Hoops Tonight - Breaking down Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard & Bucks' "terrible" defense

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Hope all of you guys had an amazing week and that you got big plans for the weekend. I will be prepping my house to get painted, so hopefully you'll be doing something more fun than what I'll be doing this weekend. We've got a jam Pack show for today and then tonight we're gonna be covering the Friday Night slate and this show, we're hitting Victor Wembinyama's best game as a pro thirty eight points, ten rebounds and two assists in a fourth quarter barrage that puts the Suns

below five hundred at two and three. We're gonna talk about that game from the perspective of both teams. And then, as I've been saying, we're tweaking the format of the show a little bit this year. We're gonna do fewer game breakdowns and more deep dives on specific teams so we can learn a little bit more from more in

depth film sessions. And so I did an in depth film session on the Milwaukee Bucks this morning on both ends of the floor, as they suffered an embarrassing loss to the Toronto Raptors the other day to fall to two and two, and they've been especially bad on the defensive end of the floor. So we're gonna do a deep dive into what is wrong with the Bucks at this point in time.

Social media TikTok, Instagram as well as Twitter. I've been doing my film sessions in the morning on Twitter, but I'm doing film content and show announcements on social media. And the last, but not least, we need more mailbag questions. Keep dropping those in the YouTube comments so we can hit them later on in the shows throughout the week.

All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Spurs jump all over the Suns on the road after Remember this team just beat the Suns in dramatic fashion, coming from behind with that late game steal from Keldon Johnson in the layup with just a I think what was served less than a second left at that point, So you'd think the Suns would be coming out wanting revenge. No, the Spurs jumped them early. Victor woman Yama has twenty in the first half. Devin Vessel has seventeen in the

first half. Victor's dribbling down the floor and hitting pull up transition threes, and the Suns look like they're in some trouble, right, But then the Suns wake up late third quarter, early fourth, Devin Booker is still very much on fire. Five for seven from three again. In that game,

he had thirty one points and thirteen assists. He's got this like really nice connection and pick and roll with Drew Eubanks, who kind of finds that little soft spot in between the charge circle and the semi circle and just kind of hangs out there and waits as Devin like kind of works behind the basket. He'll drop it off to him in front of the rim, and he can either make that little floater or he can take that little hard drop step and then take a little

hook shot over the top. Devin Booker is off to an insane start again, following up his insane playoff run. He's averaging thirty two points, eight rebounds, and eleven assists on seventy two percent tru shooting. I've been saying that I think I think this is one of those situations where Devin Booker is ascending to true superstar status, like I mean, like joining up with those top tier guys.

His shot making is becoming as reliable as the best shooters in the world, and he's actually earned himself into an average too slightly above average defensive player. He's a super high level playmaker. That was the big thing that stood out to us early in the season, right, and then thirteen assists again last night, Keta Bates Job had

a nice shift there in that fourth quarter run. He had two slashing layups, including one where he actually worked around Victor Webbin Yama to finish at the rim, which was really impressive, and hit a big corner three that ended up tying the game late. I thought that was an interesting kind of development from a team that needs guys that can come off the bench and do dirty work stuff as role players. I thought Key Baits shot played well. Kdie locked in defensively, made some big defensive

plays as they got back into the game. Hit a big pull up three in that run, so they get all the way back and they tie it at one sixteen on the Key Debates Job three. And then what I really appreciated is like one of the things that you hope to see from really smart half court basketball players is they do a good job of identifying when you really need to find an easy shot, right, Like everybody knows, even the you know, like the best guards in the world can come off of a ball screen

and shoot a pull up three. Wemby knows that he can probably get a pull up three whenever he wants, right, all the best wings in the world can get to some sort of turnaround, fade away or step back jump shot whenever they want. But usually when they know their offense is struggling and they need to get them kind of get the lid off the rim, so to speak, they usually have something they go to that's a little

bit more reliable, a little bit higher percentage. Right, And like the best players in the world are really good at identifying when those moments are. Victor wemen Yama, when it's tied at one sixteen, just runs down the floor, gets deep post position and ducks in and calls for the basketball. They throw the post entry to him, he draws a foul, he gets the line, he makes a free throw. That's a super high percentage play for Wemby. He knows he's either going to get a foul or

a bucket in that position. When the floor is spaced. It was kind of in a semi transition set, so the floor was a little spread out. He had plenty of room. He's an easy target because of how tall he is. It was a really high percentage play. Right, he comes down the floor and flashes to the kind of like mid post area on the block and shoots a quick jumps out over Kevin Durant draws a foul.

Another smart play where he's working to get close to the rim and then he jumps straight up and down knowing KD can't block him and if Katie gets into his airspace at all, he has a chance to get a foul. There makes those two free throws an now we're up three. The Spurs are up one nineteen to one sixteen. Then they post up Zach Collins on the left baseline and Drew u Banks makes the first of three pivotal mistakes down the stretch of this game. He

overhelps as Zach Collins spins towards the baseline. He's pushed underneath the basket doesn't really have anything, but u Banks goes and offers hard help. Zach Collins drops it off to Victor Weminyamu has another one of those like completely nonsensical dunks, or he just elevates over everyone and dunks it with his left hand. Suddenly, the Spurs are up by five.

is specifically an impressive demonstration of high level footwork. So most right handed players like to operate out of a left foot pivot foot. Why because it's really easy to get to a right handed drive from there. Right got the ball, hard jab step to the right, I could pull up, I can just rip through to the right, or I can jab and go to the left right, or it's set up for a step back to the left if I need to go that way. It's really easy to do footwork off of your left foot pivot foot.

I find this when I'm working with my high school kids, Like all the righty's do, just find with their footwork attacking closeouts when they're set up with their left foot pivot foot. But then I put them on the other side of the floor and I force them to do their right foot deliberately so that they learn to have mirror image footwork right. But they struggle a lot with that. And the main reason why is because you just don't see a lot of right handed players that learned how

to set up with their right foot pivot foot. It just is a mirror image. It's a little more awkward. All of the different kind of angles of the way your body sets up for jump shots are different that way, right, because you like to have your left foot back as a right handed shooter right. So it's just a little bit weird, But if you learn how to do it, it can make you a lot harder to guard. And so I thought it was really interesting. Victor runs out to

the perimeter, grabs the ball and drew you. Banks is on him, and he's set up with his right foot pivot foot with his back to the basket, and he does a hard reverse pivot out of it right like an over the top I won't even reverse pivot. It

was over the top pivot. And he turns and faces you Banks with his right foot pivot right, and then he does like a reverse jab step where he's got his right foot set up as the pivot, but he jabs like he's going to go to the right, and U Banks just bites on the fake and then from there, keeping that right foot pivot, he just pushes off to the left and then sets his footwork for an easy

pull up jump shot going to his left. And I thought it was really fascinating because again, like I have a hard enough time finding right hand guards that know how to work with a right foot pivot, and here's this nineteen year old seven foot four center that has more polished footwork than a lot of the perimeter players that you'll see playing basketball. And it was just an

incredibly impressive move. As he elevates and knocks down the jump shot, you could literally hear Eddie Johnson and the Phoenix Suns crew going like, what do you do with that? You know, what do you do with that? It was a it was kind of like wild. Everybody on the floor is in shock watching his Wenbin Yama just completely takes over the game. That puts him up by ten.

He adds one more flash, it flashes to the top of the key, knocks down to catch and shoot jump shot to put him up by twelve just for fun, but he completely dominated down the stretch. The Spurs actually played some pretty impressive defense down the stretch as well. You want Nabby at a wide open three in the left corner where Victor Wembnyama's kind of uniquely equipped to be able to help out of the strong side corner on the Devin Booker drive but then still recover out.

He did this like weird like scissor kick Jordan symbol contest on you to want Nabby that just enough to get him to miss the shot. Remember, you do want to not be shot over fifty percent on corner threes last year drew Youubanks his third pivotal mistake down the stretch of the game, missed a point blank layup on the right side of the basket against that Collins that

he's got to make. Katie missed a pull up three that rimmed in and out, and then Jeremy soch On Sohan had a really impressive block on Devin Booker driving towards the left, and so a combination of Victor wenbin Yama's shot making and a high level defense on the other end of the floor and the Spurs notch their third win of the season as they go to three and two. Victor wenbin Yama thirty eight points ten rebounds

to assist with two blocks in his steal. He's averaging twenty one points and eight rebounds in just twenty nine minutes per game. If you extrapolated that out to a thirty six minute night, like most players do when they are in their primes, which I'm sure Victor will eventually do when I would imagine they'll keep him down at twenty nine as a rookie, but don't be surprised if any year or two he's playing, you know, thirty three

to thirty five minutes a game. But in a per thirty six basis, he's scoring two twenty six points and ten rebounds on fifty nine percent true shooting. He's also fifth in the league in stocks that steals plus blocks per game at three point six despite playing just twenty nine minutes. Anthony Davis is in first place in that stat right now, and after last night another clutch scoring broad is third of the season.

hilarious with Victor. When he's on the floor for that twenty nine minutes a game, the Spurs have a one zero, three point six defensive rating, which is the same as the third best team in the league right now, the Orlando Magic. Right so they have a top three defense when Victor's on the floor, but in the big picture, for forty eight minutes a game, they're twenty seventh in defensive rating, giving over one hundred and giving up over

one hundred and sixteen points per one hundred possessions. So, as you can see, they like when Victor's on the floor, they have an elite defense already already an elite defense with Victor on the floor, but they're just so unbelievably atrocious without him that they still have a bad defense

in the league. But most importantly, the Spurs are three and two, so he's putting up unbelievable numbers he's going toe to toe with stars at the end of games, he's single handedly anchoring a top three level defense when he's on the floor and they're winning games, they're three

and two. This is I just hope everybody who's watching this appreciates it for what it is, which is a once in a generation type of player and a guy who, if he's healthy, is going to be an all time great and we're gonna get to watch it and cover it from start to finish, and I hope everybody appreciates it for what it is. Kevin Durant postgame was asked about what elements he sees of himself in Victor's game, and he gave this really, really eloquent answer that.

try to play like? It's like every real hoop head that I know tries to play like all the guys in various different ways, right Like, But for me personally, I've added certain elements in my footwork from Paul George, certain elements of my post game from Kawhi Leonard, certain elements of my kind of like mid range footwork from Kyrie Irving. My step back three has similar footwork to

what you see from James Harden and Kyrie Irving. Right Like, there's as a fan over the years, I've watched all of those guys, all those individual parts of their game and tried to add those things to my game. And that's that's what all of these young basketball players are doing. I guarantee you Victor has wanted to add specific elements of Kd's game to his bag. Kyrie's game, did she have a video of him handling the basketball before the game. It's it's ridiculous. So like, like I agree with KD.

Like Victor's going to carve his own lane. He's a super unique player, and like I feel super fortunate that we're going to get to cover his career from start to finish. It's going to be a lot of fun on the Sun's front. Late game offense continues to be a major issue. They are one in three so far in clutch games. Mean that means any game that involves a score within five points with less than five minutes left. They've played sixteen minutes of clutch basketball and they've been

outscored forty three to thirty one. They're scoring at a rate of just they're scoring at a rate of just eighty six points per one hundred possessions when the scores within five with less than five minutes left, and their defense has been atrocious, they're giving up one hundred and twenty three points per one hundred clutch possession. So bat on both ends of the floor. Big part of it is just not having your main guys out there right, like Kevin Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant and Devin Booker

out there would help a lot down the stretch. I did think they got some good looks, Like, you know, want Nobby makes that corner three, You're in some better shape, right, Drew Ubanks makes that easy little layup under the rim, You're in better shape. Kevin Durant got a pretty good look at the top of the key that he missed. It's so like, at the end of the day, like some of it's shot making, some of it is not having your main personnel. There is a problem at the

center position. And this is something that we talked about before the season. Like you could see the reasoning behind bringing in Nurkic to kind of help with aggressive ball screen coverages. But like Nurkic can't guard, and Drew Eubanks just made three crucial mistakes down the stretch of the game, and so like they kind of have two problematic options there at the center position, and I wonder if that's gonna be something that they have to address down the line.

All right, let's move on to the Milwaukee Bucks. We're gonna do a deep dive here again, Like, just by structuring the show in this matter, it allows me to just really dive into one particular team watch lots and lots of film and pull clips and do video breakdowns and just kind of give a more in depth perspective on individual teams. And so instant reactions are always going to be part of the show. God knows, that's literally what we do the entire playoffs. Like, that's not like

we're not going to do instant reactions. I just want to kind of have a better balance of reacting to games because that's fun, and then also doing deep dives on teams so we can actually learn something about these teams in the bigger picture. So the Bucks are off to two and two start a couple of pretty embarrassing losses.

They got absolutely crushed at home from the opening tip by the Hawks, and then they got absolutely crushed from the opening tip on the road to a Raptors team that in their other five games is one in four and really has struggled to score the basketball, yet had no problem scoring against the Bucks. Now, again, like you guys might remember, from before the season, I predicted that the would struggle.

type of issues that I'm expecting. The offense looks clunky, Damon Giannis don't really seem to know how to play with each other yet, and on the defensive end, they're just they're just terrible, which we're gonna dig into here in a minute.

Had they started the season zho four, everyone would have like been like, oh my gosh, what's wrong with the Los Angeles Lakers right like, But because it happened in the middle of the season, we're just like, oh, they just started playing like shit for a week.

playing bad basketball. And we're gonna dive into it because I like, there are some things that are real personnel limitations that they're gonna have to address over the course of the season, and then there are other things that are like, hey, just do a better job, Like you

gotta do a better job. And as that stuff happens and they play better in those specific roles, like they'll defend a little better, right, And when they defend a little bit better, they'll get more transition opportunities, they'll have more confidence on the offensive end of the four. It's kind of like a snowball effect, and you can see pretty quickly how it turns things around for a team,

and it can happen pretty quick. I mean, the Lakers played like absolute dogshit for the first four games of the season, and then the second four and a half games, and then they came out second half against the Clippers and some stuff clicked into place and suddenly they looked a lot better. And that's what I expect to happen with the Bucks and the big picture. But I want

to dig into the tape for a little bit. So first of all, when I'm going over this, I have two threads on my Twitter feed, and again my Twitter feed is at underscore jsonlt. One of them is on the offensive end of the four. One of them's on the defensive end of the four. Defense is more comprehensive, but I pulled clips from both. What I want to do here is I want to do. I want to just go all in on the defense and talk about

everything that I noticed that went wrong. You're going to want to look through that thread because there's a lot of really good visual representations of the things that I'm talking about. But this is the best way that we can find out why and how the Bucks defense has been as bad as it has been. Now how bad has it been? They are twenty ninth in defensive rating twenty fourth and half court according to Cleaning the Glass. They are the worst transition defense in the NBA by

a mile. They're giving up a transition play on twenty two percent of their defensive possessions, which is dead last in the league. And they're giving up one point six to two points per transition play, which is dead last in the league. On tape, you could see it, and I pulled several clips of this that you'll see in that thread. But like generally speaking, just guys not running back. Dame in particular not picking up the ball in transition.

That was a big problem with him. With Dennis Schroeder, who's good at pushing the pace when they get back in transition, a lot of guys are like running back to the paint and then just staying there instead of spraying out. Transition defense has a very basic principle. You run to the paint first and then you find a man, right, That's what you do, and generally speaking, you stay in the paint until your rim protector gets there, then you fan out, right like when brook Lopez gets back in

the paint, then you go find your shooter. There was a play where Marjon Beauchamp and crowd or both were just or Bobby Portis, I think it was, we're both like standing in the paint and transition as after they sprinted back, everyone's in the paint. There's like four bucks bodies in the paint and they both just immediately start staring at the basketball and stand and watch as the ball just gets swung to the top of the key to a wide open shooter for three. Like that's just

bad transition defense. There are transition plays where guys got beat from behind, meaning like literally no one protected the rim and a guy just ran the right lane the ball got dropped off to Scottie Barnes for an easy layup underneath the basket. Like in general, they're just not doing a good job and like when it comes to

transition defense. You're always at a disadvantage. You're not expecting to lock teams up in transition, but you have to limit frequency and limit the efficiency in those situations by just doing a better job. Spread back to the rim talk get matched up. It's really that simple, and like they're just not doing a good enough job. Like one of the things that fans do a lot. And trust me, I see this with like when I used to cover the Lakers. The stot with Laker fans NonStop, Like is

Frank Vogel is the worst coach in the world. Oh, Vanham's the worst coach in the world. I've been hearing this shit for years. It's what everybody does, right, You blame the coach.

All these things are complicated. How does a team with Joannison Brook Lopez the best defensive front line, one of the best defensive front lines in the league, anchor the twenty ninth ranked defense. A lot of things have to go wrong. Brook's not doing as good of a job as usually does. Giannis isn't doing as good of a job as he usually does. Point of attack defense is an issue backside of rebounding help. We're gonna talk about all of it, but it's a lot of stuff that

goes wrong. There are different schematic things they need to do differently. But again, like fire, you could fire Adrian Griffin's but if they don't, if they don't buy into whatever the next coach is doing and actually execute whatever his scheme is, it's gonna fail anyway. And so again, like a lot of times, we get it's easy to just point a finger at the coach, but like the players are out there playing the games, and they got to do their.

which is getting them into mismatches. Then when the Bucks try to scram them out of mismatches, those guards aren't rotating. There's a play that you'll see on that thread that I put out there, or Damian Lillard switches aside pick and roll, probably shouldn't have switched it to begin with. Right then he ends up in a post mismatch that Yannis SCRAMs him out of. But when Yannis SCRAMs him out of the mismatch, now what does that mean to scram somebody out of a mismatch? So like the side

ball screen, Dame switches it. Now he's on a big wing right in that position. What you're trying to do is before they make the post entry in that gap, when the post player is asking for the ball, and when they make the post entry, you're trying to basically pre rotate out of it. So you want Giannis in this case to sprint over and go to Dame's man as Dame is running out to the shooter basically allowing you it's it's kind of like a wheel and you

quickly rotate out of it. And then now all of a sudden, the mismatch isn't there and Giannis is in the post. Well, on this play, Giannis goes to scram Dame out of the switch, and Dame just kind of like floats around in the middle of the floor and ends up giving up a wide open three in the process. Like that's just bad defense, that's just that's that's just a guy not doing his job in the scheme. Probably shouldn't have switched that screen. That should be all side

ball screens. You want ice, right because especially against a team like the Raptors that aren't good pull up shooters, if you ice the screen, that means as the guy comes to set the ball screen on the wing, as the ball handler is trying to come off, you deny him the screen. You jump high side and force him to go back towards the baseline, and then your dropping Whoever, your guy who's guarding the screener sits back in that spot.

The nobody really on the raptors in the raptors forwards is a good enough shooter to justify like panic chasing him around, You offer a late closeout.

died on the screen and said switch. And that's why, like it, we don't know what's actually going on now, it does inevitably in the big picture come back on coaching, because this is game four, right, If it's still happening in game twelve, and the scheme is you're supposed to ice it, but they're switching it instead. Then that's an accountability issue, and now it falls back on the coach for the coach not actually making sure that the players are aware that they're expected to do their jobs and

that there's some sort of fallout from that. Not that you're gonna remove Dame from the game, but you got to somehow get in his ear and get him to do his job. If that's the case, but we don't know. It could also just be Adrian Griffin calling for a switch there. So like that sort of thing is an example of a schematic approach that they need to change. But that concept of the guards being incapable of navigating

screens is a problem. There was a play where Malik Beasley in a ball screen with Yaka Purtle and Dennis Schroeder, saw the ball screen come in, did a nice job sidling over the top of the screen. I actually did a good job on this possession, chested it up Dennis Schroder and cut him off. But then Dennis Schroeder literally just hit him with a slight hesitation move and Molik

froze and Dennis went right by him downhill. And then on the play, brook Lopez, who's guarding a non shooter in Yaka Pearl, was way too high at the level of the screen behind the play. And then when he tried to get back into the play to block Dennis Schroeder at the rim, he had to like sell out for it, and it was an easy drop off for Yaka Purl for a dunk going down the lane. And again, like execution, you gotta get a better job at the point of attack from Malik Beasley. There schematics, what is

brook Lopez doing? Why is he not in a deeper drop. Yakka Peurl's not gonna hurt you in that situation. I saw like there was a I think Brooke thought that Malik cut him off and figured it was gonna flow into a dribble hand off with Gary Trent Junior coming out of the corner, in which case Gary Trent Junior is a good pull up shooter and he might have to show high. But even then you sit back in the drop further back to help on the Dennis Schroeder drive.

Then if if he gets rid of the basketball, then you sprint back up to the level of screen. That's that yo, yo, We always talk about you got to go back to the rim for help up to the level of the screen when the coverage dictates it. Back to the rim for help up to the level of the screen when the coverage dictates it. So like, in general, like that to me, is brook Lopez either being in the wrong spot schematically or blowing the coverage. How do

we know that Adrian Griffin hasn't told him? Hey on, Dennis Schroeder, ball screens sit in a deeper drop like we don't know. And so again like that's where it's hard to really identify who the culprit is. The execution is poor, but at the same time we don't know

if that's actually what the scheme is calling for. But in general, against a team that is not a good pull up jump shooting team but also your point of attack defense this week, you have to sit in more conservative ballscreen coverages, meaning your big man has to sit further back towards the rim. Way too often they were caught up at the level, so when they got b there was no help at the rim.

right on the play. As Schroeder comes off the dribble hand off, Jay Crowder jumps out and switches onto Schroeder on the left wing. So imagine, in this case you've got Bobby Portis, who's guarding the screener who is Yaka Pertl In this case, he's sitting back at the semi circle. Okay, Dennis Schroeder now has the ball up on the left

wing and Crowder has switched out onto him. So in this case, because Crowder switched, Pat Conaton, who is guarding Schroeder, now has to switch on to Pascal Siakam, but he doesn't. They botched the switch. So as Crowder switches, Conatent stays home for just a split second. That gives Yaka Pearl the angle to turn and quickly flip the screen the

backscreen on content. Had Content been paying attention and they switched properly, he would have been in position to navigate the screen better, but he wasn't, so Yaka Pearl just lays the wood on him and hits him with a good solid screen. And then Schroeder throws the over the top pass to Siakam, who then catches and rips down the lane to the basket. So we have poor execution on the switch. But then there's the poor schematic approach.

Because Bobby portis guarding a non shooter in Perdle in an action with two other non shooters in Siakam and Schroeder, he's way up at the foul line. So when Content's trailing the play and Siakam rips through the right, he's got an easy lane down to the rim, Whereas if yak whereas if Bobby portis is running that conservative drop I'm talking about and sitting back, he can offer help on the Siakam drive, which then you can rotate out of. So again, like it's not just the schematics, there's poor

execution taking place as well. Right now they're getting really poor perimeter defense play out of Malik Beasley, out of Damian Lillard, and out of Pat Conaton in particular. But you see it elsewhere on the floor as well. Bobby Portis one play, just got absolutely toasted on a straight up one on one drive by Scotty Barnes, just literally just faced him up. Portis is there sitting in a stance and he just goes right by him to the left and makes a left handed layup off the glass.

There is another play Chris Middleton guarding Pascal Siakam on the right wing. Some of it was bad techniques Pascal Siakam's Pascal Siakam has not shot over thirty five percent from three since twenty twenty, and Middleton hard closes out to his shooting hand and Siakam just rips through the base and so like again, Chris Middleton giving up a straight line drive to a non shooter probably shouldn't happen. Right on the same play, Giannis got switched out on

Dennis Schroeder. Jay Crowder was guarding Yaka Peerl in the post. Yakaperle posted up on him not just to call for the ball, but to clear out the help side Jay Crowder instead of fighting around to the front so that he could offer help. He just stayed on the backside. So when Middleton got beat by Siakam towards the baseline, he just went right to the rim and laid it up. And there was no help because Jay Crowder didn't do his job by fronting the post to get into a

position where he could help on the drive. So again, like most of this is execution, I would argue, and like, I don't think you're gonna see some sort of dramatic change in defensive scheme until guys just start doing a better job. It's been a consistent problem throughout the start of the season. There's the help and recover decisions have

been poor. Like there's another play where Grady Day got a wide open three on the right wing because literally Malachi Flynn is running a ball screen on the left wing and he's kind of working downhill, but brook Lopez has it under control and Jay Crowder just sinks all the way into the elbow and gives up an easy kickout three to Grady Dick. Grady Dick knocks down the three. You literally see Jay Crowder go my bad again. That's

not a schematic thing. That's just a guy doing a bad job and then they cannot like for whatever reason, they just allowed the Toronto big post players to attack their small guards in the post without help. There were two clips I pulled in the late second quarter. You guys can find him in that thread where Pat Connitton and Malik Beasley got posted up by Scotty Barnes. And on both plays you can see guys glued up off the ball on players like o g nnob in Pascal Siakam.

There is one in particular where Dame is glued up on Schroeder. Siakam has Jay Crowder glued up on him, and Scotty Barnes is posting up Malik Beasley and it goes on for like five seconds. And on the play it would be so easy just for Crowder to double team to get the ball out of Scotty Barnes's hands.

The pass is going to go out to Pascal Siakam, Dame rotates over, which is going to lead to a swing back to Schroeder, and Malik Beasley closes out to Schroeder, who has one of the slowest releases in the league, and you take all of a sudden mismatch gone Crowder's now on that post player Siakam's on dame, but you can scram out of that one too, Like problem solved. No, they just let Malik Beasley on an island try to guard a massive Scottie Barnes who shot an easy hook

shot over the top. And then they did it the very next possession against Pat Connaton and did the exact same thing and left him on an island. So it's a failure at all levels. A failure at the point of attack, a failure in your ball screen coverages from your screen defenders who are just not doing a good job right now, even Brook Lopez just not doing a good job right now, failure of your help and recover, and the last, but not least, a failure to grab

defensive rebounds. A consistent problem in that Toronto Raptors game was just guys standing around and watching well, guys were crashing from the perimeter to get those rebounds. There is a play where Gary Trent Junior grabbed an offensive rebound from his ass on the ground while multiple Bucks stood around and watched like and it led to a wide open three on the left wing that went in. So like, it's it's a problem. They're fourteenth and defensive rebounding percentage

so far this year. They were second last year. Most of that is just effort, So again, schematically, there are a couple of things that got to do a better job of protecting their small guys in post mismatches and so for starters, don't switch if you can avoid it, like especially against teams like that that are power teams that don't have good pull up shooting. Just trail your

smaller player over the top. Don't switch the screen right when you do end up in a transition cross match, or you have to switch and there's a post mismatch, you have to double and rotate out of it. And the last, but not least, your ball screen coverages have to be more conservative because your perimeter defense is not good. You're giving up too many straight line drives and guys are getting over the top of ball screens too easy, so you have to sit further back. Again, you got

to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your defense. Your strength is your back line. This is not a team I don't think that is capable of becoming a top five defense, but they might be able to get into that ten to fifteen range. If they get elite at protecting the rim and elite at grabbing contested rebounds on the defensive end, what's.

It's just everyone in the roster's got to do a better job and you've got to make some schematic adjustments for your specific group of personnel on the offensive end.

like Damon Giannis just assumed they were gonna blitz. They don't blitz. Og stays home, Dennis chases Dame, throws the pocket pass as if it's a blitz in a slip, and it just gets easily stolen. And then they go the other way, and then they went back to it a few possessions later on the right wing, and Dame identified that it wasn't gonna be a blitz, and Giannis set a better pick, and Dame came out off free and clear and got a good look at a twenty four foot pull up three. He just missed it. Now

that's gonna be an issue to start the season. Dame is out of shape, clearly. He's seven for twenty two on pull up jump shots, just forty six percent in effective field goal percentage waited for threes, three for eleven on catch and shoot jump shots, and all of them are getting left short. He's leaving consistently pull up jump shots short on the rim. That one I just told

you about. That second Yiannis stayin ball screen barely grazed the front of the rim, so like he's also fifty three percent at the rim, by the way, So like, do I think Dame's gonna consistently misshots?

you running that? Why isn't that a thing? If for no other he's another than to build the continuity and like kind of like experience with that action because they're gonna need to lean on it when you get down the.

shot while they were open shooters on the wing. And like again, that's where getting him in an advantage situation operating off of Dame's ball screens is a great way to make him a more effective half court player. He's settling for a ton of pull up jump shots. Not so much in the Toronto game, but it's just because they were getting their ass kicked. But in the season so far, he's taken thirteen pull up jump shots already. Like why why is Giannis taking thirteen pull up jump

shots already? Like I just shouldn't be the case. So like at the end of the day, like dam and Giannis just got to play better. Like I said before, like sometimes you're just playing shitty basketball, and right now your stars are playing shitty basketball. One thing I saw

that was kind of optimistic. There was an action in the first half in the first quarter where Damian Lillard and Chris Middleton ran a pick and roll or picking like a ball screen and the Raptors switched it got Dennis Schroeder onto Chris Middleton, threw the ball to Chris Middleton, and he took an easy left shoulder fade over Dame on the baseline or over a Dennis on the baseline for an easy bucket. Like that's another way to kind of identify an entry point in the defense. Those one

to three pick and rolls are almost always switches. It's a great way to get a small defender onto Chris or a bigger defender on the Dame and then you can enter the offense from there. But flatly, the Stars have to play better on the offensive end. The Stars have to play better on the defensive end. Everybody at every level, from the coaching staff down to the point of attack defense, down to the ball screen defense, down to help defense, to the defensive rebounding. Everybody's got to

do a better job. Am I worried about the Bucks? No, this was definitely a worse start than I was expecting though, But I did say I said, expect the Bucks to struggle throughout the regular season, just because this is a team that's gonna have to figure out how to win a different way. But make no mistake. If they do figure that out at some point before the end of the season, they're gonna be a very dangerous playoff team. All right, guys, that is all I have for today.

We're gonna be back tonight after the Nuggets Mavericks game in the late night ESPN slates, So I'm not sure exactly which games will be covering tonight, but we'll do two or three instant reactions, then we're gonna take the weekend off, and then we'll get back on Monday with it some instant reactions and some deep dives at that point. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you later tonight. The volume