Hoops Tonight - Damian Lillard drops 39 in debut as Bucks beat Embiid's Sixers, Lakers-Suns Reaction: LeBron James & Anthony Davis outlast Kevin Durant’s 39 points

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This is the second of three shows tonight for those are guys you missed it earlier, we hit two more of the league pass games from Wednesday night's slate. We hit the Zion Williamson return to the New Orleans Pelicans as they went into Memphis and beat the Grizzlies. And then we also hit the Cavs NETS game where Donovan Mitchell hit the game winners. If you're looking for those, you can find them a little bit further back on

the feed. This video, we're hitting Bucks sixers from the perspective of both teams and that officiating fiasco in the fourth quarter. And then come back to the feeds later tonight we're gonna have a breakdown of Lakers suns as well. You guys are the job before we get started. This is our brand new YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button as we try to get this channel off the ground. Don't forget

about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. Follow me on social media Twitter, TikTok, Instagram. That's where I'm posting video content, film breakdowns, and show announcements throughout the year and the last but out least, keep dropping mail back questions and the YouTube comments. We're gonna be hitting them at the tail end of shows throughout the season as well. All right, let's talk some basketballs. So you know, Damian Lillard came into camp. I thought

a little bit out of shape. He was missing a lot of his pull up jump shots short on the front of the rim in preseason. Kind of did that again tonight until the end. I mean, even that three he hit out of pick and roll in the second quarter, he left short on the front of the rim, but it bounced in. And you know, it's hard to explain all of you guys who are heavy duty ball handlers, pull up shooters at whatever respective level you play, you

know that ebb and flow between. Like when you're really in a groove and you're in basketball shape and you do all the things that you do and you're getting good lyft and you have a specific spot where you make shots. Usually it's off the back of the rim or some people primarily swish when they're locked in right. But then like when you have an injury or you go on vacation and you come back and you're just not quite the type of you know, in rhythm player

that you're accustomed to being. And I think there's gonna be a little bit of a process there that's magnified by the fact that you know, he's trying to figure out where he fits in in this Bucks team. And I mean you could really see it in that first

quarter and then get in that third quarter. Not enough dame way too much Giannis way too much other guys getting involved, and you could It's just it's one of those things where at the end of the day, especially when they get into half court situations, I think the more they kind of simplify their offensive hierarchy and lean on Damian Lillard, the better, you know. I mean, Jannis

is at his best when he's in transition. That was one of the stories of this game is that he really struggled with Joel Embiid's rim protection in the half court, but then whenever he got out in transition, good things happen.

And it's one of those things where like you almost want to see this team slot in a way where Dame kind of functions as the primary ball handler, Jannis operates as basically a ball screen fulkrum and then a you know, obviously a mismatch attacker whenever he has an opportunity or when Dame's off the floor, you can go back into your traditional kind of yanis spearheaded offense, right and then from there you want guys playing off the ball and you want to lean into that action as

much as possible. No different than the way the Nuggets lean into Jamal Murray and Nikole Jokic as as much as possible. Not not only do you want to do that in the big picture, but it also will help you the more you do it to build chemistry between those two. And I mean it was one of those things where you can kind of tell in that second quarter Dame started to get it going. Now, Nick Nurse is famously those are guys who followed the show for a while. We talk a lot about Nick Nurse and

his overly aggressive defensive approach. Tons of ball pressure, tons of help. He's gapping, he's in play passing lanes, he's trying to force your primary ball handlers to get rid of the basketball. And one of the things that the Bucks did to counter that in that second quarter was just set the ball screen way further out, like thirty five feet forty feet away from the basket. It's kind of like the inverse of that concept we were talking

about with Anthony Davison nikola Jokic yesterday. Remember I talked about how the closer you get to the rim, your angles are off. Imagine the defender is like a square, and imagine the basket over here, and your point is right here. With the square right the closer you already the basket, your driving lanes get kind of flattened out

to the side. Right when you're further away from the basket, there's kind of like more angles for you to go around a player, right, And that's the thing Damian Lillard. When he beats somebody off the dribble thirty five feet from the basket, it doesn't matter how far you're playing off a shooter or anything like that. Everything is so spaced out at that point that it just gives you that much more time to get ahead of steam, to make decisions based on how help defenders are reacting. And

he really got going downhill. And again, like even when he was missing his pull up three point shot in preseason and missing them early in this game, you know he was getting guarded as though he was making those shots, right, and so the perfect counter to that is to try

to get going downhill. He definitely got going towards the rim in that second quarter, did hit a pull up three short off the front of the rim, but somehow still went in in that in that second quarter run right, so like gets going, starts to get into the flow. Then in that third quarter it kind of felt like Dame kind of got uninvolved from the offense again, and that's one of those things that I'd like to see in the big pictures them just leaning more on Dame now.

Down the stretch of that game, it was a steady diet of Dame and that's exactly what it should be more frequently throughout the game. I don't think it's a coincidence that the big Bucks runs were that second quarter run Dame running the offense and that late fourth quarter run Dame running the offense. He's by far your best offensive player. He's the guy. He's the reason why you made that trade. You didn't make that trade to have him functionally operate as Drew Holliday on the offensive end

of the floor. You brought him in because he's one of the best half court shot creators in the NBA, in the history of the NBA, and you need to lean on that more. And you saw some of the upside there right like they ran a horn set down the stretch. It was the play I want to say, it was the one after the kind of officiating fiasco before he got the when he got the three free throws. Was after that they run a horn set. Giannis sets

the screen. PJ. Tucker's guarding Giannis. Why because PJ Tucker's a fire hydrant that can kind of contain Giannis's bully ball a little bit, right. So on the play, Damian Lillard comes off the screen and Giannis rolls hard to the front. But those of you guys want to see a video of this play, I put it on my Twitter feed talking about PJ. Tucker's staying glued to the roller. Now again, Yannis brings real role gravity to these situations. So again we talked about the two different ways you

can guard it. Right, If you blit Stame, you give the ability for Yannis to work downhill in a four on three. If you don't blitz Dame, what's gonna happen? If Jannis rolls downhill and PJ. Tucker stays with Yannis and Kelly Ubre is in a trail position as he's chasing over the top of the screen, Dame's gonna be able to get downhill. So in this play, Dame drives down the left lane line he sees PJ. Tucker glued up to Jannis knows he has an opportunity at the rim.

By the time PJ. Tucker realizes what's happening in turns to contest. It's way too late, and he lays it up. I want to say it was the very next possession, the ISO three against Kelly Ubre. That's that like top tier shot creation, that rescue possession stuff that I always talk about. That's the difference between a one to eleven

offensive rating and a one to nineteen offensive rating. It's usually the three or four possessions of game, whether it's a late shot clock situation, a late quarter situation, or an end of game situation where the defense is locked in, nothing's open and you just need your guy to make a shot. And Dame hit a dribble combination step back three over Kelly Ubray. That was effectively the dagger. And again like that's the kind of stuff that you never

had with this team in the past. Now, this was a really ugly game for the Bucks for the most part. Yannis struggled mightily with Joel Embiid's rim protection. Again, like, that's the thing with Giannis right now, And this is

why you had to make the Dame trade. I talked a lot about after the Dame trade how it was an indicator of self awareness for the Bucks front office understanding that here we are in the year twenty twenty three and kind of like Ad in the Bubble in twenty twenty that Giannis playoff run in twenty twenty one with free throw shooting kind of looks like it was a little bit of a fluke, right. Since then, his jump shooting has declined, his free throw shooting has declined.

Last year, he shot thirty percent on all field goal attempts outside of the restricted area. Like Yannis can't shoot outside of the paint. You know, he did make a big hook shot down the stretch of this game where I want to say it was against PJ. Tucker where he kind of bullied his way inside and he made that little push shot in the lane. That's the one I want to see him continue to work on because that, to me, should be his over the top shot that

he goes to. But outside of that one shot, you're not really getting anything at the end of this game from Yannis in the half court in terms of shot creation. He just for what And you know, it's funny because with Joel Embiid, he I don't think Joel Embiid is a top tier defender. I don't think he's good enough on the perimeter, but his immense physical size kind of uniquely equips him to deal with the guys like Jannis

and Nikole Jokic. Like that's what's wild. Like no one thinks Joel Embids as good a defender as Anthony Davis, but Yannis eats Anthony Davis up, and Nicole Jokic eats Anthony Davis up in a lot of cases because he's just too damn big, right, And the flip side there is like Embiid's just physically capable of absorbing those blows and standing his ground, and he gave Yannis a ton

of trouble at the rim in this game. That's a game where you know, if they play the exact same way they played but Dame's not out there, they lose because Dame is what brings that top tier shot creation to the situation. But I mean, this is a super encouraging one because it was ugly, the rhythm seemed off for the most part. Dame didn't really even know when he was supposed to be aggressive outside of the end of the game, and he still did Dame shit at

the end and you won. And so that's what's encouraging because over the course of the season that that continuity will improve, that hierarchy will be simplified. Those guys will know what they're supposed to do on both ends of the floor, and they'll look better. This is, for all

intents and purposes, kind of a new basketball team. When you look at guys like Malik Beasley playing a significant role, who you know, wasn't all that impactful as a shooter tonight, but I thought he was pretty good defensively, if one of his better defensive games that I've seen him play. And obviously Damian Lillard brings an entirely different vibe to this team offensively, So first outing ugly definitely got some fortunate whistles in the fourth quarter. But a win is

a win is a win. Now, I want to talk about the the Sixers for a second. I legit feel bad for them in this one. You guys know how I feel about officiating. I think pretending there's a conspiracy is a loser mentality. No one's targeting your favorite player, no one's targeting your favorite team. The officials take their job very seriously. Yes, of course there's bad apples among the officiating community. Guys who have taken it personally or that are too invested in them being part of the show.

But for the most part, the body officials do the best they can with the rules that they have to kind of interpret those within the game. And usually when I see people complaining about officiating or specific types of calls, to me, it's more of a big picture issue for the entire league rather than targeting your individual team. That said, it is very possible for one game to randomly go horribly wrong for one team, and I thought this was

one of those games. I thought there were several key calls down the stretch of this game that went directly against Philly. That dribble hand off with Kelly ubray or they called the offensive foul, Like all he did was do a dribble handoff and then keep running in the same direction he had been running. An offensive player is allowed to run. That's just two players running into each other.

That's part of the game. When I see calls like that, I'm wondering if that official has ever played a basketball game in his life. Right down on the other end of the floor, Yannis clearly airballs a hook shot and then catches his own miss. That's a travel. You can't do that. That directly led to the Damian Lillard catch and shoot three on the left wing that changed the lead in the game. I thought the three point foul that Damian Lillard got when Kelly Eubray contested him kind

of on his left side, that's a bad call. Like

that's that is a foul, grifty bullshit call. I So like I again, the Sixers are not victims here in the big picture, but in any sort of one single game sample size, it's very possible for just a handful of random calls to go against you, And so that would be the silver lining if you're the Sixers, is like you basically had what I think they counted that d' Anthony Milton bank in three at the buzzer, So you lost by one, you know, and effectively were within one

possession for the most part at the end late despite getting some rough calls, despite them also dealing with some issues in terms of their offensive organization throughout the game. This is a team that's used to James Harden setting them up for the most part over the course of the season in terms of just offensive organization, right, and you could tell like it's kind of similar to the Dame thing. Like Tyree s Maxey was a little too

passive early in the game. When he started really looking to be aggressive, that's when the Sixers offense took over. When mb looked to be aggressive, that's when the Sixers offense took over. So like again, they have some stuff that they're sorting out to and they had lots of encouraging performances right like Joel Embiat's three point shot looks amazing. Tyres Maxie still way too damn fast. No one can

keep him in front off the dribble. Kelly you Bray brought a lot of athleticism, point of attack, defense, and timely three point shooting to the table. Even Jadon Springer had a really interesting kind of perimeter defense sequence in that in that first half. So like a lot of encouraging stuff for this despite unfortunate circumstances. Again, a win is a win is a win. And you could tell that the Sixers kind of got down on themselves as

the calls weren't going their way. But at the end of the day, if I'm a Sixers fan or a Sixers player, I'm feeling pretty good about where we're at right now. Because Tyres looks ready. Joel Embiid outplayed Giannis in this game. I thought pretty soundly again that ability for Mbid to protect the rim against the freaky athletes in this league is a real weapon, and so there's

a lot to be encouraged about for the Sixers. One other note, I wanted to hit on the Sixers really quick, a very similar thing to what I was talking about with Anthony Davis and Nicole Jokic and the transition battle. So in the half court, I'll be really curious to see the numbers when cleaning the glass updates in the morning. But like when Embiid was at the rim, in the half court, he had a ton of success slowing down the Yannis rim pressure and just in general stalling the

Milwaukee Bucks half court offense. But there was a key play late that you guys might remember, where Embiid drove left on brook Lopez and threw up an incredibly difficult, kind of like floating bank shot on the left side of the rim against brook Lopez that he missed. And when he missed, the first thing he did is he looked over at the official and he stopped kind of

in his tracks. Meanwhile, Jannis is barreling down the other way for an and one layup, right, And those are the kinds of things that now the Philadelphia seventy six are similar to the Los Angeles Lakers. They are a very good half court defense, but they suck guarding in transition. And this all comes down to the Anthony Davis and

Joel Embid running the floor thing. And that's why like those kind of like perimeter based drives where they're slashing to the rim and throwing up difficult layups, both of them could stand to remove that from their game entirely because when they do that, they neither of them are particularly great at making those kind of foul grifty shots, and when they don't get the call, they're always out

of position in transition defense. And for both of those teams, when they're not at the rim, their defense falls to pieces. And so that's just something for them to for both teams, but specifically we're talking about the Sixers here to work on that specific element of kind of like catering your shot selection around floor balance and making sure that embiads in a position to get back on defense is an important part of them polishing up their transition defense over

the course of the season, but entertaining game. Bucks got the win. Again. When I was talking about the officiating, I'm not trying to take away from that. It's part of the deal. It's part of the game. Officiating is a variable, and if you want to make it so that officials cannot determine the outcome of games, you need to outplay the other team with enough margin for that

kind of air. So congrats to the Bucks. Both teams though, a lot of stuff to be encouraged about, and a lot of stuff for them both to get better at. We haven't had Lebron James and Kevin Durant play each other in a meaningful basketball game since the twenty eighteen NBA Finals, right, Actually, I think it was Christmas Day. The following year, twenty nineteen, they played a regular season game. At least, that was the last time they played in

the regular season. It's been a very long time. We had a little bit of a teaser with their preseason game last week, but both of them did not disappoint in this particular game. Kevin Durant thirty nine points, facing every single conceivable, ridiculous coverage from the Lakers. They're zoning him up on his post ups, meaning they're just having Anthony Davis just ignore his man and come over on the other side of the block to basically soft double.

They're trapping him on ball screens, they're ball pressuring him, they're outright doubling him in a lot of cases. They just throw the kitchen sink at Kevin Durant, with Devin Booker and with Bradley Beal out, and yet he still puts up thirty nine points on fifty percent shooting, because he's the greatest scorer of all time in my opinion.

And then Lebron James, not to be outdone, takes over the game late in the fourth quarter, basically takes the keys of the offense as things were falling apart, and makes a bunch of key plays down the stretch as the Lakers get the win. So I want to dive into first Lebron taking control of the offense. Now, there's a very specific reason why I feel like he needed to, and we're gonna get to that in a minute. But about halfway through the fourth quarter, Lebron essentially just takes

over most of the primary decision making. Right around the time Dangel Russell left the game and they brought Reeves back into the game. And then immediately Lebron James basically does two things. He starts force feeding Ad in the post whenever he sees him get a clean look where he's got good position and they aren't doubling or three quarter front thing or anything like that. Right so you saw him feed that, Make that feed to Eric Gordon. There's a couple baseline feeds as well. He's feeding Ad

when he has those post ups. Then secondly, whenever he doesn't see an opportunity to get the ball to Ad in the post, he's calling Anthony Davis up to set a screen so that he can bring Usef Nurkic into pick and roll. Now usif Nurkic is a player that the Sun's brought in for two reasons. One Deandreyton was a malcontent and they had to get him out. He

wanted to go. They didn't like him anymore, had to go, even though he's probably a better player, right useif Nurkic is also a better passer in the short role, they want for all the times that the Sons are going to get two defenders on the ball, they want someone who can make decisions in the four on threes in the back line. However, Yusif Nurkic is not a good rim protector, not a good drop coverage big, and someone that Lebron James basically sees food when he's attacking him

in pick. Now. It started on the right side when Lebron actually split the pick and roll Eric Gordon's guarding him. He gets the ball screen from Adi and splits the action and then goes and makes the layup on the right side. But then he hits it two additional times in the final two minutes where he attacks Nurkic in pick and roll and gets downhill and makes easy layups.

Lebron is huge, like six foot nine, really long wing span two hundred and seventy pounds or whatever the hell he is, and so like, as long as he gets enough of an angle and he's not going against real length that he can struggle with at this phase in his career, he's gonna be one of the best rim finishers in the NBA. He I haven't seen the numbers from this particular game, but he was nine to ten from the rim at the rim against the Nuggets. He's still one of the very best rim finishers in the

league when he doesn't see really imposing rim protection. And so again there's two different ways to look at that. The first side is the Sun's side, essentially like, this is what happens when you are a team that desperately needs defense and you're investing in a who can't protect the rim. But the other side of that is this is what smart decision making looks like. We talked about this in one of our shows in the last couple of days, and I can't even remember which one we

talked about. The Oh, it was the Mavericks one. We were talking about Luca and Kyrie. When you get to the end of games, it's a decision making sport. It's all about like identifying where your best advantages are, making the right reads from there, and then your talent carrying you over the top. At the end of games, physicality increases and the whistle gets swallowed. They're gonna probably switch

most actions. Obviously you can't switch nur kitchen pick and roll, but they're gonna do a lot more switching and your off ball stuff, so you're not gonna get as easy looks there. It just in general is gonna get harder to do anything, and so you have to have a really smart basketball mind running the show for you that can identify where the weak point is and then attack that weak point consistently. For instance, like the Suns down the stretch kept trying to get Austin Reeves onto Kevin

Durant in isolation situations. Now the Lakers Counterdap by basically just doubling and trapping him every single time. Right. But again, like Kd's identifying, this is my weak point, Osiris is probably my best chance to score. I'm trying to attack there, right, That's what Lebron's doing. On the other end. Nurkic is my weak point. I gotta get Nurkic into this action so that I can get downhill and make easy things

happen at the rim for the Lakers. Now, what's interesting is we completely changed the whole narrative surrounding the minutes restriction. I'm looking up the minutes right now because I can't remember exactly, but he only played like, what twenty nine minutes in the Nuggets game tonight. He plays thirty five minutes, And you know it's funny. Ryan, the lead producer of the show shout out to Ryan. He just had his

first kid, He just became a dad. Ryan said that he was shocked, utterly shocked that Lebron's minute restriction only lasted one day. And you know what's funny is is like, I genuinely believe they want to do that, and I also believe that as much as Lebron enjoys playing that he would be on with that. I've actually advocated after

the Tuesday game. I think it'd be good for Lebron because Lebron has a tendency when you play him thirty five, thirty six minutes a night, to have extended stretches where he kind of coasts through games, and that's just not good that can now, honestly, like Lebron at this phase in his career, when he's not engaged, can actually sometimes hurt his team a little bit with when he's when

he's being lazy. And so I kind of like the idea of playing basically four seven minute shifts, or I guess they actually kind of break it up so he plays three shifts a half, but call that, you know, three five minute shifts, three four minute shifts a half.

I almost like the idea of him doing that sort of thing and then like just playing really freaking hard for those five minute shifts, because he can be deeply impactful still at this phase in his career when he's engaged in focused and actually giving his shit on both ends of the floor. But the reality is is they're never going to actually be able to do that until they can be a functional basketball team when he's not on the floor. Now, as we know, they were a

functional basketball team when he wasn't on the floor. Towards the tail end of last season. We saw that a post deadline when Lebron missed a bunch of time, and we saw that in the playoffs. But so far this year, through two games, the Lakers are plus twenty nine when Lebron James is on the floor in minus thirty six when he's off the floor, And so that dynamic needs to be fixed in some way, shape or form, or they're never going to be able to really cut Lebron's

minutes down to twenty eight per game. Now, the question is why are the Lakers struggling so much with Lebron James off the floor so far through two games. I think it comes down to a couple of different things. There's basically two main things that I want to hit here.

One is one that we've talked about at length already in two separate videos on the show, which is the convoluted nature of the ball handling situation, which is like way too much Gabe Vincent, way too much D'Angelo Russell, nowhere near enough Austin Reeves, Lebron, James Anthony Davis, the three players who are actually the best players on your team. And so as you kind of lean more on inferior players,

it hurts you in two ways. The inferior players are going to make inferior plays, and then your three main players are going to be out of rhythm. And that's

kind of like the tradeoff that happens there. And so as I would like to see the Lakers in the long run simplify that order of operations, lean more on Austin and Lebron as their primary ball handlers, lean more on Anthony Davis in the post, try to find ways to keep those guys in rhythm and then kind of put Gay, Vincent and Dangelo Russell where they can still

be deeply impactful, which is off the ball. Now. The second big problem is and the reason why when even this applies to Austin as well, although I think Austin is better at it than both d Lo and Gabe. But Dlo and Gabe are both skill guards. Neither of them are above at even average NBA athletes. They're both below average NBA athletes. Austin is also a below average NBA athlete, but he's shifty and actually good at beating people off the dribble and getting downhill pressure, and so

he's a little bit better in that regard. But when you have the ball running through Gabe in D'Angelo Russell, they're not really beating people off the dribble with a lot of pace and downhill force, and so what happens is they're not getting the defense into rotation because they're not actually collapsing the defense. If they're not actually collapsing the defense, then you're not getting high quality kickout opportunities

for your skilled players. If you're not getting high quality kickout opportunities for your skilled players, now they're attacking against a set defense. If they're attacking against a set defense, then their athleticisms shortcomings rise to the surface. As you see guys like Jordan Goodwin and Eric Gordon and Joshakogi hold them in place on the perimeter as they struggle

to generate quality looks. No big secret that in the fourth quarter when they started running everything through Lebron in Austin and Ad in the late fourth quarter, that was when they started to get real downhill pressure. That was when they started to get higher quality looks. Right, and again you start to imagine a better basketball team. It's one of those things where if it's not Nurkic, it's higher quality defensive players, it'll be a little more complicated. Right.

Lebron's not just gonna be able to drive down the lane for layups, but he's gonna be able to drive down the lane and generate high quality close out opportunities. And that's the thing. Like Dangela Russell is capable of being a very good off ball player, so is Gabe Vincent. So I'd like to see them simplify the order of operations, get the ball in the hands of their better players more frequently. And then that second part, that's a roster deficiency.

It's a problem that only Lebron, James and Anthony Davis can consistently generate rim pressure and Austin Reeves right now is your best guard at generating rim pressure, and he's getting the fewest on ball touches of all your guards. This is where the absence of Dennis Schroeder becomes an issue.

As much as we talk about Dennis Schroder in his shortcomings, because he wasn't as good off the ball and obviously as good as he was as a ball pressure guard, he was also a little bit undersized and that could cause problems. What Dennis Shruder could do is beat people off the dribble and get the defense into rotation, which could get the Laker offense moving. And so again, like you know, we've talked a lot about potential D'Angelo Russell

trades over the course of the seas. This is why I've pitched things like, hey, packaged D'anngela Russell with Ruby hatcha Mura at the deadline for some sort of higher level athlete on the perimeter that can slash and generate real rim pressure and guard and knock down threes. The reason why I've talked about that is simply because right

now you have a redundancy. You have three skill guards, Austin Reeves, d Angela Russell and Gabe Vincent Austin is effectively the same type of player as d Lo, just a better version of him. So it doesn't make sense to have your backcourt with two kind of redundant similar players. It might be fine over the course of the regular season, but you're gonna run into bad matchups whenever they run

into super athletic guards KCP and Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray's not super athletic, but he's super strong, KCP is a freak athlete, Jordan Goodwin and Josha Kogi. When they run into those types of matchups, they're gonna have a lot of problems. Now Again, like I was, even if this Lakers had lost this game, I wouldn't have been like, oh, they're gonna miss the play. I still think this team's

gonna win fifty games. They just have too much talent, but they do have that specific weakness and bad court athleticism, and as often as they run into athletic backcourts, they're gonna have problems, especially when those guys are running the show. And so I would look at it as like a

consolidation type of move. At the deadline, I would look to move D'Angelo Russell with Ruey Hachamura, to bring in some more athleticism in the backcourt, to bring in somebody who can do some more slashing, to help get the defense in rotation more often so that they can get higher quality looks for their skilled players. And again, like, it's not a now problem, it's a February problem. But this is why you have to look at that as an option for the record. This isn't something that I'm

like conceiving out of thin air. I would imagine if you talk to all the parties involved, D'Angelo Russell's agent, Rob Polenka, you know, Lebron, James, Darvin Ham all that they all probably know that this is kind of like a temporary sort of situation. It was the best way to get D'Angelo Russell the money that he wanted, and it's gonna end with him inevitably getting moved when they

get to the deadline. But at the bottom line is until they sort all those problems out and get to the point where they can be functional the way they were without Lebron at the end of the at the end of last season, they're never gonna be able to cut his minutes last year. It was outstanding defense, hillacious defense combined with Dennis Schroeder's rim pressure with Austin Reeves is the perfect complimentary guard, and Anthony Davis playing at

an MVP level down the stretch of the season. That's how they won games without Lebron, and right now they're not capable of replicating that when Lebron's off the floor. They're gonna have to figure that out if they're gonna keep his minutes down. I was really impressed by the Laker defense they allowed. You can kind of see how the flow of this game went. They went up seven to zero to start the game, came out guns blazing right then they immediately relax. Suns jump them the rest

of the first quarter. They go up double figures. Right then the Lakers lock in. In the second quarter, they fight, They only allowed twenty two points. They make it a game. It's fifty two to forty eight at halftime. Right then they come out in the third quarter and they start

bullshitting again. The Suns build a big lead. Then you go into that fourth quarter, desperation kicks in and suddenly the Lakers allow eleven points, which is what they should have been doing all game when you really factor in the fact that Kevin Durant was the only player on the Suns that was capable of really consistently getting to his spots and making plays. A lot of the other guys that were succeeding it was hustle related. It was either like Eric Gordon or Joshakogi or Jordan Goodwin just

bullying the smaller, less athletic Laker guards. Or it was like crashing the offensive glass when guys weren't playing hard, getting out in transition, all of that kind of stuff, right, and so again, like they were capable of strangling the Sun's offense really at any point they wanted to, but they were bullshitting too often. But I was impressed by the amount of effort they put in that fourth quarter to put them away. I thought Christian Wood playing in

the closing lineup was super interesting. He Again, what did I say after the Christian Wood signing. I agree, he's a bad defensive player. That's pretty much proven over the course of his NBA career. Right, However, if you look at the highlights, what is the first thing I do? Every single time a team signs a player. It's not

just the Lakers it's everybody. I start scouting them, and I watched hundreds of possessions of Christian Wood defending in pick and roll, and there were a lot of ugly ones in there, but you know what else, there was

a lot of really good ones. You know why, because Christian Wood has really good physical tools and he's actually capable of being an impact defensive player when he's in shape, when he's engaged, when he's focused right, And so you kind of saw that by giving him a really dedicated job, like, hey, Chase, Kevin dran around on these screens. As soon as the ball screen comes, we're going to like offer immediate, strong, hard help or even double in some cases. So just

use your length to bother him. At that point. It was an easy job and Christian Wood excelled at it. And what was interesting is I think he was only like two for seven or two for nine from the field. He didn't have a good offensive game, but he did his job defensively and he secured a bunch of huge contested rebounds. That's one of his individual gifts. He's good at high pointing the ball and he's a very long athletic player, and so when he goes for you know,

contested rebounds. He's capable of out jumping everybody. But I thought he played a huge role in that defensive flurry for the Lakers in the fourth because when you put him out there with Gabe, Vincent and Austin and Lebron and Ad, they're kind of a huge team, and like Gabe gives you that traditional kind of ball pressure guard look, and then you have three dudes that are six nine or taller and really athletic, and you're gonna get a lot of You're gonna make a lot of defensive players

and get a lot of defensive rebounds. In that situation, Anthony Davis kind of on the back burner tonight was freaking unbelievable. Thirty points, thirteen rebounds, three blocks, and three steals. How about that six stocks in this game? I thought he was unbelievably good defensively in that fourth quarter, just flying around, grabbing contested rebounds, guarded KD on a bunch

of key possessions. Watching those Kdad one on one face offs are actually pretty wild because it's like it's like you're watching two NBA two K created players playing in the post against each other. I thought Anthony Davis was fantastic. Again, Usually you don't look at the box score with ad because his defensive impact goes so far beyond that. But when you get that defensive impact in the thirty thirteen with three blocks and three steals, that's an MVP level

performance out of Anthony Davis as well. I wanted to shout I just wanted to make sure that we gave him his shout out because just because Lebron took over at the end of the game, again, in the big picture of what's happening down the stretch there, Anthony Davis is still controlling the game defensively. On the Sun's front, Kevin Durant is literally amazing. I've just completely blown away

by him. Like, how many players could you put in a situation like that with that group of role players and have a realistic chance to defeat a team as good as the Lakers are on the road. I mean, even though the Lakers didn't play particularly well in this game for the most part, I still thought it was

an incredibly impressive performance. Really, the only knock was the eight turnovers, but I thought he ran out of gas and you could tell just towards the end of the game like he's just he's having to create every single possession for them, and he's still, in spite of all of that, had them with the one had a free throw to potentially give them a one point lead late,

which he missed. I thought he was incredible. Again, the Nurkic on defense piece is something they're gonna have to keep an eye on when you have him operating in drop coverage. Guys are just gonna see food. They're not gonna see him as someone who really bothers them at

the rim. And so yeah, like Lebron at this phase in his career is still capable, but there are even there are several better pick and roll ball handlers that they're gonna face at various points over the course of the season, especially guys that can beat people off the dribble. And I'm pretty concerned about Nurkic anchoring a defense even with Frank Vogel at the helm. But I want to shout out I want to shout out the Suns in general for just how good they look at this point

in the season. In specific areas they've hit on some

betteran minimum signings. I thought Jordan Goodwin, it was fantastic tonight when you kind of pair him with Joshakogi at every single phase of the game, you just have this kind of bulldog, small but a short, somewhat short wing that's just freakishly strong, that is more athletic than most of the other guards that they're going to play, that can apply physical ball pressure, which is such an important element of any Frank Vogel at defense in general, I've

just been impressed with their overall commitment and competitiveness and they're just gonna win a lot of damn games when they get their group together and healthy. Obviously, that's the question. Devin Booker's experiencing pain in the middle of his foot. That's always concerning. Stress injuries can be a problem, so you have to manage that with rest, which can cause problems with the rhythm and kind of continuity of your roster as well. And Bradley Beal's dealing with back issues.

Those are never fun right. So again, like there's some question marks surrounding the team, but the main question marks at this point for me are injuries and the rim protection of use of Nurkic. I actually do think with Frank Vogel and what they have in athletes surrounding their core. They are capable of defending at a high enough level. They just might have to consider making some sort of move at the deadline for a better rim protector to put alongside these guys. All right, that's all I have

for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting the show. Nothing going on during the day tomorrow. I will be breaking down the Friday Night slate on Saturday morning, though, so keep an eye on the feeds. On Saturday. The volume