Hoops Tonight - Clippers bully Steph Curry & Warriors, 76ers stay hot, Celtics squeak past Wolves

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six seven three six nine in New York. Dial one eight hundred five two two forty seven hundred in Wyoming, or visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Quick show for you today. We're just

gonna hit three games from last night. The Gold State Warriors lost their ninth consecutive road game against a red hot Clippers team that has now won four games in a row. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers came back from down double digits in the second half to beat the Calves in Cleveland, albeit without Jared Allen, and then the Boston Celtics having some late game issues again barely squeaking out a win against the Wolves when they led by fourteen points in the second half. You guys know the

drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Eltie. So you guys don't miss any show announcements. And for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts Under Hoops tonight, all right, the socks and basketball. So we're not going to talk

about the Lakers today. Kind like what I talked about yesterday when Anthony Davis decided to sit, that suddenly became a losable game. They don't have a healthy center on the roster because of what happened to Mobamba, so they gave up seventy something points in the paint and they got their ass kick. It's just kind of the unfortunate reality of the Lakers in their injury circumstance. But I don't think the game really says much about who the Lakers are as a basketball team, so I'm not going

to talk about them today. But let's get to that really interesting, highly entertaining game between the Clippers and the Warriors. So the Clippers win one thirty four to one twenty six. Warriors could not get a stop in the second half. I think the Clippers had seventy four or seventy six points something like high seventies it points in the second

half of this game for their fourth consecutive win. They really dominated this game physically, which is something that I kind of expect in this particular matchup without Andrew Wiggins or Gary Payton. The Warriors lack perimeter size. It's just the reality, and the Clippers are one of the best

perimeter sized teams in the league. And you know, but as has been the case for the Warriors all season, at the same thing, going into their matchup with the Clippers without Steph Curry at home, I think it was like a week or two ago, and they handled the Clippers. And so again, the Warriors are capable when they're really locked in of overcoming some of these issues. They just haven't been able to translate that into the road and they got dominated physically in this game. They got outrebounded

forty four to thirty six. They gave up sixteen offensive rebounds for twenty seven second chance points. That's basically the difference in the game. That was the sixteen to seven offensive rebounding advantage in a twenty seven to eleven second chance points advantage, so literally the difference in the game. The Clippers also forced sixteen turnovers, leading to twenty points, and that's what's unfortunate. You get a fifty point game out of Steph Curry, literally one of the most ridiculous

scoring runs that I've seen in a long time. We've seen lots of scoring runs. Yeah, step only twenty one points in the third quarter. We see big scoring quarters often, but the Hippers were completely locked in defensively in that quarter and they still could not do anything with step Every single shot he hit was absurd difficulty, capped off with that weird step through scoop shot that he made

to finish the third quarter. He played as good as you possibly could in that quarter, and the Warriors lost that quarter. And that's just the reality of their personnel's shortcomings. The Warriors shot eight percent better from the field in this game. Can you imagine how hard it would be to lose a game when you shoot in the mid fifties from the field eight percent better than your opponent.

But that's what it comes down to. That sixteen to seven offensive rebound advantage, that's just buying you extra possessions twenty seven to eleven and second chance points. That's converting stops into baskets. It was just it was a physical mismatch everywhere on the floor. Kawhi Leonards constantly getting matched up with guys like Dante DiVincenzo and Steph Curry and Jordan Poole. Jordan Poole had an absolute nightmare game in details of the game, in terms of his rebounding and

point of attack defense. Terrence Man absolutely dominated that matchup in a way that went beyond the box score. Was beating him with backcuts, beating him just throwing him out of the way to get offensive rebounds, beating him off the dribble. That matchup ended up being a big swing factor in this game. And this is where I want to talk about aggregate size, because again, like there are certain elements that you need in order to have a

functional defense or a functional rebounding team. Right. Like, one of the big things that we're going to talk about with the Clippers in a little bit is they don't really have a real rim protector, which is a huge part of why they can't protect the paint, right, But they do have a lot of aggregate size on the floor, so they can have some success rebounding when all of those six sight six seven wings are flying around to

grab contested rebounds. But when you're looking at these Warriors lineups, like even sometimes when it's Draymond and Kevan Luny on the floor, they'll be out there and it'll be like Dante DiVincenzo, Steph Curry and Jordan Pool, which is just

really difficult a cover for those guys. There was a bench lineup they used in this game that was Dante DiVincenzo, Steph Curry, Jordan Pool with Jonathan Cominga and Jamichael Green That is a very very young, but very athletic forward and then a very unathletic backup five in a three guard lineup. They're going to get killed in that situation in the physical areas of the game. They're just had

too big of a disadvantage there. If you go Zubak went crazy on the breakdowns that were happening at the point of attack for the Warriors, getting all sorts of garbage buckets under the ram. He finished with nineteen and sixteen. And Kawhi Leonard just got fantastic shot quality all game long.

You finished with thirty points on nineteen shots. And I mean on the Clippers front, Kawai Kawai has been playing at a top ten level now for more than a month, and it's getting to the point where we have to start taking that seriously when we consider the Clippers as a threat. You know, I've talked a lot on the show that there are what's this, eight teams that I

considered to be championship contenders. The Milwaukee Bucks, the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia seventy six ers, the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors, the Phoenix Suns, the Los Angeles Clippers, in the Los Angeles Lakers. Those are the only eight teams that I think can win the title. Those of you guys who follow me on Twitter, you guys might have seen me tweet out my current top ten players list.

I just saw someone else tweet of their version of a list out and I was like, you know what, I got a couple of minutes here. I want to see where I think things shake out right now in my top ten list. Again caveat here being all ten of these guys I consider to be top tier superstars, so there's not that big of a gap between number

one and number ten. But I'd have Yannis one, Steph two, Kevin Durant three, Joel Embiide four because I have him headed, Yokis now Yokis five, Lebron James six, Anthony Luca don Shot seven, Anthony Davis eighth, Jason Tatum ninth, and Kawhi Leonard tent. All ten of those guys are top ten play are like legit top tier superstars. And when I go to my list of contenders, every single team on that list has one of those guys, which speaks to

just one of my fundamental basketball beliefs. You can't win a title unless you have one of the ten best players or one of the top tier superstars in the league. I feel very strongly about that. The Bucks have Jannis, the Celtics have Tatum, the Sixers have him Be, the Nuggets have Yokich, the Warriors have Steph Curry, who is playing like he might be even the best player in the world right now. The Phoenix Suns of Kevin Durant, who's probably the best player I've seen in this particular

regular season. The Clippers have Kawhi and the Lakers have Lebron James and Anthony Davis. The only player in that list of top ten players that I read off that doesn't have a chance to win the title, in my opinion, is Luca don chich And it's because they are in a very similar predicament that the Warriors are in, except for the Warriors can at least look back at this and go, We've got Gary Payton come in and hopefully

Andrew Wiggins is eventually going to come back. And when those two guys come back, that bolsters their very specific weaknesses and suddenly lines everything up for them to where their core players can be great at what they're great at and push them over the top. The Mavericks do not have that luxury. There's no reinforcements coming. They have no you know, six eight excellent perimeter defender, small forward that's coming back, you know, from a personal leave of absence.

They're just completely stuck with what they've got, and so I don't consider the Mavericks to be in that group. But one of the important things for me to consider the Clippers as a legitimate contender was seeing Kawhi Leonard get back to that top tier superstar level. And he's comfortably been there for a while now, so that's encouraging for the Clippers. I wanted to shout out Russell Westbrook really quick. He had fifteen, nine and seven in this game.

He just did a much much better job of making Draymond Green pay and the Warriors pay in general for ignoring him as aggressively as they did in this last game, in the game that they played a couple of weeks ago, and again, like we're gonna talk about this a little bit more when we get to PJ. Tucker when we're

talking about the sixers. But there are a couple of basic things that you can do to remain a threat as an off ball player when you struggle to shoot the basketball, and first of all, go to the corners instead of the wings. Why a corner three is a much higher percentage shot than above the break three because it's just closer to the rim. Right, Russell Westbrook made two corner threes in this game. The second thing set

off ball screens. So if they're causing you problems by ignoring you off the ball, go set a ball screen. Go set an off ball screen. Do anything that allows your offensive value to be felt if you're struggling to knock down that perimeter shot. There was a play in the first half of this game where I think it was with Paul George where Russ just went up set a quick ball screen, slipped to the middle of the

flour Paul George hit him with the pocket pass. He made a little left handed lay up in the lane, and last but not least, crash the offensive glass. So sit in that week side corner, knock down that three when it's there, you know, when the plays in motion, don't just stay in there, go screen for somebody, and then when the shot goes up, crash like crazy and utilize your athleticism. PJ. Tucker is incredible at this that baseline offensive rebound, crash out of the week side corner.

Russ had four offensive rebounds in this game. It was a big part of why he was I believe a plus ten in this game. He's doing a very very nice job trying to find a way to fit with the Clippers, and most importantly, it's a much more natural basketball fit. The ball makes sense to be in his hands as he pushes the pace. He's getting the ball to Paul Georgie and Kawhi Leonard in their spots. He's

being selective. It's just it's the combination of him doing the little things and actually having a natural basketball fit with the Clippers. So I've I've really appreciated watching Russell Westbrook in a Clippers jersey. For the record, he's won his shifts, meaning he's had a positive plus minus in six of their nine games, including five in a row. The only weird thing is the clutch thing, which I

keep talking about. It's just so much harder to make up for that ignoring you off the ball thing when it's in a late game situation and you only have half court sets and teams are being sharper with their box outs and they're crashing in their execution right. And for the record, the Clippers have played seven clutch games since Russ came to the team. They've played four with Russ and three without him. They're one in three when they play Russ and Crutch time, and they're two and

one when they benched him. So that's the one thing that I want to see them kind of tighten up is stick with not playing Russ and Crutch in clutch situations. I think that's where you can maximize his impact. In this four game winning streep, the Clippers are second in offense. My only main concern for them right now is defensively.

They are twenty fifth in defensive ratings since Russell Westbrook came to town A nine games ago, and they've been pretty They had been struggling defensively for a couple of months before Russ came, So I'm not blaming Russ. I blame it on rim protection. The reality is is Zoobach is an okay rim protector, but he's not a real rim protector. And you know, Plumbley's an okay rim protector,

but he's not a real rim protector. No one's getting scared of those guys when they go to the rim, and that's a huge part of why they've been seventeenth in points in the paint allowed per game this season and twenty seventh in points in the pain allowed per game since Russell Westbrook came to the team. So they're just not going to be able to protect the paint. That's the one thing that makes me concerned about them.

And why when I list the contenders those eight teams that I consider championship contenders, I'd put the Clippers dead last on that list. And the main reason why is, how are you going to win the title if you don't have a top tier defensive front cord. That's something that I've talked about a lot on this show. You've got to have legitimate rim protection. They just don't the Lakers do. The Warriors do, and that's what makes them the puncher's threat, a puncher's chance threat in a higher

capacity than the Clippers are, in my opinion. So the Warriors have now lost nine consecutive road games. The last time they won a road game was six weeks ago against the Oklahoma City Thunder. And my theory on this is there is a certain amount of competitive energy that allows you to overcome your personnel shortcomings, right, Like you know the concept of like playing bigger than you are. I mean, I was one of those guys when I

was in college. I was only six six, but I was always one of the best rebounders in my conference, just because I played bigger than I was, and so I was kind of utilized as a defensive front court player in a way that allowed me to use my athleticism because I could jump and I had long arms, Right Like, you can compete and make up for some of your shortcomings in terms of your physical your physical tools, Right Like, I was battling with six ten guys, but

I just played harder than them. It would box them out and jump higher than them and things along those lines. You know, when they're at home, the Warriors can compensate for their lack of size by playing hard, But when they get on the road, naturally, it's harder to get

that same level of competitive energy. And the home team is feeding off of their home crowd, And I think you see all those personnel shortcomings come to the surface, Like they are just an unbelievably tiny team without Andrew Wiggins and without Gary Payton, who's a six three guard who plays really big, Like just he plays like a power forward in terms of his ability to defend and rebound and impact the game with his physicality. That's just the reality. He's another one of those guys, and he

was like that. When I played in the same conference as him in college, he was one of those guys. He was like defensive player of the year, grabbed a million rebounds. That was what he did from his inception as a basketball player. And so, you know, I don't understand how they like they can overcome this. Steph put up fifty last night. Draymond's competing, Kavan Luni's competing, They're they're they're trying, but they just they just can't match

the effort differential the way they can at home. And it doesn't get any easier. They're going to Atlanta next potentially without Draymond if he doesn't get a tech rescinded. Then they got to go to Memphis. You know exactly what's going to happen there. They can they can win that game. I give him a chance to, but Memphis is one of them physical teams in the league. That's going to be a really tough game to win. Then they got to go to Houston. Sounds easy, right, They

just beat the Celtics and beat the Lakers. Now, the Lakers didn't have Anthony Davis, but they still have a lot of skill and a lot of good players, and they couldn't win that game, so it's not it's not

getting any easier. Ironically, go into Dallas and the final game in this trip is the one that I think they should win, but it's only because Dallas has all of the same side shortcomings that Golden State does, and so you know, but then again, if what if Luca and Kyrie are back at that point, then you could have a much tougher game, So it doesn't get any easier.

Then they come home, but their home games are against the Philadelphia seventy six ers, who have been the best team in the league since since the beginning of December, in the Sacramento Kings, who are not an easy game, excuse me, then the Minnesota Timberwolves, and then the rest of their in the Minnesota Timberwolves are just a really

interesting matchup with their perimeter defense. Then their schedule loosens up a little bit, and I think their last seven games are pretty easy, but there's two really tough road games in there. There's a road game at Denver in a road game at Sacramento, so you know, the schedule is not favorable for the Warriors. They really need Andrew Wiggins back, and they're just gonna need herculean efforts from their core players every single night in order to maintain

a spot above the plan. I gun to my head. I still think that the Warriors will end up getting either the sixth seed or the fifth seed. But it's gonna take. It's gonna take a lot. They're gonna have to really pour their heart and soul into this over the course of the last few weeks. All right, Philly Cleveland. Cleveland went on a nice little run in the middle of this game to get it up to seventy to fifty seven, and then the Sixers immediately went on an

eighteen to one run. And there's a couple of specific concepts that I want to touch on from the standpoint of Philly because one mbiads rim protection in the middle

of that run. And you know, we see this a lot with the Cavs, right like, they start spam and pick and roll with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Scartland, and they're digging off of the small forwards that can't shoot, and they're funneling everybody to Joel Embead and it just becomes about can Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell knocked down incredibly difficult shots, and they go through these cold stretches, their offense can get absolutely stifled if Darius Garland and

Donovan Mitchell aren't making shots. They wanted an eighteen to one run, and then Darius Garland followed it up with like a solo seven oh run by himself or seven straight points by himself, and like they were all incredibly difficult shots. This like ridiculous fading jumper along the baseline. He get like this wild running three in transition in the right corner, a really tough floater in the lane.

Like when they're tough shot making clicks in they can make shots, but they just don't have the ability to use them as primary advantage creators. Like one of the nice things for phillis advantage creators for James Harden, Tyree s Maaxie, and Joel Embiid is when they're kicking to guys. They're kicking to Shake Milton, he's knocking that thing down. They're kicking to Georges Niang, He's knocking that down. Tobias Harris is gonna make that corner three d Anthony Melton

is gonna make that shot. And then their court like and beat Harden and Maxie. They're all good off ball players, so everybody can shoot, and so like, all they've got to do is get over the top of that screen and bring an extra defender into the play, and then once they do, they're just kicking to wide open shooters that can knock them down. Philly on a points per possession basis, is the number one spot up team in

the league. No one's better. Cleveland is nineteenth. All of those teams that I listed is the eight contenders, all of them are above Cleveland and their spot up shooting even the Lakers. And the Lakers data is poisoned by the fact that they had no shooting for the first two thirds of the season. They're a much better spot

up team now. But you get the point. This is like, again, do you guys remember when I did the the advanced metrics rant like two or three days ago, I talked about how like even the data that I use, which is like points per possession stuff on like pick and rolls and ISOs and different play types or line up dat or things along those lines, even those play type

data points, they don't factor in spot up shooting. Right, Like if James Harden is coming off a pick and roll, and he's surrounded by three shooters and Joel Embiid as his role man. That's just an easier pick and roll to run than it is for Donovan Mitchell with non shooters around him, right, and rollman that aren't as talented is Joel Embid Right. Like, That's why I keep talking

about how complicated the game of basketball is. That was not Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland versus Harden and Embid last night. That's not how basketball works. It was Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell surrounded by one of the worst spot up group spot up shooting corps in the league for a good team, and Philly's surrounded by the very best. Regardless of whether you're a good or a bad team. That is a huge part of the game of basketball.

It is a five on five sport. You're either creating an advantage for a spot up player or the help defenders are staying home and your stars get to go to work. But that's a delicate balance. And Cleveland is constantly playing with Lamar Stevens and Isaaca Chetti. Osman had some misses last night on wide open shots were like his follow through was like corkscrewing and the ball was going two feet off to the left of the rim like some nasty misses. But man, like you help off

a shake Milton in the weekside corner. It's like shit, that's going in every single time, at least that's what it feels like, and per the numbers, it does more often than it does for other teams. Like that sort of thing really does matter. The one thing that could potentially be the saving grace for Cleveland, and he's only played a little bit, mostly in garbage time, is maybe Danny Green can get back to where he was physically before the injury, to where he can guard small forwards.

Like I covered Danny Green closely when he was with the Lakers, and like he struggles a little bit with quickness, but he's a good big body that can guard bigger players. He makes a lot of sense potentially as that guy who can fill that small forward position. And he's so far he's knocking down his spot up. Perhaps I'll beat in garbage time like he's averaging two points per spot up possessions so far, sixteen points on eight spot up possessions since he came to since he started playing for

the Cavs. But obviously he's got to get back one hundred percent physically to the point or JB. Bickerstaff can trust him to defend. But like maybe that's the guy that gives them a little bit more depth there, you know, and then Carris Lavert can kind of slide into some of that. But it's just it's gonna be extremely difficult for Cleveland to win because they you can just completely shut down their offense and their front court players can't shoot.

Like I mean, you get to Philly, like even with Phi, Like with Philly, you've got Joel Embiid who can shoot, and then Pj's Tucker who can't. But just like we talked about with earlier with Russell, Westbrook is one of the best players in the league get remaining a threat offensively despite not being a consistent shooter. And by the way, he made a corner three like he does in the fourth quarter of this game. But then he's crashing the offensive glass, he's setting off ball screens, he's doing all

sorts of things to maintain his offensive value. It's just such an important part of the game of basketball that doesn't get discussed often enough. Lastly, on Philly, before we move on and Beat and Harden are so locked in right now. James Harden at thirteen in the fourth quarter again last night, a bunch of clutch threes. Joel Embiid is just on a defensive tear, anchoring their entire defense.

He only had five points in the fourth quarter last night, but his clutch scoring has been one of the biggest things that I've been impressed by in the last couple of months. And then their spot up shooting is off off the charts, like we talked about. That makes it really hard to double their ISOs or to triple their pick and rolls. That it just you have to send an extra defender over, but if you do, you're giving

an open shot up. So like Joel Ebid was operating in a lot of single coverage in this game, and it's because of that spot up shooting. The Sixers are thirty four and ten in their last forty four games. That's two and a half games ahead of second place Denver in that span, best record in the league. That's

more than half the season. And like, I think they match up really well with Milwaukee and not so well with Boston, So it's gonna be matchups but with each passing day, you know, and I posited this question on my Twitter feed today, but like, at what point do we have to just consider Philly to be a top tier contender because they're playing every bit as good as Boston in Milwaukee? You know, again, I have my same concerns. Can Doc Rivers make the appropriate adjustments and play the

right guys? I don't know. Can James Harden maintain his level of effectiveness in the postseason? I don't know. Same thing for a Joel Embiad I don't know. But based on what we're seeing in this regular season, they're checking a lot of boxes. Do you have multiple top tier I shouldn't say top tier. Do you have multiple excellent shot creators check? Do you have great spot up shooting check? Do you have great rim protection? Check? Do you have

a defender that can guard Jannis? Yes? PJ Tucker, you know, obviously, just do better than most not do what Obviously it's more complicated than that, but PJ. Tucker did an awesome job on Yannis in their last matchup. There are What it comes down to is, in these situations, you're gonna have to beat Philly four times out of seven they're gonna funnel you to Joel Embiid, They're gonna get high quality shots on offense. I'm having a hard time talking

myself out of them as a legitimate championship contender. Well, I'll approach it again when we get to the end of the season. But they've been really impressive for a long time now. All right, before you get out of here, Boston Minnesota. You know, it's funny because I it kind of followed the pathway of a lot of Boston Celtics

games this year. Went up big fourteen in the second half, then at the end of the game, their offense stagnates and then they barely squeak out a win or maybe they end up losing because of their poor late game play, which is something that has been you know, it wasn't a problem for the first two thirds of the season, but man as of late, Boston's late game execution has gone almost back to last year levels, which is problematic.

It's funny because, like, there are teams that I watch so much that it just gets to the point where every game I watched them, it looks the same. And that's kind of where I'm at with Boston and part of that is they're driving kick team. They're not an improvisational shot making type of team. They really only have one guy like that on the roster, and that's Jalen Brown. They're very much like a machine and they're everything for

them comes down to rim decisions. You know. I always talk about how, you know, like field goal percentage at the rim, I think is just as much about making decisions there as it is about your touch or your ability to finish with you know, english off the glass or whatever it might be. Getting to the rim protector and making a call as to whether or not you've got a good opportunity to finish over the top and if you don't kicking it, that to me is what

swings everything for Boston. And in their big run. I mean it was a close game at halftime and they're big run in the third quarter. It's like guys just making the right rim decisions. Jason Tatum gets downhill instead of challenging go Bear at the rim. It's a hook pass over to Horford in the corner, pop extra passed, Derek White knocks down with three. You know, it's a little high low action that gets Jalen Brown cutting towards the basket, engaging the rim protector, kick out in the

right corner to Al Horford for three. When they are making the right rim decisions in passing out of congestion under the basket, they get these incredibly high quality threes, and they're really tough to beat. When they start challenging rim protectors or not trying to drive the ball to the basket and rather settling for pull up jump shots, that is when their offense falls apart. They are not a good pull up jumps team by percentage compared to

the other teams at the top of the league. And so it's just that's the that's the dynamic all the time with Boston. Now, one thing I will say Minnesota is an excellent perimeter defense team. They're one of the few teams in the league that have the ability to shut off your dribble penetration and that was a big

part of how they got back into this game. And like when they put out there Rudy Gobert with Kyle Anderson, with Jade McDaniels and Anthony Edwards, that's four outstanding defensive players. And you know what was funny is when they had their best success was when they would attack Mike Conley. This kind of goes to what we were talking about with entry points, right Like I told you guys a

lot about this when we were talking about Denver. When when you it doesn't matter how good your perimeter defense is,

if I can get you into rotation. Once you're in rotation, like like if if Jayson Tatum is closing out at me from fifteen feet away, I can shoot, I can shoot a catch and shoot three, Like, it just doesn't matter, right Or if if if you're really good shooter and Jason Tatum's fifteen feet away from you and he's sprinting out at you, you can pump fake and probably beat him off the dribble, right Like, in an advantage situation, it just doesn't doesn't really matter how good you are

as at defense. You're you're given such a big advantage you can capitalize on that play, right Like, That's why it's so important to get the defense into rotation. And so even one guy, Mike Conley, gives you an opportunity as an entry point to get the defense on rotation. And there was a key play down the stretch of this game ninety three and Malcolm Brogden just wasn't trying to go to the rim, wasn't trying to beat Rudy

Gobert with some tough layup. He just gained. He just dribbled past Mike Conley just a little bit and got Minnesota's defense to react just a little bit and throw a kickout past to Marcus Smart against Kyle Anderson, who was closing out at his right side, and Marcus Smart ripped through to the left towards the middle and made an and one layup like that, to me is that the definition of that concept. If Marcus Smart is attacking Kyle Anderson like from a standstill, he's probably not beating him.

But if he's got an advantage now he can beat him to the middle and finish at the basket. That to me is the dynamic that allows you to attack an entry point and have success. And that is why I don't necessarily care how good defensively, guys like Aaron Gordon and Catavious Cobble Pope and Bruce Browner. If Jamal Murray's out there, you can beat him off the dribble and you can start the wheel. Once I start the wheel, there's two There's another slow footed center on the floor too, right,

Like that's where that defensive concept comes in. And what I think is so interesting about that is that's a Minnesota team that has way better defensive talent, and they were able to have a couple of possessions of offensive success just by attacking Conley. Part of the reason why I think they struggled is they didn't attack only enough.

Like there was a bunch of possessions where Marcus Smart kept trying to get Jaden McDaniels on a switch and I'm like, dude, Like Jady McDaniels is one of the best perimeter defenders on the league, in the league, what do you do? And then like he scored on him one time. He had this like kind of wild layup underneath the rim that he made. But like that's that. You're not gonna win that battle very often. And so offensive decision making continues to be my main concern with Boston.

I wasn't as concerned about it throughout the regular season, but as of late, they're kind of regressing a bit and that's concerning to me. So I hope they can tighten that up because they're gonna need to be sharp in that area to have any hope of winning the trophy. But like I will say, I was impressed by Minnesota in this game. They did a really good job containing the ball and preventing Boston from getting into their driving kick. At the end, Anthony Edwards, he settled for a bad

three late. It was like one of one ninety nine. He took a contested pull up three that he missed, but like he had a lot of success just bullying

his way to the basket. And I've talked a lot about how him, how he's like a downhill power guard, and you saw a lot of that against Boston's wings, where like they would slide their feet and you know, kind of have some resistance to aunt, but he just blows through that shoulder because he's so damned strong and he's got such a low center of gravity, and he was he was magnificent at the end of this game. He was had had some nice playmaking stretches as well.

You know, I'm really really excited to see where Minnesota goes in the coming years. They just need to show her up a couple of positions, namely that have my Kinley position and then getting basically just a better version of Kyle Anderson at that Power Forwards at the Power Forward spot. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. We're taking off tomorrow and then we'll have a video coming out on Sunday morning that's breaking down the games from Friday and Saturday night. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys on Sunday morning. The Volume two