Episode 19: Lakers/Sixers Breakdown, AD's Struggles, Caruso/Schroder Minutes And More

on the mountain pretty well. But then one of the nights, my wife and I went ice skating on like a little ice drink that was right there next to the slopes, and I totally ate ship in the most spectacular way possible, where I slammed my back into the ground and gave myself a pretty mean case of whiplash and uh, a reminder that no matter how athletic you think you are, no matter how coordinated you think you are are, you can very quickly be humbled anytime you're on on some

ice skates. So that was interesting. I am back in town for a while now. I'm looking forward to getting into a good rhythm with this and getting this going again to where we have multiple episodes a week. But thank you guys as usual for tuning in and supporting. I'm gonna talk all about Lakers six Ers today. I did a ton of film deep dive today, particularly into the specific strategies that the two teams were employing against

each other. And then I really dove into some numbers having to do with the Laker rotation that I think is really interesting, particularly as it pertains to the Crusoe minutes and the Dennis Schroeder in the starting lineup stuff. And I really found some interesting numbers, So hopefully you guys will stick around for that, and then I also

plan on taking some questions at the end. I've got one from the tweet I sent out earlier, and then while you guys are listening along, drop any questions you have in the comments here and I'll get to them

at the end. But I want to so I have a couple of things I wanna touch that I thought were interesting in this particular game, because usually in a regular season game, you can't take too much from the outcome necessarily because there's always some weird thing going on, Like the Lakers are in the middle of a super long road trip while the Sixers have been at home.

The Lakers are um and you could tell from the start last night the Sixers just felt like they had a little bit more that they wanted to prove, so they're playing a little bit harder. But what you can pay attention to is UH specific strategic things that will inevitably end up happening when you get into a playoff series. So I want to talk about how the Lakers defended Joe l em Bad. I thought that was really interesting.

We're gonna talk about the problem with Dennis Schroeder in the starting lineup, We're gonna talk about Crusoe's minutes, and then I'm gonna talk about some of the stuff that's going on with Anthony Davis and what I think might be causing those problems. Um So, starting with him bat

from the start. At the beginning of the game, Gassol was on him, and I thought this was interesting because if you guys have listened to my podcast at all over the last couple of months, I talked about how big I thought the Marcosol signing was as insurance for specific at thick matchups against Joel Embiid and against Nicola Yokich and just bigger, craftier centers that used to just absolutely destroy Dwight Howard and UH and JaVale McGee last year just because they were a little bit in over

their skis in terms of their basketball I queue and their mobility and things along those lines, and Marcusol has a little bit of a history of defending Joel Embiad really well, so I was optimistic that there might be something there. And to be clear, some people got in my case last night. I don't think he did a bad job by any means, but he wasn't the same force against Joel Embiad that he had shown in the past.

He wasn't as effective as against him as he used to be, And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Joel Embiad is just better now. It's not as so much about Marcusol's decline as it is about Joel Embiid just being in a rare groove right now. He's extremely gifted at drawing fouls. He's a lot quicker and more decisive when he makes his moves, and he's got this whole arsenal of mid range jump shots and little floaters and hook shots and stuff that he can make now that he didn't used to be

able to make. Um So that was the first thing that I thought was interesting. But as the game progressed, they tried Montrez on him for stretches. Montrez got absolutely destroyed for the most part, and then they tried or they had to send doubles, a hard doubles every time he'd end up in that matchup. But then at the end of the game, it was a lot of Anthony

Davis and what was interesting there. If you go into my Twitter feed and you scroll down, you'll see a video breakdown that I did where I really talked about the different types of of of matchups between em Beat and Davis at the end of the game, and the different types of defensive technique that Anthony Davis used. There were plays where Joel took him with his back to the basket. There were plays where Joel faced him up.

When he faced him up, there were times when Anthony Davis tried heavy ball pressure, getting up in his grill, and then there were times where Anthony Davis gave him a little bit more space and just played with a hand up to try to force him into a jump shot. And it was really clear what was working what wasn't.

There was a big play at the end of the fourth quarter where Joel em Beat faced up Anthony Davis, a d media it lead like got right up into him with his chest on his shoulder and was kind of had his arms up like this and was just getting up into his space. And Joel embiad is so much more physically powerful than Anthony Davis, so much stronger and bigger, that he was able to do just a really basic ripthrough move to get past Anthony Davis and

finished a reverse layup with the foul. Whereas on later possessions when Anthony Davis gave space and used his length to his advantage, he was able to beat Joe l Emba to the spot and force him to take tougher

jump shots. And there at the end of the game when the Lakers made their comeback in the last few minutes, there was a lot of Anthony Davis giving Joel embat space, forcing him to to make some sort of dribble move or to settle for a jump shot, and they had a lot of success, forced them b two into a lot of missus a couple of turnovers. It gave the Lakers better chances for a lot of dig ins and helped to to try to force turnovers, and a lot of that had to do with better rotations on the

back end. So early in the fourth quarter, there was a play where Joel was posting up and Matistible was one pass away and they doubled off of Matisse Stybel's man with Anthony Davis and Uh matist Hebel was wide open, but instead of letting him be the guy to take the shot, Alex Crusoe rotated over from fur Con Corkmas, who was a much much better shooter, and it led to a really simple rotation that led to it Ben

Simmons layup. Whereas if they were when they were a little bit smarter late in the game, uh they were when they would double and leave Matistible open or when Matisse checked out of the game, there was a lot

of a lot better communication between the Laker guards. You'd see k CP usually be two passes away and then either Dennis Schroeder or Alex Cruso be one pass away, and he would work on digging on embiid and then KCP would kind of position himself in a classic kind of shell drill position where he's split in the difference between the two guys so that he's effectively taking away

that first pass. But for whatever reason, Joel embiid attempts to throw over the top and anticipate KCP jumping the first pass, he could still rotate to the second pass. That's kind of like cheating that first rotation. It's something you can only do against rudimentary passers, but it gives you a better opportunity to to recover u in those circumstances. And one of the big things to watch for a potential NBA Finals series between these two teams is embiad

still is a rudimentary pass. So there were a lot of sequences at the end of that game where the Lakers were sending heavy help towards em Beat and he

just wasn't seeing the floor very well. If you look on my little uh, if you look on my little a thread that I did, you'll see several plays where the Lakers basically abandoned Seth Curry and either left him wide open in the corner or one pass away on the wing and there and there was a really easy opportunity for him Beat to hit one of the best three point shooters in the league, but he just wasn't. He just wasn't seeing that play. So it's something to

keep in mind. In one regular season game without a whole lot of of reps to really build a strategy.

The Lakers really found a method to slow down Joe l Embiid in the half court, and it involved a lot of Anthony Davis on Joel giving space, forcing him to make dribble moves and beating him to the spot and forcing him to take jumpers, and the Laker guards just being in better positions to rotate and banking on the fact that Embat's just not a good enough passer to be kind of one step ahead of that rotation to make the right play to hit the open shooters.

So that very very uh good news if you're a Laker fan for that potential matchup, because usually that sort of thing with really really great players can take a whole series to figure out, and they kind of figured it out in three and a half quarters. So it was a really interesting matchup, a lot of interesting stuff

to take away. But I still like the Lakers defense as being very capable of not neutralizing Joel Embiad but at least making him take a lot of jump shots and forcing him to make tougher reads on the floor. So it's a lot of good stuff to take away there. So let's move on to Schroder. This is a drum that I've been beating all year long, this idea that you know, Dennis Shrouder, for ego purposes or whatever the reason is, decided that he believes he deserves to start.

And what I always was saying was just that, and beats started. Shoulder starting maybe good for his ego, but it's bad for his game. And a lot of that has to do with a simple basketball proposition. If you're gonna be playing alongside Lebron and Anthony Davis, chances are at the beginning of these games they're gonna be very aggressive. And if they are, all of a sudden, you, Dennis Schroeder, this guy who's supposed to be a lead ball handler, is going to pretty much become a spot up shooter.

And you saw a lot of that in last night's game early in the game, a whole lot of Lebron and Anthony Davis, not a lot of Denn A shooter action. And so you're basically wasting Dennis Shooter's minutes in a role that Wesley Matthews could just as easily fulfill, if

not better. Because Western mattheis is a little bit better defensively that it's a waste of those minutes and so, But the biggest problem is is it's hurting the opportunities later in the game when the starters aren't because the all three of them together went I dug into the line up data today. When Lebron, Anthony Davis, and Dennis Shooter on the floor together, the Lakers are amazing. It's not a problem with that specific lineup. It's a problem

with other lineups. So when all three of them are on the floor there plus fifteen point four and three thirty one minutes, that's great news. That means you can go to that lineup inclosing time. That means you can go to that lineup at the end of halves or whatever it is that you want to do to to find minutes for the three of them together. But if you don't properly stagger them at the beginning of the game, you're gonna end up with these other lineups that end

up struggling. So, for instance, the Lakers have had to run Lebron by himself for a hundred and eighty eight minutes this year. That's a lot when you've got three star ish level players. If you're counting Dennis Shooter is a fringe star. When you've got three really really gifted offensive players and you're not staggering them properly, you're gonna end up with one of those guys on the floor

a lot, and that really shouldn't happen. So Lebron in a hundred and eighty eight minutes, because he's so good, is still a net positive, but he's only a plus one point seven, Whereas when Lebron is with a d he's plus fifteen point six in forty eight minutes. When he's with just Dennis, so Lebron and Dennis together he's

plus nineteen point one in sixty minutes. So when you have Lebron in one of the other two on the floor together, you're killing teams, but you're leaving him out there by himself for a hundred and eighty eight minutes as compared to a hundred and eight minutes with him with one of the other two stars, And in those minutes you're barely winning because you're leaving Lebron with those weird lineups with like Montrez harrold And and Mark Kith

Morris and things along those lines. So one of the problems with with starting Dennis Shrewder is Inevitably, Lebron checks out of the game with like five minutes to go in the first quarter, and Anthony Davison and and Dennis Shrewder are running the team. But then Lebron comes back in at the end of the first quarter, and Dennis pops out, and then Anthony Davis checks out because he's

got to get some rest. And so now you're starting the second quarter and you're going like a six minute stretch with neither Anthony Davis nor Dennis Shutter on the floor. And that's happening every single night, and in those minutes, the Lakers are barely scraping by with the positive, with the positive on the scoreboard. So, for instance, last night, Dennis Shooter plays from the beginning of the game to about three minutes left in the first quarter, then he

sits for eleven minutes. He doesn't come back in until four minutes left in the second quarter, and at that point he's only with Lebron Is checking back in. Lebron checks back in with two and a half minutes left in the in the second quarter, and so you're you're you're wasting the vast majority of the Dennis Shooter minutes with Lebron already on the floor, when the whole point of having Dennis Shooter to begin with was to have him as this like backup ball handler that can help

with your bench lineups, you know what I mean. So it's one of those things where I it's it's I understand, you're trying to appease a player that you're trying to resign and bring back, you know, as a future for this team. So you're trying to take care of his ego, You're trying to make him feel better about himself and all that good stuff. But genuinely, you're you're damaging other areas of the of the team, other lineups in in a bunch of different ways too, because guess what, Dennis

Shooter has been struggling. You want to know why, because every single game he comes out and he's starting the game playing against playing with two of the four best players in the world, and he's not getting the same amount of aggression that he normally would get in a different lineup. And then to top that off, it's it's

starting to affect Anthony Davis. We're gonna talk a lot about this later In my opinion, one of the big reasons why Anthony Davis has had struggles this year stems from the fact that there's just a little bit an overreliance on trying to keep other guys involved because there's too much ball handling on the floor with that initial lineup. Whereas last year, one of the bigger reasons why I think Anthony Davis was so good was from the beginning, it was, Hey, it's Lebron and a D. They're gonna

do everything. So there was there wasn't an issue with rhythm, There wasn't an issue with like building your confidence over the course of the game. And I do think that's one of the reasons. And we're gonna talk about this more later, like I said, but I do think that's one of the reasons why he has struggled. So, in

my opinion, makes way more sense. You start with Lebron and a D. Then it goes to a D and Schroeder at the end of the first when Lebron checks out, and then a D checks out, and it's Schroeder and Lebron to start the second quarter, you know, and then Lebron checks out, a D comes back in and it's you know, Schroeder and and and a D and then you can end the half either with a D and Lebron or you can find a little bit of time to take Schroeder out there so he can finish the

half as well. But there's an easy way to stagger this lineup so that you always have two of those guys out there. Because like the numbers that I shared with you earlier, when they have them at least two of them, they're doing pretty well. It's it's the Lebron by himself minutes or they're barely scraping by because you're not staggering the lineups properly, and it's starting it's starting to hurt the team. All right, let's move on to Cruso.

Remember to drop questions in the comments if you guys have any questions for the end. Alright, So, um I dug into some of the line up data with Cruiso.

Um it's getting absolutely out of control and completely nonsensical and downright at sometimes seemingly self sabotaging when it when it comes to this this stuff with the Crusoe minutes, because of all of the Laker rotation players, he's got the second highest net rating behind just k c P who's around plus nineteen and some change Crusoe's plus sixteen point seven and only seventeen point seven minute per game.

Cruso is playing only thirty seven percent of available Laker minutes in a per game uh and within the scope of of of each game, So you're playing two thirds of the game without your one of your very best role players. And what's crazy about this is, you know a lot of times you'll you'll read too much into this kind of stuff because of you know, statistical noise that can happen in a small sample size. So for instance,

last year, the exact same thing was happening. Caruso was playing limited minutes every single time he was on the floor of the Lakers were dominant, and you could but there there was there was It was early on, you know, there wasn't a ton of of of evidence in the Lakers were so good that you could look in the mirror and you could be like, yeah, like is it really Crusoe or is it just the fact that he's out there with Lebron James, who's a you know, second in the m v P voting or whatever it is.

But now we're stretching to a whole year and a playoff run and an additional you know whatever it nineteen games or whatever the Lakers have played this year. We have a ton of data now, and this ton of data tells us that when Alex Crusoe is on the floor, the Lakers are flat out dominant on both ends of the floor. They're right around one sixteen offensive rating and their defensive rating is down below one hundred. They are

dominant on both ends of the floor. With Alex Caruso, he has now added enough to his game offensively that he's a legitimate positive on that end as well. There is absolutely no reason at this point for him not to be in the game more than he is at one point. You know, you could say early on you're like, oh, we're testing out lineups. You know, we're trying to see, you know what, where things fit together. Bl blah blah

blah blah. We have a year, a full playoff run, in nineteen games of this regular season worth of evidence that this guy needs to be playing more, and for whatever reason, he's not, and I really don't understand it. Like, you know what's funny is he absolutely deserves to be an all defensive life to be on one of the ALLA all defense teams. He's not gonna get it, you know why, because he's not playing enough, which is on

frank it does. It doesn't make any sense to me, And I feel bad because, you know, if if I was in Alex Crusoe's position, you can see with the way he plays, he's such a competitor. He plays so hard, and it's got to be frustrating for him to to sit on the bench and watch these games knowing he's impacting the game at the level he is, and to sit there and know he has to watch for two thirds of the game and then maybe get his chance

at the end. It's It's one of the more nonsensical things that I can remember in my time rooting for any team in professional sports. But I feel bad for Alex because it's like it there is no weakness in his game as it pertains to the role that he's

asked to fill. No one's saying he's Dennis Shrewder as an offensive player, but when you're looking at what he's asked to do, which is to defend at an extremely high level both in rotation and on the ball, and he on the other end, he's has to open knockdown, open shots, attack blows out into every so once in a while, you know, run a pick and roller or

or something with the ball in his hands. He's not asked to do much, and with the things that he's asked to do, he's knocking those things out of the park every single time, and there's absolutely no reason for him not to be in the game. Like when you're watching, when you're watching UH Talent Horton Tucker, you're like, man,

this guy brings a ton to the table. Defensively, every once in a while he's making a really really impressive offensive play where he's driving the basket and duncan on somebody or or he's doing some crazy scoop shot over a shop blocker. And then on the defensive end he's stealing the ball from somebody here there, he's making some

crazy play. But when you dig into the numbers UH Talent Horton Tucker that the team performs really well defensively with him on the floor, they're right around like a defensive rating. But in his in his minutes offensively the team is struggling. They're down around a hundred and five points profit per a hunter possessions offensively, so there's a

reason why he's not playing very much offensively. He's a little bit of a loose cannon and that's to be expected at his age, and you can see it in the game tape when you're watching the game last night. You know, one minute he's driving to the basket and duncan.

The next minute he's getting stripped in traffic because he's not seeing the floor well enough to kind of see where the health defense is coming from and to understand that there's so much length on the floor with that Philly defense that he's not he can't just squeeze through all these holes the way that he's used to. So Town Horn Tucker, it makes sense to not play him as much. You know, Wesley Matthews, he's older, he's coming

off and a kill his his tear. Makes sense to keep his minutes down, you know, he's he's he's been a little bit hit or missed this year in a lot of ways, so it makes sense for him to be unlimited minutes. You know. But as far there are three guys in that guard rotation that should never be out of the game, you know, as far as their normal rotation goes. They should always be in the game, you know, uh to to to as much as their bodies can handle. And that's k C p Alex Crusoe

and Dennis Shutter. Those three guys are absolutely flat out ballers can play. They need be in the game. And it doesn't make any sense to continually have Alex sitting on the sideline watching, you know, especially in really competitive games like last night, with all the things that he brings to the table. So we're gonna talk about Anthony Davis now, all right, So Anthony Davis has been flat out disappointing this season. I don't need to tell you

that all of you feel that way. I tweeted last night. You know, the synopsis of Anthony Davis this season is that he's nowhere near as good as he was defensively last year. And on the offensive end, he's drifting further away from the basket and making a heck of a lot less of those shots than he did last year. You know, ros you guys know him, his unwritten rules.

Every time he'd come on. We talked a lot about how Anthony davis Is mid range jump shot is is going in at like a k Desque level or Michael Jordan's sque level, you know, right around the mid fifties, a type of range. That's the way he was shooting in the bubble. And not only that, he was shooting extremely well in the games leading into the bubble, you know,

in March and in February. I remember he was like forty something percent from three over his last twelve games of the of the of the regular season before the shutdown. There was an absolute positive trend and Anthony Davis as a jump shooter that was showing not just in the bubble but before the bubble, and it gave you, you know, optimistic, give you an optimistic outlook on on what you could expect from Anthony Davis. You know, moving forward this season,

he's just not making them. And not only that, he's leaning too heavily on it. You know, I always talked about, you know, with a jump shot. You know, the thing with jump shooting as a superstar, as a really good basketball players is it's complicated because there's a fine line between you know, settling and using it as as a mix up and for rest. So for instance, like everyone always wants to say, oh, Lebron should drive to the basket and dunk it every time. Well, that's not realistic.

It's not realistic for fatigue, it's not realistic for you know, the way that the defense is going to react. You know, like the if you drive to the basket and get an easy layup chainces are the next time you attempt to drive, there's gonna be a lot more traffic in the paint as the defense kind of you know, adapts and adjust to what you're trying to do. You have to be able to make jump shots in order to loosen up the defense and soften up the defense so

that you can get to the basket. Same goes for passing the ball. All of those things are part of that experience. And so you know, uh, it's very important for Anthony Davis to be able to shoot. But there's always a line, and the line for Anthony Davis has been crossed. In my opinion, he's leaning too heavily on the jump shot to the point where I actually think

it's starting to detrimentally impact him overall as an offensive player. So, for instance, this season, in total, Anthony Davis has attempted eight two shots inside a five feet So I think of that as like finishing anything around the basket off of drop offs and and transition things along those lines. But that's also a really physical post move. You know, obviously you can get to a seven or eight foot hook shot anytime you want when you're as tall as

he is. But with how physically gifted he is, without big and strong he is, with how fast he is, without tall he is, he absolutely should be able to in isolation, get to the rim a certain amount of time, you would think, right, So eight two shot attempts inside a five feet he's making those at seventy six percent.

He's attempted a hundred and forty eight shots outside of ten feet, So for every one shot that he's getting at the rim, he's taking almost two shots outside of ten feet, and he's only making those at a thirty six percent clip, a very very tiny fraction of what he was doing last year in the bubble, in the

games leading into the bubble. So if with this Anthony Davis stuff, you know, like it was almost like one of those things where, uh, he probably took some time off after the championship, which he should have took some distance from the game to recover mentally to recover physically, that's great, but then he came back and whatever rhythm he had built up over that stretch, you know, from

February through the bubble, that rhythm is gone. And so now I think he's trying to get that rhythm back, but he's doing it by leaning more heavily into those long distance jump shots. And as you the problem with jump shooting is there's nothing more discouraging than missing a jump shot because when you miss a jump shot, it always leads too long rebound and transition. It always feels like you're settling, so it kind of has a negative

impact on the rest of the team. You know, there's there there's a big downside to missing a jump shot, so it can kind of spiral out of control into a confidence issue. Next thing, you know, you can't make anything. Anthony Davis is missing wide open shots now in addition to the tougher ones that he's taking over the course of the game. Like the last couple of games, the Golden State game and last night, he missed a couple of wide open shots. At the end of the game.

Against Golden State there was one at the top of the key, and then against Philly there was a three that he took uh and both of them not even really close. Both of them. I think we're wide right. That's part of that issue is he doesn't have confidence in his jump shot, and he's trying to get confidence back in his jump shot by shooting a million of him and as a result, he's not getting to the basket at all, you know, compared to to what you would expect. You want that balance to be to be

more fifty fifty in my opinion. So I'll have to look up the numbers and I'll tweet them out later, but I'd be willing to bet that if I pulled up lebronze stats at the basket versus ten feet or more away from the basket, my bet, my bet would be that he would have a better balance and that you would see more attempts at the rim to balance

out the shots that he's getting from the basket. Anthony Davis is taking twice as many shots away from the rim over ten feet away as he is inside a five ft and I really do think that that is part of his problem offensively and part of the reason why he's having such a hard time getting into a rhythm. You know, when you look at Lebron shooting percentages over the course of his career, and you look and it's like, you know, his bad games were never the Kobe bad games.

You know, he never had the six for twenty four. That just doesn't happen with Lebron. It's not part of it's not part of his shot profile. You know, his bad games are like eight of twenty two, you know, ten of twenty two. That's what the the inefficient Lebron game looks like. And the reason why it's like that is he has such a great shot profile. He has such a good balance between attempts at the rim and

attempts further away from the basket. So Lebron can have a game where he goes over five from three and over two for midrange, you know, but he's ten for fourteen inside the paint, and so you know, he finishes up, you know, ten for twenty three, and it ends up being a much more efficient game in his bad game. And then he has his good game where he's making his jump shots, and that's when he ends up with his sixteen for twenty four and things along those lines.

Lebron's shot profile is constructed in a way that even on his bad games, he's getting to the rim enough that he's maintaining his impact, he's maintaining his efficiency, he's maintaining his numbers. As we talked about earlier, Anthony Davis is attempting a hundred and forty eight shots outside of ten feet and only eight two shots inside a five feet So his shot profile is a little bit too

stretched further away from the basket. It's negatively impacting his efficiency, it's negatively impacting his rhythm, and it's really starting to hurt him overall offensively. It's just something to keep an eye on. Defensively, it's just weird. I don't I don't really know. It's hard to quantify. Because the team is defending extremely well. They are number one in the league still by a decent margin, they still are having these

stretches where they're just absolutely stifling. There were a couple of plays last night where he did a really nice job, but there's still all these random plays where he's getting beat, whether it's like Kent Baysmore on a switch toasting Anthony Davis to the basket, or Tobias Harris Scott Anthony Davis a couple of times last night with like jump shots, shots that he used to smother with the other players. And then there was there was that play with Danny

Green and transition. It's in my Twitter feed if you look down the thread where Danny Green's running the left side of the floor and uh shooting like a left handed layup from Danny from Danny Green, where Anthony Davis would absolutely swallow that nine times out of ten. And he's just not getting He's just not getting that anymore. And you know, I honestly think that's just like a little bit of effort focusing uh inconfidence thing that will come back to him as he as he as the

offensive end kind of comes around for him. So there's a lot of people talking about on Twitter, are you worried about Anthony Davis? Not at all. I am not at all worried about Anthony Davis and how good he's going to be as the season progresses, and how good he's going to be in the playoffs. He's just not playing well. It's kind of like the weird thing where you know, I can flatly say that he's not playing well, but I can also flatly say that I'm sure he's

going to be fine. Because it's not like he's looking slow. It's not like he's looking, you know, like he lost some sort of of talent. He's still the same guy. He's just not playing well. Some of that's fit, some of that shot selection, a lot of it is just confidence. It's gonna come back over time. He's gonna have a couple of breakout games, and things are gonna come together, especially as you get later in the season. So I'm not worried about it. All right, That's all I had

as far as my notes. So let's look at these questions. There's one in particular about crunch time that I saw on Twitter, but we'll get to that in a second. Um, Okay, someone asked, are the Sixers your pick out of the East? So after watching last night, I would say that they're clearly, And I've watched six or several times this year, but it's one of the games that I've watched them most closely, especially since I rewatched the game watching the tape the UH.

I said from the beginning of the year that I gave them a really good chance. I was picking Brooklyn because I thought that their defense was gonna be good enough with Jared Allen and Kevin Durant just bringing a ton of length on the defensive end of the floor. I thought they were gonna be good enough, But after the Jared Allen uh trade uh to bring in James Harden, I actually would lean a little bit towards the Sixers. That Sixers team is extremely physical and extremely long and

athletic on the defensive end of the floor. They're gonna

make things really tough on that Brooklyn Nets team. And one of the big reasons why they were able to The Lakers were able to slow down Joel Embiad, who literally might be the second or third best player in the league right now, was because of Anthony Davis in his ridiculous defensive ability and the the keyton rotations around Anthony Davis that allowed the Lakers to shut down the the Philly actions later in the game and really make things hard on Joel Embiad and allowed them to come back.

That's not something Brooklyn is capable of. They literally do not have somebody who can check Joel Embiad. If you thought Marcus al was bad, way to see DeAndre Jordan,

He's really gonna struggle in that matchup. Outside of DeAndre Jordan's every other player on the team is too thin and wiry, They're not gonna be able to stay in front of him physically, and then they're not connected enough defensively as a unit in terms of the rotations to really successfully double and and and and double and rotate to try to get the ball out of Joel Mbat's

hands and make other things happen. Not to mention, Ben Simmons is an absolute freight train and transition and he one of the big reasons the Lakers were able to slow him down was you know, Lebron and Anthony Davis sitting and drop coverages, you know, playing way off of him and forcing him to drive into their chest. Ben had a great game, but a lot of his success came early, and a lot of his success came as

a passer as they packed in the paint. They did a good job as slowing him down at the end of the game, and there were a couple of interesting sequences if you look into my thread that I put earlier, where you can see how the Lakers kind of defended Ben Simmons. But the point being, you know, Philly bring him on both ends. They have a truly lead offensive player and and Joel and beat that can go toe to toe with all the best stars in the league.

They have a co star and Ben Simmons that can bring enough offensively as a co star, you know, pushing the ball and transition creating, as as a passer, running pick and roll things along those lines. They found a way to to kind of balance that in a way that they are a really good offensive team and they have tons of shooting around those guys. Tobias Harris is

playing a million times better than he used to. That ability to drop a play for Tobias Harris at the end of a game, you know, it's kind of like the Chris Middleton thing. He's kind of like what Chris Middleton is to the Bucks, except for Joe l embiads actually capable of doing those things that Janice is not capable of doing, so they can bring it on both ends of the floor and over the course of a seven game series. Physicality plays a huge role. The game's

really slow down. It's a lot of bullyball. It's a lot of can you, you know, get key rebounds and can you when the rest are swallowing their whistles, can you be physical enough and dominate that side of the game, and Philly is just going to be monstrously more physical than that Brooklyn team is. So uh as a lot

of basketball left to play. There's obviously the angle of of buy out guys, and potentially a trade or two that that Brooklyn can make, although they don't have any uh trade, They don't many draft picks at this point, but as of right this second, I would lean slightly towards the Sixers and see what else we got here? All right, So I'm gonna get to the one that

I saw on Twitter. So there was a person asked, what did you see in the last four minutes in terms of the execution offensively and defensively from the Lakers. So a lot of this have already touched on, but I'll touch on a couple of things that I did that I didn't touch on. Offensively is really simple. They ran a lot of stuff, uh through Dennis Shrewder at the end of the game, attacking Danny Green. So it's a matchup thing. A lot of a lot of times, what you'll see at the end of these uh, really

slow bogged down games is attacking specific matchups. And this is something that I love about Lebron James. It's the opposite of the Russell Westbrook effects. So like the Russell Westbrook effect is like Bradley Beal has a good matchup, he's going to work. Russ feels like he's kind of left doubt. Russ Jack's up a couple of stupid shots that that disrupts the rhythm. Lebron is not like that.

Lebron didn't attempt a shot in the final four minutes of that game, and part of the reason was they were getting whatever they wanted elsewhere, and Lebron is not wired in a way to disrupt the flow of the offense for the sake of whatever the hell he's feeling.

And so Dennis shrewder early before because Lebron temporarily checked out there around the five minute The five minute mark for is the weird rest that he takes in the middle of the fourth quarter, and Dennis shooter just started going to work on Danny Green, beating him off the dribble, got to the basket for a floater, got to basket

for a couple of layups. Dennis was playing really, really well, and that confidence actually led into him making that huge three on the left wing off of the a d miss UH later in the game, but that was part of the offensive execution. And then late in the game it was a lot of Lebron getting switches onto Joel and beat and and driving and kicking making the right playoff of um off of his drives leading to that

huge contagious called Pope three in the corner. And then I talked about this on the UH on the thread, but I really really liked that play that they ran at the end of the game for Anthony Davis to get the what would have been the game winner had Tobias not made a shot. So right before the time out, Lebron and a D run pick and roll at the top of the key. Ben Simmons is on Lebron, Joel

Ebad is on Anthony Davis. When they go to kind of set the screen, you know, Ben Simmons is going under and uh and and it kind of looks like Joel Embiad is gonna switch. Nothing's really open unless he wants to take a bomb three from like twenty four ft away, which he didn't really have much of a

rhythm at that point. So the Lakers called time out and it's clear that they're gonna switch that Lebron a d pick and roll because they really liked the way he mostly stayed in or and being mostly stayed in front of Lebron on his previous drive. So it's one of those things that go to the huddle. They're sitting there thinking, Okay, they don't want to switch any weaker defender onto Lebron. I'm watching the game with my father

in law at this point. I look over at him and I'm like, they're gonna try to get uh Danny Green onto Lebron because at this point, Tobias Harris was in Mtis Thible was in for the defensive end of the ball. So you don't want to tack to Bias. You don't want to attack Matisse, you don't want to tack Joel, you don't want to attack uh Ben Simmons. So I was like, they're going to find a way

to get Dennis Shrewder into the screening action. I figured they'd run to Lebron, Dennis Shrewder pick and roll at the top of the key and just try to get a switch and then have Lebron attacked Danny Green. That's

what I was expecting. Then they come out of the time out and did what I thought was pretty genius, which was they basically had Anthony Davis standing in the in the short corner, and they had Dennis Shrewder come get the inbound and then Dennis if you watch, if you watch three play and I have it on my feet, he sprints down and sets a hard screen on Joel Embid.

A couple of things are important there. By setting a really really hard screen where you move quickly, it makes it so that, uh, the defensive player who's guarding Anthony Davis can't give like kind of like drop away from Anthon Davis, so we can go under the screen. He's on Anthony Davis. The screen is on him before he has a chance to position his body. He gets a good hard screen on Joel Embat. Danny Green doesn't want to switch, probably because it was directed by Doc Rivers.

In the huddle before the play, Danny Green hesitates just for a second. It doesn't completely abandon a d but you can tell he's looking at Shrewder and he just hesitates for just a second. Probably based on that directive. Anthony Davis curls the screen gets a wide open lay up. Lebron's gonna hit hit that every single time. It was a genius play design in my opinion, and it was a really smart example of how, like you know, you

can close a basketball game by playing smart basketball. It doesn't always have to be Kevin Durred doing seventeen crossovers into a pull up jump shot, or Kyrie over Kyrie Irving doing the same thing, or James Harden doing the same thing. The Lakers closed that game scoring every single possession in the final I think it was like five minutes. They literally scored every time down the floor, I think it eight consecutive either made field goals or or trips

to the free throw line. And they did it all with very little isolation. There was a whole lot of of driving kick It was a whole lot of uh specific screening actions to get guys open offensive rebounding, just like they closed the game on both ends of the floor by executing defensively and and and just making the right play on offense. And they did it, and they

made it look easy. And then if there was no crazy Lebron fadeaway or anything along those lines, and it was a great example, you know, of why a closing basketball games is so much more complicated than guys like Kyrie Iring or Kevin Durant will tell you that it is UH, And I did think that that was fun to watch. Last question I'll take and then we're done. Why is Vogel doing this lineup thing again this season? I honestly don't know. UM, there's some stuff early on,

you know, like the shoulder stuff. It's obvious the shoulder stuff has to do with, you know, taking care of his ego because he wants to start there. Or there's always been some line up stuff with Montrez where they're just kind of trying things out. The Montres stuff. You know, everyone always says like, why are they playing Keith and Tres?

Why are they playing Kif and Tres. It's clear that the Kief and Tread's stuff isn't working, But to me, that's all part of an attempt to try to figure out how they can make Tread's work on this team. And you know, from the very beginning, all the way back to the Treads signing, I said I didn't like it. I said I didn't like hardcapping the team. I said I didn't like uh his fit naturally on the defensive end or offensively. I was never a big fan of the tread signing. So, but it is what it is.

He's on the team now, and uh, and Frank was trying things with Tread's to try to find lineups that work. The stuff that I can't figure out is the Crusoe stuff, Like I said, it just doesn't make any sense to me. He's very clearly one of your top three guards. You know, Like this isn't like last year where like KCP was struggling sometimes and you know, Rondo was struggling struggling from time to time. Like Dennis Shooter is really good and and KCP is awesome. So you know, those two guys

need to be in there a lot. But Crusoe very much belongs in that conversation. Uh. But he's very clearly in that third spot in the hierarchy of the guards, which means it makes absolutely no sense for him to only be playing, you know, seventeen points seven minutes per games.

I mean, that's just completely inexcusable. The exciting part about the guard rotation is there was a lot of question last year about you know, uh, there's a lot of question last year about whether the Lakers had enough guard talent, And now I think They've got the perfect guard threesome to go with Lebron and a D shrewder k CP Alex Crusoe, Anthony Davis and Lebron is just gonna be an incredible lineup for the Lakers to lean on uh in crucial moments the playoff series at the end of

the season. Alright, guys, well we have one more. Has Key progressed, real quick guy, like a guy like Markip Morris, classic role player when they go in and out of games, Uh, in and out of chunks of the season, shooting the ball poorly shooting the ball. Well, I'm not worried about it. When he first came to the Lakers last year or he couldn't make anything. Uh, and then in the playoffs he was a dead eye shooter. He had some moments early in the season where he was shooting super Well,

I'm not worried about it. Markief is what he is. He's a backup center, backup four man who can occasionally knock down open shots. He's not great attacking clothes outs, and he's not great defensively. He's just Uh, he's a backup four or five man. He's what he is. Like if your if your expectations are for Markis Morris to bring some massive thing to the table. You need to adjust your expectations because that's just never gonna be something

that he's gonna be able to do and do well. Um. He I would imagine he'll have a few more stretches this season where he shoots really well, and I imagine he'll have a few more stretches this season where his shot seems to leave him, and the same thing goes for playoff games. He'll have a game where he makes three or four, and then he'll have a game where he can't make him It's just kind of part of

the process. Um. Anyway, So tomorrow I am doing a pod with Tommy where I'm gonna talk about other NBA stuff, But today I really just wanted to dive into the Laker game. You know, not often in a long regular season do you have a chance to really, you know, get something from a regular season game, because regular season basketball always has these other factors. But you could tell right away from the beginning that both teams are playing super hard and it was gonna be a really competitive game.

It had a kind of a playoff field to it, and and that's why I thought that game was super interesting and interesting. It's why I took the time to really dive into the numbers. So I took the time to really watch the film and try to see what I could find that was interesting out of that game. But thank you, guys all so much for all of your support. You know, I uh, I can't believe how many listens these things get and how many downloads of

podcast gets. I'm so thankful for you, guys, and I appreciate you tuning in, like I said, tomorrow with Tommy and hopefully two more every week from now on. And then if you haven't checked out my film breakdown of the of the fourth quarter, you can find it in my Twitter feed. All right, guys, enjoy the rest of your day and I'll talk to you tomorrow