Hoops Tonight - Cavaliers LIGHT UP Thunder, why Cleveland is SPECIAL + NBA panic meter

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hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoos tonight here at the volume heavy Thursday. Everybody, hope all the guys are having a great We got a jam packed show for you today. We had a showdown

that has never happened before an NBA history. A team on a ten game winning streak and a team on a fifteen game winning streak facing off in Cleveland, as the Cavs get a very impressive win, hanging one hundred and twenty nine points on an Oklahoma City defense that has never allowed that many points this season. I watched the game live last night and I rewatched it this morning. We're going to do a mega deep dive on that game.

Then on the tail end of the show. Yesterday in the afternoon, I took some time to get caught up on a bunch of stuff that happened while I was on vacation and watched a bunch of crunch time sequences from a bunch of specific games. And so I have four big takeaways that I want to get into from that, you know, Sunday through Tuesday stretch while I was out of town. Then we'll be done for the day. You

guys did the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, Underscore, JSNLT so you guys don't missow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also helpful v leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have bring new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where where we are releasing

content throughout the season for the Hoops Tonight channel. So make sure you guys follow us there and then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions into our YouTube comments so that we can get to them on Fridays throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So once again, just like I talked about in the Celtics under the Celtics Thunder game from a few days ago, the competence of these two teams really

stood out, specifically on the offensive end. How many times did you see a guy cutting along the baseline and finding a gap between the off ball defenders and finding that little sweet spot and someone drop it off to them and they get an easy layup, sometimes big, sometimes guards right. How many times did you see Oklahoma City drive and then run into help but then have like an obvious easy drop off past to Hartenstein for that

little lefty floater that he always makes. How many times did you see Evan Mobley seemingly like nowhere guys are gonna be before it happens and catch on the short roll and turn and just throw a love to Jared Allen seemingly without even looking or turn and throw the ball to the weak side corner just like rapid reads. Right. How many times did you see especially for the Calves Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland driving into the lane and making that skip pass out to the weak side corner.

This is all by design. These are concepts that have been practiced rel lentlessly and have now become habits for these teams. That's the difference between the talented teams that succeed and the talented teams that fail in this league. It's that type of attention to detail. On both ends of the floor. They have a plan. Both teams have a plan. Okay, we got downhill in pick and roll, where's everybody supposed to be? What are the reds? Like? Okay they if there's low man help, here's what I do.

If there's no low man help, here's what I do. Like you're reading these guys and making these basic decisions, because there is a plan that is in place for everything. You can run into when you're driving to the basket, when you're posting up, and you could just see that organization leading to offensive efficiency for two teams that are very good defenses. The Cleveland Cavaliers scored one hundred and twenty nine points on that Oklahoma City defense last night.

That's the most they've allowed all season. It's the first time okac's allowed over one hundred and ten points in seven games. It's the first time they've allowed over one hundred and twenty points since November seventeenth, over a month and a half half ago. Every CAV contributed at various points in the game. I want to start with Darius Garland. He continues to just blow me away with his ability

to dribble past basically every defender in the league. Ice the game last night with just a straight up dribble drive against Keason Wallace, a quick right to left crossover to an immediate attack, dribble, gets past Kaseon Wallace, gets in the lane, gets a layup. All night long, through ball screens and ISOs, he was getting the ball into the paint and spraying it out to shooters or dropping it off to finishers. That was the big thing that led to the late game adjustment that got Cleveland's so

much success in the half court. Because Darius Garland was getting downhill, they started the Thunder started hedging pretty hard with Isaiah Hartenstein like, kept bringing him way out to the screen so that Darius couldn't turn the corner. And again the idea there is one, you're trying to stop Darius from turning the corner. But two. Oklahoma City's done that a lot this year, like blitzing hedging, bringing the big man up high in ball screens. Why because they

really trust their ability to rotate. This is something I've been talking about all year. Oklahoma City's rotations out of blitzes and hedges have been fantastic all year. In order to beat that coverage, you have to be so crisp with your passing. Darius Garland brought that coverage with his ability to get downhill, and then they started to beat the thunder on the short roll toss over the top to Jared Allen slipping out of the Hartenstein screen or

the Hartenstein hedge. Jared Allen drops it off to Mobli big dunk in crunch time. A couple possessions later, Mobley's Heartenstein's on Mobley this time, same exact thing. Hartenstein goes out the hedge, Mobley slips, Garland throws it over the top.

Mobley goes into the lane that was the one where lou Dort tried to swipe over the top of his head and picked up the foul drew another bucket on that right or another scoring opportunity out of that then because that hedge was killing him, the Thunder had to switch. When they switched, Darius Garland shoots that three over Isaiah Hartenstein at the top of the key, but now Jared Allen's being boxed out by Keason Wallace. Now, for the record, didn't really matter who was boxing out is Jared Allen.

He was getting everything anyway, But on that possession, it was like the easiest offensive rebound he had all game because of the fact that he's got Kayson Wallace on it.

So Darius Garland's dribble penetration forced a coverage from the Thunder in crunch time that he was beating with the over the top pass to the short roller, and then consistently Alan and Mobley, who were both amazing in this game, were making the Thunder pay in those four on threes out of that action, which again is something that Oklahoma City has done a great job covering for all season long. Right, But I thought it was a super encouraging Darius Garland game.

Again because it's a huge national TV game. His co star Donovan Mitchell has a rough night. The team desperately needed him to carry the offense for stretches and he had to close the game and crunch time, and he just continues to get wherever he wants on the floor

and make really good decisions when he gets there. Even the shots that he misses, it feels like he's getting good separation, or he's just screaming downhill into the lane and he happens to miss layup in traffic or have it turnover, but he's getting dribble penetration, he's getting separation. His ability to move around on the floor while controlling the basketball is really breaking defenses right now. He's already having a breakout season, but I think he's poised to

have a breakout postseason as well. And then Jared Allen, He's probably the MVP of this game for the Cavs, did absolutely everything on offense, just catching and finishing everything around the rim. He shouldn't seventy percent from the field this season. He just has such good hands, even in traffic. It's like the opposite of the Rudy Gobert thing where it's like it damages Minnesota spacing because he can't catch

and finish anything in traffic. Jared Allen catches and finishes everything, even if it's a few feet away from the rim and he's got to take a little hook or a floater. His ability to catch and finish unlocks so much for this offense, and then good decisions on his rolls to the rim. Six assists and zero turnovers. This goes with Mobli too, They had thirteen assists between the two of them. But he was just doing so much damage as a finisher.

As a roller, he was demolishing everyone on the offensive glass. Late in the game, in particular, he was just crushing Isaiah Hartenstein with rebounding position. Just an absolutely monster game. His defensive versatility is big in this one, the ability to protect the rim but also to credibly switch out onto the perimeter. The Cavs did a lot of switch They've been doing a lot of switching all season. I think we need to have a discussion about where Jared

Allen ranks among centers. In the summertime, I used to think Jarrett was kind of in that like eight to twelve range among starting centers in this league, behind guys like Sibonis, behind guys like bam At a Bio, behind guys like Rudy Gobert. But we need to be realistic about Jarrett's value to this team. I talk a lot about the difference between the value in a vacuum that a basketball player has versus the value on a specific team.

Jamal Murray is the example I always use, right, Like, Jamal Murray's not a good defensive player, and when he has to lead units by himself, he can struggle as a shot creator. But like alongside Jokic, his ability to play in that two man game as a shot maker legit helped the Nuggets win a championship. And it's in that specific role his value is immense, even relative to what he would be outside of this situation. And that's

how I feel about Jared Allen. Like, does Jared Allen have the ability to create shots for his teammates the way that bam Adebio does or Demonis Sabonis does or

Alprin Shane Goon does. No, that's not his game. But he's so great at the specific things that Cleveland needs him to do, like the screening, the short role, decision making and scoring, the finishing everything that he catches around the basket, the offensive rebounding, the defending at the rim, and the switching is in this scheme, he actually impacts winning at a higher level than a lot of those guys. I've seen him legit outplay some of the top centers

in the league this year. I think you could make a case that Jared Allen's better than a lot of these centers that are in that tier below Nikole Jokics, Joel and beat An Anthony Davis. And again, I've seen him out play a few of those guys. I think he's probably closer to that group than he is to the rest of the group in terms of his specific impact on this specific team. He's like the ultimate, like tip of the spear, finishing everything on both ends of

the floor on the Evan Mobley front. Obviously, he did so many good things throughout this game, defending, rebounding, running action. I was impressed by how confident and comfortable he looked. One of the big things that stood out to me is they ran that little off ball action for him when Jalen Williams was on him, and he like kind of curled up to the elbow right around the foul line and like just rose up off the move and knocked down that jumper. That's a movement jump shot from

the mid range. For a big guy, that's a tough shot. It's a tough shot to have touch on. And he just looked so comfortable as he like rose up into that shot and knocked it down. He was trying to dunk in traffic a lot too, like it like, which is a big confidence thing, like none of these guys can stop me. I'm just gonna go up and dunk this. But I thought the big thing that stood out to me for Evan Mobley, I thought that was one of the best games I've seen him play as a roller.

Remember that used to be his Achilles hill. That that's what got him beat in the Knicks series two years ago. If you remember, is Mitchell Robinson was able to credibly defend Jared Allen in the dunker spot and Evan Mobley on the short role because Evan Mobley wasn't scoring or playmaking efficiently enough out of that spot. So much better this year in general, but specifically in this game, one of the best games I've ever seen him play as

a role man. He has all the reads now, this thing where like he knows when he catches on the short role and he turns and he sees a defender and Jared Allen's there. He doesn't even have to like really think about it. He just knows. I know I'm slipping, which means when I'm slipping, my defender is back at the ball handler. So I'm no longer worried about my defender. The only defender I'm worried about is Jared Allen's defender. So as soon as I catch I'm turning and looking

at Jared Allen's defender. If he's not there, I'm looking to quickly score. If he's there, all I'm doing is throwing the ball up into that big open area anywhere to the left side of the rim, and he's just gonna go up and donkey. Even with the there were several sequences when Jared Allen was off the floor of what was guards right, and it was the same sort of thing, like if the guard met him far out, he would just immediately turn and rifle the pass to

the corner. If the guard was meeting him under the rim, he was power dribbling and making a quick, efficient post move to get an easy finish, a strong finish around the basket. If some of the best role man work I've seen Evan Mobley do in his career again a huge game. Twenty one points, ten rebounds, and seven assists from Evan Mobley and then Donovan Mitchell like it's it's funny because obviously it was a nightmare shooting game for him.

Wasn't getting great looks. Lou Dort started on him, and lou Dort did a really nice job, but he was even missing some of the better looks that he gets. He also channeled some of his old Donovan Mitchell where he was kind of forcing things that time throughout the game. But to his credit, I want to give Donovan Mitchell some credit for this. I thought his work in the Garland off unit in the late third quarter was excellent. He started to take what the defense was giving him.

Ok See all night on. Both teams really were doing this all night long, but Okaysee in particular was super aggressive with their low man help all game long, meaning like playing up in ball screens, bringing Hartenstein up and then bringing the guy off of the weak side corner to tag rollers. They were doing that all game long, and it's just the way Oklahoma City plays defense. They trust their ability to close out, so they're going to be aggressive on the ball and trust their ability to

rotate on the weak side. But in those situations, the red is the corner skip. In three consecutive times in the late third quarter, Donovan Mitchell made that exact same read, once to Georgia Niang in the right corner, twice to Karis Lavert in the left corner. Niang missed his, but it was wide open. It just happened to not go in. And then Karris Lavert made both of his. They were huge shots in that late third quarter run. And then he hit a couple of big threes of his own

in this game. He hit that pull up three on the right wing on the play where Lou Dort flopped, and then one of the biggest shots in the game, that transition three he hit in the right corner off of the kickout pass from Darius Garland. Again, you know, I talk about this all the time, but like when I'm having a bad game, I always just think, like, find a way to make a play. You know, Like if I'm having a bad game but my team's in the game, I'm always just thinking, like, just find a

way to make a play, Like, dude, do something. It doesn't really matter how much he fucked up early, as long as you make a play that helps my team win this game, because then I can live with it. I can live with whatever. I can address whatever I'm doing that's causing me to play poorly. I can address that after the game. In this game, though, I just

need to find a way to make a play. And on a night where Donovan Mitchell couldn't make a shot, he made several huge plays just using his downhill athleticism to create corner threes for good shooters that helped turn the game around for him at least. And then on the role player front, I mean the big thing that I would say with these Cavs role players, everyone talks about their shooting once again, big game against an elite defense.

These guys were stepping into kind of contested a little bit rushed catch and shoot shots and kocking them down again. Oklahoma City's amazing with their closeouts. I've been talking about this a lot this year and a lot in this show, like that's why they hedge and blitz a lot in ball screens. Of the twenty seven catch and shoot jump shots that Cleveland generated, only seven of them were unguarded.

That's what playoff shooting looks like you're playing against better defenses who are playing more desperately, and that makes it so that those unguarded catch and shoot jump shots are pretty few and far between. You need to shoot quickly and confidently against a good close out, and all night long, Cleveland's role guys were shooting in those situations confidently and knocking down shots. Dan Wade three for four from three, Max Strews five for six from three. Max hits some

really tight window shots. He's really worked on quickening his release and shooting while he's contested. Why because that's what you need to do when you're in the postseason. Lavert hit those two big corner threes I talked about, Niang even hit one. Cleveland just continues to hit shots as the circumstances get tougher around them. That's really the crux of what makes Cleveland's offense so great. It's the combination of shot creation talent with a ton of playmaking and

shooting among the role players. The shot creation talent like Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley, they all do a good job getting the defense in rotation. Even Max Struce ran in some good action in this game, but off of them, everybody can pass. They had five players with at least four assists, Evan Mobley and Jared Allen. You're big guys, the big guys that botch most of these situations for other teams. Thirteen assists. This is connective passing.

This is what turns a small advantage into a bigger advantage, into an opportunity to finish the play against a great defense. Those are the hedges and the hedges and blitzes that Oklahoma City has done against other teams that have flummixed to them. The reason why Cleveland beat them so easily last night is it's like it's just the balls popping. It's like to the role man, easy quick read. Everyone's quickly making the read and quickly getting the ball out

on time, on target. And then when they're in a tight space situation at the end of a play, they don't piss down their leg. They confidently rise up into a confident shot, into a contested shot, and knock it down. Thirty six assists on forty seven made baskets just a beautiful offensive game from the Cavs against a truly elite defensive team. And then Kenny Atkinson. I thought he was the MVP of the night. Defensively, he was really coaching

this game possession by possession. He helped fuel that late second quarter run with some curve balls that he threw at Oklahoma City. He threw a random blitz at Shay that forced him to just throw the ball out of bounds on the left sideline, and then he randomly went zone a couple possessions in a row at the end of the first half and got two stops out of it. Big part of how Cleveland took the lead before the half.

And then he went to a ton of zone in the fourth quarter and it completely flum mixed Oklahoma City. They ran twelve possessions of zone in the fourth quarter, they allowed just eight points and forced three turnovers. The big thing that's different, the reason why their zone was working too. They were playing an aggressive zone versus a passive zone. There's a lot of teams that will sit in a zone and they'll just kind of slide back and forth to different parts of the zone as the

ball gets swung around, but they're not really pressuring. They're not really like being aggressive at all in the zone, and so the good teams will just pass it around until they get a decent shot and they knock it down right. Cleveland was being aggressive in their zone. Ti Jerome Oh Isaiah Hartenstein caught at the elbow and he's turning and looking to go. Ty Jerome's ignoring the top because Isaiah Hartenstein doesn't even have his head a turn to the top and he just swipes at the ball,

knocks it away. Oh Hartenstein flashed to the top of the key. Jdub's gonna throw a little entry pass, but Jared Allen is just going to shoot that passing lane because he's not playing passively. A lot of teams will concede that catch. Not Cleveland, They're trying to be aggressive into that passing lane. Again, three turnovers against the zone. With the zone in that fourth quarter, it successfully disrupted Oklahoma City's rhythm at key points in the game, which

fueled runs for the Caps. Again. I thought Kenny Atkinson was the defensive MVP of that game, and then all the Oklahoma City front a lot of good in this game. Like Shay, I thought early in the game, he was forcing things a bit. It reminded me a bit of the Milwaukee game where he just was missing some shots, so he just kept shooting tough shots just about every time down the floor. But I thought he eventually caught his rhythm, and I thought he played a pretty solid

floor game the rest of the way. His shot mark shot making is just remarkable. It actually reminds me, I was thinking about this last night. It reminds me a bit of Kobe in the sense that, like the team kind of depends on him to take, you know, sometimes like twenty five to thirty shots in a game, and they may not be the most efficient shots, but they're just him grinding out offense when things kind of bogged down. And again, a lot of really tough shot making in

those sequences. So in that respect, it reminds me a bit of Kobe. He did get caught off guard a little bit by some of the coverages he saw tonight, turned the ball over a bit too much, But I thought, overall, I thought Shape played a pretty good game. And then

I thought Jayalen Williams was awesome. He had twenty five, five and nine, kept getting the ball into the pot paint and making good reads some really impressive footwork hit like step through move off of the right shoulder pivot where he just kind of kept going towards the rim. That was a ridiculous move. A lot of really really big plays from Jalen Williams in this game. I thought

kese On Wallace was brilliant. He was the beneficiary of a lot of those corner skips in Okc's offense, because again Cleveland was bringing a lot of low man help too, and kase On Wallace was the guy that was catching a lot of those. He went three for three from three. He's six for eleven from three in his last four games. Starting to shoot the ball well, some of his transition pushes to just like he did in the Celtics game.

Hartenstein's game was interesting to me. He had a monster box score game eighteen points, eleven rebounds, and eight assists, kind of like a Demonisa Bonus type of stat line, right, and he did a lot of good His lefty floater, obviously, is such an important foundation to Oklahoma City spacing to release valve when those guards get on their drives to the basket, hitting backdoor cutters, setting good screens. He did damage on the offensive glass as well as much damage

as Jared Allen did. He had seven offensive rebounds Hardenstein had five, so he got some of it back on the other end. But I thought he looked pretty cool, clearly exhausted down the stretch. I thought he was getting tossed around like a rag doll by Jared Allen. I thought he looked a step slow. And one thing I'll say about that as a as like kind of a positive for Oklahoma City. This is where Chet is very important, not only because he's so damn good, but because he

will help keep Hartenstein's minutes down. If you can keep him instead of in the low thirties, somewhere in the mid twenties, like twenty five minutes a game, it'll make it so that he can maintain the high motor that makes him so good. Again, especially in the early Knicks days before Mitchell Robinson got hurt, it was the fact that Hartenstein could come in and play half the game

and play super hard. It's like the Gafford Lively concept, like when you've got a really good center, but he also doesn't have to worry about doing a ton of work for thirty something minutes a game. It allows him to just play his ass off every second that he's on the floor, which leads to an increased productivity, and that's something that I think CHET will help with overall coming out of this game. Just like I said after the Celtics Thunder game, I don't see the point and

making sweeping declarations after one regular season game. These two teams play again in a week in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City will be favored in that game and they probably will win it. I still see all three of these teams more or less in the same tier. I think I still lean in terms of ranking them right the second. Obviously, we'll get more serious about it when we get closer to the postseason, but right now I lean slightly to Boston,

then slightly to Cleveland, then slightly to Oklahoma City. But the separation is negligible for me. This will be determined in the playoffs in a seven game series, almost certainly between Boston and Cleveland, and likely potentially with Oklahoma City as well. And honestly, just I'm thankful because things got a little slow there in December, and we've had some really good games to cover over the course of the last few weeks, which has been really nice. All right,

So I have four takeaways for you guys. Yesterday in the afternoon. As I told you, every time I go out of town, I try very much to disconnect from work. I actually have a male bad question about that we're going to get into that you guys will hear tomorrow. But I came back into town and I needed to work yesterday. But like, I didn't want to be watching a film all day and not have an episode come

out until it's super late at night. So I put out something quickly, and I finally took some time yesterday in the afternoon to just sit back and watch a bunch of film, and I checked out a bunch of crunch time sequences from a bunch of different games, and I have some takeaways. So four takeaways from the few days that I was out of town. Number one, Yeah, it's way too early to try to bury Anthony Edwards

right after everyone tried to bury him last week. And Ant's last three games, he's averaging forty one points per game, shooting fifty nine percent from three on thirteen attempts per game. He saved that Clippers game with two. Norm Powell gets an and one on a drive to the basket and he hits two. Just completely ridiculous step back threes. He also had this like crazy contested and one finish with

his right hand against Vikazubats. But like if you watch those possessions, particularly the two step back threes, there's no space to operate. The guards that are on him are pressing up on him because they know that they have help behind. It is a shit show of spacing. But Ant just has such an incredible ability to get separation in the lift. That's the key separation is step one.

The ability to even just throw that in and out dribble with the with your right foot kind of extending out to get that a little bit of separation from the defender. But to be able to do that against an elite NBA athlete and legit get separation. And he tells, sometimes you'll take that extra side step two, but get that separation. But then also after making that ridiculous separation move, the ability to also get enough lift out of your legs to knock that shot down. Both of those were

tough contest. The second one was like twenty seven feet and he just nails it because again he can get so much lyft with his athleticism in those situations. That's what's always been so intriguing to me about the idea of a true apex athlete also becoming an excellent shooter. This is like the concept of like, can you imagine if Michael Jordan played in the modern NBA. And I'm

not comparing Aunt to Michael. I'm just saying if you took an apex athlete like Michael Jordan, who was as obsessively competitive as he was, who was as good of a shooter from mid range as he was, and you put him in the modern NBA, he's the guy. He would be doing a lot of this type of intense three point shot making. This is what it looks like to see an apex athlete that also is one of

the best shooters in the world. And I just again, do not give up on this kid just because the Timberwolves are super weird, just because the Timberwolves did weird stuff to their roster, and while every team in the league, Like you want to know the difference, just go watch

the calves. All those drop offs to Jared Allen and he makes he shoots seventy percent this season, all those kickout passes to Max Strus, They have a tendency to go in the ones to Jada McDaniels and the ones to go bear don't, and so the defense ignores them and sits in the paint. I wouldn't give up on this kid. I understand there's some weaknesses. I understand he's got to grow up a little bit in some ways. I understand that there's some shots selection stuff, some playmaking stuff.

There's stuff that he's got to get better at, no doubt. But I would bet on the apex athlete that's one of the best shooters in the league but is also obsessively competitive and has that alpha dog mentality and trust himself at the end of games, been one of the best clutch players in the league this year. The Timberwolves are still weird. Two three game losing streaks in this

last you know, eighteen game span. It's funny because everyone pantings around them around that stretch of like everyone that I saw was panicking about Wolves around the stretches, and I get it, and I don't think there's some sort of dead serious team at this point. But it's been kind of a weird sequence because in their last eighteen games, if you take those two three game losing streaks out,

they're eleven to one. They've been winning, and they just had these brief week stretches where they just let go their open They look really bad. It's been kind of a shit show of good and bad. They're second in defense in this eighteen game span, but they're twenty fourth in offense one oh nine offensive rating, mostly because of

the spacing issues we talked about earlier. The good teams, just like we talked about with Oklahoma City and Cleveland, they're going to load up and trust their ability to close out on the week side. You have to have sound spacing principles and guys who can consistently finish plays in those principles and go Barren McDaniels to struggle with that. Although Jaden made an insane three in the corner at

the end of that one at that Clippers game. Second big takeaway Victor wemin Yama needs to find a way to stop settling for jump shots all the time at the end of games. Disclaimer here, Wemby for me, is entering into rare territory in terms of the way I'm talking about him. Wemby's been kicking ass this year and is way ahead of Skale, so I'm not just trying

to be nitpicky, just to be a dick. I'm just saying, as I'm starting to change the standard that I'm evaluating Victor women Yam at now I'm looking at how does he get from where he's at to being the best

player in the world. A big one for me in that in Wemby's development will be finding something that is closer to the rim for him as a late game go to sequence, so that he doesn't rely so much on perimeter jump shooting at the end of these games there are guards who have to because they don't have the ability to get wherever they want close to the basket.

Wemby does. The Spurs just blew a game on Monday in Chicago where they led by seven with three minutes left, and the Bulls are feisty for the record, like zach Lavin is hooping, nikol Vusovich is shooting the hell out of the ball from three. Kobe White made two absurd plays at the end. Everyone saw the dunk when he drove that close out off the left wing, but he had to play right before that where he went iso on Victor women Yama and like ducked underneath him with

a little scoop shot. It was a ridiculous finish. The Bulls are playing some fun basketball, but down the stretch it looked a lot like some of these other Spurs games this year where they start settling for pull up jump shots. Teams are ignoring Jeremy Sohan and forcing him to make catch and shoot jump shots. Wemby missed another kind of like jab step. It was a decent look. It was a little pull up mid range shot around

the right elbow, but it was a long two. It's like probably a nineteen footer, twenty footer, and it's and he got separation. Like it's not a bad look. I want to be clear, these are not terrible shots, but it's a jump shot. It's a long jump shot. Long jump shots might just not go in. In fact, it probably won't because the majority of jump shots don't go in. Victor wimin Yama shooting fifteen for thirty seven in the clutch this year, and the Spurs as a team are

eight or eight and eight in those situations. Twenty of the thirty seven shot attempts that Victor's taken in crunch time have been threes, and he's made a lot of really big threes. He's made some really big shots this year, but again, a lot of threes, a lot of long contested twos. I think it would be beneficial to him to try to come up with a late game go to process that gets him closer to the rim for a shot that he can hit over fifty percent of

the time. For instance, just action to get his post catch around fifteen feet instead of around twenty feet, so that step back long two goes from being like a thirty five percent shot to being a forty five percent shot, or an opportunity for him to work in the post and try to get him to learn a little bit more of like a hook where he can use his length and size to get something that maybe goes in

fifty five to sixty percent of the time. Again, what has made Nikole Jokic the best player in the world his ability to consistently get to shots that are high percentage. There is no variance with Nikola Jokic. That is the pathway for Victor Wimen and Yama to become more reliable in these late game situations. Number three, I know I'm guilty of it too for the record, but let's stop as a group. Let's collectively. Stop trying to bury Western Conference teams when they have a bad stretch. I did

it with the Lakers earlier this year. People have done it with Denver. People have done it with Golden State. Remember when everyone thought it was over for the Kings they had that terrible loss, that the crunch time loss. It was. I think they lost on a foul if I remember correctly. They've now won five games in a row. The Kings are now just three games back of the five seed. Malik Monk is hooping his ass off there, Derozens starting to hit big shots. They're playing good basketball. Now.

Everybody's trying to bury the Phoenix Suns, and for some good reasons, they look like they've let go of the rope. At this point, bad losses are piling up. They aren't defending. They've tried benching Bradley Beal in use of Nurkics and they got a big win the first game where Beal came off the bench, played great, but then they just lost to Charlotte right after that. I get it. It looks bad, but take a deep breath. Their upcoming schedule,

they're home for Atlanta, Utah and Charlotte. They could easily go three to zero in that span, be right back to five hundred. Then they have a five game road trip with some winnable games, some losible games too, but some winnable games at Atlanta, at Washington, at Detroit, at Cleveland, at Brooklyn. I think they probably will go three and two on that trip. Could potentially go four and one if you take care of business against Detroit and Atlanta.

But like, let's say three and two, and then they come home to play the Wizards. So the Suns could very easily go seven to two in their next nine games and be right back in that seven or eight seed. Does that mean the Suns don't have problems. Of course they have problems. Of course they should be scouring the trade market looking for ways to improve their roster. But collectively, I think we need to stop overreacting week to week.

In the Western Conference, I don't think there's a giant gap between the teams and the six to twelve range. I think Denver in Dallas. Dallas obviously is injured, but when Dallas is healthy, I think Denver and Dallas are both clearly a level above. But the Lakers, the Clippers, the Timberwolves, the Warriors, the Spurs, the Kings, the Suns. I don't think they're like I think in that order, that's roughly how i'd rank them. You know, I might

move a couple teams around here there. So they're kind of settling more or less where you would expect them to. But they're they're separate, They're barely separated. There's not a lot that separates those teams. For me. They're all a couple of good weeks from their fans, all taking victory laps, and a couple of bad weeks from their fans wanting

to blow up the team. Now here's the thing. None of those teams, including the ones that are higher up teams like the Lakers, Clippers, Timberwolves, none of those teams are going to accomplish anything unless they find a way to stabilize and separate. For some of them, it's about making the right trade. For others, it's about playing a more serious brand of basketball a commitment to the work. For most of them, it's about both of those things.

But again, that group is going to jockey back and forth a lot, based on schedule, based on injuries, based on whether or not they're in a funk. Guys, that Suns team looks like it's I go the rope. I promise you. The Lakers had let go the rope for like two weeks earlier this season, like it happens, and then somehow these teams wake up. They just do. It's a competitive spirit thing. There's a lot of really good basketball players on these teams, and the league is just tough.

It'll chew you up and spit you out if you don't play good basketball. Lastly, number four, Bucks fans, let's relax and let's take a deep breath. I understand in the same line of thinking, like what I was talking about in just the last segment, you're five and five since the N Season Tournament, twenty third in offense in that spans some really bad losses there. I've heard a lot of negativity from Bucks fans. Here's all I will say.

I saw this exact same thing happen with the Los Angeles Lakers last year, a worst version of it because they were in the Western Conference. But they win the N Season Tournament. In the N Season Tournament, they play some of their best basketball in the last few years, defending at an extremely high level, an ad dominating games physically, and you're looking at it and you're like, this is

a serious team. And then they go three and ten in their next thirteen games and everyone just thinks they suck. And then promptly after that three and ten stretch, they're one of the very best teams in the league for the second half of the season. And again, I know they lost to Denver, but they controlled a good portion of that series, and if it wasn't for two Jamal Murray game winners, that could have been a six or seven game series. I thought that Lakers team was good.

That was a good Lakers team. Again, I don't think those like that Lakers team was a top tier contender, just like I don't think these Bucks are a top tier contender. But they were a good punchers chance playoff team that got punched by a couple of game winners and didn't advance. When I look back at that sequence, hoisting the trophy in early December has a weird psychological

impact on the team. Before the n season tournament even exists existed, everyone struggled with the eighty two because it's just a lot of damn basketball games and it just gets monotonous and teams lose focus that already was happening. Now you add the influx of a perceived achievement a third of the way through the season, it naturally leads to a relaxation. And that's happening to the Bucks. Same

exact thing happened to the Lakers. I expect them to bounce back in a big way here in the new year and play pretty damn solid basketball the rest of the way and be a puncher's chance playoff team right below that Cleveland in Boston tier. I think they're every bit as good as the Knicks. Again, there's an upside too. In this ten game span, they're second in defense. Remember how much of a concern that used to be with

this roster. Do you trust Dame Chris Middleton and Giannis to be able to create shots in a playoff series? I do do. I think this defense is on the trajectory to become at least a solid defense in the postseason. Yes, I do so. I still feel exactly the way I felt about them around the nd season tournament, and I would just encourage you guys to relax a little bit about this stretch, just from experience having dealt with something similar rooting for the Lakers last year. All right, guys,

that is all I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. Right after this, I'm recording a mailbag that'll be coming out tomorrow. Asways, a sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and I will see you then the volume. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second

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