Hoops Tonight - Clippers stun Warriors, LeBron James-Golden State rumors, Lakers-Jazz, Heat-76ers

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into zone defense this season. And then after that Lakers Jazz. Lakers finish off the stretch before the All Star Break with a big couple of wins in a back to back going into Utah. Utah is a tough team to beat at home without Lebron James, they go in there and get a big win. The offense looks great again. We're gonna talk a little bit early returns from the Spencer Dinwiddie buy out signing and how that is panned out.

And then lastly, tonight, we're gonna talk a little bit about the report that came out this morning that the Warriors tried to pay Lebron James with Steph Curry on the Warriors in the middle of this trade deadline cycle, I guess, in the final twenty hours before the deadline. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that at

the end of the show. Unlike what we did last time, instead of doing a mail bag at the end of the show, I really really want to dive into a game I did not get to see tonight, which was King's Nuggets.

know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you'ture podcast under Hoop tonight. It's also really helpful for us if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Don't forget about my Twitter feed at Underscore Jason lt. So you guys don't miss show

announcements as well as film threads. And then last, but not least, like I mentioned earlier, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments, All right, let's talk some basketball.

looks for good three point shooters in the corner. It reminded me of the stretch that the Clippers went on in twenty twenty one after Kawhi Leonard went down, when Paul George and Reggie Jackson kind of led a similar type of run where they were just able to consistently either beat their man off the dribble and get all the way to the basket, or draw in that help defender and make the kickout passes that would lead to the driving kick basketball that would lead to a wide

open op opportunity for a high level spot up player. And like, this is where I want to talk about the upside of building a system versus relying solely on talent. This is where we got to give some credit to tyl Lou. You know, when we talk about the best coaches in the league, we typically talk about Eric Spolstra, We typically talk about Steve Kerr. But to me, ty

Lou is pretty close to those guys. And one of the things that I've consistently talked about with ty Lou in his time in the NBA is I think he has some of the best spacing principles in the league. He knows the best way to put his stars in a position where they can play easy basketball, where they're either on an island having an opportunity to take advantage of their great gifts, or the same types of kickout

opportunities are there throughout the season. Everything is so well established that it almost becomes second nature to these guys. And again that's what happens. You lose Kawhi Leonard in the middle of a playoff series against the Jazz, and Paul George and Reggie Jackson are able to lead them through anyway. And then they even got within two wins of the NBA Finals And what did they lose a close game on? Didn't they lose a close game on like a deandreton lob at one point in that in

that series, Like that series was really close. They were that close to being a team that made it to the NBA Finals without Kawhi Leonard, and that that to me, it's a credit to Tylu. This is a team that has a certain brand of basketball that they play night in and night out, regardless if it was in the lineup.

This is one of the upsides by the way of having a plethora of shot creation, one of the upsides of bringing a James Harden into the equation if everything is slotted differently, like, for instance, not a lot of Russ on the ball at the end of the game. He did have a big offensive rebound crashing along the baseline, and he had a big driving kick driving kick play where he hit a mere coffee in the right corner

for a three. So like he had a couple of possessions where he impacted winning down the stretch, but like he didn't have to do a ton with the ball in his hands. If James Harden is not in the equation,

maybe Russ is getting a lot of those possessions. Maybe it goes differently, right, like bringing in James Harden just gives you another layer of a It's an example of where redundancy can be a good thing, because then when one of those stars has to miss, it's like, hey, Paul, George, James Harden, we need you guys to consistently break down the defense possession after possession after possession. They can do that.

That is not asking them to do too much. A lot of times in the league, when you see a star go down, all of a sudden, everyone has to step into a role that they're not qualified for, and then you can start to see a lot of downturn. You start to see role players struggle even at role player things as they are asked to do more offensively. And that's kind of the upside of adding James Harden too.

is getting the defense into rotation. That can be done by either running pick and roll in a way that's successful enough that you have to bring a third defender over. It could be running a post up where you bring a second defender over, or double team.

still have some success defensively in rotation. But even the best defenses in the league are not as good in rotation as they are when they're actually able to stay on an island and stay with their man. And so step one is getting that defense into rotation. Step two is the vantage extension, which is basically getting the ball

to the finishing play. That means if you don't have an open three, if you don't have a wide open driving layup, it's your job to extend the advantage by ripping through and getting into the lane and drawing another defender in so that you can maybe get a higher quality spot up opportunity. But that last piece is arguably

the most important one. It's the play finishing piece. You gotta have people, whether it's a vertical spacer that can dunk a lob above the rim, whether it's a guy that can beat a specific matchup because a team you know in rotation ended up with a small guard on a big player and he has an opportunity to go one on one around the basket, or it's an elite shooter, you gotta have a guy that can finish that playoff right. This has been a huge part of what's made the

Denver Nuggets so successful over the years. It's not just the Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic two man game or their ability as individuals to beat switches in one on one coverages. It's their ability to when those extra defenders come into the equation, to get the ball to players that can convert those spot up opportunities at an incredibly high rate. That's what creates the real pick your poison type of problems that the elite offenses in the league can cause.

bit less than ten percent. That's a significant that's a significant weapon to have on the weak side. A mere coffee hits that corner three out of the right corner on the Russell Westbrook kickout. He's at one point two to three points per possession in spot up situations this year. That's really really good. That's what the Clippers do best. They convert those opportunities. But there's the two phases to it.

You've seen it before SOT against Minnesota when they don't have good advantage creation games, the spot up opportunities aren't a high quality and those numbers can take a hit but if they can get those, if they can get guys like Paul George and James Harden to get the defense in rotation, they don't have just guys who can make plays on the weak side. They have absolutely deadly you cannot afford to leave this guy open type of guys. That's the problem that Denver presents for teams. And now

you're seeing the Clippers do the same thing. I mean, those last two threes that Norman Powell hit, look at the close out. There was one from Brandon Pitzemski in the left corner and one from Draymond Green in the right corner, where literally they were flying into the play because they knew if I don't chase him off the line, he is going to make it. And he had to where withal the somehow like pump bait and then like lean.

And I mean, hell, half the time, when Kawhi Leonards out there and they're all healthy, a lot of those spot up opportunities are coming to James Harden, to Paul George, to Kawhi himself, and that's what makes this team so special. And then there was one other key stretch in this game that I wanted to talk about. It was right at the end of the first half. Lawyers won up fifteen and James Harden led a little mini like eight to zero run that completely changed the dynamic of the game.

Had a setup and pick and roll for Zubox that got him to free throws. He actually blocked Steph Curry on a step back three, and then he himself hit his step back three. Turned a fifteen point game into an eight point or into a seven point game going into halftime. Completely changed the dynamic. Made a couple plays early in the third quarter. I think Paul George got

an and one at the start third quarter. Next thing you know, it's it's kind of a dog fight, and I know the Warriors made their run, and like here's the thing, Like there's a there's a harsh reality when it comes to winning these types of games. I think a lot of fans in particular, have a certain expectation, like, hey, we're better, why don't we just go in there and kick their ass? But that's just not how it works. The Clippers have one of the best records in basketball

this year. They basically have been the best team since the zero to six stretch after the hard In trade, and so they can't afford to lose in Golden State tonight. And it's not a big deal. You drop that game, you go home, You're like, hey, we gave them a good fight. You know, we had that little run there at the middle of the game where we kind of made it close. They they got us at the end of the third quarter. Whatever, Like, it is what it is, right, get Kawi land or was out. We live to fight

another day. The Warriors needed this game, like they they are trying to claw out of the ten seed and so like, and you're on the road, so like, it's unrealistic to expect a Clippers team to just walk in there and to just dominate. You have to do what really good teams do in these situations, which is weather runs, stay invested, emotionally and physically in the game so that when you see your opportunities, you could take advantage. Kawhi

is the force multiplier that makes you a champion. But like that, that level of commitment from the top down, whether it's the perimeter defense, whether it's the the Kawhi and or excuse me, Paul Georgian and James Harden, just staying emotionally invested even when they're down double digits on the road in Golden State. Even just the emotion you saw from the coaching staff or from Mason Plumley in

this game. Like, those are the kinds of things that I think are really important benchmarks for championship contenders.

You want versatile shot creation, You want multiple high level role players, that are good at the little things they have that too, you want to coach is great with adjustments and with setting your players up to succeed and can bring the best out of that roster. That's great too. But one of the big check marks is are they attacking the regular season on a night in a night out basis, even on nights where it seems like it's okay to kind of let go of the rope a

little bit. And again, like I just I just think that the Clippers keep passing these tests with flying colors, and it's gonna be really interesting to see if they can actually put it all together this year when they

get to the postseason. All the Warriors front, you know, one of the biggest driving forces of their recent success has been their defense, and a big part of that has been, like I've been talking about, wave after wave of perimeter athleticism, whether it's a guy like Brandon Pizemski is pretty good guard defender for a young player, right, or even all these wing athletes that they have, guys like Jonathan Kaminga, guys like Andrew Wiggins, guys like Moses

Moody bringing Gary Payton into the equation. When you Combine that with the ability that Draymond Green has to be a back line anchor for you, you can be an excellent defense, and we've seen that consistently from the Warriors. But in this game, they just completely lost control of the of the point of attack and they were just constantly in rotation, just breakdown after breakdown, and it's just

I don't care how hard you're rotating. I saw Brandon Pazemski and Draymond Green make just ferocious rotations to try to chase Norman Palel off the line, but they're just too out of position, and they're out of position because they're having breakdowns at the point of attack. And like, again, like it's hard to be too critical because that's specifically

been a thing they've been good at as of late. Again, like that's part of the thing is it's one thing to do it against the lower level competition, You've got to do it against the best teams in the league. And in a big way, the Warriors perimeter defense kind of failed to test today. But like the question is, do you think Andrew Wiggins and Gary Payton and Jonathan Kaminga and Moses Moody and Brandon Pitzemski, Do you think these guys are capable of defending well enough on the

perimeter to succeed at the highest levels. I think they are. I don't think the Warriors are going to lose this year in the playoffs because of perimeter defense. I think if they do, it'll probably be because offensive creation after Steph Curry. That like drop off whenever Steph isn't making everything is pretty significant for this team, and I think that will end up if they end up losing at some point this season, that will be what ends up

doing it. And so in a lot of ways, like you kind of just have to cross it off as a bad day, but it certainly is disappointing when you have a test like this, and not only that, you build yourself a significant margin and you have an opportunity to put them away with your textbook Warriors third quarter run and you can't do it. So definitely a discouraging day.

They'll live to fight another day. Obviously, the Jazz lost today, so it's not like they're in some sort of troubling position in the standings, but like it's just it's just it's definitely discouraging. But I don't think perimeter defense is going to be a big issue for this Warriors team in the long run, and there was there was some encouraging stuff in there as well, Like I I really do see upside in the athleticism that the Warriors have.

Like how many threes did Steph Curry hit tonight that were off of these like chaotic plays where like Andrew Wiggins or Poziemski or Jonathan Mingo would get a deflection and all of a sudden, the ball would just be rolling around on the floor and guys are diving on the floor and next thing you know, Steph has a wide open three. And Steph is like the best player in the world at converting chaos into into offensive success.

He's like, he's like he like turns chaos into lemonade or whatever the hell the basketball version of that expression is, like, And there's a lot of upside there. There's a lot of good tonight, But you gotta close the deal. Got to play off forty eight minutes, especially against the best teams in the league, and they let go of the rope at the worst possible time, and they just could never regain control of it. After that run to start the fourth quarter, all right, So we're gonna hit on

two additional games from tonight. We're gonna hit he hit the Heat Sixers and Lakers Jazz So Heat Sixers. I wanted to zoom in on the zone defense. This is a big zone game for the Miami Heat. They ran thirty seven possessions of zone, holding the Sixers to just twenty seven points on those possessions, which is zero point seven to three points per possession. But one of the things that Eric Spolser will do because they run zone I believe I was looking it up earlier tonight. I

think they've run it. They run it about eleven times per game on average, and they've leaned into zone a lot more this year. Miami Heat teams under Eric Spolser have typically used a lot of zone. It's been a big part of Eric Spolser's kind of coaching strategy of keeping teams off balance. And we're gonna talk more about that in a minute, but like one of the things that specific specifically has led the Heat to lean so

much into his zone. This year's personnel, you know, like you they're playing a lot of guys between guys like Kevin Love and Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson, guys that don't necessarily have a ton of defensive talent, right, and so putting them in a position where they have a more achievable role within a zone scheme where you're kind of counting a lot on the intellectual side disrupting the offense, like you can kind of get some good results there.

And to give you an idea, the Heat of runs six hundred and twenty five possessions of zone this year. Only the Jazz have run more seven hundred and twenty six And obviously the Jazz have a very kind of different team as well in terms of the amount of guards that they play, and they're kind of in a similar predicament with defensive personnel. But to give you an idea, the third most frequent zone team is the Philadelphia seventy six ers at three hundred and forty possessions, which is

about half what the Heat run. And for them, similar type of thing. They're trying to keep em beat at the rim and their two to three and they're dealing with some difficult, you know, perimeter personnel that they're trying to get stops with. But like especially now with Jimmy Butler out with Terry Rozier out, hopefully his knees okay. With Josh Richardson out, like most of your perimeter defense talent is unavailable, and so leaning into that is is kind of a necessity and one of the things that

Spolster will do too. And I learned this firsthand in the Lakers game a few weeks ago. But like when he smells blood in the water, like when he goes like, oh, these guys can't handle this, like when he identifies like they don't know how to score against the zone, because Philly scored just fine against Miami's man demand defense tonight.

He's run some odd band fronts, he's run some even man fronts, a lot of two three in this particular game, but the way he was doing it, which I thought was interesting, is he was really active out of the corners, so it almost like takes on like a four to one type of look where they're trying to keep Bam at the basket no matter what, and even when the ball would go to the high post, they would keep Bam back in a lot of cases, and if they did rotate to the middle of the floor, they would

do it out of the corners, which just kind of allowed them to help them rebound because Bam was closer to the basket, and in general, it just kind of disrupted Philly's flow because they didn't really know how to attack it from there without active they were being out of the corners. Even when they tried to screen the top man of the zone, instead of getting into an open space in the middle, they were running into one of the lower guys, and I thought it was really interesting.

And you know, from there they just made enough shots. Tyler Harrow hit a couple of huge pull up two point shots going to his right hand side. Duncan Robinson hit a couple of massive threes. Jimi haw Kez had this really smart offensive re down where he was in the dunker spot on the right side of the floor, and Kelly Eubray had his back turn and he just kind of snuck right around the backside and went on the other side of the room. He's basically playing the

odds there. It's like, well, Kelly'll get the ball if it goes to the right, but if it goes to the left, it'll go to me. And the miss came to the left, it fell right into his hands and he popped it right into the basket and put him up one h three ninety seven. It was a huge play in this game because no one could score the

damn basketball. And like in this Rock Fight game where Philly struggling to score against the zone, and you know, obviously Miami has some shot creation issues without Terry Rogier and Jimmy Jimmy Butler, you know, it's a lot of Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson just flying around screens and getting into the lay, running into better athletes and having to make kickout passes.

on matchups, which is smart right now. Not only do you get thirty seven reps of practice to get all your guys kind of more locked in on the details of how to work inside their two three, but you also are giving yourself an opportunity to win a regular season game against a tough team like the Sixers, especially when they're at home, like they got a lot of speed, like Buddy Heald and Tyree Smacks. You're flying around shooting shots. You know, Paul Reid I had an efficient scoring game

in this one. Like they have guys. They have guys they can cause problems for you if you're not, especially in Philly in a regular season setting. And it was just a great way to kind of squeeze a win out. And then the second piece of it is as a rhythm breaker, and like you know, Eric Sposter is so good at this. He practices the zone again, six and twenty five possessions over the of the season, like almost a dozen after tonight. I'm sure it's close to a

dozen possessions per game. Those guys are practicing it so much that when they end up in a first round series and it's Game one in the middle of the fourth quarter and it's you know, eighty two to seventy seven and the heat are down, he'll go to zone for six possessions and just throw a giant wrench into things, disrupt the rhythm. Maybe he can turn a five point

deficit into do a two point lead. Then he'll switch back to man and his team is more engaged and has momentum, and he'll ride that home and then randomly he'll bring it out out of a timeout and he'll disrupt and like that to me is like there's a lot of meat on the bone on the coaching side of things that a lot of coaches around the league

don't really tap into. And Eric Spolser is just the very best in the league when it comes to finding all those tiny little advantages that a coach can find in a game through through the tactical side of things to bring the best out of his rosters or I thought it was just a fun, fun example of that on the Miami Heat side Jazz so a Laker offense

came out red hot again in this game. They built a pretty significant lead in the first quarter, and then in the second quarter they just kind of let go of the rope defensively and it turned to this very up and down game. But they're able to stay in the games because they can score the basketball. They had seventy points in the first half of this particular game. And like, you know, we talked about this earlier with the Clippers, this concept of advantage creation, advantage extension, and

play finishing. The Lakers, they those guys for them don't have a ton of defensive talent the way the Clippers do. Like the Clippers are getting that and Paul George is an excellent wing defender, and Kawhi Leonard is an excellent wing defender, right like, they have wave after wave of offensive talent that also can play on both ends of the floor. And that's why the Clippers are one of the best teams in the league, and that's why the

Lakers are thirty and twenty six. But like I did think, you know, that game was really just this recent stretch from the Lakers is an excellent example of just how gifted this team is offensively when they have the type of rhythm and flow in the in the ball movement and player movement that they've had over the course of this last month. And like you know, uh Ruy and Ruey Hachimura in particular was one of the big benefit beneficiaries of this time. He had a career high I

think thirty two. I think his previous career high was thirty. But like he kept getting small guards on matchups. You'd get Keyante George or Jordan Clarkson on a on a post up and the lake like the Lakers would break away from their five out stuff to give the ball to Rui. They clear the side for him, so he's working with an empty block so that he doesn't have

to worry about seeing too much of the floor. That's a concept I've talked a lot about with the Celtics and and and to to uh Ruy's credit, he didn't settle. He's making physically aggressive moves towards the basket, using his

physical advantages to get easy shots at the rim. And and you know, in general, I've talked about this before, but like for the Laker offense in particular, I've been completely blown away by how much things have turned around for them over the course of the last month or so, because like literally early in the season, when they would run their.

like I'm sure continuity plays a part in it. I'm sure just like repetition and practices played a part in it, but like it's really come around in a big way. I think part of it too is at the beginning of the season, D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves in particulars just weren't playing well. And now both guys are just playing at a significantly higher level. And like when your two skill guards that are on the roster for the sole purpose of being skill guards, and they're not giving

you high level offense. Like, obviously your team is gonna be in a position where they underachieved because all of a sudden, the thing you're supposed to be good at, you're bad at.

I didn't like the way that Darvin used him in some rotation situations today, which we'll talk about in a minute, but the actual basketball fit makes a ton of a ton of sense right away. At a couple of lobs tonight to Anthony Davis and to Jackson Hayes, he had

two self created threes. He had a jab step three out of the right corner that he hit and then in the second half, he had to pull up three and pick and roll where he got the defender kind of pinned on his backside and rose up right at the top of the key and knocked it down.

The team's guarding it two on two instead of three on two, So the big man's in a drop coverage and he's going back towards the rim to worry about Anthony Davis and here's this opening in the middle of the floor that he can capitalize on, you know. And then like Austin Reeves has some grift in him where he can get some stuff done in ISO just by

getting defenders out of position and making plays. But they don't really have like a guy that can like get to his spots on the perimeter and like rise up and knock down shots other than Lebron James and where that's where Spencer Dinwoody is like a huge addition. And then secondly, he can just beat people off the dribble,

like the Anthony Davis lob in the first half. That was an ISO play where he just kind of powered through his man and then got the rim protector to step up, got the I think it was Lori markin and got the over the top and Ad was able to dunk it in. Like that's an element to the offense that just hasn't really been there, having a guard that can just beat his man off the dribble to then draw in that help defender to then make a play, and I think in specific situations that'll be really valuable.

Like we've talked about this a lot last year. Remember in the Dallas Mavericks game where Lebron hurt his foot, how the Dallas Mavericks were doing a ton of switching and in the first half Lebron and Ad weren't being super physically aggressive, so it wasn't working. But in the second half it was like Lebron eighty post ups every time down the floor, bullying their.

They were a big most of the first half, and then in that second quarter stretch they kind of let go of the rope defensively, but they were at least scoring most of the time down the floor. And one of the things that I talked about in the Spencer Dinwoody signing video that I did was the idea of the potential of a three guard lineup, and specifically Austin Reeves, d Angela Russell, Spencer, Dinwiddie in combination to Lebron James and Anthony Davis is just a ton of offensive skill.

But specifically what makes that work is the Lakers don't really have a great option at the three because Jerry Vanderbilt's out right like Torrian Prince is not that good defensively, Like there will be Knights where it makes sense to

play him there, but like there'll be Knights where it doesn't. Right, then, Ruby Hachimura certain matchup, especially against switching schemes or teams that don't have a ton of perimeter talent on offense, where he doesn't have to chase a ton of players over to the top of screens, he could be useful there. But maybe in a different matchup you want Max Christi there because maybe you're playing against a team and you need someone to chase Steph Curry.

Dinwoodie on the floor in a three guard lineup. Now, the obvious solution there is put Spencer in for Torrian Prince. You put Spencer Infentorian Prince. You maintain your size on the front line. Ruby Hotcha Mura is a huge forward that can help you on the g I can help you just in general with your overall physicality, and you have Anthony Davis right and against a smaller Jazz team

that can work. And I mean, here's the thing, the Jazz are actually bigger than you'd think because they were going massive in the front line with like John Collins, Lori Markinen and Walker Kessler in this game and in this particular lineup stretch, I think Kessler and Marketing we're both on the floor. But what ended up happening is instead Darvin goes, no, we're gonna take Ruey out of the game, and so we're gonna play this three guard lineup with one of the least physically imposing wings in

the league and Torrian prints at the four. Now you're just preposterously small. You have no chance. Torrian had just finished getting barbecued by Jordan Clarkson in the middle of the second quarter. Now he's in this matchup with Lauri Markinen where he has absolutely no chance. Laurie gets a quick four points and all of a sudden, it's a one point game going into halftime. And there was absolutely no case for it. Like Torrian was not having a

good game. He had this weird play where he was driving along the right side of the floor in transition Spencer Dinwidy was completely unguarded in the right corner, just like completely unguarded, and instead he drove through to the left side, ignored Spencer and turned the ball up. Uh either turned it over to threw a bad shot it,

but like basically no advantage was created. He Uh had several other offensive possessions where he made poor reads and then on the defense of the end of the floor, and he was just not playing well, Like he wasn't playing well on either end of the floor. There was no case at all whatsoever for Torrian to be given that opportunity at the four over Ruey, who by the way, had like it was literally walking around in gulfed in flames.

He was red hot in that first half, career high scoring night, and in a stretch to end a half, Darvin goes like, actually, we're gonna go with Torrian at the four when there's no reason he hasn't been playing well enough to deserve that opportunity. Makes no sense from the stand point of lineup construction. You have Lori Markinen and Walker Kessler on the floor, You're way too small on the front line. It was one of the most

confounding lineup decisions that I've ever seen. And at one point in the second half, the Lakers were up by like twelve and Torreon Prince was a minus six, and like, one of the reasons why it concerns me is like Darvin is, and this has been something we talked about all season. Darvin very clearly is attached to Torrian Prince. Not the most unheard of thing in the world. Every coach has like a specific player there that they're very

invested in. I had Warriors fans telling me on Twitter today like it reminded them of Anthony Lamb with the Warriors last year, where Steve Kerr would just play him all the time. And like, so it's not entirely unheard of. But the problem is in this particular situation is Torrian's consistently playing over way better players and when that happens, you're cutting into your margin, and this is not a

team that has a significant margin for error. One of the things to talk about all the time is like playoff series swing on tiny sequences that like even a five games a gentleman sweep, or a six game series can can actually kind of come down to a handful of tiny sequences where games swing one way or another in the tire dynamic of the series changes. That type of mistake made against a good team could cost you a series, or rather it could cost you a game,

which could in turn cost you a series. And like, one of the things that I talked about a lot around the trade deadline is like, I don't know, even if the Lakers were to make a deal, if Darvin wouldn't just play Torrian Prince anyway, He started him more than twice as many times this year as he did in the previous as other teams did in the previous

three years combined. It's very clear this is an outlier type of relationship that we're seeing from these particular two and like one of do you guys remember when I did that rant? God, I can't even remember which team I think it was with the Kings, might have been this morning, But I was talking about like falling back on habits like you have these, like your deeper elements of your character are what shine through when the shit

hits the fan. It's a big part of why I talk about habits and discipline in the regular season, because, in my opinion, if you're a team where your habit is to play defense, a certain way to communicate, to make extra efforts, to play with physical force, when that is your habit, then all of a sudden, when it's Game three of a one to one series and it's all of a sudden, your team gets punched in the mouth by a run and you're down by seven in the early fourth quarter, when the shit hits the fan,

you guys will look around at each other and you'll defend, and you'll lean on those habits. That's why I think that stuff matters so much. Those things are what carry you when you get into the precarious situations down the line. What scares me for the Lakers is Darvin his default. When he doesn't know what to do, he goes to Torrian, and Torrian is not one of the Lakers' five best players.

And so that will in some situations on the matchups, it'll work, but in a lot of situations it won't, and it could cut It could cut into the margin for air for a Lakers team that is already super thin. Last note on the Lakers, they've got to find a way to connect this offensive success they're having with the defensive potential we know they need to have. As good as this Laker offense has been, it's not as good

as the Denver Nuggets were last year. And if you're not gonna be as good as the Denver Nuggets were last year, By the way, for all to talk about the Denver Nuggets defense, they defended pretty damn well when they got into the postseason, and they've been an even better defense this year than they were last year in the regular season.

defense as the Nuggets have. They have to be a good defense in addition to being a good offense, and so post All Star Break really really gonna be zeroing in on the defensive end of the four for the Lakers to see if they can make the necessary strides there before they get to the postseason, all right, before we get out of here, so we I think it was a Ramota Shelbourne for ESPN reported this morning with Adrian Morrisonowski that basically the Warriors had some pretty high

level conversations to the point where the owners were involved about potentially trading Lebron James to the Golden State Warriors. Apparently Genie buss Or did the Warriors to Rich Paul, Lebron's agent, and apparently Lebron and his team were like no, and so it ended up not happening. But I wanted to kind of dive into it a little bit because obviously I think that Lebron is going to stay with the Lakers, but there is some small chants this summer.

We don't know what, but there is some small chants this summer, whether it's through free agency, opting out, you know, signing for a mid level exception somewhere, or it's a trade or who knows what the dynamic will be, but there's some small amount of chance that Lebron, if things go really south this year for the Lakers, that he could decide that he wants to play elsewhere, And the Warriors are on the list of teams that would be

considered there. There are other teams on that list as well, some other teams that might even be more realistic, but the Warriors were on that list. So I wanted to kind of dive into the concept for just a minute because it's not a lot of people kind of talking about it online today, and like, to me, this is not something that needs to be overthought. The basketball fit

is very simple. You're taking Steph Curry, who is probably like the only player in the league that will consistently draw blitz and pick and roll like like, he gets two to the basketball every single time. Even down the stretch against the Clippers tonight, Draymond Green ball screens, He's rolling off to the weak side, both Clippers are running

With Steph. You are combining a player that consistently draws multiple defenders away from the basket with Lebron James, who, in my opinion, even at this age, is the best combination of downhill force and playmaking that we have in the league. There are other great playmakers in the league. N Cooleyokich is the best in my opinion, Luka Doncic incredible, right Trey Young incredible. None of those guys bring like actual straight line, downhill force the way that Lebron does.

And so when I envision like an offense centered around Lebron James, Steph Curry ball screens, it is frightening to me. You can't switch it because anybody who's strong enough to stay with Lebron has no help and no hope in hell of staying in front of Steph Curry off the dribble.

Anybody who's fast enough to stay in front of Steph Curry off the dribble has no hope in hell of staying in front of Lebron James posting them up on the weak side, you know, like if they kick it back around and he posts up right, Like if you trap Steph Curry, Lebron James is going to be the best short role player that Steph has ever played with. And then if you run a traditional coverage, Steph is

gonna pick you apart with pull up shooting. Like I can't imagine a more devastating two man game than Steph Curry and Lebron James except for maybe Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic, which literally is just because Lebron's old. But like, I don't think we need to galaxy bray in ourselves around what the obvious basketball fit is, which is nearly perfect. Like, the only rub you could put on the basketball fit is Lebron is old.

and hating losing, and specifically hating losing. I think push is a human being to make extra efforts when they're completely and utterly exhausted that other people aren't willing to make. A Love of basketball might get you in the gym a lot, might have you working on your game, might

make a very polished and skilled basketball player. But a hatred of losing makes the type of savage competitor that is impossible to beat when you get into these situations and like, to me, you're taking not just the two greatest competitors of this era, but basically the two most successful basketball players of this era, and you're putting them together. Of course, I'd love to see it. It'd be so

much fun. And if you're a basketball fan and you're not, like, yeah, Lebron James and Steph Curry playing together, that would be fun. I can't relate to you. Like and even if there's some unrealistic element to it, like, it's like, it's really that's simple.

I will see you guys in the morning. The volume