Hoops Tonight - Booker & Suns beat Steph Curry & Warriors, Klay Thompson ejected, Mavericks-Pelicans

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net in West Virginia. Well here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of your GUYSS weeks are off to a great start. We are going to be breaking down four games tonight. We'll be doing or your Sons. We'll be doing Pelicans, Mavericks, and then a couple of games from last night, including the Brooklyn Nets struggling with the Memphis Grizzlies in the San Antonio Spurs, going into Minnesota and kicking the ship out of the Timberwolves. A couple

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goodwin for Phoenix UM. Their offense was humming, and even though their defense wasn't great in the first half, they had one strong defensive quarter there in the third quarter, holding the Warriors to twenty, and then it was pretty much over. At that point, CP three finally got going as a score, something I know the Suns have been waiting to happen, literally ever since Game two of the

uh second round series last year against the Mavericks. He hit a monumentally important shot I thought at the end of the first half, that three pointer just before the buzzer, that really changed the tone and tenor of the game. I think that ended up putting them up six. Went from feeling kind of like a back and forth game at that point, to a game that the Suns had at least a little bit of control over. So it

was good to see CP three have a nice game again. Um, Jock land Deal, that was an interesting performance from him. He's really good operating out of the short role, scoring against switches in the post, which is obviously a vitally important part of the Phoenix offense, and had demonstrated kind of a pretty nasty little short hook shot there in the lane that he seemed to make every single one of.

But I gotta come back to Devin Booker. You know, I've been talking about him a lot to start this season. He's a huge part of why Phoenix has been so impressive to start this season. To be clear, Devin Booker has been one of the six or seven best players that I've seen in the league to start this year. Obviously, his shot making is off the charts. I'm pretty sure he's over from the field and from three at this point. Um. His passing in particular has been above and beyond even

what I've ever expected from Devin Booker. Even in their loss the other night to Portland, I thought he made some really impressive passes down the stretch. I think he notched another six assist tonight. He's that that's a huge element to his game. That was that, you know, he had some stretches where we put up big assist numbers

on bad Sons teams. But getting him to kind of demonstrate that and to figure out the defensive end of the floor where the two things that were vitally important to him taking that next step from being more more like a you know, a franchise cornerstone than just like another another taller Bradley Beal, you know what I mean. And his defense has been incredible to start this season again, although that's something he's been doing well with for the

last couple of years. But here's the reality. If you're a dominant three level score who passes the ball well and defends really well, you're a superstar. Now. It remains to be seen how consistent he'll be as the season goes along, but that's definitely an exciting development for the

Suns fans. I had a conversation I had an NBA player, a multi time All Star that reached out to me last year who asked me about my all NBA teams and uh, this player was very adamant that Devin Booker should have been first team All m b A. I disagree obviously. I think I had him second team for me. UM might have even been their team, I can't remember

off the top of my head. But there's clearly been this movement from players in the league like, hey, Devin Booker is awesome, and all of us are like, he's great, but you know, there's there's clearly levels to this and he's not quite at that top level. Well, we gotta call out what we're seeing here. To start this year, he's been one of the best players in the league, and if he continues to play this well, it changes the way that we have to kind of project with

Phoenix UM. A lot of players that this phase in their career after they have enough experience, you know, because Devin Booker didn't have the luxury of playing in an organized, smart, you know, uh, you know, well intentioned basketball environment for the first several years of his career. He's been in this kind of winning environment. Now, what is this three

years ever since the Chris Paul trade. So he's starting to pick up all of those winning habits and winning details that he didn't really have much of an opportunity to work on early in his career because he was just never playing in truly high stakes environment. So it's cool to see him take these leaps. Again, we're only what four games into this, so there's a lot of

basketball left to be played. I'm a big believer, as you guys know, and you earned those spots through consistent production game in game out that translates to the highest levels of the playoffs. To be clear, Devin Booker struggled mightily at the end of that Dallas Maverick series. That's part of being a star player. You continue that production

at the highest levels of the game. But that said, I mean, we were sitting here over the summer pretty depressed about where things were going with the sons, and Devin Booker has been awesome, So you gotta you gotta call out which you can what you can see there. Um. This game was so back and forth and so entertaining, you know as the even as uh um the announcers were saying through two and a half quarters, But it really turned on that Clay ejection. I'm not gonna talk

too much about it right now. We're gonna save that for later on. But Clay Thompson was defending Devin Booker really well in that third quarter, which was part of what was leading to that trash talk. And then you sub Clay out for Jordan Pool, is a much lesser defensive player, and then Poenix comes out playing with emotion to end that quarter and to start the fourth quarter, and they just beat the brakes off of them, which is not the not not the craziest thing to see

in the NBA. We all know that ejections, particularly for the home crowd, tend to fire them up and lead to um, lead to high effort, and a lot of times when you're planning against a really talented team, that can lead to a loss. We're gonna talk a little bit more about the ejection and a little bit because

I do think there was a lesson to learn. They're not something that I would necessarily chastise Clay for because that's his first ejection of his career, but it's something to keep in mind, just kind of as a lesson. I had a feeling this would be a tough game for Golden State coming in. Their defense has not been great to start the year, specifically defending pick and roll and specifically defending the paint. They really struggled again defending

the pick and roll against Sacramento the other night. They could not stop Deer and Fox and lak Monk from getting downhill they allowed. So I just, I just kind of you know, defense is about details, Defenses about habits, Defenses about being sharp and if you're not, if you're not completely you know, those things don't happen overnight. You have to build those habits, You have to build those connective tissues that make you a great defense, and sometimes it can take a couple of weeks for you to

figure that out. There are a lot of teams around the league, teams that we expected to be good defensively that are struggling so far, and the Warriors are one of them. They gave up another sixty two paints excuse me, paint points tonight. Um Phoenix's pick and roll offense. Like you know, like I said, Golden State has been struggling specifically with pick and roll defense to start the season, and Phoenix is the highest volume pick and roll team

in the league. They're gonna come at you every possession down the floor with some variation of pick and roll, and they do it a bunch of different ways. Now, Steve Kerr clearly in this game did not want to offer help. So when they ran two on two pick and roll, so like a standard like book or eight and pick and roll or CP three eight and pick and roll, they just defended it too on two and

stayed home on shooters on the back end. And then when they ran their Spain pick and roll when they involve Booker and Paul with Aighton and they have Booker real locate to the top of the key as he's rolling down, they were just defending that with three players. And so what ended up happening is because Chris Paul had a great offensive night and Devin Booker has been awesome to start the season, and Eton is who waitan is those three guys went off and obviously they managed

to hold the role players in check. But it was a big part of why. It's just it's just it's already extremely difficult to defend the Phoenix pick and roll with two guys or with three guys when you're not sending help, and you know, it's just one of those things where I think, like I think that if it was a playoff series or something along those lines, you would have probably seen an adjustment and seen more help

sent that way. But it's the regular season, and honestly, guys, I really think Steve Kerr is leaning heavily into um trying to to buide reps and opportunity for guys like Moses Moody to get better defensively and guys like James Wiseman to get better defensively. You know, Feenix Golden State lost some defensive personnel this time. That's just that's just a fact. Them a big driving force, So there's success defensively.

Last year was Gary Payton the second. That's all you guys have to do is go online and look up the on off numbers in the playoff run when Gary Payton was on the floor versus when Gary Payton was off the floor. Perimeter defense, as I've always said, is one of the most important skills in the league, and in the starting lineup the Warriors have outstanding perimeter defensive players. Steps a great defensive player. Clay is a fantastic defensive player.

His defense in the NBA Finals helped turn that series around. Andrew Wiggins is in the conversation for best perimeter defensive player in the league, and then Looney and Draymond are both awesome, But once you get past that first five, you immediately take a huge step back in perimeter defense. And I think I think that Steve Kerr is leaning heavily on this season. This regular season as basically an opportunity for guys like Moses Moody. Jonathan Comingo, who didn't

play in the first half of this game. I'm not sure if he was in the doghouse or if that was just intended to get James Wiseman more minutes, but I think he's going to be giving these guys a lot of minutes over the course of the regular seas and deliberately throwing them tough matchups so that they can

hopefully be ready by the time you get to the postseason. Specifically, Moses Moody again spent most of the night guarding Chris Paul or Devin Booker, and in every single game that I've seen him play, he's been specifically guarding the other team's quicker, quickest, perimeter defensive players, and I think that's

on purpose. He's an upright top heavy six eight wing who needs to work on his foot speed, anticipation, and understanding the proper balance between how much position he can give and contest with length versus where he's too far back and guys can get to their pull up jump shot too easy. That might take eighty two games for him to really figure out dependably enough that they can plug him into that Gary Payton the second roll, or they can plug him in to that out of porter

junior role, and it remains to be seen. But the reality is is right now they're not sharp enough in those details to go on the road and beat a really good Phoenix Suns team, especially when Chris Paul is playing really well. Now, what do we know about Phoenix.

We know that eventually, over the course of the playoffs, Chris Paul runs out of gas, Suddenly they lose that shot creation, Suddenly too much gets put on Devin Booker's plate, and then you find out really quickly that mcguys like Michail Bridges and Deandreton and Cam Johnson are good enough creating their own shot to kind of make up that gap.

So that's the reality of the Phoenix Suns matchup. But in the regular season, especially on a night where Chris Paul and Devin Booker are both playing well, you have to be sharp and Golden State. It's not sharp right now. Defensively. It might take a few weeks for them to get there. It might take longer, but this is something they're gonna

have to get used to. It's possible that, especially over tougher stretches of their schedule, when they're playing tougher opponents, that their record doesn't look as dominant as it did last year because they're investing into those young perimeter defensive players to try to get them ready for the postseason. Um And I mean Steve Kerr specifically said that at the end of the first quarter in the ear at the start of the second quarter, and that like little

coaches interview that they always do. I've been talking and about this all season, all preseason, and all regular seasons, so I'm not overly surprised, but I did think it was interesting to see, uh, to see Kerr specifically mentioned that at the end of the first quarter, just to kind of put a stamp on that, so you guys know exactly what's happening there. Um so with Clay's injection,

and I thought this was kind of an interesting sequence. So, uh, I noticed in the first half that Steph seemed like he was a little bit annoyed. It's always tough to tell exactly what's happening on the court because the production team is constantly switching camera angles and and you're not always seeing everything that's happening. All of you guys who have ever been to an NBA game, no that it's just a lot easier to track that stuff when you're

in the arena. So if you guys happened to be in the arena, you just saw something or saw a clip from a fan and you saw exactly what happened, drop it into just tell us what happened in the comments, so maybe we could see it for tomorrow. Um. But yeah, I couldn't tell exactly what was going on in the first half, but something was boiling over between Steph and one of the sons because he seemed really annoyed and

then he was super locked in as a result. And then uh, in the third quarter, Clay Thompson, you know, Devin Booker, tried one of his patented step back moves on the left wing and and Clay just snuffed it out, gained gained the ground and attack the shooting pocket and stripped Clay little tip for perimeter defensive players to like a lot of times, with really good pull up jump shooters, you're not gonna bother them up top because once they get to their rhythm, once they get to the footwork

that they like, and they elevate up into the shot, they've practiced that shot tens of thousands of times in their career, they're gonna knock it down. So you're not really bothering him at that point. But if you can disrupt that gather target the ball down low, especially if you're a player like Clay that's got long arms and you can make up ground there, you're not gonna bother Devin Booker up top, but you might be able to

bother him down low. And like I said before, Clay was defending Devin Booker really well in that third quarter. But something happened there after that strip. I'm not sure if Clay said something like, you know, give me that ship or or some other sort of trash talk, but Devin Booker just started going right back at him. And Devin Booker is a legendary trash talker in this league.

I think it was either Kevin Durant or JJ Reddick, but one of the major NBA players that has a podcast said something along the lines of like they were asked to the biggest trash talkers in the league, and Devin Booker's name always gets thrown out in those conversations. He's a famous ship talker. So as soon as Clay went at it with him, it was just we were off to the races at that point, and Clay immediately

pulled the four rings thing. And then I don't know exactly what Booker said, but I think he might have said that you guys got lucky, because there was another angle at the free throw line where Draymond was on camera, and it looked like he said something like we have four how do you think we got lucky four times? Or something along those lines. It looked like just me trying to play detective on my couch watching the game.

It looked like something like that happened. And then it goes to the time out, and then things escalated, and then we back from the time out and Clays out of the game, and so it's it was. I mean, it is what it is. It's just fun during the course of the regular season. Um. But I mean, if there's one lesson to take from it. It's like, don't punch down. And what I mean by that is like

everyone who's watching the game knows what's happening. We all saw Devin Booker struggle in the second round after trash talking Luca don Chich to go out in embarrassing fashion. Uh. In Game seven, we saw that. We also have seen Clay Thompson over the years, time and time again, play incredibly well in a huge playoff moment. We call him Game six Clay for for a reason. He has time and time again had huge playoff moments. He's one of the best perimeter defenders to ever play consistently in the

NBA playoffs. Has taken monumentally important defensive matchups like guarding Kyrie Irving when he's on fire in the two thousand seventeen finals, or you know, guarding Jalen Brown for long stretches during the finals. This guy, your resume is stamped. We there's no Draymond's right. You don't get lucky four times like you. Your resume is rock solid. And Devin Booker is the one that's overstepping his boundaries with his

trash talk. And in that situation, you actually played directly into their hands because you got yourself ejected and then they got all emotional and now they're beating you. And so if there's one thing, it's like, if you could somehow just have some fun talk some trash plays the trash talker too. You need to lean into that. Draymond's right, You need to play into your emotion up to a certain point. But you gotta stay in the game because you were playing well, Clay defensively on Booker in that

third quarter. Your team was playing well. If you stay in the game, you might win, at which point you get to go have your moment in front of their bench and and talk all the ship you want right back, because at the end of the day, the winner gets to tell the story. But it is what it is. It's not a big deal. Not chastising him by any stretch. He literally this is the first dejection of his career. But I did think it was weird to see it go off the rails as much as it did, especially

in a winnable basketball game like that. And then it went to a time out. He was sitting on his bench at one point he must have somebody from Phoenix must have been yelling something across the benches that got him going. But yeah, big big win for Phoenix. They're better than I thought to start the season. I'm not worried about Golden State because they're just ironing out details

for the postseason. They're undergoing roster turnover, not roster turnover, rotation, turnover in a specific spot in their roster that was very strong defensively last year, and so that they're gonna go through some growing paints and it's just something for us to watch over the course of the season. We want to see everything like paint points, defensive rating, you know, those kinds of things. We want to see those tick down into lower numbers as the season progresses, because that

will demonstrate Moses Moody getting better. That will demonstrate James Wiseman getting better. That will demonstrate Jonathan Comini getting better. That's all part of that s s alright. So on

that note, let's talk some Mavericks and Pelicans. Um interesting there at the end Luca going too for one, as he was dribbling up the left wing down by three, I remember sitting there thinking like, man, that's gonna be a tough step back defenders kind of riding on his hip, and at the moment, I was like, I was confused as why he was going for the quick layup because I didn't think there was quite enough time left. But everything worked out just about as perfectly as it could

for Dallas on that sequence. He gets to the room, he lays it in. With four seconds left, they foul DeVante Graham. He misses a free throw, and then you set it up and he gets basically the same type of fading three on that left wing, except for this time it's for the win rather than for the tie, and he just missed it, which it is what it is. I had a feeling this game would be close. Uh. In the interest of full disclosure, this is one of

my first bets of the season. I bet New Orleans money line because I got them at plus two hundred on fan duel. You know they're down three starters. Obviously, with the Jones being out he hyper extended his knee. The other day, Brandon Ingram got a concussion and then Zion Williamson took a pretty nasty fall that on a shot that he got blocked, which led to a hip contusions.

All three of those guys were out, and obviously that's gonna skew things towards Dallas, But the New Orleans Pelicans have one of the most talented rosters in the league. And the reality is is that if you uh, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit more in a minute, as it pertains to the rest of the league, but when you're playing these super talented teams and you don't bring your a game, you could get beat. This Pelicans team is deep on the wing. They're deep and

skilled pull up jump shooting. I like their front court. This is actually one of my favorite Kevin Durant destinations over the course of the summer. If you guys remember I was pro them trying to flip um Zion Williamson for k D because I thought the rest of the roster was so incredibly stacked that I thought it was immediately propel you into being a top tier contender, if not something better. And you know, Zion, obviously, with his injury history, I thought was a little bit more of

a risk. Um. I don't think you're wrong going either way. They're obviously going to be fantastic with Zion. Zion looks amazing to start the season. But I've always been a huge fan of this roster and and UH, David Griffin in particular deserves a lot of credit, you know, um in this You know, I was tweeting about this earlier today because Anfrony Simon's just completely went off against the Denver Nuggets last night, had like a twenty four point

quarter and was hitting all these shots. And the level of skill in the n b A at the guard position in particular right now is so incredibly high that there's just this ridiculous amount of parody because the it used to be, you know that you didn't have guys hitting crazy wild pull up jump shots if you got caught on a ball screen or if you had your big man dropping back to the basket. You weren't having guys consistently beat you with pull up floaters or pull

up jump shots or things along those lines. But now that skill level is is all over the place in this league. I mean, you took out three starters for New Orleans and UH and coming back any coming back at you anyway. You have c. J. McCollum, one of the better three level scorers in the league, Davante Grahama, player that can hit a lot of pull up jump shots,

Trey Murphy had an awesome offensive game as well. They just have tons and tons of offensive talent, and in in this league, in this era, if you bring eight percent defensive effort and you kind of get caught on ball screens and your bigs are too far back and drop, you're gonna get barbecued, just because that's how skilled the NBA is right now. Now, Dallas did take control of this game later on in the third quarter. They put together a much better defensive quarter ended up taking a

little bit of a lead. But any time that you play a poor defensive game and you allow game to stay close, you throw shot variants into the equation. And when they are all these skilled players in the league, all it takes is somebody beating hot. And in this fourth quarter it was c. J. McCollum. And what an unbelievable, magnificent fourth quarter it was from him. Do It started in pick and roll. He had like a nice little floater um against a dropping big. He had a pull

up three against the drop. But then after that, uh, Dallas started sending lots of defensive attention to him outright doubling him on a couple of different occasions, and he just started to pick them apart with the past. There was a really like c J. McCollum is really gifted in particular with setting his man up, which is such an important skill when you're not a fantastic athlete. And c J McCollum, for all of his great qualities, he's

not a fantastic athlete at the guard position. But there was a play he ended up getting Maxi Cleiba on a switch and he kind of dragged him out to half court and he did a retreat dribble and kind of exposed the basketball and relaxed for a second and just waited for Cleban to get a little too aggressive and lean forward. And as soon as he leaned forward, he blew right past him, drew help, swung over to

Trey Murphy, and try Murphy knocked down to three. That's the kind of stuff that CJ is so good at, is baiting you into getting out of position because he's not gonna beat you off the dribble if you're in position, because you're probably gonna be a better athlete than him. But in this particular case, he's he's gonna get you to make a mistake and throw yourself out of position so that he can gain his advantage. After that, he hit Larry Nance in the short roll for a kick

out three there. Then after that they just started outright double teaming him. There's a play where they just dribbled the ball off the floor. He was dribbling it on the right wing and Dallas just a band in Davonte Graham to double him on the wing and it was just easy swing pass, Bam, Davontae Graham makes the three. Then there's another play where Reggie Bullock and Luca don Che's just randomly double to him on the right wing and he ended up throwing a bounce pass to Larry

Nance for a lap. And you know, I always say like, when you play with fire, you have the chance to get burned. See Jim McCollum. You know, Is has always been capable of that type of fourth quarter. He's not the most consistent player in the world. But when you let a game stay close because you didn't bring the quisite defensive effort against a team that's down three starters, you put yourself at risk for a guy getting hot and c J just you know, one of my favorite

all time favorite playoff moments. So CJ McCollum going into Denver in Game seven a few years back and just executing the Nuggets on their home floor to steal a playoff series. He has that type of high end ceiling. It's one of my favorite things about him being in New Orleans because if he's your third best player, you are in fantastic shape. This is when one of my favorite rosters in the league as a result Trey Murphy his offensive ability. He's actually a much better offensive player

than Irv Jones. He kind of fell out of the rotation last year in the playoffs just because of some defensive limitations, so that's typical for a young player, but he is a super, super talented offensive player. And then we got this other wing, one of my favorite defensive wings from the draft, a guy who really physically developed in his year in the G League, Dyson Daniels, who was given Lucas some problems and Luca was doing everything

he could to get him switched off of him. He has a nose for the basketball, and he's got super strong hands and just another super exciting wing uh in New Orleans, and if you're a Pelicans fan, you've just got to be incredibly stoked. At this point with where your team is sitting, with all this talent coming back to from injury soon um Dallas. You know, obviously their defense wasn't good in the first half and in the fourth quarter they had really struggled with c. J. McCollum,

but their offense was fantastic throughout this game. Coming into tonight, they were number one in offensive rating by a mile. I believe they were about six points better than the next best team in the league on the offensive end of the floor. I attribute that to three things in particular. One, they're truly playing five out basketball all the time. Dwight Powell is out of the rotation. Now they're just going

with Christian Wood and Maxi Cleveland. So as a result, they've constantly got four shooters surrounding Luca and now they just have all sorts of space to operate. You know, I want to be clear, like vertical spacing is a real thing. Wipal is not even really much of a vertical spacer. But you know, JaVale McGee gives you some

vertical spacing. But the the when they they're going away from JaVale McGee early in these games, they're not playing him more than maybe one or two shifts a game, and they're just staying five out the rest of the night. Vertical spacing is real, but it's not the same as five out spacing, real perimeter spacing. The main reason why

is you have to cover more ground defensively. It's just a much harder rotation to make coming out of the week side corner to protect the rim than it is to come out of the dunker spot to protect the rim. It makes everybody cover more ground, it makes defenses make more mistakes. It will always make you better on the offensive end of the floor at a minimum, and Maxikaliba

is arguably their best perimeter defender at the big position. Anyway, you actually had a lot of success against C. G. McCollum and isolation, especially throughout the majority of the game before that fourth quarter Um. But yeah, if you look at some of their offensive nun last year in the playoffs, you know, with Dwight Powell in particular, their offense just

wasn't nearly as good. And you go around the league and you look at the vertical spacing biggs versus the perimeter spacing biggs, and almost every team in the league plays much better on the offensive end when they go five out and with the flexibility of having Christian Wood and Maxi Cleib on your roster, you could play five out basketball all the time if you want to. But you've got JaVale McGee if you should need a bigger center for specific matchups, which is important. The second thing

I attribute their offense too is Christian Wood. And this dude is you know. I remember when I when I was watching the stuff of him in Houston to kind of prep for the season. I was looking at the stuff he does well, Like he catches and shoots the ball, well, he's good catching shoot shooter. He's was actually a pretty damn good pull up three point shooter. He was taking like two a game and hit him at in Houston. He was good in post ups, and he was good

in the short role. And if you guys remember my question was, I'm confused as to whether or not that was just garbage time basketball with a bad team where he's just jacking up shots, or whether it was real, legitimate scoring that translates in a winning environment. And I think we I think he has answered that question resoundingly to start this season. This dude has, you know, and it's so hard to explain. It's just a natural scoring ability.

Yes he can shoot, Yes he has touched. But there are a lot of guys around the league that have touch, that can shoot, that can dribble, that have all of those things, but they just don't have a scores mentality.

A scores mentality is a combination of creativity, a willingness to try things that go outside of your rigid fundamentals, and then audacity, the bravery to take difficult shots and difficult situations like Christian Wood staring down Dyson Daniels and ripping through getting cut off by Dyson Daniels, but then euro stepping back to finish with his left hand like overly fundamental basketball players don't have that level of creativity, And there's just there's a number of years around the

league that have that kind of mix of audacity and creativity with skill level that makes them natural scores. And Christian Wood is one of those guys, and they they've been able to throw it to him in the post and he's been able to create advantages, he's been able to succeed in the role. Luka Dontech already has really good chemistry with him there. He's bailing out possessions with

step back threes. He hit like a really nasty kind of like Kobe used to do this like triple threat three point shot where he would kind of start to rip through like a jab step and then elevate from there as opposed to his normal shooting pocket. He had one of those on the right baseline that was a big shot in the fourth quarter that I think tied the game at eight seven. He's either late third or

early fourth. He's got all sorts of natural scoring ability and that's just a huge influx of offensive creation that has made their offense better. And the last but at least Luca don Che's he is coming into the season in shape because of euro Basket, and as a result, he's averaging thirty four, eight and eight on sixty try shooting. That's career high. Is obviously early for both points and true shooting. He's been really really good, and so at this point, at this point, like there, you gotta be

extremely excited about their offense. Obviously they need to play better defensively, especially in games like this, but too really exciting basketball games. Excuse me, basketball teams that played a really interesting game. All right, We're gonna do rapid fire through these last two games. We're gonna hit Brooklyn Memphis really quick and then Spurs Wolf. So obviously Katie and Kyrie, John Moran, Desmond Baine, they all combined for or they

all score at least thirty seven points. Brooklyn kept it close in the first half, but they ended up giving seventy in the second half. They never really tripped, they never really truly threatened. I think they got it within six in the fourth quarter, but never really felt close. Desmond Baine finally got going, so that's good for Memphis fans because he didn't really look like himself to start

the season. Still looked a little stiff and his jump shot was really short, didn't really um amount too much early on, but he finally he got He was on fire in that second half. Katie talked a lot after the game about three point shooting being the biggest issue. The Grizzlies attempted night team open or wide open threes

and then Net's only attempt at twelve. Yes, they shot better than you, but they got better threes than you because you're not defending the same way that they are defending, and that is all a distraction away from the fact that the Nets it's not about them knocking down shots. Their offense. They've been seventh and offense, and they're actually

gonna get better as time goes on. But the reality is is they are continuing night and the night out to get absolutely obliterated in the effort in physicality areas of the game. They are dead last in defensive writing, so they're giving up more points per possession than anybody in the league. They're dead lasted defensive rebounding percentage, so when the other team shoots a shot, they are the worst team in the league gets at ending the possession

with the defensive rebound. They are giving up the highest three point percentage in the league. Now, so much of that is shot result, and you see a lot of guys be like, oh, teams will shoot better, teams will shoot worse. I see part of that, but I also see the other side of it, which is your shot result is also a product of the defensive intensity throughout

the game. If you are playing physical, if you are getting into people with ball pressure, if you are playing hard on both ends of the floor and making the other team work, then when they are open, they will be tired and they are less likely, and because they're less comfortable and they're more fatigued, they're less likely to make those open shots. So yes, over the course of the ad two game season, we'll get to learn how

good they really are defending the three point line. But I tend to think that when you're playing bad defense and they're shooting well, those are too intricately connected things. You are allowing them to be too comfortable and comfortable NBA professional shooters are going to make shots, so at the end of the day, you can't just blame three point percentage unless you're going out there and making teams feel uncomfortable. They are the second worst paint defense in

the league. They're allowing one point six points per transition possession off of turnovers, which is fourth worst in the league, which means when they throw the ball away, it's a layup line the other way, basically, it made layup almost every single possession, and that's all inexcusable. They have plenty of length and athleticism with Kevin Durant, with Ben Simmons, with Roy so Knew, who they picked up with Nick

Klaxton is obviously a good athlete in this league. They simply have to dedicate themselves to those details or they will not win basketball games. You can't win just by putting the ball in the basket. I used to joke all the time, I said this about Brooklyn. Actually last week you you you can love basketball, that's great, but you have to hate losing enough to do the things

that are not fun in basketball. Because all of those things that I'm talking about getting back in transition, defense, boxing out, you know, playing defense, fighting over the top of screens, closing out on shooters, none of that is fun. No one plays basketball because it's fun to do that stuff. You do it because you hate to lose. And right now Brooklyn has not hated these losses enough to change their habits on those end of the floor. One note

on Memphis that's exciting John Moran's jump shooting. Over the summer, I talked about how he's my favorite of the hyper athletic guards that have come through this league the because he's so good with passing the basketball already, so good getting to the rim. But he's a much better jump shooter already than any of those guys ever were. And this season he's starting super hot from the perimeter. He's fift on catching shoot threes and on pull up threes.

Obviously he's gonna come down to earth a little bit. But I always thought he'd be a good jump shooter because he has good form, which is more than you could say about Russell Westbrook or about Derrick Rose, or about any of the super athletic guards that have come through the league in the past. So obviously still's got he still has to get better defensively in the half court.

He's making some transition defensive plays, but he's looking like a player that is rapidly ascending alright, really quick before we get out of here. Spurs Wolves, So the Spurs just kicked the ship out of him. Was there's a fake come back late, um, But they were up by thirty five at one point. The Spurs are super athletic, they play super hard. They just did this to Philadelphia the other day as well. This is another NBA team that looks easy on the schedule, but if don't bring

your a game, you're gonna get beat. Kind of similar to Utah. Just another example of all the things I've been talking about as it pertains to parody in the league. Um, Devin Vacel in particular, totally lit up the Timberwolves, made five threes's, averaging twenty five and five to start the season. He's another freaky, athletic, versatile wing coming through the San

Antonio system. I'm super excited to watch more of him this season and to learn more about him because he is after you give up de John Day Murray, there's a lot of reason to be depressed if you're a Spurs fan. But this kid just might be better than it, which we're gonna find out over the course of the next couple of years. So really quickly on Minnesota, my three main concerns after the Rudy Gobert trade coming into the season. If you guys remember I said I'm concerned

about their perimeter defense. Because they lost some perimeter defensive players, You're now going to be asking uh Karl Anthony Towns to guard quicker players on the perimeter. And Rudy Gobert is good defensively if you can keep him by the paint, but as soon as he starts getting pulled into help all over the place, and now he's rotating out to different players. Now there's different players on the back line

and it's not as effective defensively. We just learned this with his entire career in Utah, Like, yes, if you can funnel to him, that's great, but if you can't and he's on the perimeter, then you're gonna struggle and um And that's been a that's been a problem to start the season. Their twentye and paint points allowed per game. That's with Rudy Gobert on the roster, and that's because Rudy Gobert is being pulled away from the paint too often.

The second thing I was concerned with was Rudy Gobert clogging up things on offense. They have a hundred and four point four offensive rating with Gobert on the floor, which is worst on the team for rotation players. Like I said, vertical spacing is a real thing, but it is not the same as perimeter spacing that you get from nas read and that you get from Carl Town's and it's gonna hurt you on the offensive end of the floor. Rudy Gobert cannot punish switches in the post.

All he can do well is really screen hard on the perimeter and roll hard to the basket. For vertical spacing, he was inevitably going to mess things up for them offensively, and then last, but not least, transition defense. Um, anytime you have two bigs on the floor, I immediately become concerned about your overall foot speed. And it's not just about like, oh, Rudy Gobert because he's so damn long, he can defend a guard on a switch. I'm not

worried about that. I'm worried about you know, you miss a shot and now Rudy Gobert and Carl Towns are running or jogging up the floor. When you've got all these quick perimeter players on the other team, well, they're dead last in transition defense off of turnovers. Once again, if you throw the ball away with Minnesota, it's a layup line the other way because overall their foot speed is just too low. So where do they go from here?

It's early. This might get better, but fundamentally, I don't think you can play with two bigs unless both are gifted on the perimeter on both ends of the floor, like you can do Lebron James Anthony Davis. Because they both can guard wings, and they both can guard guards, and they both can guard bigs. You can do Janie and brook Lopez, because brook Lopez can shoot the three, Janice is one of the best offensive players in the league, and they both can defend on the perimeter and on

the interior. You need a specific type of personnel to play that style. And notice that's lap on in Janice, not Carl Towns playing at the four. So fundamentally, I don't really think this makes a ton of sense. Now we have this weird dynamic forming between Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards where it almost as like Anthony Edwards just making kind of subtle comments about their spacing and Carl

Towns is insulting his diet. So there and you can see kind of like a rift forming there, which, by the way, the fan base is more in on Anthony Edwards. They view him as the star, as they should. He's the best player on the team in my opinion, and so Carl Towns is kind of getting the odd man

out type of thing here. So I think this inevitably ends with the Wolves viewing go Bart and Edwards as their cornerstones, mainly because Gobert is never gonna be able to be traded for as much as they just got him for. So at the end of the day, I think they're gonna end up sending uh D'Angelo Russell and Carl Town's out to get players that compliment and and Gobert better. And I think that's what this will inevitably go.

Not for a while. I think they'll give it, you know, for forty games or until the deadline to kind of see how this looks. But I do think this eventually ends with Carl Town's go wing out of town. Alright, guys, that is all I have for right now. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. The volume on