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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Yeah, all right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Quick show today, We're only gonna go for about fifteen twenty minutes. I want to touch on the Nets Sixers game from last night, as well as the Lakers first appearance of this season. We also did have a hilarious mistake yesterday. I shouldn't
say we I had a hilarious mistake yesterday. I watched like five preseason games in the morning for the purposes of the show, and I said the Warriors for last, and for all of them, I stopped watching typically around halftime or shortly after halftime, because most of the guys playing the last portion of the game aren't even rotation players, and when I'm trying to cover the whole league, I just don't have time to watch end of the bench guys.
And so the Warriors were trailing big in the middle of the third quarter, and so when I was done watching film, I quick took a peek at the box score, and I must have got dyslexia or something, because Warriors and Wizards just melded into one for me, and I thought that the Wizards ended up winning that game. So I got the full roast job last night on YouTube. Shouts to Patrick, You were the one I thought was
the funniest. You said something along the lines of like I've never seen somebody do a in depth breakdown of a basketball game that he doesn't know who won that legitimately made me laugh this morning, So you win the roast, Patrick. Uh. I'm gonna make mistakes all the time on the show. It's just the nature of the business. I can promise you though, when it comes to real basketball games in the regular season in the playoffs, I will be aware of who actually won the game. But today we're talking
net Sixers and Lakers. Uh. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt for show announcements. I also do my film breakdowns there. I did two more this morning, about four minutes on the net Sixers game, and then another two minutes on the Lakers game. I
do voiceovers and I break down. It gives me the opportunity to actually put footage to the things that I talked about on the show, So you're gonna want to follow me there. I will frequently make references to plays there and then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them. You can find
them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. So with the nets and the Sixers got ugly for the nets early on, but they played much better in the second quarter. A couple of things I wanted to hit on.
First of all, tyrees Max. He came out gunning, and at first I was like, man, I can't even imagine the confidence it takes on your first offensive possession, like literally first off into possession of the game, to come down and kind of like a semi transition set off of a ball screen and just elevate into like a twenty seven foot pull up jump shot and knock it down. But he did, and then like two possessions later he dribbled up the left wing and took a pull up
transition three. But hey, this is nothing new. You guys know how high I am on Tyrese Maxie. You guys know how hi I am on Tobias Harris. I find those two guys to be what makes me most excited about the Sixers, And this pull up shooting stuff is not new. Tyrese Maxie shot on five pull up jump shot attempts per game last year, including over from three He was just magnificent in this game, getting consistent rim pressure, drawing fouls against guys and switches and pick and roll.
He was making floaters and drawing fouls and floaters. He was dropping off passes to Paul Reed at the basket. Just a really impressive game from Tyrese Maxie. One of my favorite young players in the league. Tobias Harris flashed everything you expect to see from him. He was scoring and post mismatches. He did so in a really nice spin move on Kyrie Irving on a switch that's in my video that I posted. All those Tyris Maxie clips that I talked about are posted in my video breakdown
as well. Um he also did like a really nice You know, Tobias is he functions really well in this system because he can do all the basketball player things, like we think of him as like a big scoring forward, but he can do all of the off ball stuff too. And he had a really nice play where he came off of a wide pin down for a three point
shot and Ben Simmons went underneath the pin down. And little hint for all shooters growing up, if you are coming off of an off ball screen, if the if the defender is trailing you, you want to curl around the screen for your shot. If the defender goes underneath the screen, you want to fake like you're gonna curl around the scott the screen and then back up because that's where you're opening is. Tobias had a really nice example of that that you guys will find in the film.
But hey, Tobias Harris and Tyres Maxie as your third and fourth best player not a bad spot to be. And that's why I had the Sixers so high in my in my power rankings. Also some good stuff in Montrez Harrold in the second quarter, just manufacturing points on the offensive glass and in transition again I covered him
with the Lakers. He's not a guy you want in your playoff rotation in a big way, but if he's a one shift player, like if he's playing one shift per half in the playoffs, and then if he can eat ending innings for you in the regular season, he does bring a lot of value. So obviously we wanted to know how Ben Simmons would look, and honestly, it went about exactly as I expect. He was really good
and impactful on the defensive end of the floor. Um. On the offensive end, whenever he had the basketball, he did a really nice job of finding shooters like cut of I think like five clips together of him generating wide open three point shots Um that you guys can find in the video breakdown. He that's his natural gift and that's the best way he's going to impact this offense. He's like Bruce Brown with less shooting and scoring ability, but with more passing ability, and so he's gonna opened
up a lot of things for them. And there are other shooters on the floor, but at the end of the day, he's still is not a threat to score the basketball. He's not even really looking to score. There's a post up he had on the left block where all of Philly's defenders stayed away and let him on an island. I believe he was attacking George's kneeing on this possession, and he took like a drifting fade away
through the lane and bricked it pretty bad. Um. He missed a right handed hook shot in the lane too. He missed a couple of free throws. Obviously, the scoring stuff is still an issue, and if he doesn't figure that out, teams will find ways to attack him in the playoffs, So I should say attack that flaw in the playoffs by ignoring him. That's gonna be the thing to watch over the course of the season. But I never want to react too strongly to one preseason game.
He probably has been working a lot on these things, and only time will tell if there's any legitimate improvement there. In the second quarter, the Nets really got going on both ends of the floor. First of all, in the first half and on defense, they were just completely disengaged. They were giving up wide open shots in transition because they weren't run back and communicating. They were over helping.
One of the consistent email seeing both videos I released today is when you're there's you want to help out of specific spots on the floor. You always want to help out of the weak side of the floor, not the strong side of the floor. Why is that. It's because it's a longer pass, and because when you're making a longer pass across your body, Like if I'm driving to the left and I'm passing to the weak side corner on the right, I'm gonna go across my body.
That's a difficult pass. It's probably gonna be a looping pass. My guys can rotate out of that. But when you help out of the strong side, I'm already facing that way, I'm driving that way, I'm looking that way, and it's an easy push pass two shooters. And so there are a couple of examples in the film that I'll show you. There's a Royce O'Neil one. There's a Kevin Durant one. There was a Russell Westbrook one from from the Lakers game. When you're on the strong side of the floor, you
want to stay close to the shooter. That's not the place to help from. You want to help out of the weak side corner. Make it a more difficult cross course cross court. PA asks you can rotate out of it. But the Nets defense in that first half way too much over helping way, really bad transition defense. They gave up a million points in the first quarter, but in
that second quarter they played a lot more disciplined. There's a great example of help where um Patty Mills was compromised on the Tyrese Maxie drive and actually fell over. But in the play Tyrese had to spin back and right as he was spinning, Kyrie caught him off guard and forced to turn over. Those are examples of of being more smart with your help helping when you're defenders, when your offensive players really compromised, when when you know that the ball handler is not going to be able
to make an easy pass out to your man. It's about it's kind of like a decision making process, and and their decision making with help just got much better in the second half. And then they started spamming. They got their offense going spamming a really interesting action where they'd have Ben Simmons in the opposite corner um and I believe it was Joe Harris in the left corner, and then they had Katie on the left wing, Kyrie on the right wing, and Uh Claxton in the middle
of the floor. Well, and Katie would start on the block, but he would come off of a Claxton screen up to the left side of the floor. Then essentially what would happen is is Classic would go up and set a flare screen for Kyrie, and when he would set that flare screen, Uh Katie would like hit Kyrie with a skip pass, and on the first time they ran it, Uh Kyrie hit Claxton slipping to the rim for a dunk.
And then the very next time they ran the exact same play and Kyrie got a wide open three, and then the very next time they ran it, and then they flew after the flare pass was taken away. Claxton just flowed into a pick and roll with Kadi and Katie was just putting passes right on target everywhere um hitting Kyrie on the flare, hitting the weak side corner on his skip pass when he drove down the lane in the pick and roll. Really impressive playmaking from Kad
in that second quarter. They scored twenty points in less than five minutes after Katie checked into the game for his second shift there in the second quarter. And most importantly, the passes were on time and on target. This is a big theme with passing. You could see this with the Ben Simmons clips that I showed too. These NBA athletes are ridiculous and they close out at high rate
of speed and they take away openings. If you don't hit guys on time and on target as shooters, they are not going to have an opportunity to get a shot off. But they did a really nice job, particularly Ben Simmons and k D and generating high quality shots again preseason basketball early on. Still a long way to go. Still want to see a lot of Ben Simmons to see what he's capable of. But this this this NETS team has a lot of talent and they're gonna figure
some stuff out and they're going to be a good team. Um. Looking at the Lakers, the defense looks good. They're definitely prioritizing the paint at the expense of jumpers, but it's overall encouraging. There's a lot of aggression from the perimeter, a lot of uh Russ and Patrick Beverley being up into ball handlers and they're giving up driving lanes as a result. But that's okay when you've got all of the the size at the Acers have around the basket.
They're chasing over the top of ball screens and and Russ, Kendrick Nunn and Pat in particular did a really nice job of even when they get caught on screens, they kept sprinting back into the play because again, if that ball handler takes three dribbles to get to his spot where he wants to pull up, and he's got separation from you coming off the screen, if you sprint back into the play while he's dribbling slowly into the lane, you have an opportunity to make up ground, and they
did a really nice job there. The defense was definitely encouraging, specifically from the bigs. Didn't love what I saw from Damien Jones, didn't love what I saw from Thomas Bryant, but I did love what I saw from when You and Gabriel. He was everywhere in the second quarter. His length and athleticism pops off of the screen, had a bunch of big blocks, changed some shots around the rim. He was the one who had the block that ignited the fast break that led to the Patrick Beverley lob
passed to want Uscano Anderson for the dunk. Just really, really, really encouraging stuff on the defensive end of the the floor. But that's what we expected. As I told you guys in the season preview, I see this as a top five defense and he's somewhere around the fifteen best offense. I think it's gonna be very different from what we've seen um from the Lakers last season. Russ had a really good game. He was really good with the ball in his hands, getting pressure to the rim. Deer and
Fox is just too skinny to guard him. He was getting to the rim at will, he was consistently applying rim pressure and kicking out to shooters, and the Lakers were getting great stuff when he had the ball in his hands. Now, with Russ, with this kind of stuff, I'm always trying to differentiate between what it looks like against the Kings and what it looks like against a really good basketball team. And then also it's it's just the Russ is not going to have the ball in
his hands that much. When this team really gets put together, it's gonna be a lot of Schroder, It's gonna be a lot of Lebron. We're talking about Lebron in a minute. Lebron almost totally took a backseat in this game. A ton of screening and diving to the basket, not a lot of basketball in his hands trying to make plays and make shots. So the reality is is when the team is at their best, Lebron is gonna have the ball. Dennis Schroeder is gonna have the ball, Kendrick Nun's gonna
have the ball, Anthony Davis gonna have the ball. So I want to see more reps of what Russ looks like off the ball. I didn't even get enough of that last night to get a good feel for it. But when he had the ball in his hands, he played really well and he did his job on the defensive end of the floor. There were a couple of nit picky plays. I have them in the in the film Breakdown where he lost his man on a back
door cut. You saw that clip that was going around all over the place this morning, and then there was that over help play that I was talking about. For the most part, though he's chasing over the top of the screens, he's getting into ball handlers. He was sliding his feet and competing getting on the glass. Russ played really well. Again. I don't hate Russ the way he plays sometimes it's really frustrating for me, But I have no personal vendetta against him, and when the guy plays well,
I'm gonna call it call it out. He played well last night, but it was against a bad team and he was heavily featured as a ball handler. So I'm curious to see as those dynamics change games when he has the ball less games when they're playing better defensive teams. If he can still be as impactful as he was last night. Lebron obviously didn't shoot well, But like we were talking about with the Warriors in their first preseason game, I just don't care about shot making in the preseason.
Everyone's building their conditioning, everyone's getting their legs underneath them. It's to be expected that you would struggle in that setting. Defense is where I was concerned um for starters in the first his first shift, his effort was good, but you could tell his legs weren't there, his quickness. He was struggling keeping keeping ball handlers in front. He got beat on a couple of closeouts. Harrison Barnes was getting dribble penetration on him. It just again I associate that
with him getting his legs underneath him. But at the end of the day, like this is kind of the Lebron process at this point. I remember I tweeted it out this morning. One of the things that happens with Lebron is early in the season he tends to look slow, especially as he's gotten older, he tends to look slow. He looks a little broken down. Last year in the in the preseason, he shot sixty four percent in the restricted area, and everyone was concerned that he couldn't make
make layups anymore. Then we got to the regular season and he was one of the most efficient rim scorers in the entire league and scored there almost as much as Janice did. So I I always want to wait a couple of months before I start judging Lebron's physicality, but he definitely looked to touch slow last night, particularly on the defensive end and finishing around the rim. Also, he just like he was really taking a back seat as an initiator last night, and he's the best initiator
on the team. At a certain point, these guys need to learn how to play when he has the basketball in his hands a lot, because for this team to reach their ultimate ceiling, he has to have the basketball in his hands a lot. I think it's a selflessness thing from Lebron. He's trying to get Russ going, He's trying to get Kendrick Nun going. He's trying to help the team get into their sets and run their stuff. But at the end of the day, this is a
Lebron basketball team. This is a team that's going to have to have the basketball in his hands a lot. And then in the in the mid second quarter, he let go of the rope defensively and just trying, and there were some ugly possessions in there where he was getting beat for rebounds and and just standing around while stuff was taking place, just given minimal effort. I had an example of that clip a clip that is an
example of that in the video breakdown as well. My thing with that is, I know what Lebron is capable of when he's in shape and when he's trying on the defensive end of the floor, and when he does so, it trickles down and the rest of the team plays hard, and they're a very good defensive team. He does not have the luxury of taking defensive possessions off. Not on this roster. They're not gonna be good enough offensively. They're not gonna score enough to make up for being anything
less than a top five defense. So I hope to see again it's preseason, he's the one guy that you're like, Okay, it's preseason. I get it, you're in your twentieth season. But when we get to October eighteen, I hope to see consistent defensive effort from Lebron from the from the opening tip of this season throughout the eighty two games.
Anthony Davis looked amazing. He knocked down two spot up shots. Uh. Again, with how little shooting this roster has, the Lakers are just absolutely going to need Anthony Davis to make shots. I think he went two for four from three in this game. Two of them that he made were on catching shoots, and then he was the same amazing defensive self that he always is, truly imposing around the basket.
Last note for the Lakers, Kendrick Nunn Um, it was just refreshing to see a real ball handler that could shoot out there. Again, Malik Monk, it's more of a score um and so give you some of that off the dribble dynamic, but he didn't pass the ball well
enough for it to really matter. Kendrick Nunn is the guy that can run, pick and roll and shoot off the dribble, which forces the guards to chase over the top, which opens up things and pick and roll that haven't been there for the Lakers over the last few years. There's a play this is one of the first couple of possessions of the game, where Anthony Davis and Kendrick Nunn ran a pick and roll on the left side of the floor and they had the side cleared and
on it. Herder had to chase Nune over the top of the screen and as a result, pocket pass was open to a D. When he hit a D on the pocket pass, hurt her and the big both ran to Anthony Davis. Kendrick Nunn popped to three point line. A D made a really nice pass to Kendrick Nunn in the corner and he knocked down at three. And when I saw that, I was like, that's the kind of stuff that Kendrick Nunn opens up for this offense that they just haven't had in recent years. Um, but yeah,
all at all. I would take it again. It's early. Everyone's sloppy at this point, so you can't get two nitpicky. But I thought Russ looked as good as you could have hoped in that type of situation. Anthony Davis looked about as good as you could have hoped in that situation. Lebron didn't look good, but we he's Lebron. He's the last guy you need to worry about on this roster. Kendrick Nunn looks good and the defense looked good. So today, even though I'm not about to say the Lakers are
are like a top tier contender or anything. They definitely looked better than I expected them to look at this point, and we want to definitely keep an eye on them over the rest of this preseason two thousand, two thousand eight, two thousand twenty two. When it comes to the economy, those are some scary years. Dot com crash, the housing crash, and the roller coaster we're currently going through right now. One thing is certain. It's a dangerous time not to
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And on that note, let's talk some basketball. So the Lakers report, basically, the gist of it is is that the Lakers almost made a deal with the Pacers right before training camp, the one that we thought of, which was Russ plus first plus first for Buddy Healed and for Miles Turner. A couple other notes that I thought were very interesting. From the first of all, they had
lots of meetings about it. They decided not to do it, but they still are potentially considering trades in the next few months if it doesn't go well, you know, the whole deal. But there were two notes in particular that stood out to me from that report. First of all, uh Rob Polinka, Genie Buss, and Kurt Rambis are considered like the brain trust of the Lakers when it comes to basketball decisions. But in the article they did mention that they are now factoring in the opinions of Jesse
and Joey Bus when they're considering these trade options. That was encouraging to me on some level because I think those are the two smartest basketball minds in that front office. Kurt Rambay this is just completely disconnected from the modern NBA. So his advice I'm really concerned about. Obviously, Jenie Buss
is not a basketball person. And then Rob Polinka. All we all we have to go on is his decisions over the years, and his decisions are once again more indicative of of him being kind of like a figurehead, a personality manager, a a sales person more than he is the X his nose guy, you know. And that's always been one of my biggest concerns with the Lakers front office, is their decision making people are not basketball people,
you know. And then we have their scouting department, which is led by Jesse and Joey Buss, and the two of them have a track record of finding really high quality NBA players on the fringes of the draft and the free agency market, right like Austin Reaves, right, who's turned into a pretty solid NBA player, A guy that I think will be their fifth starter this year under the current iteration of the roster. I say fifth starter,
I I that doesn't necessarily mean starting line up. It just means like the fifth guy that they'll have in key lineups, particularly closing games. Um. But they found Austin Reeves, they found Kyle Kuzma, they found Taylor Horton Tucker. That they have a track record of finding quality NBA players on the fringes of the draft. That is indicative of the fact that they understand the basketball. They understand what
works in the modern NBA. Obviously, I haven't had the luxury of getting to chat basketball with Rob or chat basketball with Jesse or Joey. All we can go on is their decision making, and Rob Polinka has a very questionable track record with decision making. Jesse and Joey do not, So I like the idea of having them more involved in decision making, although it was not enough to sway them. Apparently, they did mention in the article that they want universal approval.
They want all five of those people to be on both on board before they make a deal. Um. The only other thing that I thought thought was really interesting in that report is they said Lebron was among those who are supportive of keeping Russ and I'm and I'm not are basic that he's been you know, supportive behind the scenes, and that he's not putting pressure on them to make a trade. That's not a big surprise to me because Lebron's Lebron's credibility was on the line there.
He's the guy who basically recommended this deal, pushed heavily for this deal. He's the guy that's always wanted the back up playmaker. He was the one who wanted Russ, So I'm not surprised that he'd be one of the last people to be the one who admits that it didn't work out. Um, the reality of the situation is the Laker. The Lakers are banking on Russ to become what they need him to be, not what he actually is, not what we have evidence of. He's in his fifteen season.
It's not exactly like we're going on small amounts of information. They're banking on him changing in his fifth fifteen season. My dad used to always tell me when I was growing up, Um, that the best indicator of future performance
is past performance. What does that mean? That means that obviously people can change, and we should hope for people to change, especially in our personal friends and family network, right like we should be rooting for people to make changes, you know, especially when you're dealing with people that have larger issues. But the reality is is that the best indicator of future performance is past performance. So it's one thing to hope for those types of changes, but when
you're planning, you should plan on what they were. That's the most likely scenario. And so I don't like the idea of planning the Lakers future based on Russ changing because it's just not likely at this point in his career. And again that we're going to find out quickly. We might find out tonight and when when we watch him play in this preseason game, we're gonna find out quickly how serious Russ is about changing the I wanted to give you guys a really quick checklist of things to
watch for in tonight's game. One his shot selection. As we mentioned last year, in terms of high volume ball creators, he was one of the least efficient in the league.
One of the ways to pair that back is to pair back his shot selection take shots that he actually can shoot at a high percentage off ball offense, So making spot up three's screening away for teammates screening on the basketball, cutting without the basketball and crashing the offensive glass and then off ball defense, he has a tendency to ignore his man, to recklessly help or to chase rebounds.
Watch him keeping tabs on shooters, offering smart help, not getting out of position unless he needs to, and then boxing out or checking to see where his man is before he crashes the glass so he doesn't get out of position. Those are things that I want you guys to watch for in tonight's game. But now I don't want to go too much further on the Lakers thing because we've hashed it out before. But yeah, Lebron's clearly in the pro RUSS camp. It's good that they're factoring
in Jesse and Joey. Those are the two smart basketball minds in that front office. And it's a whole bunch of maybees and this is the group of basketball players that they're going to work with this year, and we're gonna find out pretty quickly what they're capable of. Lots of positive energy coming out of Lakers camp, but that's training camp. There was positive energy coming out of last
year's camp. So um, before we move into these preseason games, and because this is gonna be related to the Laker thing we just talked about. I care about preseason um, not just because I'm a basketball nut job, but also because I really do think it's indicative of your team's personality, you know, like, um, look at you guys. An example, t J McConnell came through the University of Arizona, and I've always been a psychopath on the basketball court, Like
I just care about every game. I hate losing, and I'm crazy enough to devote huge portions of my life to it, even though I'm not a professional basketball player. I relate to I relate to basketball psychopaths. And I remember when I was playing at the rec center back at the University of Arizona, when t J McConnell would
come through and we'd play. We'd be in these pickup games, and a lot of the guys who came through the uve A, they go up there and they just kind of mess around and they kind of act too cool
for school. But then I'd see t J McConnell up there just being a psychopath and like just caring about winning pickup games against random students at the University of Arizona, and him and I went added a bunch of times, and and like I remember just sitting there thinking, like, I like, I like this guy because he's just a psychopath and he doesn't see a basketball game that he doesn't care about. And that's kind of the way I
feel about preseason basketball. It's indicative of how serious you are as a team, because the reality is is every time you play preseason basketball, that's an opportunity to get better. It's an opportunity to get reps. It's an opportunity to see how you stack up against other teams around the league. It's an opportunity to establish habits, to demonstrate what your intentions are on a night in, a night out basis
throughout the regular season. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Lakers beat everyone's ass in the preseason and then started twenty four and three in the regular season. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Lakers went winless last year in the preseason and then immediately came out the gates sucking, because that's what happens that you're what you're seeing is what that team is made up
made up of psychologically. How much do they care about defending in a preseason game, because if they don't defend in a preseason game, they're probably not going to defend against the Oklahoma City Thunder in mid November, you know what I mean. Like, at a certain point, you're learning about the psychology of these locker rooms. So that's why I care about preseason. Again, that doesn't necessarily mean wins and losses, but it does mean what you see with
those groupings. Your core lineup groupings should be performing well in preseason or they're not going to perform well in the regular season. If they perform poorly in preseason, they are setting a bad Uh. They're setting a bad uh kind of like precedent, a bad set of habits for the way they're gonna play once they start playing meaningful basketball. Um.
So we're gonna start with the Warriors. UM. Only I spent a couple of minutes on them today because we did a whole video on them the other day and they just played the exact same team. Uh. They jumped out to an eight point lead against the Wizards and then kind of relaxed and they ended up losing the game, fell down big in their early second half. Um, they did have fourteen points in their first four and a
half minutes in their offense looked really, really good. So I wanted to kind of go play by play through their first fourteen points to kind demonstrate the beauty of Warriors basketball. So in the first play of the game, they ran one of their four out one in actions, and on the play, Jordan Pool back screened for Draymond Green, and Draymond Green looped around the baseline and got a dribble hand off um. Right after Pool backscreen for Draymond Green,
he went up and back screened for Steph Curry. Stephen Jordan Pool's man's uh. They kind of were confused. They decided to switch. Then Steph just cuts and curls off the screen to the basket, and his defender chases right as that second defender came. Then Jordan Pool just went right off of that second defender as he was chasing Steph, and right there waiting was Kevin Looney setting another screen. Jordan Pool curl curled around that and got a wide
open three. And I was just sitting there thinking, like, man like, imagine getting all hyped up for a preseason game in Japan in front of a pack stadium. You're getting ready to go out there and play hard and show what you can do, and then you just immediately get thrown in the blender. And after after trying to navigate three different screening actions, you end up running into a wall Kevon Looney and giving up a wide open three.
Very next possession, they ran a transition pick and roll with Steph kind of like as they were going up the floor, H Stephan, Draymond and both bodies went with Steph. Steph dropped it off the Draymond. They ran a four and four on three and Andrew Wiggins got fouled. A couple of possessions are very next possession, Draymond hits a three off of an Andrew Wiggins post up. Always good
to see Draymond Green hitting threes. It's like one of the It's like the every team has like a thing, like if the Boston Celtics are actually driving and kicking, they become unbeatable, you know the Warriors. When Draymond Green's making threes, they become unbeatable. A couple of possessions later, there was a transition play where Draymond Green was leading the break and it was a really interesting action from
Jordan Pool and Andrew Wiggins. So Jordan Pool Andrew Wiggins are running up the left side of the floor, and what typically happens when you don't have floor balance in transition is one guy will run through and then the other guy will stay in the corner. So Jordan Pool runs through, and Kyle Kuzma's guarding Andrew Wiggins, and he's expecting Andrew Wiggins to stay on that side floor balance, but instead Andrew Wiggins just cuts and follows Jordan Pool
and Kuzma is completely caught with his pants down. Draymond Green throws a perfect bounce pass in transition and Wiggins gets a layup. A couple of possessions later, they ran a their classic Warriors split cut uh split cut action. Basically, all that is they throw it into the post. Usually it's Straymon, sometimes it's Weigands. On this play it was Wiggins, and then as soon as Wiggins caught the ball in the post, Looney, who was one pass away, just cross
screens for staff. They've called split cut, some people call them post splits. It's really just semantics. I don't care as much about semantics with play calling because every team calls things different. Like the Lakers run a drop coverage and uh Darvin Hamm calls its center field. It doesn't mean like everybody just has their own nomenclature for what these things are. But the Warriors they refer to it as their split cuts or their post split actions or
whatever it is. But essentially all it is is you make a post entry and then immediately the guy who makes the post entry sets a screen away and then from there it's usually a shooter coming off of that, and then the screener will dive. That's typically how split cut actions work. On that play, Wiggins gets the ball on the post, Looney just sets a basic cross screen for Staff gets a good screen, Steff catches and nails
a wide open three. And then on the last play before of that run to get them to fourteen to six, there was a basic five outset. Looney has the ball on the left wing, Wiggins is in the corner. He runs up with his left hand to do a dribble handoff for Wiggins, and Wiggins just cuts back door and Luney hits him on the bounce for an and one
um that went into a time out. So like the thing is, like we talked about earlier, that five out set keeps things open for cuts and for slipping out of rolls and short rolls and things along those lines.
So what's beautiful about that is that dribble handoff Wiggins cutting back door probably doesn't result in a basket in a four out one inset or in a three out two in set, but because it's in a five outset, there's just no help there and it just kind of makes it makes everything that they do so much harder to guard. Again, anybody you missed that, we did a
whole like forty minutes on Warriors offense. Why what their five outsets look like, how they use them to get open threes and um uh, the cuts and rolls to the basket. You're gonna want to check that out. It's just a little bit further back in our feed. So obviously they ended up losing that game. Things got sloppy. Who cares, it's the preseason, but early on we saw some classic Warriors offense. Their continuity is going to have
them humming on all cylinders going into this season. Moving on to the Celtics and the Hornets utterly destructive performance from Boston, they looked really, really good. Um. First of all, Jalen Brown the score. I think he had twenty four points in twenty four minutes. I think he was like eight for eleven from the field or something like that. I talked about this a lot when we were doing our Celtics breakdown. He's the pure scorer on the roster.
I view, Jayson Tatum is more of like a a playmaking forward, you know, like a classic point forward kind of guy. Uh, all of the metrics, isolation, post ups, dribble handoff, coming off screen stuff like that. Jalen Brown was the better play finisher. He's better at putting the ball in the basket right now then Jayson Tatum is. Jason Tatum is just a much better passer, and he's more consistent with getting dribble penetration and making the right
reads out of it. Jalen Brown is still kind of a mess as a passer, but Jalen looked dominant again in that game against the Hornets. A couple of things that I that stood out to me um particularly that helps him have a success with the basketball. First of all, quick decisions. Jalen Brown doesn't mess around with the ball like he is very aggressive, but he's quick with his decisions.
What that means is it makes him predictable. You know a lot of ball hogs or guys that are gunners, guys that are scores, they disrupt the flow of the offense because they're indecisive. You know, they catch, they'll jab step four times and then they'll shoot, or they'll dribble thirty times before they go into their into their move or whatever. In those moments, things get stagnant, everyone's standing around.
What I appreciate about Jalen is he's aggressive, but he's quick, decisive, and predictable, so it makes easy for his teammates around him to play off of his aggression. And then lastly, he's the I was working on closeouts with my high school kids this morning and one of the big things I kept telling him is, like shoot the three like
you don't. Yes, it's a drill to work on isolation skill. Yes, it's a drill to work on putting the basketball on the floor and beating people to spot, like beating people to spots with contact and getting to the rim. But the reality is if you don't demonstrate the ability to shoot the shot, they're gonna close out short on you. And as soon as they start closing out short. Then it just makes your job ten times harder when you're
trying to beat them off the dribble. And so I was just encouraging my kids, like on the catch, shoot it every time when you're open, force them to close out hard on you. Then you can start attacking the rim. And that's the kind of the interesting thing with the Jalen Brown stuff is he's so aggressive as a pull up shooter right now, both off the dribble and jab steps like get out of triple threat, that guys have
to press up on him. And now the guys are pressing up on into that extent he's getting conser instant, drible penetration because he's a big, strong athlete with a low center of gravity and he's just you know, I I'm really surprised that Brooklyn didn't want to take that deal um to get jailing, because he would have been such an awesome center piece, especially attached to draft picks. But hey, maybe Boston's better off in the long run. Tatum had a somewhat rough night, but who cares. It's
a preseason. Like I said, I'm more I'm not concerned about result. I'm not concerned about the shots Uh, the shot result like guys not shooting well when they're trying to get their legs underneath him. What I care about most in the preseason is our guys playing hard. Um, are they running their scheme right? Like? Do they look like a team that cares? Do they look like a team that's bought into their coach? Do they look like a team that's on a mission, or do they look
like a team that's just coasting and floating through. Tatum was out there defending, playing hard. He just didn't shoot well, and I think he had three assists with five turnovers, which is obviously not great for him. Malcolm brock him it was the main reason why I wanted to watch this particular game. I wanted to get a feel for what he looks like in a Boston jersey. His first shift part, picularly up to the end of the first quarter,
was pretty rough, a lot of overpassing. Um. It's really tough in general to integrate a good ball handler into an existing basketball team that really already knows how to play in Generally, you just don't You don't want to step on each other's toes. So like there's some force feeding him. But then he's also like force feeding others. And the reality is is like what they need for him is to be aggressive with the basketball until the team collapse on it collapses on him, and then look
to make plays. And in that first stretch going into the end of the first quarter, he was a little bit sloppy, some overpassing, wasn't looking for his own shot enough. But man, in that second quarter. Um, to start the second quarter, they went with a bench lineup, and I'm pretty sure Smart, Tatum and Brown were all out at
this point. It might have been Brown was out there too, but they featured brogged in primarily with the basketball to start the second quarter, and almost immediately you could see what he brings to the table, consistent dribble penetration. He's really good at painting the defender on his backside on ball screens and then methodically working his way down the lane to get dribble penetration off of ball screens. And then he was just spraying out to shooters all day long.
He's already got really good chemistry with Grant Williams. Um they had a couple of picking uh. They had a picking pop three and then they had another driving kick three. Um. Just in general, you could see the fit there with Brogden as like a legit uh shot creator, not just with the bench lineup, but that's gonna work really well with the starters as well. I thought it was confusing that they started Derek White and brought Malcolm Malcolm Brogden
off the bench. I'm assuming it's for staggering purposes and they're gonna want to have him with the bench lineups. But at the end of the day, Brogden is just a better player than Derek White, and he's got to be with them as much as possible. So I'm curious to see how that dynamic goes over the course of the season. One last note with Brogden his transition passing, he was grabbing the ball and pushing with pace and
making plays to get easy shots in transition. I think that's gonna be a good fit with that Boston team, which I think could stand a run of a bit more with how athletic they are. Quick note on the Hornets again, I just started covering the league as a whole um last year in February, so I've watched LaMelo ball probably as much as the average basketball fan has. Here the average big time basketball fan, Like, I've watched him a few dozen times, but I don't know enough
about him to have a strong opinion. And I'm really excited this year to watch a lot more of him to get a stronger opinion, and just to learn about him on a night and night out basis. In the NBA. Last year, by the time I started covering the league, the Hornets were already kind of out of the picture, so I just wasn't watching him that much. Um. The reality there, there's there are things that I like and
there are things that are dislike. Up front, um natural feel as a passer when you get him in the open floor, and that's usually in transition or if when they set that really high ball screen almost starting away from the basket so he can get downhill. When he's in the open floor and he's making plays, the passing is it's it's it's really impressive. And he has the ability to beat beat bigs on switches with quick dribble moves to the right. He's got the ability to knock
down pull up jump shots. But there's the shot selection sometimes is truly puzzling, Like he'll take obviously when he was in high school, he took wild shots, but now there's still a little bit of that there and adding unnecessary difficulty. There was a play where he was coming off a pick and roll on the left side of the floor, defender gets caught on the screen. He's got a ton of separation and he's coming down to like eighteen feet on the left wing, the biggest in drop.
He's way far back, and instead of like getting balanced and raising up to uh to like take a nice up and down pull up jump shot, he just took a drifting, floating eighteen footer or where his legs were kicked out and I know he kicks his feet out a little bit naturally, but his whole upright body was
moving from right to left on the shot. And I'm just sitting there thinking, like that's just unnecessary difficulty, Like that is a twenty percent shot probably, but if he goes straight up and down, it's probably a thirty seven
thirty eight percent shot. And random pull ups in transition the like, Like he's he's such a gifted passer that looks for his teammates often, but then he goes through these random stretches where he gets kind of tunnel vision and he doesn't take great shots, um, and then on the defensive end of the floor, it's just it's just a nightmare. Um. He's so upright and finn that the
big wings just have their way with him. Jalen Brown had a dunk where he caught the ball literally looked at LaMelo face to face and just drove right around him. There was a little bit of contact, but Jalen just ripped through him because he's too thin and went up and and throw a nasty one handed dunk down. Uh. A lot to be desired on the defensive end, a lot to be desired with shot selection. Lots of good too as a shot creator, especially in the high pick
and roll. I I I have really mixed feelings about him right now, not a strong opinion. Like I said, I want to see more of him before I have a strong opinion. But that was an ugly one to watch. I think he went five for nineteen overall. Moving on to the Sun. So they lose to the Adelaide thirty six. There's kind of reminiscent of that Thunder team that lost. I can't even remember who it was, but they lost to some EuroLeague team a few years back. Um, Obviously,
motivational advantage plays a big role here. It's hard to get up for these kinds of games. Um, Adelaide's their biggest game of the year, Like them winning that game will matter as much to them, probably or close to
them when to them winning an NBH an NBL championship. Right, Um, But the reality is is, like like we were talking about earlier with that t J McConnell story, like you just find out about the psychology these teams in these settings, because yeah, they were at a big motivational advantage, the Adelaide thirty sixers were, But all these preseason games are
not exactly motivational events. You're not super stoked to go out and play in front of a third full arena, you know, in a game that doesn't mean anything, I get it. But you find out a lot about the chemistry these teams. This is a team that we were concerned about their motivation. We were concerned about what was going on between the years in the locker room, right, And they couldn't get up to play hard for this team, and obviously they ended up blowing the game, giving up
a hundred and thirty something points in the process. The main thing that set out to me on film, and I did a whole video breakdown on this. You can find it on my Twitter feed. Again at Underscore, Jason lt I did like a two minute video breaking down DeAndre Aten. But from the opening tip, he just didn't care.
And again look at the box score, I think he had like twenty two points dominant offensive performance, Like he still has like magnets or vacuums for hands and catches everything around the rim and finishes it every single time. He's every bit as good offensively he's always would hope for him to be. But on defense, he's just doing the bare minimum. You know. Like this is before we get into the details. The main concept I wanted to get out here is the difference between doing the bare
minimum and getting the job done. Yeah, in your scheme, it might be your job to help here, or to show here, or to hedge here, or to chase this guy or whatever the whatever your detail is in the scheme, but you either do it well enough to get the stop or you don't. And most defensive schemes, when ran right, will work. But like the the the the amount of effort that Aton was putting in to his role was
just simply not good enough. Opening possession of the game, Devin Booker gets caught on a back screen from from DeAndre Ayton's man. What are you supposed to do when you are the big and your big sets a back screen and and the guy gets loose to the rim, that's your responsibility. The thirty sixers ended up blowing it with a bad lob pass, but Aton was completely out of position and offered no help on the play. It
was wide open at the rim. Like very next possession, he's kind of like over helping on a on a pick and pick and roll drop coverage. Booker's got the guard completely contained, like just completely under control, and Aidan's just kind of floating around behind him. Meanwhile, his man is popped to the elbow and they drop it off and he gets a wide open fifty footer. That guy
ends up getting going and gets going from three. A couple possessions later, he's over helping on a curl once again, just sinking into the paint because that's the easy thing for the big to do. His guy pops out of the three point line, knocks down at three. There's another possession where in transition he ends up getting switched onto or in a screening action. He ends up getting switched onto one of their guards, and DeAndre just doesn't even
go out past the three point line. He's literally just standing about ten twelve feet away, arms up, just like just offering a cursory, you know, presence there, and the guard just shoots the wide open three and nails it. It was number twelve, the left handed, left handed kid. He gets going now, next possession, he races down and shoots like a wild transition three, and Michail bridges his
face and makes it. And the reason why he makes that is he gets his rhythm when Atan's not guarding him on the previous possession Like these, the rhythm is a delicate thing. When you lose to a team that shoots you out of the arena, it usually starts with you not defending well at the beginning of the game.
And then the big, the big glaring one was that the it was I think it was late second quarter, our mid second quarter, but Devin Booker takes a tough like step back transition three and it was bad shot. Don't get me wrong, but he's Devin a Booker and and he needs to have a green light and he needs to have the freedom to take difficult shots. And Aton doesn't like the shot, so he turns around and literally walks for like five steps as the team is
running the other way. Then he kind of gets going into a jog and in the process Mikhail Bridges has to pick up his man, the big. So then they the thirty sixers immediately run a pick and roll. They switch it now Chris Paul's on the big. They dump it down into the block and Chris Paul fouls him as he's going up for a layup. And once again that's a mismatch that was given because Eton wasn't trying.
He was walking up the floor in transition. It was just like it was like the most embarrassing twenty two point performance I've seen in a long time, because he just his body language is bad, his defense was atrocious, and it allowed a lower level professional team from a league in Australia to beat an NBA team, which is inexcusable under any circumstances. It's just something to watch here in the early part of the season. You know, um, like this is a team, like I said, that's got
some baggage from the summer. When when the losses pile up is when the baggage rears its ugly head. Now, I think this team is talented enough to win their way through this, but if they do start to lose, and once again, this is just a preseason game. If they do start to lose, it could be a problem in the long run. But congrats to the Adelaide thirty six or is just a really cool moment for them. Um, the basketball God's definitely levied a judgment on the effort
level from the Sun's. The other thing, too, is just the gap between basketball talent from different levels is it's it's kind of both. It's like people don't realize how good NBA players are. Like people see me a six six wing with six ten wings band that can get his head by the room and shoot and dribble and stuff, and they think like, oh, he uh, he must to be a near NBA player. It's like no, no no, no, Like if I went to an NBA training camp tomorrow, I get my ass handed to me, Like these guys
are insanely good. But at the same time, like if I was playing in a game and the team wasn't respecting me and they let me get comfortable like, yeah, I could get going, I can make some shots. And that's kind of the That's kind of the way I look at it is like if you go up against an NBL team, if you go up against a cb A team, if you go up against the EuroLeague team and you don't bring effort. These are good basketball players,
Like they will beat you. They will beat you if you if you do not take them seriously and respect them, and they found out the hard way. UM. Lastly, Raptors Jazz. Quick note of the Jazz. They have a deep repertoire of good basketball players. I think they ended up starting Leak Beasley, Mike Conley, Lori, marking in Jared Vanderbilt, and I can't remember who the fifth guy was, but then they ended up bringing like Collin Sexton in off of the bench. They they have a lot of good basketball players.
So I wonder how much they're gonna be willing to be a team that under five hundred but competitive before they decide that it might be time to start selling those guys off um in pursuit of picks, although they did end up getting eight picks this summer, so maybe they don't need them. UM. Looking at the Raptors. It
was kind of funny to watch them on offense. We didn't do a season preview for them because they were kind of in the middle of the pack and um I generally I'm lower on the Raptors than most people, just because of the lack of ball handling and shooting, which we're gonna get to um. But they are an interesting team. We just didn't have time to get to them in the season previews. They are relentless with matchup attacking.
They've got these huge forwards right like o Ganna nob and Scottie Barnes and um In Pascal Siakam and on a lot of possessions, it's just like give the ball to one of them and they just play bullyball, you know, live dribble from the perimeter, turned their back to the basket, back them down, back them down, back them down, wait till the defense collapses, and then spray out to shoot her right. Um. But the but it gets a little bit, it gets a little bit rudimentary because they don't shoot
the ball well enough. Things collapse around them, they get caught in traffic, they turn the basketball over. They can be a little sloppy on the offensive, end of the floor. Again, I don't think they have nearly enough shooting and ball handling to truly contend compared to the best teams in the league, but they do have some of the most
physically imposing five man groupings in the league. There was one line up in particular that Raptors fans were getting really excited about in that game O g and a Nobi, Pascal Sam, Chris Bouche, Pressius Chua and Scottie Barnes. And they played quite a bit there. I believe it was it was either end of the first or start of the second quarter, and they actually didn't do that well. And a big part of it was they had really
bad off ball defense. And I did a whole video on this again, so you can find it on my Twitter feed, kind of breaking down these concepts. But like the whole point of that type of lineup is if you switch everything, they don't have a good option to attack.
It's like, Okay, maybe I can get some drible penetration on Chris Bouche, but he's so long an athletic he's gonna be able to gain some ground, right, you know, Or like maybe you think you have a decent chance against o g and and Obi because he's only six ft seven or whatever if you're a taller player. But the truth is there's no good option, and so what you're supposed to do in that defensive scheme is switch
everything and bait them into playing. Is so, And if they make some tough shots over contests, or if they occasionally beat to the dribble as your big forward is coming and slapping the backboard and he barely makes a layup, it's like, applause, nice shot, run back on defense. We'll see if you can do that next time, you know what I mean. But instead, what they were doing is they were doing the classic Nick Nurse thing where they're
overhelping everywhere. There was a play where Bouche had Conly completely corralled on a drive and like, Condy has no advantage, but he's kind of getting downhill, but Bouchet is still between him in the rim and uh Pascal Siakom just blatantly abandons his man to step up and help, and his man cuts back door and Condy drops it off
and they draw foul. There's another one where Scottie Barnes had Jordan Clarkson on his hip and Clarkson gets just a little bit of a step and he's going to the rim, and you know what, he would have got a layup off like he would have gotten there to the rim, but Scotty Barnes is gonna block that into oblivion. He's a better athlete and he's going step for step with him. That's going to end poorly for Jordan Clarkson. But no, instead, I think it was Precious steps up.
After Precious steps up, there's uh, the ball gets kicked out and the Raptors don't get matched up, and then someone finally closes out and there's a wide open man right under the basket for a layup. It's like it could have been Scotty Barnes blocking Jordan Clarkson off the glass and then going the other way on the break,
but instead it's a layup because you overhelped. And then there was one last play where I can't remember who it was it was guarding the ball, but once again ball was under control, Precious gets cut back door on because he's not paying attention off ball, and they end up getting a wide open layup. So the thing is is like that lineup should be devastating defensively, But the whole purpose of that lineup is to bait you into playing one on one basketball. You don't to over help
with that group. You want to encourage them to think that they can isolate because in the long run that will work out for you. A couple other positive notes. Uh, Scotty Barnes looked pretty good on the ball again attacking mismatches. He got a foul call attacking um Kelly Olynik in a in an ISO. He had a really nasty post up fade away over his left shoulder over Jared Vanderbilt.
Then he had like a miss dunk right at the end of the first quarter that kind of reminded me of Lebron dunking on Um use of Ner Kitchen that Portland game back in two thousand eighteen where he kind of curled around. This one was more in transition. Lebrons was more of behalf court type of deal. But they ran a set where they get inbound the ball to uh Scotty in the backcourt so that he can get ahead of steam and as he curled around the ball screen like there were people in the lane. But it's
Scotty Barnes with the head of Steam. They had absolutely no hope of stopping him, you know, missing the dunk off the front rim um, but it was but he was right there and it was a good play. I just would like to see them continue to do stuff like that. Get Scotty with the head his team, whether that's semi transition or running your pick and rolls further out towards half court. Just anything to get him ahead of Steam because he's almost impossible when he gets there,
impossible to handle when he gets there. Um, he was moving the ball well. He had a nice little pick and pop pass the precious for three. He ended up uh scoring eight points, having five rebounds, and three assists in eighteen minutes. So extrapolated out to a thirty six minute game, that's sixteen, ten and six. That's a really good, well rounded game. Um, and the last positive thing precious to Chewa. I. I started to come around on this towards the end of the year last year, but I
really like what he's doing attacking closeouts. He demonstrated a little bit of movement shooting with his pick and pop shot with Scotty Barnes getting his feet set quickly after screening and popping hard to the three point line, and then he had a nasty dunk on the left wing where he caught the ball defender closed out and he just ripped through and extended out in front and turned
the basketball over on the rim um. They're really interesting team. Again, I'm not as high on them as Raptors fans are. I'm really high on them for the future, but right now they need somebody to really develop into a good creator with the basketball, and hopefully it's Scotty, but I think he's a few years away. I think Scotty Barnes is like a is going to be an All NBA player, Like that's how good I think he's going to be. But he I'd be keeping an eye on his on
ball creation and and just in general. With the Raptors, I haven't seen enough to make me take them seriously as a threat. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We would be back tomorrow with some more, um a preseason breakdown, as well as some gambling content, some you know, season over unders and things along those lines. I also saw the NBA g M Survey. The annual GM survey came out yesterday. Excuse me. Today, we'll do
some stuff about that as well. I think it's really interesting to see how my ideology is lined up with the general managers around the league. See where we disagree, see where we agree. Things along those lines, all right. As always, I appreciate you guys support, and we will see you next time. And the bad and the volume