoot over the top. So I didn't believe, even when this game was competitive, that they had much of a chance to win. And that's just the reality of their situation.

It kind of felt like a waste to have Anthony Davis out there. He's in the first quarter looking amazing, because Anthony Davis isn't a amazing basketball player. He's out there in the first quarter, subs out of the game, and he's got his shoe off on the sideline. Throughout the entire second half, he's limping around on the floor, and I and and I again. I admire Anthony Davis's competitiveness for wanting to be out there with this guys, for wanting to try. I admire that. But it's time.

It's time to acknowledge the writing on the wall. I understand Lebron James has to play in two more games to qualify for the scoring title. I've talked about this in detail on the show. I have no issue with Lebron playing in those two games. This guy is a proven winner in this league. If he wants to establish statistical, you know, markers for his career, I don't have any problem with that. Get Lebron Is two games in, get

him out, get Anthony Davis out. There's absolutely no point in having them out there with these injuries to the extent that it could risk something further, Because what's your worst case scenario now. Worst case scenario now is you lose the rest of of games this season, you missed the playing tournament, tournament entirely, entire in its entirety, and you go into the off season. Then what happens Leron and A D get healthy, so May and June they get to rest up. Then all summer long they get

to work on their games. Meanwhile, the Lakers have an opportunity with their front office in ownership group to try to turn over the roster, get rid of as much of that negativity that's been plaguing this team, and try to reset for next year. And then you go into training camp in October and it's a fresh start and maybe you can undo the damage that you did this year to the reputation of franchise and all of the bad taste that you put in the in the in

the mouth of the fans this year. That's what you can do. That's the worst case scenario if if you get these guys out of the lineup, but making Anthony Davis play with a bad wheel, having Lebron play more than the two games he wants to play to get his scoring title on a bad wheel, that is it's a dangerous risk. And we talked about this a lot on the show, like like you know, it's with Derrick Rose in two thousand twelve, the underlying story to the A C. L Terror was he was dealing with a

bunch of foot and ankle stuff all season. You have a power line in your body when you explode and when you land on the ground, you have to absorb impact and you do that with your whole body. And so when one part of your body is hurting for whatever reason, you start to compensate by putting pressure on other parts of your body. And that's where other more

serious injuries can happen. So again, if you if if this team, like if this team had a realistic path to try to make something happen, then by all means, I get it. That's that's where that's where it's about pushing your chips in the middle and going for it.

But ever since that Pelicans game, when we saw Frank Vogel just throw in the trash everything that he learned about what this team was good at and what this team was bad at, I'm not gonna get into that again because I went into it at length on Friday night. But Frank Vogel killed my belief in this team on Friday night, and I believe the same thing happened to Lebron.

That's why he decided not to play. But at this point, acknowledge that that light of the tunnel no longer exists, and understand that there's more risk than there is reward having those guys out there. I admire Anthony Davis for what he did today. I just don't see the point anymore here. It's time to get him out of the lineup. It's time to get Lebron his two games that he needs. Those are great, great if you're looking for great betting opportunities.

Lebron's next two games, bet his over on the points because he's gonna go out there and he's going to gun to score. It'll be really interesting to see which games he plays in. I don't see the point in playing him against Phoenix. Maybe Oklahoma City, maybe Denver. It'll be interesting to see which games he plays in. But I think he's gonna get his last two in and

then he's gonna be done. So as far as like a eulogy goes for the Lakers, I want to get into this in a lot of detail at some point, probably this off season, or maybe if we run into a little break at some point, but I want to you know, I've got to meet a lot of Lakers fans during my time covering this team. And uh one of him in particular, Deminrangula, good friend of mine. He

used to blog for Silver Screen and Roll. Now he's more of just like a figurehead within the Laker fan base, and I've appreciated his honesty this season with the way that he's covered the team. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of like apology, a lot of apologists out there that are Lakers fans. And I don't have any issue with people who are apologists. It's just to me, it's it's not authentic, and I'm always drawn to people who are more authentic, people that are more willing to

call things the way they see him. He wrote an article this morning. He broke out of writing retirement and wrote an article this morning talking about how this was basically his least favorite Lakers team that he's ever rooted for, and in it, he talked about how the Laker franchise in general is obsessed with star power and when they're making their decisions, and it extends all the way from

the top down. It's very frequently not about what uh what qualifications a person has or what the specific job needs, but it's rather more of like a parochial like we're we're friends, or we're family, or we have a loyalty to you for one reason or another. It's a really strange dynamic that surrounds the franchise, and in a weird way, it has poisoned everything that they've tried to accomplish in the last couple of years. Look down the roster, like

your look down the the organization. You've got Genie Buss, who's literally an owner who inherited the franchise, right. And then you go to Rob Polinka, your president of basketball Operations. This is a guy who literally was given the job

because he was Kobe's agent. He's far and away one of the bottom probably a bottom third GM in the league in terms of his willingness to put in the work, is willing to willingness to dive into the weeds of scouting talent around the NBA, watching tons of NBA basketball so that you understand what's working and what's not working

that's not his strength of his. And then going down to the coaching staff, you've got Frank Vogel, who's literally in the job because they weren't willing to pay the better coach, which was Tylu And he's still in the job right now. The only reason they didn't fire him, in my opinion, is because they're not wanting to pay him and he's under contract, which will be a whole other thing that they're gonna have to deal with this offseason.

But it extends down the roster instead of looking at how you won the title in which was Lebron James Anthony Davis playing at the peak of their powers with really high quality role players around, and these role players were filling very specific responsibilities that needed to be filled around Lebron James and Anthony Davis. But instead of acknowledging that, which they basically fell backwards into. They wanted Kawhi Leonard.

Now Kawhi Leonards so good that it might have worked out anyway, but they felt they kind of fell asked backwards into the right role players in two thousand twenty. But ever since then, all they've done is undo that because of their obsession with that star power, with that familiarity. It's not find a good three and D guy to come into play role. It's former Laker Trevor is Uh. You know, it's not find a a player that allows you to facilitate more Lebron and a D at the

four five lineups. Instead, it's here comes to White Howard again, because we remember he was on a team that we used to have when we won the title. It's a lot of here's Avery Bradley, here's familiarity, here's older veteran players, guys that we have this, this, this you know, sentimental

attachment to Carmelo Anthony. I talked a lot about him on Twitter today because he hasn't shot the ball well basically for the last two thirds of the season, and with all of the issues that you have with him defensively, it just doesn't make sense for him to be on

the court. But if you really trim all the fat and you look back and you see that they have these two core pieces and Lebron James and Anthony Davis, that are still very much the right core pieces that you want if you're gonna try to win a championship. But everything around that, those decisions are being made with the wrong priorities. They're being made with the prior pies of star power and familiarity, in nepotism and all of those things that I just talked about that has to

be killed. You guys have to go check out Demand's article. I tweeted it out earlier. You can find it if you scroll down. I loved his authenticity there. I love the way that he painted a very accurate picture in my opinion of the way that this this is a

top down poisoning of this franchise. And it's really discouraging to me because as we look into the into the future, you know, there are a half dozen gms in the NBA that if I gave them the Lakers this offseason, I would feel utterly and supremely confident that they could restore what happened in That's Hot Yugerie for example. That's Hot Eugeria had the keys to the Lakers this summer. I believe they would win the championship next season if

Lebron James and Anthony Davis stayed healthy. That's how doable this is. But Laker fans, do you feel like it can be done with Rob Polinka? Do you feel like it can be done with Genie Buss? Do you? I don't.

I know it can be done, but chances are if I told you one of two scenarios was gonna go on, that they were gonna learn from their mistakes and do everything that they needed to do to restore the type of vibe and culture around the Lakers, or if they were going to continue to make the same types of mistakes of nepotism and familiarity and cheapness and all of those things. Which of those two scenarios do you think is more likely? It's probably the latter. And so that's discouraging.

And I feel really bad for Laker fans for that in that respect, And and and this entire season has just been a just unending line of self sabotage and and I don't blame Lakers fans for being frustrated. Before we move on to the Lakers, I wanted to talk about Russell Westbrook for a second, because he's actually playing

okay as of over the last month or so. And you know, Carson had surprised me with the postgame quote in the Friday Show, and I talked about how, like, I don't blame the Laker fans for being upset because Russ has sucked this year. And it's a really strong word. And to be clear, like Russ doesn't suck at basketball in a vacuum. When I say that, I'm just authentically reacting to a quote that frustrates me in the moment, like it's annoying to me, Russ that you continue to

point the finger at Laker fans. It's not their fault, it's yours that things are the way that they are. But in terms of where Russ does actually suck quote unquote, and forget about the strong word in terms of Russ not living up to potential, it all has to do with the fact that when you put into context what he makes in his salary, what the goal of the Russell Westbrook trade was, and what they brought in Russ to do, and how the results have looked, you have

not lived up to that. It has been a catastrophic failure. And more often than not, I have in Russ fans are are arguably the most national fan base that I've ever come into contact with. And that's one of the many reasons why I'm so excited for this experiment to be over. The Russ fans will always show you here's an amazing donkey had, Here's an amazing box score that

he had. Here's the game where he went thirteen from from nineteen from the field and he made three out of five threes, and he had thirty points, eleven rebounds, and nine assists, And they always point to those sorts of things as these like gotcha moments, as recovering Russ and and it bothers me because I would hope that at this point we would be above that level of analysis when we're when we're when we're taking a closer look at basketball players in the way that they impact

winning guys. If you want box score watching and that kind of thing, you gotta go somewhere else. I'm not that type of basketball now analyst. I get into the weeds. I like to. You know, I've been around the game my entire life. I live and breathe the game every day. I have a different view of it. There are thirty nine guys in the NBA right now that average over twenty points per game? Are they all superstars? Are they all amazing scorers? Or are there guys that put up

stats that are less impactful than others? We'd all agree on that, right, Like do you think Zach Levine is as good as Kevin Durant because their counting stats are different, But they're not that much different, you know what I'm saying? Like there's there is a whole other level to the way that we in that that a player that can that that a player can impact basketball. When I was playing at a CU my last year playing in college,

uh an ai A has really weird eligibility rules. So we had a thirty one year old point guard and a twenty nine year old shooting guard. I was twenty two and I was one of the younger players on the team. The thirty one year old point guard was an incredible human being that I met. His name was

Taliboo Dot you want All America. He was an All American the year that I played with him at a c U, and I'll never forget the way that he went out of his way to try to teach me while I was there about the intricacies of winning basketball games. We would play in open gyms before the season started, and I would score a lot, and I would talked ship because I was a little punk at age twenty two, and and to leave would always be like, you'd get out my case about how I wasn't seeing the bigger

picture of what was happening on the court. And so what he did is he started inviting me to these private three on three runs that we would do at the school and in these three on three runs, you know, like he'd put me on his team, and then he would try to teach me about the little things that

won basketball games. For instance, like if if there was a play where I I helped on a drive, but then I closed out to the three point line and chase the guy and funneled into the next help and then came up like if I did it right, he would, you know, tell me I did it right. But then like if the next possession I didn't close out or I missed the box out, he would start screaming and yelling at me, just literally ripping me a new one

for blowing a responsibility. And the lesson he was trying to teach me was that winning basketball games is about so much more than making a shot, getting a dunk, blocking a shot, locking one guy up in ile ation, or all of the things that Russell Westbrook is obsessed with on the basketball court. To leave was teaching me that you won basketball games on the margins. You won basketball games by never missing a box out, by approaching every close out like it was the one that could

win you or lose you the game. He and we would run a pick and roll and he would get a lay up out of it, and then on the next possession, I take a step back three and he'd starts screaming at me again, why did you go away from something that just worked? Don't make the game more complicated than it needs to be. This is how you win. You win by understanding what's working and replicating it, understanding

what's not working and not replicating it. And you know, I'll never forget those lessons that to leave taught me. It changed who I was as a basketball player. Those are little details that go so far beyond box scores. And what frustrates me about the Russell Westbrook experience is there's always so much focus on this is this amazing donkey had, Here's this incredible box score that he had, Here's this incredible assist that he had, or things along

those lines. Russ is utterly devoid of the attention of detail, attention to detail that defines winning basketball players. And one of the most frustrating things for me this season has been me watching these games, watching them twice most of the time, and then having people try to convince me

that he's actually been great when he hasn't been. And and I stand by that, and like I I'm happy that over the course of the last month he's being able to have a little bit more positive impact, so at least it's not as much of a disaster it was in the middle of the season. There's a lot of negativity surrounding that, and that got really frustrating. But that's why I'm done with the Russell Westbrook experience. That's

why I'm ready for him to be somewhere else. It's simply because that disconnect between productivity that actually impacts winning basketball games and box score watching and highlight watching, that disconnect is something I'm sick of, and it's to me, it's bad for discourse and the game, and I'm just ready for it to be gone. I'm ready for him to be on a bad team somewhere where he can put up all these crazy numbers and I don't have to argue with people about whether or not it impacts winning.

That's where I'm at with it. And again, like it's Russ doesn't suck at basketball. He's a very good basketball player. He's one of the foy best basketball players in the world. But he's he's vastly underachieved compared to what his contract would dictate and what the trade and what the trade needed to produce in order for this team to succeed. And I have absolutely no issue at all whatsoever with

Lakers fans expressing their frustration about that. For those of you who are just joining us, this is Lakers Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. We're gonna move on to the MAVs and the Bucks. This was an unbelievable basketball game and it was a case study and what makes Luca don Chich in my opinion, a top tier superstar and a player that very well, at one point in the next couple of years, could be considered

the best player in the world. Talked about this a lot, and after the Nets Bucks games the other game the other day. There's a difference between a overpowering, brute force basketball player and a surgical basketball player, and everybody's kind of in different spots on that spectrum, right Like Lebron is kind of in the middle. He's surgical in a lot of ways, but he also has that brute force

element to it. Kevin Durant is very surgical, but there's this physical tools element to him because of how tall he is and how how he could shoot over the top of people. And then you have Janice, who's very much more on the brute force side of things. He's just a complete physical freak of nature. He's not unskilled, but that's not the way that he impacts winning. He impacts the winning by use of brute force. And Luca just was an absolute savant on the court today. He

was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers. I wanted to get into some of the ways that that he dissected the Bucks offense to start that game. So there's an old there's an old saying. I can't remember if it was John would In or someone else, but there's there's a saying that coaches use all the time around the game that the ball always moves faster than

a player. So no matter how athletic a team is, no matter how much of a freak Janice is, he can't move as fast as any of you guys listening could throw a basketball. The basketball moves around faster than any player can, and so that's what makes extremely gifted passers like Luka done so dangerous. I love the way he worked through the coverage progressions of the Bucks early in that game to get easy shots. So it's like first possession of the game, they're using a drop coverage.

You've got Brooke Lopez under the basket. Drew Holiday chases Luca don chit over the top of the pick and roll, and Janice has helps it out at the strong side corner and kind of reaches in and and grabs Luca's arm. He just feels the arm there. It goes right up through it, draws the foul and actually makes a floater

to get an hand one. Then on the next possession they actually send uh Lopez higher on the drop and Luca just easily hits a pocket pass to Dwight Powell who makes it easy swing to Dorian Phineas Smith in the corner who tacks the close out and they get it done then on the Then on the next possession they go to did Jalen Brunson and Lucas kind of sitting off the ball. Lucas just patiently waiting on the wing.

He catches the ball, uses a pump fake to get Drew Holiday to chase him, gets him on his hip, works into the lane just patient enough until Brook Lopez steps up and as soon as brook Lopez steps up, there's the drop pass for Dwight Pale, there's another dunk. Then on the next pick and roll, Drew Holiday and Drew Drew Lopez or Drew Holliday gets stuck on the screen, and now Brook Lopez is on Luca on a switch and Luca just beats him off the dribble and gets

a lay. So we had three completely different type of coverage scenarios where he gets a basket out of it. Then on the next time, you know, all NBA teams want to try to keep picking rolls to two on two coverage, that's the whole point of that, so you don't have to send help. But lucas killing him in two on two coverage, so they send help as soon

as he sends help. I believe it is Chris middle Tune steps in boom easy swing pass, Jalen Brunson makes a three, So in the next possession they don't ring help, and so Luca just kind of methodically works his way into the lane and as soon as Drew's on his hip and as soon as Brook Lopez commits, it's a wraparound pass that hits Dwight Powell right under the basket for a dunk time out for for the Bucks, and it's fifteen and thirteen and I'm literally sitting there and

I'm like, this Bucks team just got destroyed the other night. They're coming out there playing extremely hard defense. They have Jannie on the floor, they have all this athleticism, and it just doesn't matter because lucas just one step ahead of all of their coverages. He has a counter to

everything that they do. It was truly amazing. And then Luca comes out of the game and they bring in Spencer Dinwoy And I've talked a lot about him on the show recently, but Spencer Dinwood, he I know, he hasn't shot the ball particularly well at all the time over the last couple of years. I cut him some slack there because anytime you're coming back from an a c L injury and it was just partial terror, but he was out for a long time, it's hard to

get back into that groove. He's really playing good basketball. Blade He had three massive threes there in that third quarter that kind or second quarter that kind of restored because the Bucks actually ended up going up by I believe ten at one point, and he just made a couple of big shots that got them in the game. That Jalen Brunson, Spencer Dinwood, the ability to spell Luca Donches so that he doesn't run out of gas is what allows Luca to control those games. And then we

get to crunch time and this was amazing. It's the end of the game and Lucas literally calling for Joannice on a switch. And he's been doing this a lot lately. J. J. Reddick actually talked to him about it on his podcast, this desire to call out stars on switches. He did it to Lebron, he did it this step. Even did it to KD a little bit in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago. But I thought I was sitting there.

Do you guys remember in the in the game the Bucks Nets game the other night, how I was talking about how Janice was doing these unbelievable vicious closeouts on on Seth Curry to take away his easy opportunities, and literally like there was one where Seth Curry caught the ball in the winging and Janice was double teaming Kevin Durant and Kevin Durant through a pass to Seth Curry and Janice still chased him off the line and then Seth relocates all the way to the other wing and

Janice chases him off the line. There it's these frightening clothes outs that scare shooters. Lucas saw this. He was making these passes to the week side corner and Janice was chasing guys off the line. He was able to be in two places as once at once because he's a freak talent. And so Luca starts calling on Joannice on the switches and it was so smart because he knows he can't score easily on Janice, but what he could do with the honest was get him on his hit.

Luca does this move where he gets the ball in his left hand and he and he just does a hard dribble step back right. You've seen it a hundred times, but he does it out of a hesitation, so he can always default out of it. He can kind of just do that in and out holding the heavy and if you're off of him, he'll go into the shot, and if you're not off of him, he can just

keep dribbling. Well, he was using that move on Jannie to get him to step up and then quick pound through the legs now honest is on his hip and Luca weighs two fifty pounds. So Luca, even though he's smaller than your honest, he is physically stout enough to kind of keep him on his hip and he would like slowly work with Joannice on his hip into the lane and then as soon as the help came, then

he make the week side corner pass. Except for now Janice isn't the one closing out and bam, they got back to back massive threes in the fourth quarter, one for Reggie Bullock and one for Dorry and Phinnie Smith on that exact same type of play. And I'm literally sitting there watching this. I'm like, this guy is unbelievable. It's there's he's so far ahead of everything that's happening defensively, and he's so different from James Harden. Too frequently he

gets compared to James Harden. I he's so different in my opinion because he's a scoring threat from every single spot on the floor rather than just a handful of specific spots that are James Harden's comfort zones. And as much as James Harden is a good pastor, James Harden is a very good passer, But Luca is that top tier type of playmaker up there with the Lebrons and the yokich Is and the CP three's of the world.

There's another level to it, and his ability to make those types of reads and those types of decisions put him on an entirely different level. In my opinion, I was blown away by looking too that. It's hard to say whether or not he'll ever be the best player in the league because the league is so staffed. That's a complicated conversation. You've got Janice doing what he's doing. Who knows what's gonna happen with Yo kitchen Bead over

the next couple of years. I'm not as high on them as other people, but Luca on any given night is capable about playing the best players in the world. Look at the role Janice has been on. Joannice literally just outplayed Joel Embiid for a win and outplayed Kevin Durant for a win in the last week. Unbelievable stuff from Jannice. He's at the best level he's ever been playing at and Luca was better than him today on

his home floor. At the end of that game, Yannice got a bunch of points in garbage time, when the game was over, when the game was at that last time out, when the when the I think the uh, the Mavericks were by nine with about three minutes left, the only at twenty two points. And I'm not under cutting jannat by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just saying that Luca is that type of dude. He's the type of dude that can stare cowhile ard in the face and be like, I'm better than you. And he

did that in the playoffs twice. And he can do the same thing to Honest, you can do the same thing to Lebron. He can do the same thing to everybody. Doesn't mean he's better. It just means that he's on that level, which gives them a puncher's chance to beat any of the guys that are at that level. Moving on to the Bucks A little bit. Part of the reason why Joanna struggled so much as something that I've

been talking about a lot on the show recently. The MAVs are very good, scramble and recover type of team. They don't have great defensive personnelit We talked about this a lot on the show but they're extremely good at thriving in the chaos that comes from doubling and recovering. Right, so they whenever they find themselves in a matchup that they don't like, they just send multiple bodies at a guy.

And what they did such an amazing job of with the Honest today is take away his super easy opportunities. I talked about this against the Nets and the other day. When you honest would catch the ball in single coverage and have a thin, wiry defender on him that doesn't really have any chance to to guard him, he would just quick rip through, go to the rim, get a dunk or get out and he and it was like all night long, he was getting one of those every

five or six possessions. And those are more defensive breakdowns than anything else. I know that he's being guarded, but you can't guard Yanice one on one, not in space at least. And so what the the MAVs did an extremely good job of tonight is they consistently got back in transition and set their wall. But every time that Janice caught the ball, he was playing in a crowd. If he would have wanted to do his rip through to the right or to the left on Dorian Phinnias Smith.

There's another defender just staying their way all game long, and as a result, you were able to take away his easy stuff. And when you take away jannice Is easy stuff, the game does get a little bit harder for him. It's not that it doesn't mean he's not a superstar. It's just the difference between him being forty plus point of game absolute superman and him looking more human is take the way zizy stuff get back in transition, build the wall, make him play in a crowd. You

will make him a beatable opponent. How does Luca outplay Janice? It's not just Luca and everything that he can do with the basketball in his hands on offense, it's also Dallas in their discipline on defense and their willingness. It's hard to spread back in transition in Milwaukee, when that athletic team is flying up and down the floor, it is hard on every single possession to set dig defenders on both sides, to take away easy driving lanes, and

to rotate out on the backside. It's difficult to do what they do, but they're so bought into it and they do it so well. And it was really really impressive.

I'm not sure what this means for Dallas. I can I go up and down with them because they have you know, their defense is a little gimmicky, and I think it's easier in these one game settings in the regular season to make up for a lack of defensive personnel with scheming, but I think it becomes infinitely harder in a postseason series when it's more of a chess match.

All I know is, don't count out this Luca guy, because a lot of those same defensive problems existed against the Clippers in the last two years, and he had no problem putting that series on the break both times.

So gun to my head, I look at this situation and I see Luca playing better than he's ever played, having a better defensive concept behind him than he's ever had, and another backup playmaker and spencer Dinwodie that's probably better than Jalen Bronson, but also having Jalen Brunson there as well. There's it's just a much better version of the team last year that damn near beat the l A Clippers with Khi Leonard, the same l A Clippers that without

Kawhi Leonard made it to the conference finals. That's a significant that's a significant indicator of what this team may or may not be capable of. One last note on that game in particular, and this is on the Bucks. They have so many physical advantages, they have to find a better way to try to make them pay for that. I don't know if that's being a little less concerned with your transition defense and maybe crashing the glass more.

I don't know if that's kind of getting out of your offense to run more actions directly targeting Luca to maybe try to fatigue him a little bit. They did that a little bit in the first half with isolations with Drew Holiday, and they actually got some good stuff out of it. Maybe that's what you need to do. There's a little bit more of that and try to get Luca out of his rhythm by making him play more defense than he wants to. There, you just gotta have to find that. Those are the counters that I

would go to if I was the Buck. Super interesting game, though, and I I'm really thankful that, you know, with Lebron kind of exiting this arena here in the next few years, I'm really thankful that we have an awesome new crop of stars coming up and Luca, Luca and Jannas are gonna be really fun to watch over the next few years. And I'm very thankful that Johanna didn't end up in Dallas.

That was a big potential outcome there when things were getting dicey with the Bucks and signing that Supermax extension. It would have been like two seventeen Warriors, ask with the level of certainties surrounding outcomes in the NBA, if you got those two on the same team, just just unbelievable stuff. Fandel Sports Book is an official sports betting partner of the NBA, and with Fandel same game parlays,

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the finals all season long. Download the Vandel sports Book Gap or head to Fandel dot com and sign up using promo co Jason t to bet the NBA today and get your first bet risk free. How are you doing, Jason, I'm doing good, buddy. That's your weekend. It was very good. I am just peachy. So, as you said, we've got a game, we're gonna talk about sort of what some reasonable playoff expectations for a few teams around the league. But before we get into that, obviously you just broke

down MAVs Bucks. How the MAVs were able to give you hon some trouble And we sent out a pull on YouTube. Who would you rather have over the next five years? Nice or Luca? That poll was but I'm interested, what are your thoughts on that? Who would you take? So? I think I'd take Janice. I do think it's closer than people would think. I you know, we talked a lot about this when we were evaluating stars, uh, and it was a couple shows ago. I think, But how

much circumstances matter? So, for instance, if I have a great amount of defensive athleticism and size on the interior already like and shooting, I'd prefer Luca because I feel like I can manufacture a really good defense with that group. And I think Luca. Luca is a better offensive player and he's more surgical, which is better and more reliable

in the postseason. But like building from scratch, if I don't know what I'm gonna get, I feel like it's easier to build around your Honest because he can do so much, and it gives me a little bit more, you know, margin for error as I'm filling around the side. So again it depends that you could you could build a team of role players around Luca. That would be a team of role players in Janice, if the role players favored and kind of catered to Lucas skill set more.

But I would say, in a vacuum, I take you Honest by a certain amount, not a ton, but sixty kind of seems fair and fresh to me. Yeah, I think that's always been sort of an interesting dynamic with Luca, is that I feel like, based on pure ability in terms of the scoring, playmaking combo, just getting into Layne, scoring from everywhere, facilitating at this age, it seems like you would have one of the highest offensive ceilings ever.

But you do have a bit of that bald dominance helio centrism, and you mentioned with Janice a bit more of the versatility, but like, how great all time do you think Luca can be? There's probably some two way limitations there, but offensively, like, are we talking about a guy who could potentially be like top ten ever in that respect? Absolutely? I mean we talked about this a while back, but you can kind of see it with his shot, in the inconsistencies in his shot, especially the

free throw line. Like, I think Luca is Lucas like that kid that you know that never tries at anything, but for some reason, he's better than everybody at anything. Like he's one of the most naturally gifted human beings to ever set foot on this earth. And like, I do believe there's gonna be a phase of his career where he starts to embrace the work ethic, particularly when it comes to his physique, in a way that will

lead to to him having a really dominant stretch. But the truth of the matter is, like so much of this depends on on like management, But I trust Mark, Cuban and Dallas to give him enough to be the kind of guy that's relevant long enough that he can have that type of career. Now, last last little note on that this is why it's so important for him to take care of his body. So many of these kinds of things come down to health. So many of these kinds of things has come down to little breaks

along the way. And so that's part of why I hope that Luca finally soon starts taking care of his body to a greater extent because I want him to have a long career because if he does, I absolutely think I would say top five player ever is absolutely doable for him. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a fascinating question, honestly, and just a testament to obviously the kind of all time talent that does exist in the league right now. Is the game continues to evolve, all right,

So it's really kind of unfathomable. All right. So the game that we have now is called expectations management. And like I said, pretty much, I'm gonna name a team, You're gonna tell me what you think would equal playoffs success for them? What's an expectation that they should be happy with in terms of what they can do this postseason. We're gonna start with the Utah Jazz. What would playoff success look like? For them? Um, that's an interesting one.

I would say you know, these small markets, they operate on different wavelengths in terms of the expectations in a lot of ways, Like if they made the conference finals, there's a case to be made that if you're the Utah Jazz, with the type of stars that you have access to in free agency, with the way you have to build your team, that that would be a success. But in the context of everything that's happened in the

last few seasons, it will be deemed a failure. So they're in the really unfortunate position where if they don't win a championship they have to blow things up, but they're also just not going to win a championship. What happened against the Warriors the other night was absolutely insane.

My uh So, the Warriors switch every screen, which of course completely shut down the Jazz offense at the end of the game, especially because we talked about this a lot, but they rely on small guards to create all of their isolation possessions on the perimeter for the most part, outside of Backdanovitch, and he's just not that good. And when you have a team like the Warriors that's just completely fielding lineups full of range e wings all the time.

There are just gonna have a lot of success stopping them in those isolation possessions. There's this crazy clip out there that's making the rounds on Twitter today of of the Warriors making like six straight threes to turn that game around at the end yesterday. But what was interesting is there's a very easy way to beat that coverage if you have a guy like Rudy Gobert, and it's

to punish the switches inside. You know, just instead of Donovan Mitchell being like, I'm gonna attack your big man on this switch, it's get the ball into Rudy Gobert dealing with the little guy under the basket. But Cranches, uh, the Cranches is a guy that covers the Lakers, does a bunch of analytics stuff. He released some stats today that we're unbelievable. This entire season, Rudy Gobert has ten made baskets attacking switches underneath the rim, ten in seventy

plus games. He just he's not any good at it. His teammates don't trust him in those scenarios. The whole situation is kind of poisoned on that front. So the inevitable thing that's gonna happen with this team, is they're gonna face some team that switches every screen. Donovan sold Mike Conley are gonna be able to create enough shots, Rudy Gobert is not gonna punish teams for him switching onto a smaller player, and they're gonna lose and then

they're gonna finally blow things up. But yeah, I mean a realistic expectation is if they win a series in the first round, I would be impressed. But I think, really, I think as a team internally they're probably talking title or bust. That blow up have to be splitting up Donnie and Gobert to you, like, is there a way wherewith those two still in terms of cap they could add the kind of shooting and defense on the wings in perimeter that they need. Or does it have to

be we're splitting up these two. You have to split them up, and I think it has to be Rudy if they trade Donovan to be a huge mistake. Now, there's some intel out there that says that Donovan doesn't want to stay in Utah, So like, if there's this has to be done with some sort of real serious, honest conversations with Donovan, Like, hey, dude, we're gonna blow this up. We're gonna ditch. Rudy will build this how

you want to. I just need some sort of commitment that you're gonna stay and then maybe if he commits, then you can go that route. But it gets really complicated if Donovan's like, not, dude, I'm out of here

for whatever reason. The reason why Rudy should be in a vacuum the guy they move is because as as much as I've defended his defense and I will defend his defense in the sense that he's not responsible for the Jazz defensive problems, he's he can guard in any type of coverage that The problem is is that for a player like that who cannot punish switches, it's not worth the max and it's tough to have that much money tied up on your payroll for a player who

can't do that kind of thing. I don't think you can take screen assists to the bank for a MAX contract or dunking finishes under the basket for a MAX contract.

You're better off, Like if you could get a Clint Capella type of player in there in that role you experience a drop, they're only gonna get like maybe sevent of what Rudy brings to the table, But you're gonna get if you can find a player who can do that type of thing for significantly less money, you're better off redirecting those resources just to a bigger wing or players that can defend on the perimeter and some sort of isolation player that's not a small guy, if that

makes sense. Yeah, and I mean you mentioned the capit. Gobert is gonna be making almost forty seven million dollars in twenty six, so like there's just no flexibility there whatsoever. All right, Jason, expectations management. What does playoffs success look like for the Chicago Bulls this year? Oh, that's a really good question. In their defense, Lawns of all being

out is a wrinkle. The way this team was constructed depended on this kind of force of perimeter defense from Lonzo and Alex Cruzo um simply because their stars are not defensive minded. In terms of big threes in NBA history, Levine de Rosen and uh now I'm blinking in his name usual the center. Yeah, thank you. Uh, those three guys are probably three of the three worst defenders to

make up a big three in NBA. History if you had, if you had to guess, so from that standpoint, like they depend so much on guys doing the dirty work. There's a ridiculous block from Patrick Williams Yestrady. You have young talent, defensive talent around them that do a lot of stuff that that's exciting. But in the playoffs, I have a feeling that they're a team that's gonna be very vulnerable to scheming uh and they're gonna find ways to attack Booster which they're gonna find ways to attack

De Rosen into into attack Leavin. Now, I would say if they won a playoff series at all, that would be a massive success, especially if you look at the recency or the recent years in what they've accomplished as a franchise. The Chicago Bulls that said, I would you pick them over any of those top four seeds? I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't either. Do you think there's value in what they've put together this year? And like keep together this core because there was so much skepticism initially and then

there was so much excitement. But now if you just settle in to this, you know, five seed range, Like, what are your thoughts? Did they make the right move going and putting together this core I think so I I'm always going to be a defender of teams that go for it, you know, just because I hate loser attitudes, you know. But like the reason, the case for why this was smart is the development of younger players. You you have to look at this like like Levine and

DeRozan aren't going to be declining anytime soon. Vossovic is what he is, but if Patrick Williams can make a leap, especially on offense, Alex Caruso makes significant offensive improvement each year because he's already a great defensive player, but he's each year he gets a little bit better and pick and roll a little bit better. Shooting the basketball. He had a year with the Lakers last year where he

shot from three. He's obviously he's had an injury derailed season this year, but like Alonso, kind of is what he is at this point. But Alonzo has some weakness, especially finishing around the basket. If the the cases, Kobe White obviously as well as a bench guard the cases, those guys all getting better. And what that means for around those three, you know, and what you don't want to have is like a situation where you're only dealing with young town. That's what's been killing the Pelicans for

a long time. That's what makes the c. J. McCollum trade so smart. You get in a veteran, proven good player alongside the young players, all of a sudden, you have a more feasible product. That's the way I look at it is you you brought in de ros and Levine has turned into a legitimate star. You get those guys in with young talent that has a lot of upside. The the angle is is over the course of the

next few years, you might become more relevant. And then, as we know in the NBA, all it takes is a key injury here or key matchup there, and suddenly you're in the conference finals and now it's all about like, who knows what can happen? You can win the series. So I I I'm I'm very I'm very pro what Chicago did you just have change your expectations. They're not the Lakers. They are not gonna be able to sign these huge, big name guys, so they have to go

about it in a different way. And I'm totally fine with the way they went about it. Right all right. Well, we talked a bit about this team on Friday and dove a little bit into what their playoff expectation might be. But Jason, what does playoff success look like this year for the Memphis Grizzlies. They're good enough to win the title. In the locker room, I'm sure they're talking about how

their goal is to win the title. But I mean, if we look at NBA history at young teams like this that go on runs, young cores that go on runs, Think like the Golden State Warriors in two thousand thirteen against the Spurs, Think like Katie Russ and James Harden in two thousand twelve. Um even the Chicago Bulls in two thousand eleven to a certain extent, although they were

derailed by Derrick Rose's knee injury. Like having when we sing a couple of playoffs series and being in the Conference finals, getting that type of experience and that type of thing is a massive success in my opinion, especially when you look with that particular team, like Jaren Jackson Jr. Is going right now. He's all brute force and young exuberants.

There's gonna be a point where Jaren Jackson Jr. Kind of picks up some of that better and savvy and plays the game at a slower pace and it's better at making reads. That's gonna be a really good player. John Morant, I think right now he's a streaky three

point shooter. And that's one of the things that could end up derailing them in a postseason series is if he gets cold and a team goes full San Antonio spurs and goes underneath every screen at the blow the free throw line, and it's like, dude, you gotta make threes, and he goes cold, that could end up beating him. But his shot profile, his mechanics, the way he shoots at the free throw line, Like I see John Morant as a guy that in the long run, is gonna

be a very good perimeter shooter. And then Desmond Band kind of is what he is at this point. But like they've got other exciting young players on their team as well. So like the way I look at it, like play understand the long game and understand that this season isn't what it's all worth. But I understand that in the locker room they have championship expectations and they

should because they're capable. But if they win. If they win a playoff series and take and take like a Phoenix to six games in the conference finals and lose, I would view that as a resounding success. Yeah, that seems reasonable to me. I mean, obviously, so young the window, you would think it's still pretty long from here, and the sun's tough to expect for really anybody out west

to beat them at this point. I would say, all right, Jason, what does playoff success look like for the Philadelphia seventies sixers this year? Title or bus man with with Joel Embiide and his ego, how much should he talks? The way he's been a dominant player throughout the regular season, James Harden and everything that surrounds him, the way he knuked his way out of Brooklyn, everything Daryl Morrity gave up to get him. They have a rem arkable set

of role players around them. Tobias Harris. Yes, he's overpaid, but that's a great wing to have out there, that's guarding and attacking mismatches and attacking close outs, knocking down spot of three is Tyres Maxie is like a very one of the better young guards that we have in the league. Um, you know, Andre Drummond is an awesome backup center and all that they actually lost him, I should take that back. DeAndre Jordan is I actually don't

understand why they played DeAndre Jordan at all. Like that's been the one little uh a little you know, endorphin rush for Lakers fans is getting to see somebody else have to deal with the DeAndre Jordan problem. But if you look at Tyres Maxie and Danny Green and Tobias Harris, and you know they they have George's Niang shooting from three this year is like a six nine kind of range e type of forward. They have a really good

set of role players and two really good stars. There's no reason in the world why they shouldn't be in the finals this year, if not winning the whole thing. But I don't think they will because of all the reasons we've broken down on the show this year, and most of them having to do with James Harden's decline. But yeah, like this team had, this team absolutely should be held to a championship or bus expectation. That's how much talent they have. How far do they have to

go for Doc to keep his job? Oh man, it depends on who they lose to and how like if they get to the conference finals and they lose to Milwaukee and it's a six or seven games series, that's one thing people will talk themselves into that not being the issue. I find Doc to be more of a figurehead than anything else at this point. I think there are younger, more forward thinking coaches in the league right now. He's kind of reminds me of Frank Vogel in a

lot of ways. Like if you put him around the perfect roster that caters to his philosophy and the way that he likes to coach, he can be a great coach. But if things kind of get out of that, then he's not very He's not malleable enough, if that makes sense.

So if anything, if you're if you're six or s and if there's one silver lining in them having an early flame out, it might get you to lose Doc and then maybe maybe they won't sign James hard into that super Max and get off some of that money, or do some sort of sign and trade or something to try to recoup some assets. But yeah, it'll it'll be really interesting to see. I I I would say that if they had an admirable showing even if they won the title, they'd keep him. But I would say

that he's not the right coach for this team. All right, last team here and maybe the toughest one on this list, just because we haven't seen them in what in the form that we expected before the year, and we still don't know exactly what their roster is gonna look like in terms of healthcome playoffs. But Jason, what does playoff success look like for the Denver Nuggets this year? Denver Nuggets,

They're gonna They're gonna lose in the first round. I think they're almost guaranteed to end up as the sixth seed, which would likely have them playing Dallas. Dallas, they're gimmicky defensive coverages with doubling and rotating are actually kind of something that is an interesting challenge for Nicola yokich Um. If there's one player on the planet who could solve them, it be him. But for all the reasons that I

broke down earlier, I think Dallas will win. My thing is like I don't think they can win, and their expectations should be that this is not the standards. You should hold him too, because you don't have Jamal Murray you don't have Michael Porter Jr. Things along those lines. My thing though, is like, at what point do we start to factor in this stuff with Yokich in the way we evaluate him compared to the rest of the league.

There's so much like Yoki is the best player in the world talk around, but the team has been kinda like if he over the course of the last couple of months and like they lost in the second round of Phoenix last year. I suppose it's impressive that he beat that garbage Portland team team, but like, if there was Lebron James and his prime, would you pick him with that Denver roster over the over that Dallas team.

I would if there was like Kevin Durant and his prime or Janice at his peak with that Denver Nuggets team, you probably give them a puncher's chance to maybe get out of the conference. Like that's how you view those

guys at the peak of their powers. But I don't feel like Yoki has a even like even a chance to get out of the West this year, And that kind of that kind of is like if if I don't feel like Yoka has a chance to do that, then why is he in the conversation for the best players in the world, if that makes sense, that's interesting.

So I think that. I mean, it's been a pretty remarkable floor raising job by him this year, and just to maintain that level of scoring and playmaking, production and efficiency. So what do you think is the limitation there with Yokich that's you know, making you feel that way he's specifically targetable in playoff series is on a couple of different levels. Um, he's slow and plotting and operates around

the basket, so you can beat him in transition. That's something that, like in a one game setting, is hard to account for because on one night a team might just be playing with high energy on their home floor and be flying up and down the floor. You know, one team might have a game plan specifically to attack it. In a playoff series, it will be deliberately and intentionally attacked. Teams will try to run on them. And then on

the defensive end, we talked about this a lot. Kudos to Yoki to turning himself into a functional drop coverage center, but got one dimensional defensive centers like that are actually very easy to attack in a playoff series when you can scheme around it. So too like everything that we did say when we were slandering Rudy Gobert over the course of the last few years that was kind of inaccurate,

actually is true. As it pertains to Nicola Yokits. When people see him under the basket, they're not really scared to try to finish around him. He doesn't guard on

the perimeter well at all. He does guard too low on the screen, and his drop coverage in guards that are good at getting defenders pinned on screens, and guards that are comfortable in the mid range are very comfortable shooting over the top of your kitchen his drop coverage, so like there are a lot of very specific ways that he can be attacked, you know, whereas in even with him on the offensive end as well, there's kind

of like a style that he plays that works. But it's not like he's an overly versatile type of offensive player. That's that's why you would give like a Lebron James and two thousand eighteen, Like if I could take two thousand eighteen Lebron and drop him on this Nuggets team, with all the different ways that he can play as a post player, as a perimeter initiator, as a pick and roll guy attacking isolations and are attacking mismatches in isolation.

He's immune to to transition issues. He can be a dominant perimeter defensive player and a dominant back line defensive player like he. There's just a bunch of different elements and versatilities to to those guys games that I think makes them more equipped for this kind of thing. I'm not trying like Yo kich is in a weird way, kind of like a the individual player version of the Utah Jazz. Like, I don't want to to to ignore the results. The results are what they are, and they've

had some success. They had a big win against the Denver Nuggets in the bubble, you know, coming from behind. But I mean that could arguably have been a choke job from the Clippers too, depending on how you look at it. So I don't want to undercut everything that he's done. I'm just saying that, Like, those are the reasons why I don't put him on the same level as those guys at the top. Right, I'm a big believer in your kitch in terms of I think the

all time offensive value. But I think you make very fair points with the rigidity defensively and like you talk about in a playoff context last year against the Suns, where he's dropping every time even if the screen is set like eighteen feet out and it just lay up mid range jumpers for CPN book like you, it's a very fair point. You don't have that kind of weaknesses with your lebrons or what have you. All Right, Well

that's all I got for now, Jason. But we do have a couple of bonus takes, one of which I think is probably gonna get you a little fired up after you talk nets, so I will see you. Yeah, so we're bringing you back after That's all right, It sounds like a plan. Yeah. And and one last thing on the Yokis thing like I'm not you guys know me,

I'm not stubborn about this stuff. Like if if I see Yokich holding his own in perimeter switches in the playoffs and coming higher on ball screens to disrupt these guys and showing a ton of offensive versatility, and if he you know, beats that Dallas matter Like I'm I'm not gonna like keep slandering your kids or keep like I'm I'm always reacting to the new information as it comes just from what I've seen from Yoki to this point in his playoff career, in his regular season career,

I would I just don't think he's quite as good as those other guys. Alright, guys, we're gonna see Carson in just a minute. We're gonna come back to the our topic of surrounding the Brooklyn Nets. So they lost to Atlanta yesterday. Katie was amazing a couple of pieces of context. Bruce Brown was out, Seth Curry were was out. Those are two very important starters on a couple of

specific levels. But then next the plus five of their last nine games, and in that span their eighteenth in defense and their a leventh in offense, which is really disappointing because like I told you guys, in the stretch before that, they've shown this these flashes of like all world offensive potential, like best offense I've ever seen, type of potential in the early stretches there when Kyrie and Katie were both on the floor together, and like you know,

it's it's it's there's some similarities to the Lakers, and then some clear dissimilarities from the Lakers because they're over five hundred and the Lakers are like fifteen sixteen games below five hundred. So I'm not trying to compare them in terms of like the Lakers are an absolute dumpster fire. That's a whole other issue, but some of the similarities there are, Like you'll see the Nets go into Philly and Kyrie will sit in a defensive stance all night

and make James Harden's life a living hell. And then they'll go home and the Charlotte Hornets will come into town and they won't guard at all, and they'll give up like a hundred thirty something points and lose and get punked on their home floor when they're dealing with issues in the standings, And so that kind of reminds me of the Lakers with their inconsistent effort. I think.

I think the Brooklyn Nets are a switch flipping team that actually has a switch to flip, whereas the Lakers were a switch flipping team who would flip the switch and then they still suck. That's like the huge difference between the two of them. But like there, I I still believe in them. My my, my faith is wavering

a little bit. And the reason why I was I was thinking about this earlier today, even though the even though the Bucks lost, the reason why, like I'm leaning towards like the trend is telling me that maybe the Nets aren't the most likely team to come out of the East, and maybe it's the Bucks. And it's simply because the Bucks look very serious about their intentions to go on and run, and you can see that in

a day in day out effort. They lost today again, like I said, but a lot of that had to do with Luca and execution and and they also didn't shoot the ball particularly well and from three. So like I know that they lost today, but overall, over the course of the last couple of weeks, you can see like the Bucks are getting serious about this. They're going for this every night. They there's a there's an intensity

and a and a belief behind what they're doing. And you saw that behind those two incredibly impressive wins against Brooklyn and Philly last week. Brooklyn meanwhile, doesn't look serious on any given night. They're not bringing that same level the level of energy, just like I talked about. So that's the concern there. Now, what's really interesting is what's starting to happen in the standings there tied in the

tent spot for Charlotte. But Charlotte is the tiebreaker and there's only a handful of games left, and who knows what could happen there. I mean, the Bucks are the Nets could very well end up getting that nine seed.

But there's a very realistic chance, like firmly in the realm of possibility, that the Nets have to go on the road to win that game game and then have to go on the road to be Atlanta or Cleveland, And Atlanta is gonna be a really tough place to play in a one game elimination with an opportunity to eliminate Kevin Durant. Cleveland is gonna be a really tough place to play in a one game elimination situation with

an opportunity to knock Kevin Durant. You know how much the Quicker Loans Arena has has been waiting for an opportunity to I don't even know if it's still called that, but the place where the Cleveland Cavaliers play. Who knows whether or not the that fan base has not had an opportunity to cheer for anything serious since two thousand eighteen. That place is gonna be a buzz saw and they're a big athletic team that plays great defense. That's something

that is extremely dependable. The Nets don't have anything that's dependable. You know, we talked about this. A lot jump shots go in or they don't. There's been a lot of games recently whre Kevin Durant has taken and made big shots, but also examples where he's taken and made they're taken and missed big shots. Because even though Kevin Durant's the best score ever, potentially it's if he gets to his

spot and gets a shot that he likes it. It might go in of the time, but that means fifty at the time, it doesn't, And they don't have those instincts and habits on defense to where that's reliable for them. That's what I was just talking about. It's kind of more of a day in, day out thing. When they have it, they have it. When they don't, they don't. And so in those one game settings, the Nets are very vulnerable through a bad shooting night, They're very vulnerable

to some things not going their way. Whereas Cleveland knows, if we don't play particularly well on offense, we're still going to have a chance to win because our defense is going to lock people up. We're gonna feed off of our home crowd, our effort gonna be there, and we have established defensive habits that we can lean back on in those environments. I know Cleveland's had bad stretches of defense, but a lot of it has to do with Jared Allen being out or Evan Mobley being out

for various reasons over the course of the season. When they have their guys out there, when they go with mobile Allen and market him in that front line, they're a devastating defensive team and they cause a lot of serious problems with their length. And so again, would you pick Brooklyn and both of those matchups. Yes, I would pick Brooklyn to go into Charlotte and win that first playing game, and then I picked them. I think Cleveland obeied Atlanta, so I picked them to go into Cleveland

and beat Cleveland. I would, But it's close, it's a it's a it's a touch and go type of thing, and that's the danger of playing this game. The Lakers played this game all season and it's gonna end up costing them a playoff birth. The Nets have played this game all season and now they're gonna end up having to win two single elimination games on the road against

young and hungry athletic teams. So I there's I'm leaning towards going with the Bucks as my favorite in the East because of this recent slump for the Nets, and they're absolutely at risk of not getting an opportunity to play in a playoff series this year. Al Right, guys, before we get out of here, we're gonna bring Carson back for just a minute, YO, glad to be back.

All right. So we've got a couple of things from the Twitter sphere, and the first one comes from the Honorable Calling Cowherd, related to an NBA storyline that has grabbed his attention. He says, I'll never get used to how much the NBA has normalized star missing games. Sorry, don't buy it's all injuries just shorten the regular season already. Let's get to games that matter. Jason, what do you

think about that? Colin Coward is a wise man? This is actually something that I've been very passionate about for a long time, and it's just difficult to find time to talk about it during the time during the regular seasons, more of like a offseason. Type of topic in a lot of cases, but it's really this simple. You know, there's a lack of urgency to regular season NBA games, and NBA teams have realized that the best team usually wins in a seven game series, even if you don't

have home court advantage. Most of the best players in the league thrive on the road because the growing up, they've always thrived off of the negative energy of of of road crowds, and so they like their chances in those environments. It's a big part of why Brooklyn has messed around all season. It's a big part of why they are where they're at in the standings. Team NBA teams are not scared of seating. They just aren't. NBA teams are not scared of that sort of thing. So

I've I've thought long and hard about this. They rest players because they want to make sure that they are healthy in the long run, and little things like two days off here, three days off there go a long way towards recovering from a you know, knee tendonitis or an ankle sprain or a sore risk or whatever it might be. But what if those things were naturally baked into the season Now, I understand shortening the season is hard because of revenue, but you can make up for

that in other ways. First of all, I'm a big believer in that if you can restore that urgency and if the Stars play every day, that will trickle down in revenue in a in a different way. But let's say you need that revenue and in order to convince the players in the in the owners to adopt a shorter regular season schedule. That's where things like the mid season tournament that you've heard about that have been brought up, or expanding the play in tournament things. I don't know what.

I don't mean expanding it to more teams, I mean, but maybe taking it further up to where it's like you're doing a play in tournament that's you know that that's impacting higher seeds in some capacity. I'm not sure what that looks like, but they need to find a way to get NBA teams only playing three games per week. To me, that's vital. It's these two it's back to backs, the four games in five nights, the five games and seven nights or whatever, I five games at eight nights.

That kind of thing is what wears down these teams. If it had more of an NFL type of field, where there was always a ton of high leverage, high high important games on Sunday and then maybe games on Tuesday and Thursday, but everybody had Friday Saturday off, or everybody had at least a two day off stretch in every single week, then you wouldn't have as many load

management nights. Why because why would you load manage a star if you know he's gonna get two days off every single week where he can rest up and there is there are no back to backs in that scenario, I think you'd have to shorten the season down to about sixty six games to pull this off. But I'm a huge believer in shortening the season, and I don't

buy the excuse that will cost them money. Even if if it costs them money in the short run, you have to think about the long term success of the league and restoring urgency and taking away some of the health concerns is the easiest path to getting stars back into the game, and Colin is right. There have been a ridiculous amount of nationally televised games and things along those lines that have been ruined this year by stars

missing games. It is a huge problem. I don't care if there's eighty two games if this ours are playing at them. M hmm, yeah, big boss Man Colin right on the money there, and I think you're totally right in terms of improving the quality of the product. The one sticking point for me is always as a nerd of the history of the game, not having the a two game seasons, how that impacts totals. That that bothers me a little bit, but I think that it is

outweighed by the night Tonight benefit. What do you think, Like, does that matter to you at all? I I understand the thought process there. The reason why it doesn't matter to me is the game's always changing, Like how how has the three point shot effected scoring relative to early guys? Like if Kareem played today, he's definitely shooting threes because

he's one of the best players ever. He's probably gonna work on threes, you know, like the were we we count Bill Russell is an eleven time champion, and the dude won all those championships and in a league that had eight teams, like even even Michael Jordan's with the six titles he won came during the era of expansion when the league was kind of watered down with talent, and it was just easy to put together a dominant basketball team in that era if you could get a

handful of good players, just because the talent was all spread out. So, like, the league is just inherently different. And I I like Seth Curry. Steph Curry has the NBA three point record and he's gonna hold it for a long time. But it's a record that's almost guaranteed to break because in the early stretches of Steph's career,

he didn't attempt as many threes as he's attempting. Now there's gonna be some guy that comes in the league it attempts like fourteen threes per game for like eighteen years, and he's gonna break that record. So, like, as much as I agree with you, I'm a huge buff, like historian buff when it comes to the NBA as well. I read books about that stuff. It's one of my favorite things to do in my free time. But like, I think you have to acknowledge that the league just

changes as time goes on. Alright, well, Jason, we cannot wrap up today without sending you out the door with just an egregious Russ. Well, it's about Russ comes from Frank Vogel, all right. Here it is, He's doing everything he can. I'm proud of Russ. How does that make

you feel, Jason? It's kid gloves man. The way that the whole thing that came down centering around the death threats and the tweets that the wife that Russ's wife put out that one day, kind of it all was part of this like larger mission to twist the narrative around what happened to Russ into making him a victim. And I don't want to get into the weeds too

much there because it's something that I disagree with. The stuff that Russ deals with as an NBA star is identical to the stuff that every other nbas NBA star deals with. The differences is that Russ actively makes it

worse on himself with the things that he says. And here you go, like Frank Vogel, It's like he Frank Vogel is gonna handle him with kid gloves because Russ has made it clear that he thinks he's a victim and every but at this point too, it's like there's no point in continuing to burn that bridge when you know you're trading him this offseason anyway, you know what

I mean. But I I just I just get frustrated because it's like there's not enough being real about what's going on with Russ, and the reality of what's going on with Russ is he's got a ton of apologists that always point to his box score numbers, but the reality is that he's had a bad season and the trade absolutely decimated the team of talent. It was an utter disaster. And while he has played poorly, all he's done is further play into the fact that he's a

victim and that it's not his fault. There's been no accepting a personal responsibility, and and I think the whole situation just kind of bothers me. Like I said, I'm just ready for it to be over. What I would love to see is we know that Lebron is the master of some of the you know, understated slights and some of the manipulation with media and whatnot. I would love to hear him just once, maybe after the season,

slip in a West brick. You know, it doesn't seem intentional, it slips one in there because the experiment is now over. But yeah, that's all I got for you. Figured we would fuel the fire a little bit there. Alright, Carson, I appreciate you may we'll see you next time. Yeah, I was. I am really curious to see what happens over the course of then this summer, just some of the details that come out. You know, just you saw all the leaks that came out around the All Star break.

It's gonna be a disastrous version of that. And also, Lebron loves to stay the center of attention. I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of leaks come from him during the playoff run. It'll be like Janice has forty two and gained three of his conference finals. But here comes a report from you know, through the grape vine that Lebron's piste off about this or that. Like that's just kind of classic Lebron stuff too. Al Right, guys, that's all we have for tonight. We will be back

Tuesday after the Lakers Sons game. As always, we appreciate your support and we will see you guys in a couple of days. The volume