5 Takeaways from Thunder-Rockets, Warriors getting HOT, Lakers lose AGAIN

say revenge. They beat the Rockets earlier this year, but they're starting to find their groove and dominated the Rockets on the road, getting a twenty point win, pulling away in the fourth quarter. We're gonna break that game down. We're gonna touch on the Warriors win against the Knicks. We're gonna touch on the Celtics fourth quarter comeback against the Miami Heat. We're gonna touch on Kate and Jalen Dura's return for the Detroit Pistons and a win versus

the Phoenix Suns. And then my very brief thoughts on the Lakers kind of just at peace with who they are at this point. We'll get to that at the tail end of the show. You guys are the job. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video. That helps us a lot.

In the last but not least, if you want to get mailbag questions in for next Friday's mail Bag, make sure you drop them in our full episodes on YouTube. Just put mail bag with the col and write your question. We'll get to them on Fridays throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Thunder control of this one pretty much throughout. Houston kept making runs throughout the first three quarters that kept things close,

preventing them from getting down double digits. Okay, see, didn't actually push ahead double digits until about nine minutes left in the fourth quarter of this one. Couple of clear advantages for Houston, and I actually'd argue this is kind of the concerning thing if you're a Rockets fan. Like they dominate the offensive glass, they have a twenty five

to ten second chance points advantage. They actually did a decent job of taking care of the basketball in this game, at least avoiding some of the more painful live ball turnovers that can lead to easy runouts, and that is usually what ends up blowing games open for Oklahoma. City, So they were actually able to keep this relatively close

for the first three quarters and change. But ironically, Oklahoma City pulled away doing the thing they had struggled mightily with for weeks, which was shot making from the perimeter. Jump shooting had been a problem for Oklahoma City during their struggles in December and early January. They had These are just numbers from Synergy, just to give you guys

an idea. These are points per jump shot attempt in the first Spurs loss, zero point eight, points per jump shot attempt in the first in the Minnesota loss right after that, zero point seven to nine. In the third Spurs loss, zero point seven eight, in the Hornets loss, zero point seven eight. And I actually thought right around that Hornets game was where it really started to peak.

There was a three game stretch where they lost to the Hornets, they barely beat the Jazz, and they barely beat the Grizzlies, and they went zero point seven eight, zero point eight four, zero point seven to nine points per jump shot respectively in those three games. And it was you know, what was weird about those particular games is they were shooting extremely poorly on wide open catch

and shoot threes. During net span. One of the things that was kind of popping up in their other losses is they were making the wide open ones, but they were missing anything that was semi contested, and they were missing a lot of their pull up jump shots. In that three game stretch, they attempted sixty three unguarded catch and shoot jump shots and made just thirteen of them. Just brutal bad shooting for Oklahoma City in that stretch.

And it was after that that I talked about how it kind of started to feel a little bit like a case of the yips, you know, just like a team that like was legitimately in their own head to the extent that a lot of their guys were shooting below their capability. But I had two follow ups to that idea when I kind of talked about how they were entering into that kind of funk. One was that

I'd be certain they'd snap out of it eventually. Why they shot the ball too well for too long beforehand, they had too much time to figure it out as early in the season, and they're still just too talented up and down the roster. Eventually found a way to figure it out. For lack of a better way of

putting it and then two. I think for everyone, including the Thunder themselves, we have to at least kind of file that away in that the potential for a cold spell like that from the perimeter is at least something will always have in the back of our minds with this Thunder team, at least is something that is a potential vulnerability, even if we can all admit that they're the runaway favorite at this point in time, but they snapped out of it in a big way last night.

They got one point one one points per jump shot overall in that fourth quarter stretch when they blew things open. They were five for nine on catch and shoot threes, and that was with Kenrich Williams missing a couple of wide open ones in that stretch. It was this chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, AJ Mitchell kind of group that did all the day image and they did what they did best, which was relentlessly attack the rim. This team does have

a clear identity on offense. All of their stars and all of their ball handlers I'm even gonna include a J. Mitchell and guys like Cason Wallace here, they are all in attack mode all of the time. They may have some up and down nature to their rim decisions. Sometimes they can get a little you know, sketchy with forcing things in traffic at the rim. They can certainly go cold from the perimeter at times, but they're never going to stop attacking. That is very much even like Chet

and his ISOs. He's always trying to get downhill at a big driving dunk past Kevin Durant to start the

fourth quarter. Jay Dub a couple of really nice drives in that early fourth quarter that set up Caseon Wallace catching shoot threes one of those like kind of patent and Donovan Mitchell windmill dribbles over the top that set one up another drive off the right wing against Reed Sheppard, and then aj Mitchell ended up hitting a catch and shoot three off of a Case and Wallace drive off of the right wing, and things blew up fast for

Houston from there. This was a two point game with eleven minutes left in the fourth, Then it was an eleven point game with nine minutes left in the fourth, So in two minutes they blew it from a one session game to a double digit lead, and next thing you know, you look up at the scoreboard and the Thunder up by twenty five, and that can be what it's like when you let go of the rope against

this type of team. The thunder also held the Rockets to just sixteen points of their own in the fourth quarter. I thought we started to see some of the cumulative wear and tear of the Thunderball pressure and physicality get

to guys like Kevin Durant Albern Shangun. I thought both of those guys looked kind of exhausted in that fourth quarter, a lot of like stagnant ball where neither of them was attacking, but they were kind of looking around the floor waiting for something to naturally break open, or looking at the other guy to see if maybe they wanted to look to go attack. And there were a handful

of plays where guys got aggressive. Shangun had a big drive past chet Holmgren where he went past him, and obviously KD hit a couple of jumpers, but for the most part, it was a lot of just kind of standing around not really knowing how to penetrate the defense. And lou Dort has done a fantastic job on KD and both of these games, this one and the season opener of just getting up underneath them and getting really

physical and forcing him into some misses. And then all game long, I thought the Thunder did a really good job of overloading the middle on rolls and cuts, and it was ironic because they were giving up a lot of these openings on the weakside corner and Houston just wasn't getting it there. As a matter of fact, Houston attempted just four unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in the entire game. This was not a game where they were missing a bunch of wide open threes. They weren't

really getting the ball there. A lot of like catches in the middle of the floor that were turning into bad forced misses like that one of men Thompson had down the stretch where he jumped into Kenridge Williams, or turnovers like the past, the Steven Adams on that roll where he gets the ball poked away by Shake Gills of Alexander okay See was swarming that middle and Houston was just turning the ball over or shooting some bad

shots in there. And then big picture looking at because they did get quite a few catch and shoots that were contested in this game. The Rockets are having some jump shooting woes of their own. As of late, the Rockets have shot the ball extremely poorly seven games in

a row now. They've been below zero point eighty five points per jump shot in every single one of the last seven games, averaging in total over that seven games just zero point seven to nine points per jump shot since the loss in Dallas, and they're just two and five in that span. Now, some of that is just a slump, but some of that is some natural regression after they shot kind of absurdly well to start the season.

Several of their players were shooting better than you would typically expect them to based on what their career history was to that point. As a team, the Rockets have actually slipped to sixteenth in jump shooting efficiency in the NBA after that recent stretch. Nonetheless, a really impressive win for the Thunder team that appears to be back on track. They've now won five in a row, nine out of

eleven since that rough stretch. I wanted to dig though, you know, as we look at this team, you know, every time we get an opportunity to see one of these kinds of matchups where these are two teams that I have in my list of top tier contenders at least going into this game, I think, Okay, so he showed a little bit of a gap between them and Houston in this game, and we'll dig into the reasons why. But going into the game, we viewed it as a matchup between our top tier two of our top tier

contenders at this point in the season. I have them two as well as Denver in that conversation, and then I'm strongly considering most likely going to add Minnesota to that conversation. Is as we get to the end of this month and every month we're gonna do new contender rankings, We're gonna have one here in a couple of weeks. But if we look at those two matchups, now, I'm starting to look at very detailed, like kind of schematic stuff that may or may not translate to a potential

playoff matchup for these two teams. So I have five takeaways from this game to from last night that just kind of demonstrate some of the things we can look at and expect to see if these two teams face off in a playoff series. First of all, the doubling of shake Yieldes Alexander Houston basically just blitzed the hell out of Shay on every single ball screen, but then allowed him to work one on one against his primary matchup. Now,

the reason why is Houston likes their primary matchups. There is a lot of the men Thompson or Joshakoge in this game, and Shaye if he wanted to work a tough iso against one of those two guys, Houston was willing to let him do that. But if they attempted any sort of ball screen action, they were just aggressively doubling him to get the ball out of his hands, and it actually worked pretty well. Overall. I think it's a worthwhile scheme for Houston to have in their bag

of tricks should they end up in a series against Okay. See. Shae was a little flum mixed by it in the first half. He had a few uncharacteristic turnovers, didn't really get anything going offensively outside of a handful of short bursts. Wasn't really able to get anything substantial going offensively in this game. Ended up kind of getting his way to the foul line to keep his twenty point streak alive at the end of the game when things were kind

of already out of reach. The Thunder had a one oh five offensive rating with Shay on the floor in the first half, and then one hundred in the third quarter. It wasn't really until the fourth quarter that that unit started to score super effectively, and at that point it was already a double digit lead. The bench group had already kind of grown the lead. Does that mean it's

gonna work perfectly every time time? Know? But what it does mean is that they have a decent sample that that was a worthwhile option to have in their bag. So we should all be prepared if these two teams face each other for Houston to do the same thing in a playoff series, Don't be surprised if they go have your fun with Tarry Easton, Josha Kogi, and Men Thompson one on one. But if you bring any sort of screening action into the equation, we're just gonna double

the ball out of your hands. I think we'll see more of that from Houston. Secondly, Chet is a real problem for Houston in this matchup. He's been fantastic in both games. Bring several characteristics to the table. One he scraps on the boards and like I know, Oklahoma City got killed on the glass in this game overall statistically, but if you watch the tape, Chet won a lot of those battles too, and he was down there scrapping and again like he's the only guy that has the

length in this lineup to actually hang with Houston. Everyone else is given up two three inches in terms of size trying to rebound underneath the basket. Chet actually won a lot of those battles and several key rebounds and tapouts during runs for Oklahoma City in this game that helped them maintain control. Secondly, he gives them enormous defensive versatility.

He gives them quite a bit of strength to shanggun every once in a while see Shangun bully him like he did on that fourth quarter drive where he just goes right around him. But overall, I think he holds up pretty well there. And he gives them the ability to switch on to Kevin Durant and ball screens, and he can get great contests on those Kevin Durant pull up jump shots that can forcemisses. And then lastly, he's a garbage man at the rim as a vertical spacer.

What happens when Oklahoma City drives the Bigs have to help. He had three dunks in this game, either on putbacks or dump offs, where he's just such a big target and it's so easy for him to just drop the ball through the loop even if he's in traffic. It's a real release valve for this team. And again, I just even without Isaiah Hartenstein, who's dealing with calf injury right now, Chet just gives the Thunder a physical dynamic on the front line that's really tough for Houston to

match up with. I thought he was great in both of the games against Okay against Houston so far this season. Thirdly, Reed Shepherd is completely physically overmatched in this matchup on the perimeter. In both Oklahoma City games we've seen Reid just look like a bad combination of small, skinny, and slow against Oklahoma City's driving guards. And multiple of those easy kickout threes for Oklahoma City in the fourth quarter came on easy drives pass read. Jay dev went right

around him for a kickout. AJ Mitchell went right around him for an easy layup. He had a rep against aj Mitchell and pick and roll that I thought was pretty embarrassing. That's more indicative of the larger issue that goes beyond his physical limitation. So Aj comes off a screen from chat at the top and Kd's in like a deep drop coverage, right, So if you don't get like, if you don't apply appropriate back pressure over the top, the dude's just going to settle into whatever shot he wants.

And Reid just kind of slowly meandered over the chat screen and let Aj Mitchell just easily settle into a pull up three on the right wing that he knocked down. And that's the issue, is like you can't be small in lack physicality and not overly athletic, like lack the physical traits, but then also lack like the motor and positioning traits. He had a really bad close out on Jduw. It was one of the plays that led to an

open three. I think it was the second case in Wallace three, where like he kind of just hopped out really high to the high side and Jaydub just went right around him. And I'm like, that's bad fundamentals, that's bad footwork, and it's like you can't have bad physical traits and bad fundamentals. That's a death sentence in the NBA. And Reid just has looked really bad defensively in both of these matchups against Oklahoma City. Fourthly, Oklahoma City lit

up the zone defense this time. That was a big story. In the opening night game, the Rockets ran twenty eight possessions of the zone in that game, held the Thunder to zero point eight two points per possession in those sequences. Eight possessions of zone last night one point one to three points per possession, and a lot of really good dribble penetration through the zone. And then once again guys hitting threes to pay that off and beat that look.

And then, lastly, our fifth takeaway, if we're going to talk about and consider the potential for Oklahoma City to go cold from the perimeter, we have to have that same conversation with Houston. They are every bit as capable of going cold. I'd even argue straight up that Oklahoma City is a more talented jump shooting team than Houston is.

So if your take as a Rockets fan is we're just missing shots, I'd argue that it's actually more likely that that dynamic favors Oklahoma City over a larger sample. And I didn't even think Houston moved the ball that well to generate the types of quality shots that could have flipped that dynamic. Again, we talked about the thunder kind of overplaying the middle and Houston not moving the ball through their defense very well. A lot of tougher

and rushed contested catch and shoot jump shots in this game. Again, this is only our second look at this matchup. Key players from both teams, including potential starters route like Isai Hartenstein and Tari Easton, some important bench wings for Houston out of the lineup, like Dorian Finney Smith, for example,

but this one didn't look too good for Houston. You dominate in an area that's your clear advantage, the offensive glass, You take away or at least limit one of Oklahoma City's bigger defensive advantages, which just points off of turnovers. You held them well below their season average and points off of turnovers, and then you still basically managed to never take control in the game and lose by twenty on your home floor. So definitely a discouraging performance for

the Rockets. But they'll have another chance. They play on February seventh down in Oklahoma City, and the Rockets will have a chance to flip the dynamic at that point. But a lot of interesting kind of stuff to see from a potential matchup in the playoffs later down the line. I'm super excited to tell you guys about our new partnership with Viory. Those of you guys who are familiar with VIORI have noticed that I've been wearing it on

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five dollars in free returns. Go to Viory dot com slash hoops and discover the versatility of Yory clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right, Nick Warriors. I was a little worried about this game for Golden State. Jylen Brunson ended up going down in that Sacramento game with an ankle injury. The Knicks the latest and a long line of teams that's been following victim to a Sacramento Kings team that's just playing good basketball.

All their shot greadors are playing well. Demart Herosen is hooping his ass off, Zach Lavine's hoop, and Russell Westbrooks soup, and they got some athletes that are playing really good defense. Like the Kings are just playing really good basketball, and they kind of chewed up and spit out the Knicks just like they did to everyone else over the course of the last week. But going into this game against

Golden State, it's a little bit of a trap. Jalen Brunson's out right, so there's gonna be that little bit of natural relaxation. But I actually think this Knicks team has a lot of offensive talent. We've talked about this this year. It's one of the strengths of this roster is their depth of ball handling talent, and they needed to win. This is a team that's trying to dig themselves out of the famous post nd season tournament championship role that every single team has run into since the

inception of the tournament. The Knicks had a little bit of a delay. They played well for about a week or so after, but then they kind of fell into that same morass that Milwaukee and the Lakers fell into over the last couple of years. And so you knew the Knicks were gonna come out and play super, super hard because they need to get out of this funk. And then, obviously without Jalen Brunson, they're gonna try to win more with defense to transition, and that's exactly what

they did. They came out and they jumped the Warriors early in this one, but it was actually a Jimmy Butler led unit in the late for quarter that turned things around. This is actually a positive trend that we discussed in our Mailbag episode yesterday. One of the big reasons why I was before the season keyed in on a guy like Malik Monk, and I still like Malik Monk for the Warriors, certainly a hell of a lot

more than most Warriors fans do. But One of the reasons why I was keyed in on that was the specific struggles that Golden State was having scoring with Steph off the floor last year and at the start of this season. One of the big positive trends for the Warriors over the last month and change is that they're really starting to play well with these Jimmy led units

with Steph off the floor. They're actually all the way up to a one to seventeen offensive rating this season with Jimmy on and Steph off, and they're playing good defense, and those units are actually plus eight per one hundred

possessions on the season to this point. If that trend can sustain, if you can score this effectively with these Jimmy led units with Steph off the floor, that's the kind of thing that buys the Warriors the flexibility to focus more on players that help them with Steph on the floor, rather than needing the look for a guy that can come in and carry a unit offensively for a chunk of time. But Jimmy was fantastic during that late first quarter run against the Knicks yesterday, just dominating

at the rim. He had this lob pass that he caught off of a back door cut, a back kind of a backscreen off the right side from Al Horford where he was way up in the air. It literally looked like it was ten years ago. I couldn't believe how high he got. He had an offensive rebound put back in that stretch. He had a steal in a pick six where he jumped the pass that from Josh Hart out of the right corner, went the other way and just kind of pumped, baked and worked his way

into the lane for a layup. Just injected life into the team, got them back into the game. They cut the lead to five, and then that Steph Flood unit the early second quarter came in and finished the comeback. Couple really nice drives from Brandon Pajemski, a couple of really nice corner kicks from Gary Payton on short rolls and on cuts around the baseline. He hit Draymond Green

and Moses Moody for wide open corner threes. Jimmy Butler came in and was excellent again in his second shift in the second quarter, just killing the Knicks with these rip through moves, just simple, just fundamental, just catching rip and just getting past his man and either getting to the rim for a layup or for an easy kickout. Jimmy had thirty two eight and four last night was

zero turnovers. What a game for Jimmy Butler and the Warriors were still struggling a little bit in that second quarter to build real separation, mainly because of the defensive glass. They're having a hard time keeping Karl Anthony Towns off the offensive glass. Jordan Clarkson was doing some damage on the offensive glass. That kind of allowed the Knicks to linger for a little bit, but then they cleaned that

up in the third quarter and finally pulled away. After allowing ten offensive rebounds in the first half, they allowed zero in the third quarter, got control of the defensive glass, and then Steph who got off to a rough start shooting the ball, finally got hot in the second half. He had four pull up threes through the third quarter in the early part of the fourth as a big part of helping the Warriors pull away. The Warriors have won ten of their last fourteen games. I talked about

this after the tough start to the season. I really thought the schedule beat Golden State into the ground to start the year, and I thought that just naturally by the schedule lightening up, it would lead to the Warriors starting to get their legs underneath them a little bit. They'd start to win some of these games they had been losing, which can start to build momentum. Right. That builds momentum in buy in and possession to possession focus and intensity, and all of a sudden you can start

to build real momentum. And I just figured that as the schedule lightened up, this Warriors team was too good to not eventually start racking up wins and go on a run. And that's exactly what they're doing. And their fifth in offense in the span in large part because the Jimmy Butler led units with Steph off the floor. That used to be the problem with Golden State is you could book Steph units for a one twenty offensive rating and then these Steph off units just couldn't score.

Now that you're getting quality offense out of the Jimmy lead units, this team is performing really well offensively in a pretty large sample. Defense has slipped a little bit. Their thirteenth and defensive rating over the course that fourteen game span, their eighth in net rating six and the rebounding six and sixth and overall rebound percentage. And again that ten and four over the fourteen game span is the second best record in the league over that chunk

of games. I know, it's been a topsy turvy start to the season. You lost some brutal clutch games too in that span that easily could have gone the other way. But here you are. You're twenty three to nineteen. You're tied with Houston in the win column for the sixth seed, You're legitimately in reasonable striking distance of a top four seed. You're five back in the lost column. There, that's not something that you can't do over the course of the of the next forty games and change. Both Steph and

Jimmy look fantastic. The offseason signings of guys like d' anthony Melton and Al Horford are really starting to pay dividends. Al had some really nice sequences last idea to drive of a closeout off the top after de Anthony Melton drove and penetrated into the lane. These drive We talked about the drives from d Anthony Melton the other day. They've been such a huge thing for this Warriors team. But he kicks it back to Horford he had an

explosive drive towards the basket. There's just a level that Al als moving at now that he wasn't moving at before the season. And again, you have a trade to make here and the Warriors. I've been doing a lot of posturing in the in the media in the last couple of days, like saying, you know, leaking things like they might keep Jonathan can make no, you won't, like everybody knows that you guys are dying for that to be over, or that they're not interested in Michael Porter Junior.

This guy's not a guy they want to take back. I think that's all just kind of posturing, part of that classic kind of trade deadline mind game that every team tries to play. I still legitimately think if Golden State can hit on a move, they do have a shot to make some noise in the West. They if they hit on that trade, ill we'll see who that

player ends up being. But if they hit on that trade, I think they're one of those second tier contenders that's capable of beating a team or two and if God forbid, things break perfectly for them, they could be, you know, suddenly in the Western Conference finals or something like that. All Right, the Celtics get a big win on the road in Miami. Not gonna linger on this one for too long. I wanted to talk about Anthony Simons for a little bit, though, because he completely explodes in this game.

He goes for thirty nine I believe eighteen of those were in the fourth quarter, but he just completely carried the offense during that fourth quarter comeback. And I want to specifically emphasize the drives because we all know about Anthony's three point shooting. He can get hot and hit a bunch of step back threes like he did, and

he's certainly done that at various points this season. Over the large sample, he's been in the low thirties on that shot, but it's been something that he's gotten hot and cold with throughout the season. He's been brilliant off the catch, like if you leave Anthony open this year, it's going in. But the most fascinating part to me was actually the drives. And this has been a little bit of an exciting trend over the last couple of games, but he was getting to the rim at will during

that fourth quarter run. Agains some pretty high quality perimeter defenders and This is a guy that over the course of this season has been averaging just two point two points per game at the rim, So just a little over one layup per game essentially is what you've been

getting from Anthrony to this point. It's been something that I talked about that I was kind of disappointing disappointed by, because you know, when we talked about Anthony coming over to Boston, he was one of kind of the interesting case studies that had my eye on with Boston this season.

Like we've seen this drive and kick system that's predicated on having perfect spacing all the time, guards that can finish out of the dunker spot, and these two forwards in Jalen Brown and in Jason Tatum that can create advantages through like inside seals post ups, isoting smaller players and pressuring the rim to initiate their drive and kick attack, and the kind of guards they had, like you know, obviously Drew Holliday could apply some rim pressure, but he's

more of like a bully ball type of player. And then you had, you know, Derek White, who I wouldn't necessarily consider to be a slasher. He's just an extremely gifted shooter both off the catch and off the dribble, who's very smart, who knows how to run inverted ball screens and standard ball screens and all these different things that kind of complimented what the Jays like to do. Andfrety Simons represents kind of like a spread, pick and roll type of two guard that brings a very different

type of dynamic to this team. And one of the things that I was most disappointed in throughout this part of the season with him, even though I think he's played well for stretches, was I just thought he'd be able to pressure the rim a little bit more in this type of space than he's been able to. He's just had a hard time turning the corner. But like he had six points just in the fourth quarter of this game alone driving to the basket for layups. He

had another six points in the last game. So again, for a guy who's averaged two point two points at the rim per game this season, he has twelve points at the rim in the last two games. So some real positive momentum there from Anferny Simons and then just a couple of key stops late. They really did a good job of swarming Miami's drives. At the end of the game, they had four stocks in the fourth quarter.

Niemi Kada had a big one, Derek White had a big one in transition on Norman Powell, and an important sequence late in the game. This we've talked about this with Miami, but Miami they're constantly trying to drive at these matchups. But if you help off of Bam and you kind of just situate yourself in the lane, you can force them into some tougher shots around the rim that they'll miss. And Bam often hasn't made enough shot,

so Kello where hasn't made enough shots. They actually did win a game against Phoenix the other night where Bam hit a bunch of threes in crunch time, but he missed the three in crunch time. This time, he had another play where he was kind of awkwardly situated in the dunker spot on the left side, and when the ball got dumped off to him, he ended up shooting

like a hook that he missed. And the spacing can just get a little janky for Miami, And so the defensive game plan there is you just need to swarm those drives and off of the right types of shooters. Swarm those drives and make sure you don't lose track of the lasers like Norman Powell and Tyler Harrow, and you give yourself a good chance. And I just thought that they did a brilliant job swarming Miami's drives down

the stretch. And then a couple of big plays late Jalen Brown, you know, after Anthorty Simons had kind of taken over the offense in the fourth quarter, hits a huge three off the left wing on a double team. Then Anthony Simons drew And that's the kind of thing that anthrety Simons is gonna do. If he's dropping thirty nine in a game, he's gonna start drawing two to the ball, which is what he did. Jalen had a really nice driving floater in the lane that helped ice

the game. And then some really big offensive rebounds from Sam Hauser and Derek White underneath the basket, just grabbing Howser had a little tap in. Derek White had a play where he grabbed an offensive rebound and drew foul. Those were big plays. Late in the game, the Celtics had dropped three out of four, it started to get into a little bit of some bad habits in terms

of their shot selection. Big win though, I thought last night over a Miami Heat team that's been playing a little bit better over the course of the last week. Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor hard Rock Bet, the official sports but partner of the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. Think you know ball. Put your hoops knowledge to the test on hard Rock Bet. Between the NBA and college Every night is the chance

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and nine with it. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia. All Right, Pistons Suns, The Return of Cad Cunningham and Jalen Durhan. The Pistons had struggled at various

point in this game. Phoenix, even without Devin Booker, they bring a very high concentration of jump shooting, talent and athleticism on their roster, and those are two of arguably the most important traits in the modern NBA that a team needs, and when you have those two things in abundance, you're gonna do a lot of damage to the NBA. The athleticism is what allows you to get the stops

that get you out in transition. That's also the athleticism that helps you penetrate the defense for you know, driving kick sequences, and then the jump shooting is what pays it off, right, And so they got a lot of high quality defense to transition sequences and driving kick sequences where guys paid it off by hitting shots. And the Pistons had some turnover issues in this game, and they also didn't shoot the ball super well from the perimeters. That meant a lot of long rebounds and a lot

of live ball turnovers. That also kind of fed that transition engine. And so Phoenix had some stretches where they looked really good at honestly, they kind of played like they were in control for the majority of the game. The Pistons just had these two massive runs, a nineteen to five run in the middle of the third quarter and a thirteen to two run in the fourth quarter.

Those both erased the majority of the success that the Suns had had in the other parts of the game, and then they were able to successfully close the game out with their defense. And the nineteen to five run in the middle of the third quarter was a fascinating example. I'd argue both of their runs were like this, but there was just just some different guys in that fourth

quarter stretch. But the run that they went on in that third quarter was fueled entirely by what I think is the identity of this team, which is that they are a physical, ass kicking athletic team. Asar Thompson and Jalen Duran completely dominated that middle third stretch just under

the rim on offense. Almost everything Detroit scored during that run was off of either a Duran Thompson offensive rebound or a Duran Thompson cut around the rim where they just jumped over everyone or finished something in the lane.

And we also got one of those patented stretches from Detroit's defense, which again they have just this depth of athletic perimeter players that can get up into the ball and that can really rotate, and teams can soil the selves underneath that, and they force a few turnovers and some really tough late clock heaves from Dylan Brooks during that third quarter run, and crazy thing is Dylan almost knocked a couple of them down because he's such a gifted,

tough shot maker this season. But it's just really difficult to handle Detroit when they ratchet things up athletically like that, when they're forcing you into really tough shots on one end, and then it's just a steady diet of like just like pinball underneath the basket, Jalen Duran and Saar Thompson

just grabbing and finishing everything around the basket. It just can be really difficult because it's ugly basketball and it's it's just fueled by this physical athleticism and you end up going on a nineteen to five run that flips the game, and then that second run in the third quarter, excuse me. In the fourth quarter, different group of guys like Tobias Harris was doing a lot of damage out of the post in this lineup, hit a couple of tough middies, even one over Dylan Brooks, which is not

easy to do. And then they got another big offensive rebound finish from Jalen during this time off of an offensive rebound by Jade and Ivy Jay and Ivy is starting to play a little bit better. He had a big three in that run as well. And then Isaiah Stewart, you know, a guy that can be hot and cold on defense, had a couple of really nice rim protection sequences during that stretch for some misses from Phoenix players at the RAM, and then closing the game, the offense

stalled out, which gave Phoenix a chance. Phoenix ended up cutting the lead to too late. Cade predictably off in his first game back. He's very much a rhythm player and it's going to take him a few games to find his groove. He just had some misses and some turnovers down the stretch that are pretty typical of a guy that you know has been away from the game for a little bit. He's struggling at the foul line too. That's always the dead giveaway that a player's just out

of rhythm. But Detroit's defense was just excellent down the stretch, Like Phoenix was really whipping the ball around the perimeter too, But there's just so many shooters to track and it can be tough. But Detroit just met that energy. They were flying around, they were making their rotations, and they got enough stops to close the deal down the stretch

and the Pistons get back in the win. Calmn I thought it was super impressive that they went three to one in those games without Jalen Duran and again Caid missed two of those games as well. And now those guys are back and got a tough schedule this coming week. They play the Celtics on Monday and the Rockets on Friday. That's gonna be a couple of tougher matchups for Detroit

coming up up this week. But again, to me, you know when we talk about we talked about this idea in our power ranking segment on Monday, the idea of sustaining success through shifting circumstances. And one of the things that that requires is an identity that permeates your entire roster. So, for instance, if you have an identity that's tied up in a singular player like oh, this guy does this, and that's what makes us great, then you remove that

guy and it can be a problem. And I don't want to sit here and pretend like Cad and his shot creation isn't a big part of this team's identity. Of course it is, And even in this game is as much as Kid had struggled, there were a lot of possessions where he drew the rim protector in into ballscreen and just fed Jalen during a wide open dunk. There was a lot of quality shot creation from Kid

in this game too. But the point I'm trying to make is when you have an identity that permeates the roster, when you have a thing that you do great that involved like seven or eight dudes on the team, and so when one or two of them are out, the other guys in that group can just kind of bring that same identity on a possession to possession basis. That's

what actually drives sustained success through shifting circumstances. And it's very clear that this team, through its physicality on the glass, especially on the offensive glass, and its perimeter defense talent, that they have an identity that permeates the roster, and that's going to be there even in games where they're missing some of their core rotation pieces, maybe even a star or two, and I just think that that bodes

really well for Detroit moving forward this season. All right, lastly, just for a couple minutes before we get out of here tonight, the Lakers loss to the Hornets last night. Not gonna go too deep here. I'm covering this with Lakers Collective today at eleven am Pacific Standard times. You guys can head over to that channel and we'll be live for about an hour talking about that game, as

well as the other two games from this week. I have been way less discouraged by the Kings and Hornets losses than you would think that I would be when you have these kinds of injuries like Austin Reeves is out, Jackson Hayes is now out, so you have these weird like Lebron at center groups, which is just a lot to ask for a forty one year old. Gabe is back from an injury, but he's still super rusty. Ruey

Hatchamura's back from injury, but he's still super rusty. So what you end up with when Gabe's not shooting the ball well and Ruy's not shooting the ball well, you just have a lot of these yanky ass lineups on the floor. I'm like looking at a lot of lineups where I'm like, of course they're getting their butts kicked.

It's like Lebron and a G League guard and then another two dudes that can't shoot and a guy that's just coming back from an injury that's a shell of himself right now, and it's like, of course they're getting beat, you know, and similar lineups involving Luca that have had those kinds of issues, and so like, I just like, yeah, the Lakers are a poor jump shooting team, and yeah they're I don't think they're gonna be you know, I

still view them as a third tier contender. I'm not sitting here trying to say that they're better like that than you know, what we've considered them to be over the last few weeks. But I just think in this particular stretch of the season, when you look at the like the Kings and Hornets are playing pretty good basketball right now, they've been giving good teams issues over the

course of the last couple of weeks. So, like, am I surprised that the Lakers dropped games when they have this type of role player talent available to them, and Austin's out of the lineup, and you're playing against some teams that are playing pretty good basketball. No, I'm not overly surprised. And the reason why I'm not super worked up about it is there are some real positive things that I think stretched forward for this team. Like if Lebron and Luca are going to continue to be this good,

like Lebron and Luca were fantastic again last night. If Lebron and Luca are going to be this good and you get Austin back, that's a strong enough foundation to make up for some of your flaws. Then you hit on a trade at the deadline, you get you know, a couple of guys back to shooting the ball a

little bit better than they were earlier. At least I think they could get back to being one of those like feisty second tier contenders that can beat a team or two, you know, if they catch some favorable matchups in the playoffs. So again, the role players are what they are right now, they're bad. But the stars playing this well I do think is a positive because I don't think we're gonna see you know, Kobe Buffkin in the rotation for the Lakers when we get to, you know,

a big playoff series. I don't think Jared Vanderbilt is gonna be in the rotation when they get to a big playoff series. I don't think Gabe Vincent is going to be in the rotation when they get to a big playoff series. Like, the Lakers are gonna swap some of these guys out. Austin's gonna come back Austin again if it brings a better Like he's a better defender than most of the guards not named Marcus Smart. He's a better shooter than just about everybody on the team,

and he's one of their most valuable shot creators. You know, you're taking what has been Nick Smith junior in Kobe Buffkin minutes and you're giving those to Austin Reeves. You're taking minutes that are going to some of these lesser players, Like like you're not gonna have to lean on centerless Lebron James units when Jackson Hayes is healthy. Right, So, like I credit the Hornets. They played really good basket the Hornets. This is crazy stat They literally made seven

pull up threes last night. They average half that they played They're playing really good basketball right now. They were spamming Iso threes at the top of the key in the third quarter and it was working. So tip the cap to the Hornets. Yes, the Lakers are a flawed team. No one's out here saying they're gonna go win the championship. But I do think they're better than they look right this second, because they have a lot of guys that are bad basketball players that are playing in their rotation.

It's an indictment on Rob for the work that he's done with the back half of the roster, but I think that there are some positive trends coming with just the effort level, the engagement on defense, and how good their stars look right now. All right, guys, it's all I have for today. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. I hope all of you guys have a wonderful weekend and I'll see you next week on One