Episode 79: Lakers/Nets Breakdown

side of the table. It is on your side now, so, um, it is not in front of me, at least for the moment. Um, So I know that I know that you were prepared. I like my apologies now, you know, like DeAndre Jordan did start as I said he would next to a d There are there's context to that, of course, Um, but yeah, the crows on the other side, how does that feel? You are absolutely correct. Our first Lakers game involved Anthony Davis at the four, so technically,

technically for the moment, you are correct. Um, it was. It was in general very weird preseason game for all the reasons that preseason games are always weird. Like, for instance, you had uh no, like literally no forwards playing for the Lakers other than Anthony Davis, which inherently made it so that the Lakers had to play small most of the night, which we'll talk about led to uh, pretty

predictable rebounding problems. And that's the kind of thing you'll only see in the preseason because any NBA team that encounters that problem in the regular season, if you had a decimated front court, would you know, sign a two way to bring up a two way player, or you know, have you know, a couple of veteran minimum signings to try to fill in until guys could get healthy. But

that just wasn't gonna happen in a preseason situation. Then you had the classic stuff like referees overdoing the points of emphasis and getting you know, because they view the preseason as an opportunity to establish new you know, protocols and things like that, which I thought was super annoying because like juxtaposed with the NBA Finals, you know, a few months ago, and the stuff that they're letting go all over the floor to suddenly like Anthony Davis reverse

pivot travel, like every single pick and roll, illegal screen like I think Nick Claxton got called for four illegal screens in the first half of that game. Like, it was just incredibly sloppy, and you know, just in general, both teams were playing really hard, I thought, which was kind of refreshing to see. But like there's that classic I think it's a John Wooden saying, but it's like

like activity with production. Don't confuse those two things. Like both teams are running around a lot, but like they're at like in terms of what they were supposed to do within their scheme. I thought everybody was sloppy, but anyway, it was fun. What was it like in the arena as a as a Laker fan to see the fans back, Yeah,

it was. It was really great. I've never really been been that close up before, so it's really cool watching the play players warm up, you know, getting to see Kevin Durant, who didn't play, but just getting to watch him shoot, Watching a guy who's so good at his craft kind of work on it. Seeing Wayne Ellington work on shots that he gets in games. You know, that was really cool. Seeing all the players work with the trainers, got to see Baysmore as well, all the fans. I

believe it was at full capacity. Um just we didn't get a super cell out because of it being preseason. But it was fun, man, just to be up close. You get to hear things that you probably don't get to hear if you're if you're far back, you get to hear them screaming, like ice coverages and you know you're by yourself, and you know all those kind of things that are really cool here, the ball kind of bouncing on the court. There's nothing like Staples Center to me.

Have you been the Stable Center before? Seen the game of Staples Not an NBA game, but I did see an Elite eight game from the n C Double A Tournament. There is like when you get in there and you get underneath those banners, there's just like this feeling of history that as a basketball fan, I've absolutely loved it.

I think there are some Clipper fans over the summer that we're talking trash about Staples as an arena, and I wanted to be like, man, you got a factor in the historical elements here, Like even if it's dumpy in some ways compared to the better arenas around the country, Like, there's history here and that matters you know like that has to factor into some extent. Yeah, not just that.

Staples is a stage right, Like while while I was there watching the game, I was just thinking, like, this is a perfect stage for a guy like Westbrook, for a guy like Lebron. It's just a stage. When you're watching the lighting all the it feels like a theater performance. Even though it's a preseason game, you still kind of get that excitement. Um. Yeah, it was just fun to be to be in the building and uh we missed

that last year. Um, the crowd wasn't there for a lot of the season, and I think that did have an impact. You just see the guys excited and to be up there close that was that was fun. So it was a great experience. Hoped to be at a bunch more games this year too, so yeah, it was fun. Man. I hope everyone can go out to a game this year. Um to be safe, but go out there and have

a good time at the game. Yeah. I was planning on going to Wednesday's game in Phoenix because it was at an interesting time in the day that I might have been able to make it. But as as fate would have it, I think I told you I was considering coaching some high school basketball this year, while I I ended up taking the gig with the varsity team

here in town. So I've got practice on Wednesday, So that might occasionally cause some issues with our postgame shows, but I'm hoping that it only will happen a couple of times this year, just because for the most part, because they're West Coast team, their games start so late in the day anyway, So we're gonna get started to our game plan today in terms of breaking down the game is, we're going to each provide three things that we were impressed by, and then three things that we

thought the Lakers really needed to work on. And then obviously if we have some overlap Sham and I have Roger and I have not discussed it at all. Uh, if we have any overlap, we'll we'll just kind of approach that as we get there. Anyway, Roger, why don't you start us off with the first thing that you were impressed by from the Lakers in their preseason opener.

So I'll just continue on from my like summer preachers, like I loved Wayne Ellington on offense, Like obviously there's defensive stuff to figure out, and again this is the stuff we like. So on offense, he just a different caliber of shooter that we've ever had, right, Like they run sets for him, teams chase him, and like teams don't just chase him. Teams are told like you don't leave this guy, like you are not part of the

help responsibility, Like it's your job to stick with him. Um. The Lakers used to run this play for k C p a Ton where they would start him in the corner right, he'd come off these two stigger screens, but the second screen is becomes a dribble handoff with the big and guys like KCP, Guys like Avery Bradley would dribble into like the midrange. Ellenton is firing from three off the handoff. You know what I mean. It's just a different caliber. Um. When guys go under, he's immediately

going up super technical shooter as well. His feet are set again, Like being at the game watching him practice these threes, like you could see why he's so comfortable in game taking them. All these things are are part of a bunch of reps that he's already done. Um, coming off these little kind of flair screens as well, firing right away it's just nice to have a shooter

of this caliber. He didn't shoot as well. I think he was like two for seven or something from three, but all the shots that like I loved him taking. He takes these transition threes, like I think Rondo hit him in stride on one of them, were like he was coming up in transition one. Drib will pull up from three and that's just a different type of shooter that we have. Um, yeah, that's my first one. I loved Allington offense. I love what he's gonna open up.

I think him and Baysmore were probably most effective by not having our star creators out there, right they I think Allington played best when it was Rondo next to him, just a guy that finds him. But I would love to see him with our stars. But yeah, there's defensive concerns, but I love what he brings as a shooter to

our team. Yeah. I think everything thing that we saw from that game needs to be viewed through the lens of what it would look like with either Russell Westbrook or Lebron James on the floor, because that's just the reality of how this is going to actually shape out in the season, you know, Uh, in general, with Ellington, I look more at the way he affects the defense than I do the result. The result is what it is.

You know, like he's gonna take four or five threes every game and he's gonna make two or three of them. That's that, that's the reality. But on the scoreboard, that's only gonna manifest as you know, six points, nine points, you know, whatever it is. So the things that I look more with Ellington are what does he cause the help defenders to do, because that's the kind of thing that's going to impact Lebron and Russell Westbrook's ability, Anthony

Davis's ability to pressure the rim. And then secondly, what can he do when he's attacking close outs because the reality is as any good defense is going to run him off the line at least most of the time. So there was one play in particular, and I posted it on my Twitter feed. You guys can find it there.

But it's that exact play you're talking about, that k c P play where he comes out of the corner off of a double screen and you know, the second screen is being set by DeAndre Jordan's man and the reason why DeAndre Jordan is being set by DeAndre Jordan's Deandre's Jordan's man has to be up at that screen. The reason why is he's there to deter a curl.

When you have a shooter as good as Ellington, if he curls around that screen and the guy has to be chasing him over the top, it's going to allow him just to to continue around the screen into the lane and get a wide open fifteen footer or force. That's another help defender to step up so you can either drop it off or kick it to the corner. So you have that other big up at the screen to deter the curl. And if you look at the play, I even took a freeze frame of it, DeAndre Jordan

and DeAndre Jordan's man are out of the paint. That's an example of gravity from Ellington that literally impacts two defensive players, the guy who's guarding Yellington and the guy who's guarding his screener. And on that particular play, Kendrick Nunn kind of ran into the pain. It was a little bit out of position and it caused uh, it caused the bays Moore who was the ball handler not to really have much of a driving lane. But they're

going to figure out that kind of stuff. If he goes to the other corner in Lebron James has the ball or Russell Westbrook has the ball, there are clear driving lanes both to the strong side and to the week side, which is the kind of thing that just didn't exist last year. So I I and that's just one example one play, but in general, Ellington's ability to force defenders to panic chase him all over the place

is going to open things up for the offense. There's another one where he attacked a close out where all he did was just kind of lean to the left and DeAndre Benbury like completely panic closed out to that side and gave up a straight line drive and he kicked at the Kendrick Nunn in the corner for a wide open three. Those are the kinds of things that Neither of those plays ended in a made three for Ellington, However, they led to quality offense for the team. Um, the

first good thing that I put. All right, technically it's the second good thing that I put. But I'm gonna piggyback off of your point. Uh is I thought that Baisemore Ellington Monk and none just added a whole other layer of sophistication to the offense, and and just in just in general, we saw a lot of things that we did not see in the previous two seasons. From Baysmore, I,

I was really really impressed by his slashing. And we're gonna talk at the end of this, uh, this segment of the pod, we're gonna do a little bit more of a deep dive into Baysmore and Ellington and Monk and None, just to talk about more of the intricacy intricacies of what they do. But I was impressed by

Baysmore slashing Ellington. We just talked about Malik Monks off the dribble shooting I thought was a really really interesting wrinkle in there, in the pick and roll actions that they ran, and then uh, Kendrick Nunn transition threes, the the floaters and little scoop shots that he had around the bass get that's like comprehensive type of finishing that

we haven't had from guards in the past. Just in general, I was really impressed by the way that those four guys made offense look easy, breezy in a way that it hasn't looked for the Lakers in the last couple of years, and when you add Lebron and Russ to that, it's just gonna get even better. Yeah, that's something I had kind of looked at as well. It's just a lot of ball handling that can score. Right. They're not really great passers in a sense, but all those guys

look to score. They all take it as like disrespectful almost if you close out under the three point line, like just watching the person watching, like Malige Monk dribble up. I think I forgot who the guard was, but he was kind of behind the three point line. He just pulled up and he nailed three. Kendrick Nunn as well in transition guy was behind the three point line, just pulled up Ellington as well. He he feels that same way.

So it's just cool to have off the dribble shooters creators and none of those guys are gonna have to be primary creators. Like that's the way I was watching this game, Like th HD was kind of put in like the Lebron and Russ roll, right, and like to judge th HT off of the Lebron and Rust roll is probably kind of unfair as well. Um, And to judge any of those as like primary creators. So I agree with you just watching all of them be able to score. Just I'm not used to having this many

off the dribbles shot makers. You know, it's interesting to watch as well. I'm not really used to this many pull up jump shooters, UM, guys who come off screens and just firing. I like what you talked about with Kendrick Nunn. I thought he got more comfortable as the game went on, he got more aggressive as a score. He was pulling up as well. So I agree with you. I think all those guys are gonna have a big

gonna have a big year, especially scoring off the bench. UM. So I guess my like second one, Um, you talked about it a little bit. Was just you talked about Monk being off the dribble. I thought I didn't know he was. He had this much I guess off the dribble game. I don't know if you did, but like, I didn't know he had this much creation and it really opened stuff up. They run like double double screens

for him coming off with Dwight and Basemore. They had one play where he had one coming off and he hit the jumper off that. Um, he can run pick a role as well, hit a nice passage white houred in the in the pick and roll. So that was my second one. I didn't know that he had this off the dribble game, and I think it really opens things up. You're gonna have a big battle there for him. None Ellington and PhD for minutes, but I think he

has to play. Do you think he's like in the lead right now with all those cards, because like that was my second one. To me, I didn't know a monk had this much kind of off the dribble game and being in person as well, I didn't know he was just vocal, Like he was a very vocal on defense as well, talking to the guys and saying telling them to communicate. I didn't know he was that type of player. So he was my second one there. I love the leak monk on offense. Um. I think that's

something we can take from the preseason. It's stuff to really take a bunch of things. You don't really care about the score, just look at things that can translate, right, And I think monks jumpers just looks clean. Some dudes who go off the dribble, you can tell they're not

really off the dribble players, they can dribble. Link Monk looks like a guy who's very comfortable um putting the ball on the floor, who looks looks very comfortable coming off screens and firing, really comfortable just pulling up off the dribble. So what do you think about link Monk. He talked about it a little bit, but I think his dribble game is just kind of open things up

the team. The part you were mentioning about him being vocals super interesting to me because that's to me, demonstrates care. We're gonna talk probably at the end actually it's one of the things I have for the three things to work on, But we're gonna talk about the defense from the guards and what It wasn't pretty for the most part, but at the end of the day, I think that that's the kind of thing that's going to take time

through training camp to really establish. And uh, it all starts with, you know, giving a ship, which is something we talked about a lot on this podcast. And and to be honest, I'm not terribly concerned about about them caring. And that's a good sign that Malik Monk was being very vocal on defense that's a good sign as far as his ball handling and shooting. You know, guard guarding pick and rolls are become infinitely more complicated through versatility.

So for instance, like how many times did we see Dennis Shrewder last year because he's not a good shooter when he would run a side pick and roll, they'd ice him and basically allow him to take that you know, pull up fifteen footer, which he made maybe thirty percent of the time, and then from up top exact same thing. They're they're in a drop coverage and and he's he's coming over the screen and the defenders going under and

there's just not really a whole lot there. Well, the guarding that it becomes infinitely more complicated with the off the dribble shooter who's comfortable just in general when you're playing individual defense, Like when I when I think about guarding a guy, always the toughest matchup for any defensive player is a player that is capable of driving to the basket but also capable of pulling off the dribble from deep because you, as a defender, are constantly off

balance because you're prepared to have to leave your feet to contest a shot, and that that little bit of hesitation, a little bit of off balance, opens up all of their dribble moves. And whereas if a player can't shoot, I can kind of camp on my heels, so to speak, being prepared, just basically deciding whether or not I need to go left or right in a defensive slide and not have to worry about closing out because if he takes a shot, that's a win for me because I

want him to shoot. See that difference there psychologically as a huge impact throw in a ball screen, and now it's even more complicated because I literally have to chase you over the top. And if I literally have to chase you over the top, if they set a good screen, that's automatic separation in an automatic ahead of steam going

towards the rim. There was a sequence there with Malik Monk, I believe it was in the second quarter where he ran a pick and roll with Dwight Howard and uh Dwight sets a really good screen, hits the point of attack defender and LaMarcus Aldridge is way too low and and Monk just settles into it like a twenty five

ft three, really balanced and just just nails it. So then on the very next possession, the guard does a much better job of chasing over the top, and because he has to chase over the top, Monk gets ahead of Steam into the lane, gets into the lane, easy hocket passed to Dwight Howard who gets fouled. And then there was a couple possessions later, another pick and roll,

same exact thing. The big hangs a little bit too far back, the guard does chase over the top, but Dwight does get a good screen on him, and Monk pulls up from I think seventeen feet on the left elbow and just nails it. Those are the kinds of

things were like. That is high quality offense that does it require Lebron or Russ to initiate, and it's all set up by the fact that you have a good screen and roll guy and a guy who can pull off the dribble comfortably out to That sort of thing just is extremely difficult to guard at the NBA level, And I was in general really really impressed by what Molik Monk brought to the table. We're gonna talk more about their defense later. I don't want to focus on

that right now, but strictly on the offensive end. Uh that that type of uh initiation, and I think I think Kendrick Nunn has some of that as well in his game that he didn't really have an opportunity to show yesterday yet excuse me, Sunday yet. But I was really impressed by that with Malik Monk. Did you have anything else you wanted to add with Milik Monk before

we move on? Now? I thought I thought he was good. Um, I thought it was great to just he seems like another like a fan favorite already, right and also like his his wingspan. I was looking at it's only six four, but just in person, it just feels longer. I guess his arms feel like they go down longer than than it seems. He's very active as well, I think of that. Yeah, yeah, that might be what it is. But but yeah, just

in person, he just seems like a very active player. Um, and it was cool to watch him just be super vocal with you just don't see usually from young guys like that on this kind of veteran team. So yeah, I'm excited from Link Monk. I thought he had a nice, nice showing in that first game. So the second good thing that I put down was. I just labeled it as good th HD because I have on the bad side, I have bad THHD. But we'll get to YEA. So the things that I really appreciated from th HD last

on Sunday was his point of tack defense. Um. He's still extremely disruptive on the ball, especially when guys are indecisive, like when guys want to try to mix him up. He's really good at getting his hands in there. Um. And then the other thing I put was relentless rim pressure. You know, a lot of it was over penetration. And there are some things that we're going to talk about in the UH later on that have to do with him making easy reads. This is something that was a

concern for him coming into the season. Um. But at the end of the day, there are times against really good defenses in particular where the easy reads aren't there, and sometimes you just need somebody and Lebron is really good at this. In particular, Anthony Davis does it more as a rebounder than he does as a as an initiator.

But sometimes you just need to put your head down and just get to the damn rim somehow, like like you just need to plow through guys and hopefully get enough pressure on the rim that it can generate some quality shots when the really elite defenses are taking away the easy reads and th h T still cannot be stopped like at that initial drive position, Like his problems never had anything to do with beating that first guy.

It was all like he would drive into too much traffic and he would get stripped by the second defender or the third defender. That kind of thing. We can work on the the ability for th h T to beat every single point of attack defender and to to get a step and get headed towards the paint. That is something that can translate to good offense. Especially. I think you'll see him a lot more as a closeout attacker this year, which is something we talked about early

in the season last year. But that th HD still with his low center of gravity, his good strength and his athleticism is still just a huge problem for teams keeping him out of the paint. What did you see from th h T on the good side of things? Yeah, so again, just being there like T exudes is like confidence is like veteran kind of feel already, and you forget that he's twenty years old, just the way he kind of carries himself. So I just want to start

with that. It's really cool to watch him grow and his body is definitely different, like you could totally tell, and it's totally impacted everything you talked about the point of attack defense. I thought him going around screens was much better in this game. I know it's only preseason, but like the term is called like getting skinny, right, so when you're going on when you're going on a screen,

you want to kind of get skinny. And uh, I know the rests are kind of calling a lot of things, but he drew three offensive fouls on movie screens just because he was fighting over it. I thought that was a big step for him on offense. Like again, I talked about this earlier and you said this, everything needs to be kind of seen through this lens of next to Lebron and Russell Westbrook, right, because all those three will be those two will be playing most of the game,

so the ball handling duties will be on them. And I thought thhd's best moments last night where when he was the guy attacking and already collapsed defense, right, like

his dunk. His dunk was on a play where Baysmore drove collapse of defense kicked it out to him, and then he attacked the defense that was already rotating um A couple of possessions later, he got a layup where I think it was goaltender or something that was where a D pushed it right and he got a hand off of a D in drove and again the defense was kind of worried about a D. A thought. His third nice player was like where he got a spin

and got fouled. But that was when Rondo pushed it up to I believe it was Monk who hit th HD as the trailer there and he did like a behind I don't know, it's a spin behind the back whatever. I don't know what he whatever he was doing, but he got fouled on that. So that's what I want

to see with him. I liked him as uh an attacker of an already compromised defense where he doesn't have to be the first attack, right because when you're the first attack, it's your it's your job to make the right decision right to where the pass to who's open. But if he's already attacking already compromised defense, he could

just attack the rim. You have to stop him after already trying to rotate to a shooter or trying to rotate to a d rolling or rotate to Lebron whatever, and then he's coming down the lane with his kind of herky jerky game. You know, he does those weird layups. Um, he protects the ball really nicely when he when he gets to the basket and draws files that way. So I like him scoring that way. And again I thought the defense was good, So I agree with you. I

like what I saw from from PhD there. That's a yeah, that that's a really good point as it pertains to taking away the decision making process essentially at this stage of his career. It's kind of a delicate balance because you know he needs reps in order to learn how to make those decisions, but at the same time, you kind of need him to learn how to play off

of the stars. So my guess is that what you'll end up seeing is kind of what you saw in that game, which is in the games where stars sit because of load management or injuries or whatever it may be. I think you'll lean heavily on him as a decision maker just so he can get reps and then obviously when the guys are healthy, he'll play more, you know,

as a guy who attacks the already compromise defense. You mentioned one other thing that I did not actually put on my list, but I wanted to bring up that you reminded me, is just in general, the pushing the

ball transition. Every time, almost every time that they advanced to the ball, like the whoever would get the ball out of bounds on a maid shot or whoever would get the rebound and kick to the guard, they would make that push ahead pass that like Lonzo ball pass that that we used to see a lot when he was a Laker. That kind of thing, just it causes chaos and then you can capitalize on the chaos. The

one example I'll give is there was a play. I don't remember who the push ahead guard was, but there was Baysmore in the left corner, and uh that push ahead to bays Moore in the left corner forced LaMarcus Aldridge to close out because Baysmore's man was not back. And when LaMarcus Aldridge closed out, Baysmore saw DeAndre Jordan running down the lane and just threw it up and he dunked it for an hand one, and that's an

example of of of generating easy shots. This is a theme that we're going to talk about when we talk about bad th HT But like, uh, good offense isn't about making one good play. It's about understanding that over the course of a game, you need to generate eight to nine potentially more depending on the pace of the game,

but eight to nine high quality possessions. And so there are going to be possessions in that set where the defense is really locked in and you're in the half court and nothing's easy, and you really need to manufacture

something easy. So what that means is when they do make mistakes, when you can beat them down the floor, when you can make an easy read, you absolutely have to capitalize on it because those are the ones that you need to buffer and cancel out the tougher possessions or you're dragged down into the half court and and that pushing in transition is the easiest way to do that. And I thought the Lakers just in general did a really good job yesterday of pushing the ball in transition.

And it helps to have so many guys who can handle the ball because what you did it was harder when you push the ball up the floor and it'd be West Matthews, or you push the ball up the floor and it would be you know, uh an inferior ball handle or someone like you know, even Kyle Kuzma

like struggled with that a lot. Having these guards who can all make decisions and put the ball on the floor make it easier to push the ball up the floor because the guy running the wing is capable of making a complicated dribble move and making a complicated read If that makes sense, Yeah, for sure. And we kind of saw Rondo in that Westbrook role right where he

was the one kind of pushing it up. And you see remnants of like what Vogel was talking about where they want to be like a full time transition team, right, they want to get most of their points in transition. And and again I think the stats that you get at most dirty percent of your if you can if you're running on every play, which Westbrook does, but still you get like your buckets in transition. But you kind

of see that the remnants of it. You saw Ellington and a base more sprinting to corners, and I think you talked about as well, like DeAndre Jordan's sprinting to the lane and getting the lob dunk as e d as the trailers, So you see a little bit of it. I think you'll see it more on Lebron and Rust play, but yeah, you're right. I love seeing them push the ball a little bit kind see what they're trying to do with that. UM. I guess my final kind of what I liked um about the about the game was

seeing Dwight Howard back. Um. His energy is still super infectious and even comes off even more when you're there. You see him kind of screaming and running and all the stuff they don't show on TV, where like he he hits uh, he makes a layub of offensive rebound and he's screaming for the next five to ten seconds you know, of that play, UM, and he's really in with his teammates, and you see it in the timeouts as well, going out to every single player kind of

giving them acourageman. So it was cool to see him. It was funny because the game started obviously with LaMarcus Aldridge right and DeAndre Jordan's and both of them looked very comfortable with like both of you, like they both told each other. Hey, like, let's chill, you know what I mean, Like, let's both of us kind of we know, we know what the deal is. It's preseason, like we're both going to kind of chill. LaMarcus Aldrids look comfortable

as hell. He was hitting his jumpers in the mid range, kind of getting to where he wants. DeAndre Jordan's you know, he didn't look great and he's getting the flag as he I guess he should, but he didn't look he was going at any kind of energy level. And then Dwight Howard checks in and then, uh, you can see the look on LaMarcus Audrey's face just being there. Dwight Howard is like sprinting right from one end to the other, and I could see Aldres just looking at Dwight like

what are you doing? You know kind of thing like it's it's pretty season. Um. So it's cool to see his energy back. I like him as like when you have these bucket getters, having like a good screen setter I think really helps Dwight. I think we talked about earlier the screens he was sending from League Monk, screens he sets for Wayne Llaton just he's he's really smart with it too, Like he'll set the screen and then roll, so it kind of takes both the fenders with him.

You know, he's just very smart with those kind of things. He has all the tricks up the sleeve. Um, he's still got a bunch of offense rebounds because he just knows how to kind of push players what to get away with. And Uh, I just missed having him on the team, and I'm glad he's back. He looks he looks pretty close for the player he was that year. He had a lot of fouls that I know people are kind of on him on his six fouls, but just being there, a lot of those fouls felt like

they could have gone either way. Honestly, a lot of contact at the ref was kind of I don't know, trying to show that that context is not allowed for some reason or whatever. But I just like what I saw from him. Um, I thought he was I thought the gap between him and DeAndre is kind of sizeable at least for right now, Like you could tell his impact, uh is still there. So what do you think of Dwight? Because I thought he had a I thought he had

a really nice for his showing. Yeah, the third good thing that I put down was that our vertical presence was back. Um. I I was impressed by both guys in a lot of ways because I was going to cut them slack for the obvious things that people were gonna pick apart. Like I didn't watch the game live because I had a Men's League game that I had to go to that was all the way across towns.

It was like a two hour adventure, and uh when I got back, I didn't get a chance to watch it until the following morning, and so all I saw was what was what was on Twitter. And on Twitter, I saw people complaining about DeAndre Jordan and and and Dwight Howard as well, and I wanted to be like, Okay, you know what are you asked King Dwight Howard and and uh DeAndre Jordan to do be back line defenders right and then also be kind of rim spacers. And

they're out there playing with absolutely no passing. And I think you know, when Rondo got out there, you immediately saw Dwight get a deep seal in a layup. That those are the kinds of things where like you need i Q surrounding those guys to bring the best out of them, and then just in general, like you know, it's there's such an obvious better fit for this team's identity. You know, a guy like Montrese Harrold is obviously going

to be better as like an active offensive rebounder. He's obviously going to be better if in the event that you need to attack mismatches right switching defense, you know, guard gets on him. Treas as a guy you can throw the ball down to. Dwight's probably not you know, uh, DeAndre Jordan's probably not. There are obvious advantages there. Marcusol

better shooter, the guy who's a much better passers. So if you're running the offense out of the top of the key from you know, dribble handoffs and stuff, like a guy like Marcus sul is gonna look better with the Golden State Warriors when you're running a million dribble handoffs with the Stephen and uh and Clay than it is with you know, uh an offense the way that

this Laker team is built. At the end of the day, though, what what the Lakers need out of that position is that that vertical spacing, in that vertical presence defensively, because you're funneling guys into the pain, So you need guys who can jump into tur guys at the rim, and then offensively, you've got all these passers who are looking for an option when they get into the lane to either drop off to somebody or throw it up around

the rim. So it was just refreshing for me in general to see that DeAndre Jordan needs to do a better job of running the floor. That's just that's I called that out this morning. One of the biggest things I noticed is like when he was in the half court, I actually thought he was pretty good defensively. Uh, he

blocked a couple of shots and deterred several others. There were a bunch of plays where guys would cut to the basket and beat someone back door or something, but DeAndre Jordan will be waiting there and so they dribble it back out Like that's something that doesn't show up in the box score, but that actually matters because it's saved a defensive breakdown. So I actually thought he was good in the half court. He struggled in transition because

he just wasn't running hard enough. That's something that's probably part of its conditioning. There was um Mike Trudell specifically mentioned that on the LFR pod that his uh that traditionally guys have a light day before a game, and DeAndre Jordan's been in a rough week of practice, and they practiced the previous day, so he's not like his legs aren't underneath him. So there's some stuff to to to like kind of to factor in there, if that

makes sense. Dwight Howard, same old Dwight stuff, like, you know, silly fouls, things along those lines, a little bit, a little bit too over zealous offensively, a couple of plays where like he tried to make something out of nothing on a post up where he probably should just kick it out to the guards and said another screen. You know, but I am like, I saw the DeAndre Jordan and Dwight thing and I was super happy with it, because one Dre is not gonna play that much. So whatever

you get out of him is is gravy. Uh and too. I still absolutely love Dwight Howard for twenty minutes a game, playing alongside a Lebron and Anthony Davis. I just think he's a seamless fit who is who, who brings mostly good to the table, and it is an awesome Like he's just he's just he's just the perfect guy to have that curveball for we're gonna go big, you know, if if a d is gonna be at the four, Dwight's the guy that I want there next to him. I just think I think he's a natural fit in

that position. So, um, did you have any other good things? Are we moving on to the bad things? Yeah? I think that was most of the good things. And you talked about DeAndre not running the floor like he was definitely in that like let me give the last amount of energy, you know, possible, while still to look kind

of like I'm on the floor. Like both of those blocks were him, just like because the coverage, I mean, they're gonna be in this kind of dropback coverage right where like he's trying to protect from the lab while also just making sure of the guard doesn't get to

the rim, Like that's his defensive coverage. Like expecting DeAndre Jordan to go out and switch, it's just not feasible, right, that's a position he's going to be in, And I thought he did his job, Like his job is to make sure that law is taken away and make sure the guard doesn't just get to the rim, and if they're gonna get they're gonna shoot a floater. I think Basemore talked about this at his press conference, but he's like, those guards are gonna shoot floaters over DeAndre, Jordan, A

D and Dwight all night. You live with those results because they're not gonna make a good enough percentage of them. I thought the nets hit some tough ones. There's one where like DeAndre Bembrey banked in this floater over Dwight Howard. I don't know if you remember that one. I remember seeing that one in presson. I'm like, what the hell? But but yeah, so like if they make those, then they make those. But I thought he kind of did his job. He's not this big, like switchable kind of

big defender. We oh there five ten minutes, give a D a break from being the center. That's his job, and I think he'll do that um in real games. So I think we saw a good showing that we can kind of move on to the road really quickly,

just piggyback on that. Like like when you play Portland, for instance, you expect some shot making, like there's you play solid defense and they're gonna make some shots with hands in their face, like you know, Brooklyn's kind of the same way, you know, even with their bench guys

like that. I think his name is Cam Johnson. I could be wrong about that, but what he was lighting up Ellington in the first half, making all these like off the dribble jump shots, and it's like at the end of the day, you know, yeah, you can pressure him a little bit more, make him feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, but like part of the deal with teams like that is that you you make them take a ton of contested jump shots and you live with

the results. Are gonna make some The reason why they lost, you know, the reason why they kind of trailed most of the game was the physical dominance, which we'll get to in a minute. Like they were just really small because they were missing all their forwards and so they gave up a million offensive rebounds and and just in general, they struggled with the physicality of the nets because they

were less athletic and smaller. That's to be expected. And when you're when all of your athleticism is sitting on the bench, you know what I mean. But just in general, like I I think you gotta live with a certain amount of shot making. But anyway, go ahead and give us your first three things. First of the three things that the Lakers needed to work on, uh yeah, well, I mean just as close out. That last part is crazy.

We went through a whole like first game preseason recap and we didn't even talk about Anthony Davis, which is is kind of which is kind of funny. We both ringed up like six things that didn't include him, So I guess energy A D was still like kind of like a seventy energy level, so I don't really have much on him. He was settling. He was against Paul millsap and taking jumpers and stuff like that, but I guess,

like they're defensively, I thought he was good on defense. Yeah, he also was kind of in this like let me give as much energy the least amount of energy possible. But but like yeah, also like when he got on some switches, he shut them down, you know, when the guards were against him and made them take tough shots. So again, like A D is tough to kind of judge him on there. It's just nice to see him out there. But I guess, like my first one that

they need to work on. They definitely need to, Like they did a lot of switching early on if he saw that, but it was a lot of like where the guard would end up on LaMarcus Aldridge, and then they did this unnecessary doubling uh right away, and it led to a bunch of open shots early. So I just think they need to kind of work on what they want to do defensively. Um. I think it's pretty clear they didn't want to leave the guard on Aldridge by themselves, but I thought it was just way too

much double team. So what do you kind of see from the Demons, because I thought in the first quarter at least they were kind of confused on what they wanted to do. It was a lot of unnecessary kind of switches and Brooklyn basically went to this like mismatch hunting and again this preseason hard to tell, but I

think that's the first thing there. Even with the starting lineup, even with a D and DJ there, I thought it was a lot of times where like th HD would end up on LaMarcus Aldridge or you know, like things like that would happen. So I just need to clean that up, I guess, And I know vote will will Um after looking at this film, he probably hasn't turned this game off since then, so I'm sure. I'm sure he'll get into that. But what do you see, I guess from the defense overall, So the Lakers will do

some switching this year by design. Um that that's kind of the way that the roster has shaped up. UM. I see lineups like Russ Space more Areasa Lebron a D that could theoretically switch every screen. Um. But I don't think they were switching by design in that game in the first quarter. I think what happened was is they were in a drop coverage and the guards were getting caught way too easily on the screen and taking way too long to get over the top, and it

was forcing a switch. And the reason why you could tell is what would usually happen is the guard would chase over the top and eventually get back to the to the offensive player, and then DeAndre Jordan's or or Dwight or a d would point over to the to the other guy and ask for a switch because they thought it was too late at that point. And you know, there's there's two sides to that, because some of that is like the big needs to the big needs to recover back, and then the some of that is the

the guard needs to fight better over the top. But the reality is, if you're playing Paul Millsap and LaMarcus Aldridge, you should never be switching small guys onto them because those are two specific power forwards that fit more into that Mantrese Harold type of mold that we talked about where they're not big defensive presence is they're not big rebounding presences. But what they are our guys offensively, if they get a small guy on them, they're almost a

guaranteed basket. And so it's it's not the kind of thing that you would like to switch if you could avoid it. So uh, in general, I don't want to overthink it because I think some of this just takes time. But in like if you're in a drop coverage, it depends on the fact that the guard can fight over

the top so that they don't have to switch. Because the the the big is going to kind of position himself between the rim and the offensive player, and then as soon as the point of attack defender recovers, he recovers to the big. That's the way that that coverage works, and it's not gonna work if the guard dies on

every single screen. Now, some of this is these guys, these uh, these guards that we have like Ellington, like Monk in the past haven't really been held to that high of a standard defensively, So there's gonna be an adjustment period. Also, when you're thin like a Malik Punk, it's a little bit easier to get caught on a on that type of screen. But I do think that through effort and focus and through reps, they can eventually figure that out. I do think that that's something that

they can get better at. The Other thing, too, is inevitably you're going to give up those kinds of switches occasionally during the game. Like even if you fight over three of the screens, on that fourth one, maybe they catch you good and they get you switched and down on the block, so you have to double. And when they did those doubles on Sunday, they were sloppy on that back side. There was one where, uh, they kicked

out to Bruce Brown. Aldridge kicked out to Bruce Brown and Anthony Davis easily could have rotated over and swallowed up the shot, but he was kind of just an upright position. He wasn't in the defensive stance. He was slow to step over and Bruce Brown. Brown knocked down the three that that was always the strength of the Laker defense in the previous two years. Is Okay, we had a breakdown and so we had to double. Now what do we do? What do we do on the

back end? And they were always very sharp at that. Rotate and recover, rotate and recover, talking making sure that everybody was just kind of on a string defensively. That comes in time. So I'm not terribly concerned about it in the preseason, but just in general, when you do give up those types of mismatches and you have to double, the Lakers got to really tighten things up on the back end as a rotating defense. No, yeah, I agree

with that, and they will. I mean, it's tough to kind of judge with the guards that they played, right, Kendrick Nunn is. I thought Kendrick Nunn had a pretty good defensive game, just like overall, I think he's a I think he's a good defender. It's just he was too small sometimes, like again when he's on like Audrey jorm Mill, sap Um just too small to kind of

deal with them. They gave up a lot offensive rebounds. Again, this goes back to my like, gave as much effort as you at least amount of effort as you can. Like DJ and A. Do you want to know part of like boxing out right, they weren't trying to box out, They were just trying to jump up and kind of get the rebounds, and they gave up a lot of offensive rebounds that way. One of them, I think, just like A do you try to jump on and get in and went to forgot the guy's name and he

got filed shooting shooting the shot. So a lot of those kind of possessions happen. I expect those things to kind of clean up as we go here. And again, like it's hard to judge any of this without Russell Westbrook and Lebron on the floor, Like I need to see how the defense works with with them on the floor. So everything changes when those two get in there, and when a D is at the five as well. We saw some a D at the five right like when DJ was out, but uh and when D why Howard

wasn't on the floor. But I just want to see all of that together and hopefully we do on Wednesday. What's your kind of first thing that you disliked? So really quickly, just following up on what you just said the in general when you're evaluating these preseason games, and that the LFR probably did a good job of of kind of describing this, but like, you're not really looking at the scoreboard because you're not fielding a real basketball team.

So I look at two specific things. I look at individual skill sets, like what am I what am I seeing out of an individual basketball player? That translates to when you have the full team, which we'll talk about even more when we dive into the guards a little bit more. But the other thing is like specific lineups, and uh, like that starting lineup, for instance, is a lineup you might occasionally see this year a D with the center and three guards who can shoot and dribble.

You know that that's that's an example of something you can watch. But watching the scoreboard in general is just kind of a fool's Errand in that kind of of environment when you're not fielding your real basketball team, Lebron and Russ just do so much, especially on the offensive end, to to kind of just put guys in the right spots, slotting them in the in the right spots. My um uh. Second, because I put guards fighting over screens, which kind of

piggybacks of what you were saying. But the second thing I put for the three things to work on with guards missing box outs. I and you had mentioned this in in in your last segment, but like I I counted miss box outs from every single guard and that is just that is just little focused stuff that can't

be let down. There was one where there was one where bays More uh was guarding a man in the corner and after the shot went up, he just turned towards the rim and started walking and uh as soon as you walked in, the guy crashed right out of the corner and got an offensive rebound. There was a possession from th h T really really well put together where he bothers the ball handler at the point of attack,

gets caught on the screen. They have to switch. Anthony Davis is the one who switches, so it's actually not that bad of a switch. And th HD like squatted really low and and and prevented Paul Millsap from from getting position, but then he got switched again onto a guard in the corner and the shot went up and he didn't box out and gave up an offensive rebound.

The ball got knocked out of bounds, and it's like you did of that possession like an all defensive level defender, and you just missed the last, arguably most important part, and that that that all is is stuff that just needs to be tightened up. Malik Monk in particular, was

caught in a couple of physical mismatches. Or he'd be guarding I'm horrible remembering these, you know, G league level guys that are on the nets, but like he'd be guarding a six six super athletic guard and he's six three, and it's like it's not enough to run up and put a forearm on him, because if you run up and put a forum on him, he's just gonna bully you physically and get an offensive rebound. On those guys that have that distinct size advantage, you need to really

technically sound box out. You need to squat into a defensive stance, spread your arms and make him literally go over your back so that what if he does get the offensive rebound, he gets called, you know, for the offensive foul. Those are the kinds of the kinds of things that uh that I noticed, and you know, just in general, uh uh, the effort I thought was there. It's just that little bit of focus. So I'm not

concerned about it in the long run. It's just something that I noticed from the game that needs to be tightened up a little bit, Yeah, for sure. And I thought like, this is kind of the trade off, right, like when you trade for like these kind of offensive these offense to focus guards, Like the trade off is

kind of the defensive. I don't know ever, but kind of the defensive focus I guess, and guards who are kind of make their name on offense is gonna take time for those guys to kind of adjust adjust their UM. I don't on what they can do. So I agree with that um and we'll see, Like I feel like Vogo will be able to help them. Malik Monk reminds me a lot of like I guess where Kuzma was when when he was before he got with Vogel as well, Like his's just his defensive kind of now his like

how he how he defends. I guess it's just not technical like the way he tries it goes around screens, you talked about he gets caught a lot, and I think it will be help with Vogels, so I agree

with that. I think they'll be better. Though my third one, I guess, like I think this is my third one that I want to see kind of worked on, is uh those like kind of I know that we said Rust and Lebron are gonna be on the floor a lot, but I do think we need to find a way to have some kind of shot creation when they're not on the floor, Like like I feel like I know PhD is probably not the right guy for that, but we just need to find a way, whether it's Kendrick

Nunn being the ball handler, just need to find the

lineup that can great. Um Russell Lebron again will be on the floor for most of the time, but I just want to find a way to get enough good shot creation when they're not there, like when it was a d at the starting lineup, and again DeAndre Jordan probably won't start a lot of games, but or maybe he will, who knows, but but but but still like that, I think we have like eight points or something through like a lot of the first quarter, you know, and

just not getting good shots and a lot of this. Again, I talked about the A D was kind of settling, took a lot of midrange jumpers over Paul Millsapp. You should have Paul Millstapp, who should have no business guarding Anthony Davis in any kind of setting. I don't care what what season it is, but yeah, he took. But that's a A D likes to do that. It just it is what it is he does. But again, like just in that kind of setting, like it's Paul Millsap, like get to the rim, you know, like trying to

get to the basket. Yeah, like we said go inside out, but but yeah, he he does like to settle for that. But yeah, like that's but I would like I would like to see some way to get better shot creation. Maybe it's Kendrick Nunn, Like Henry Nunn started to get comfortable, he started to pull up. But he's not like a shot creator. He's kind of creates for more for himself. THD as well. We talked about him just gonna find the lineup that can create without Russ and Braun at

least for a few minutes there. I know they'll play a lot. So that was my kind of final if I want to nitpick Um in the preseason first game of the preseason Um, that would be like my final nitpick there. So I I I tend to agree that outside of Lebron, Russ and Rondo, who won't play that there's that you don't have high level passers on the roster. This is something that a lot of Laker outlets have been kind of harping on in the last few weeks. You have a bunch of kind of one track mind

type of offensive players. So I think the way you counter that is won by staggering and try to have Lebron and Russ on the floor as much as possible. But two, if you can't through resting or whatever it may be, load management injuries, you've got to simplify their reads. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about this when we get to my last thing, which has has

to do with th HT. But like if you so, for instance, put Ellington in the strong side corner, have Dwight set the screen and try to go four out with the other guys and get you know, either Kendrick Nun or Malik Monk with the ball in their hands and and make it really simple. Here comes the ball screen. If he goes under, you shoot it every single time. If he chases over the top, you continue to go down the lane and you either pass it into the pocket to Dwight, or if the guy helps out of

the corner, you kick it back to Ellington. Like make it easy basketball, you know. Uh. One of the uh one of the biggest things that my last college coach that I played for used in order to try to help make help guys with easy reads is to play three on three. Uh. He would. He would even if

he had enough guys to play five and five. He's set up three on three because mentally, the game is just a little bit easier to process in three on three because it's it's just it's you're you're taking away all of the complexities of ten guys on the floor, and it's like, here's my defender, here's the guy who's screening for me in his defender, and here's the spot up shooter on the weak side, and just making really really basic basketball decisions and repetitively making those decisions until

you figure it out. I think that's the way you do it, as you Ellington is a real easy strong side corner option because the guys probably not gonna help, so it turns into a real true two man game with your screener. But if he does, it's a really easy kick out to a really, really good shooter. Those

are the ways that you can simplify that. But I'm with you in general, like, in order in order for the non Lebron minutes to be positive, you either need to stagger like crazy and hope that Russ gives you an m v P caliber season out of that out of that type of role, or you need to make it so that when Russell Lebron are off the floor, your guards are set up to succeed by simplifying their

their decision making. Um. The last thing that I put as a thing to work on was bad th h t um, and I'm not gonna spend too much time on it because it's things we've all mentioned, decision making, Like, he just had a tendency to force things and and and pass up on easy options that were there. You know, a basketball player that's that's forcing almost always leads to a bad outcome. And the reason why it's pretty simple.

When a basketball player is forcing, he becomes predictable, and so the point of attack defender has a really easy time staying in front of him. Usually, Also, the refs can see when a player is forcing. If I if I don't have a driving lane and I forced the ball to the right and I just start plowing into the lane, the refs are naturally going to let a lot of contact go. The refs just kind of naturally benefit or excuse me, will reward good basketball and will

naturally punish bad basketball. It's like the player control foul. It's like when you when you plow somebody over. Even if the guy's moving his feet a little bit and he's kind of out of position, the refs just gonna kind of naturally be like, like, you're out of control going into the lane. So this looks like an offensive

foul to me. You know. That's kind of the thing that you notice a lot with THHD in that game, was just putting his head down and forcing his way into the lane and it leading to bad outcomes through revs letting contact go and defenders kind of being positioned between him and the rim. That's just something for him

to work on. And then the last part I put there was failing to finish plays defensively, like lots of activity, really good disruption at the point of attack, switching and getting low and keeping the big from getting good post position and then missing a box out or you know, making two rotations but missing that third rotation. Those are the kinds of things that I'd like to see t HD get better at his understanding that the defensive possession

doesn't end until your team possesses the basketball. So what were the things that you were critical of with th HD in that game? So like watching THHD, always think like there's another universe where like THHT is on some lottery team, right, and they're like, hey, you're our future, you know, and here's the ball, and here's thirty pick and roll as a game, get all the reps you want. You know, don't care about scoreboard, don't care about anything

like this is built around you. You know, you choose where the passes go, and we're just gonna let you get all the reps in the world. And I related to this too, like I think it was eighteen before Lebron got here, obviously, and we did that with Brandon Ingram, right, like Luke Ballng said, here, Brandon Ingram, here's the ball. You have enough ball handling. We have lots of ball next to you, but you're gonna be the primary creator.

Here's all the reps in the world. And it was ugly a lot of the times because it's brand Ingram and THD is actually ahead of Ingram in terms of like just the you know, ball handling and able to get to the rim and you know all that kind of stuff. He was ahead of Ingram. He just was.

But now New Orleans is getting the fruit of that labor, right because now England, even though it's still not great, even though he's probably not a you know, top level playoff team type of creator, but he's a good shot creator. And so that's how I kind of see with THHT like he's not going to get the reps that these other players do, all these other lottery picks, and he wasn't a lottery pick, but you know that type of talented player would get. He's not gonna get those here.

So again, like to me, he was in that Lebron Russ role last night, and then you put a twenty year old in a Lebron Russ roll, So it's gonna look like like that's that's the kind of basketball you're gonna get when you get those guys being the main shot creator. So I agree with you, yess to become a better pastor, you guess to make the easy reads a little bit better. Right, Like there was a there was one driver like he drove and Baisemore was open

in the corner and he got fouled on it. Like he did get fouled, but Basemore was like having his hands up, you know, in the air and then like you know when you clap, like when you don't get the ball and you're standing in the corner. It was one of those, and so so so there was a lot of little moments like that the only team was open, he didn't find him, and I don't expect him to make those complicated like dry, where's the first help and

second help coming from? So he it's a skip pass to the corner, like I don't make me expect him to make those. But just like those, I thought he had some nice dump off passes as well to DJ and stuff like that. But yeah, I agree with you, needs to work on his playmaking. I just don't know if we'll see like that those advanced reads or even the advanced reads this year, but I think he can

get the simple ones down. You'll get enough minutes to at least get those um next to Russ and Ron and you can make those simple reads when you're attacking a compromised defense that the reeds are a little bit easier. Those like first drive, Okay, where's this help and where's the rotating rotation coming from? Those kind of things. I think, well, we will take time, but I agree with you, those

are things he needs to work on. Yeah, Like the classic example is that Ellington kick out that I posted on Twitter, Like it's very simple basketball play, like guy closes out on me, and because he was kind of chasing over screen. Well, in this case, Ellington used a V cut to get open, but he caught and beat his man off the dribble because of his shooting ability. Then he just drove into the lane and as soon as he got into the lane, there was a man who helped off the Kendrick Nunn and it was an

easy kick out to the corner. That kind of basketball is easy, whereas if Ellington's you know, coming off of a pick and roll. As a ball handler, it's just a little bit more complicated, you know, in terms of there are pros and cons to to th HDS development, he's not getting reps on a bad team to learn how to be an advanced ball creator, the on ball creator the way that uh, you know, Brandon Ingram did.

But if you watch Brandon Ingram now, he struggles in a lot of the you know, kind of fundamental role player type things, like he's not very good defensively because he's been on team he's been on teams where he's been asked to just create everything offensively and kind of

whatever you give us defensively he's good, you know. Or let's say, for instance, that the Pelicans had gotten Kyle Lowry and they were considered more of a championship type favorite, like Brandon Ingram would have been forced to do a lot more off the basketball. That's an element of his game that hasn't really been developed over the years. You know, th HT for what it's worth. With the reps that he's missing as an on ball creator, he's getting reps

as an off ball type of role player. And in the future when he is on a team where he's the second or third best player on a championship level contender, it will benefit him that he knows how to play off the ball. And that he is dialed in defensively, those kinds of things there there are long term advantages to that, so I I do think that that's worth pointing out. Um So, we got about seven minutes I wanted to We may not have time to deep dive into each of these players, and we'll do it more

as we go through the preseason. I had a specific topic that I wanted to talk about with you. Um So, there's been a lot of talk about how the point of attack defense this year is not as good, and you know, the the example that most people were using from Sunday's game was Ellington and the fact that that Cam Thomas or whatever his name was was was lighting him up and getting decent shots off the dribble and

getting by him. I think I there's and I could just be overly optimistic here, but the reason why I'm not necessarily concerned about it is I care so much more about reactionary defense then point of attack defense because of the fact that when you get to the highest levels in the finals and in the conference finals, you're not keeping anybody at these superstars in front Like okay, yeah, like Ellington's struggle to stay in front of Cam Thomas, but like Lebron would struggle to stay in front of

Kyrie Irving. So like, when you're in that series, the Brooklyn is gonna compromise you, like they're just going to if you're playing the Clippers, for instance, Let's say they play the Clippers in the conference finals. Like, you don't think Reggie Jackson and Paul George are gonna beat guys off the dribble, Like I don't care if you're playing bays Moore and Areza and Russ and you keep all your weak defenders on the bench, those they're you're gonna

give up straight line drives. It's just kind of the the nature of it trying to guard these top tier teams. So what matters more to me is how you recover and react to that kind of stuff. So like, I don't care as much about Ellington's ability to keep somebody in front as long as he's dialed in in the rotations, because you will be able to double, you will be able to send help, and as long as once the ball has given up Ellington's sprints to the next shooter,

it'll work, you know what I mean. That's that's the kind of thing that I think matters more. Does that make sense to me or to you? I should say yeah for sure. The playoffs become this like this match hunting kind of thing, right where it's like you're kind of as good as your weakest defender in that kind of way. So to me, it's all about health defense

as well. Like how did how did the Clippers I guess be Utah right, Like they went into this like they knew that they would not switch with Gobert, right, so like Gobert just they just don't switch with him, so they would call his man up drive by kick, kick all the way and get gets three point shots off that. Ellenton and Monk are not gonna stay in front of defenders, Like I don't expect them to. I don't expect them to be like Alex Crusoe level defenders.

Like that's not fair. Um, But like I think when you put guys in specialized roles, they can succeed. So like if they're gonna run this like drop ice coverage and they just run that, you know, just be very clear, Hey, you push your guy away from the screen and we'll handle the rest, you know what I mean, Like, just do your job. They're putting Ellenton on some guy and telling him to shut him down. That's just not feasible. Molik Monk as well, Kendrick Nunn as well, those guys,

you just don't do that. Like, our starting lineup will be Russ Braun and a D right, and that's Brun and a D are good enough health defenders to me to be able to cover a lot of things like that, to cover gaps in that way, we had a small guarlt. I think Dennis Freuder is a good defender as a super small guard, right, He's a super small guard. The Lakes were able to kind of cover that have the number one defense last year's still so I agree with you. I think it is it is overstated, but I do

think it still matters. I don't think you can have like four bad point of attack defenders together, right, like, especially in closing lineups, like we're not gonna see none and Ellington probably close games, right, you probably won't see that, Like it will be against second units where you kind

of you kind of live with that. But I think you can't have like and then you can have like three or four bad point of attack defenders in your closing lineup to me, like I feel like that's where you kind of have to you have to make sure you have really great defenders there. But I think it's overstated. I think what they bring on offense more than mix up for the defensive drop. They're like their threats as

offensive players makes up for them. And that's the trade off that the Lakers did this offseason, and uh, I think it is worth it. Like, I think that's what we'll see. There might be a little drop on defense in that point of attack, but I think lay some more than a players to cover up for it. So but will he that's a good point about not being able to or not not being a good idea to put multiple of them on the on the floor at the same time. I mean, I was actually planning on

talking about this today, we didn't really have time. But like, aggregate athleticism and aggregate size matters to me because like so, for instance, like we got bullied physically by Brooklyn, who's not a physically dominating team because we had no forwards in the game, so we were playing basically either four guards in a center or three guards in and a D in a center. That's basically what we did all

game long. And you know, Baysmore was probably the biggest UH guard that we would play in one of those positions.

So the aggregate athleticism and physicality in that lineup is poor, you know, like but you know, the like Ellington getting physically bullied is going to be more noticeable in the lineup like that, whereas if he's in the starting lineup, the proposed starting lineup, where he's with Lebron and he's with Rus and he's with a D and he's with Trevor Reza, the excuse me, the aggregate athleticism of that group in totality makes up for it. It's like the

Trey Young thing, you know. And we talked a little bit about this, I think in the last pot or the one before, But like there are you know, the defense. Defense is always evolved as well as offense in the NBA, you know, uh, you know, all this off the dribble shooting and all of these comprehensive offensive you know, evolutions over the last ten years come hand in hand with defensive evolutions, and switch attacking was inherently going to lead to a counter from defenses and they exist now. And

we talked about that. You can do things to hide Trey Young that three or four years ago you couldn't do. And so again, it works as long as you have all those other small forwards like the Hawks have, and you have Clint Capella under the rim like you as a that the aggregate total physicality of that defense made it so that Trey Young wasn't as much of a liability. And and so that's the way you gotta make it.

Make it work now. In general, what will be interesting to see is how often Frank plays two of those guards, because the three guards that I'm gonna be looking at as guys who are huge liabilities are gonna be Monk, None and Ellington. And I don't know that you can play two of them at the same time, but maybe maybe they do. And it's in the lineups with A D and Dwight. And then it's, like you said, you simplify what you're asking them to do. Okay. I don't

need you to be like a shutdown isolation defender. I just need you to force guys away from ball screens so we can ice on the side, so that forces guys into the rim, and we need you to chase guys off the line when you're closing out like you can simplify their role and then basically make it so that as long as they do these very simple things really well, then the totality of the scheme works because

you have Anthony Davison Dwight out there. Though that's the way that I would look at it in terms of like a way to play two of them at the same time. Honestly, I don't think you'll see two of him at the same time very often, especially since Frank said he plans I'm playing Mellow a lot, So you're gonna see a lot of Mellow, Mellow and Areza and in days more. That just means there's just not a ton of opportunity there for those guys to be out there,

you know, in mass if that makes sense. And I love that you brought up Trey Young because like, yes, you can attack Trey Young like they put him in the corner right against some corner shooter. Usually that's what the Hawks do. You can try to attack Trey Young. It's gonna take like fifteen seconds of your shot clock. Just okay that the Hawks, you know, are able to switch and they know what they're doing. The same with

the same thing with the Lakers. I remember in the playoffs, like you would play Rondo a bunch, you could try to, you know, mismatch attack Rondo. It's gonna take fifteen seconds shot clock. And then it's also Anthony Davis is gonna be waiting there. So like, yes, you can try to mismatch on against Rondo is a great example, by the way, I literally thought about that last night watching the game. I'm like, we did it with Rondo. Yeah, Like so if you have Rono on the floor, teams you can

try to attack him. But like the Lakers, they know exactly what they do in that situation, right, It's not like they don't know they're gonna try too. So like Trey Young as well, is the example there Rondo as well, So like you can, it's gonna take. It's why teams like that are able to do it. Um, you go against schemes that aren't as good. I guess like it's it's tougher against good defenses right to mismatch hunt um.

I think also the Hawks kind of play two teams that were probably the least equipped to attack mismatches in the Knicks and the Sixers. But still though, like Trey Young, is Trey Young is a short point guard was a huge offensive you know load, you should be able to attack him, but they just couldn't because the Hawks are extremely good and they surround him with a bunch of wings who can defend in a in a shop blocking

center at the middle. So and I think the Lakers kind of can do that as well to an even better extent. So I agree with you it's hard to attack those and I don't. But I still think you can't have like three or four bad point of bad point of attack defenders who just get beat off the dribble time and time and time again. But you can simplify their roles. You can have a good defense, as

I think we saw that last year. There was a musical chairs with the Lakers, like you don't know who was playing nine to nine, and they still kept um, they still kept their defensive identity. So I agree with you on that. Do you have anything else you wanna add? Uh? No, I think that's it. It's fun game. That first game Lakers play again tomorrow. I believe that like tomorrow three o'clock, Roger and I will most likely be recording on Thursday morning.

I would assume possibly Friday, but we'll probably go for We'll probably shoot for Thursday so that we can get the guys at dash Radio another show on Friday. UM. Thank you guys so much for your support as always. Like I said, this will air on dash Radio tomorrow at seven am Pacific Standard time. Also, we will have the podcast version of this uploaded here within the next few minutes. Thank you, guys as always for your support.

We're in the mix of things now. We're looking forward to a lot of la your basketball over the next hopefully nine months or so. UM. Alright, guys, everybody, enjoy the rest of your day and we will see you on Thursday. Thanks everyone,