Hoops Tonight - Doc Rivers' Bucks debut, SGA vs. Anthony Edwards, Concerns for Celtics?

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We're gonna hit two games from last night. Doc Rivers made his coaching debut with the Milwaukee Bucks in Denver and what was a very competitive and interesting game. There was a fun little chess match at the end of that one too that I want to get into. So we're gonna be breaking that game down from the perspective

of both teams. And then one of the best young rivalries in the NBA right now, the Thunder and the Timberwolves, led by two guards that bring very different games to the table, but that are both kind of similarly regarded around the NBA. They put forth a fun show last night, so we're gonna break that game down. Then I have about a half dozen mail bag questions for us to get to at the tail end of the show that

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let's talk some basketball. So Doc's coaching debut with the Bucks last night, right, off the bat you could tell

the difference in kind of defensive intensity. There was an early possession where Dame was chasing Kentavious Callwell Pope off of a dribble handoff in Nikola Jokic and actually like sidled up over the top of the screen and beat CACP to the spot, chested him up and like and shut the possession down, which ended up leaving leading to a late clock three from Nikola Jokic where he missed a three along the kind of like above the break

on the right side. And I remember as I was watching that, I've been watching a ton of Milwaukee Bucks defensive tape all season, and there just aren't that many possessions this year where Dame actually beats a guy over the top of the screen and does his job, you know. And the thing with Dame is, obviously there's an energy conservation element to him being such a valuable offensive player. But Dame, even though he's a bit undersized, is an

outstanding athlete. Even at this phase of his career where he's declined a little bit, he's an outstanding athlete, and so he's capable of doing a much better job than he had done. And one of the things I was looking forward to with Doc Rivers was just a better defensive commitment, and I thought he did do a better job. But I want to kind of start. We'll come back to the Doc River stuff in a little bit. I wanted to start with the Nuggets on the defensive end

of the floor. Obviously, they won the game, and some of the matchup stuff that they did did a good job of kind of slowing down Milwaukee's offensive attack because Milwaukee's an excellent offensive team as well, so the matchups kind of went as you would expect. They went with Kntavi's called Pope on Damian Lillard and he did a

good job there. Aaron Gordon on Janis and this kind of dynamic is really interesting that the Aaron Gordon and Nicole Jokic front court, specifically for Giannis and brook Lopez, because the Bucks run a lot of inverted pick and roll where Jannis is actually the ball handler and they'll have like Brooks at the ball screen, and it works really well in a lot of cases because most teams don't have versatile enough defensive front courts to be able to switch that action, and so a lot of times,

like you'll end up with some big guy who and most big guys struggle with screen navigation because they're easy targets for screens, and mostly its guards and wings that grow up in the game learning how to navigate screens right. And one of the things that's that Milwaukee will weaponize a lot of times is a big defender on Giannis and then have brook Sky set a screen. They don't want to switch that, and so like they'll set a good screen and that big guy just isn't good at

navigating it. Now Jannis is just barreling downhill and they can have a lot of success there well the Nuggets because Nicole Jokic has some experienced guarding Giannis, mainly just like giving him a ton of space for jump shots and having the ability to withstand Janis's kind of like bully ball attack to the chest right and we've seen that not just in the NBA but in FIBA as well, and so they were able to basically switch any of

the Yannis brook Lopez pick and rolls. The main kind of dynamic that we saw where Milwaukee had some success on offense was the Dame Brook Lopez pick and roll, particularly in the first half, because Dame is one of those guys that kind of brings the unique combination of speed and pull up shooting to bring Yokic out in his high drop coverage and to be able to have

some success there. And in the first half in particular, Dame was sneak and pocket passes through and splitting and going around Jokic and actually generating some high quality stuff. But we know Nikola Jokic is actually capable of being a pretty damn good pick and roll defender because he uses his brain, he uses his hands to disrupt plays

by kind of just seeing things before they happen. And in that second half, Nikola Jokic was way more active in his high drop coverage forced Dame into three turnovers in the third quarters or in the third quarter. Overall, I thought Denver did a really nice job defensively. That was kind of the story of the game. I mean, Doc Rivers talked about after the game out was kind of like an offensive loss, and we're going to get into some of those details here in a little bit,

but I want to give Denver credit. I thought they played a really good defensive game, and then on the other end of the floor, it was kind of similar to the Celtics game in the sense that it kind of devolved into a heavy dose of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray two man game. And this is where I want to talk about the chess match a little bit down the stretch, because Doc actually had a really sound

defensive game plan down the stretch that game. He put Joannas and Tenna Komball on Nikole jokicch that allowed him to switch the Murray jokicch pick and roll. And so what he did is he put Brook Lopez on whoever the big forward was, whether it was Peyton Watson or Aaron Gordon. And so one of the things Denver was doing is they were running down the floor and they were running quick early ball screens with Contavious Callwell Pope

to get Damian Lillard switched onto Jamal Murray. Then once Dame was on Jamal Murray, they'd run him off the Jokic ball screen. And that's where Milwaukee was countering by switching Giannis quickly onto Jamal Murray. Now, one of the things that Denver will do to quickly attack that is to have Jamal quickly pull the ball out make a post entry to Jokic now that he has Damian Lillard on him, But the Bucks were doing what's called a

scram switch. For basically, right when the post entry is getting made, Dame is turning and leaving, and because Brooke is in a perfect position to kind of do that kind of switch, think of it this way, like imagine

Aaron Gordon or Peyton Watson in the dunker spot. Imagine and remember the ker spot is that spot that's like just outside the block, just kind of behind the backboard, right, And the idea behind that spot is that's where if anybody steps up to help, someone can throw you a drop off pass and you can basically take a drop step into the basket and dunk it if you're a really good athlete. Right, That's why it's called the dunker spot. So because Brook Lopez is guarding a player in the

dunker spot, Brook is basically under the basket. So when Jokic gets a switch and he wants to walk the guard down to try to get to a good position for him to attack in that mismatch, he's going somewhere within like ten feet of the rim, right, And so where he's ceiling ten feet from the rim, it's really easy for brook Lopez to just take two steps up

and now he's guarding Jokic. And basically there's a brief kind of interchange there where Dame as soon as he switches on to Yokic will then sprint over to Aaron Gordon or Peyton Watson as brook Lopez is going up to Nicole Jokic. And so that was kind of the chess match, right like the Nuggets running early screens to get Damian Lillard onto Jamal Murray. Then they were running the two man game. On the backside. The Bucks were scramming to prevent that switch to leading to a Jokic

mismatch in the post. But this is where it gets kind of unfair, because Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic can score regardless of what you do. There was a play where they executed it perfectly. They scram switched Giannis kind of pressures Jamal Murray, brook Lopez gets back to Nikole Jokic.

But in all of that action, there's kind of a quite a bit of space that forms right in the middle of the floor, and Nikol Jokic just goes to a hard dribble to his left drop step spin back over his left shoulder, it makes a right handed hook and it like looked easy, and you're just like, oh, yeah, we did everything right. But nikola Jokic just makes seventy percent of his hook shots, so yeah, that sucks, right. And then on the very next possession, nikol Jokic, because

he identifies the coverage. Nikoliokic, again one of the smartest players in the league, he goes, oh, look, there's scram switching out of this post up, so there's going to be an interchange there where Damian Lillard has his back turned and he's running to the cutter and he's small, so I'm just gonna turn throw it up to the rim.

And if you watch in the very next possession, By the way, I clipped all of these plays so you can actually go to my Twitter feed at underscore json lt and see not just the video, but I give it like a word by word breakdown of what happens

on these possessions as well. But very next possession, Yokic catches and turns and spots Peyton Watson cutting out of the dunker spot, and to Dame's credit, he made a really impressive defensive play where he just jumped up and met Peyton Watson up at the rim and just gave enough of a disruption to the lob. I still thought it was a pretty good pass. And you run that same play five times, like Peyton Watson probably dunks it

four times. But to Dame's credit, he made that extra effort and he kind of broke the play up, and so or it got kind of funny because that was like where the dynamic of the game was going, was that scram switch and then basically Jokic working out of the post against brook Lopez with Dame guarding a big athlete along the baseline right well. In between this stretch, the Bucks hit a couple of threes. Brook Lopez hits like a three at the right wing was kind of on.

Janis was a little frustrated after he throws the swing pass. He's kind of like, what are you doing? And then it goes in and he's like, all right, great, and then Giannis hits a pull up three on the left side of the floor. All of a sudden, it's a three point game. So it's I think it was like one o eight to one oh five at this point in the game, and so now I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, okay, uh, Denver's only up a three, so

one possession game. Milwaukee just ran this coverage twice and they got a stop on the previous possession, and they forced Jokich into a hooksh I'll be one that he can make it a high clip. But they forced Yokitch into an ISO against brook Lopez. Like, okay, defense is kind of working pretty well well, Doc Rivers makes a bizarre adjustment. He switches brook Lopez onto Nicole jokicch and puts Giannis onto Aaron Gordon and they run the exact

same sequence. Contavious calboll Pope sets the screen, gets Dame switched on to Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray comes off the ball screen the Bucks switch. Now brook Lopez is guarding Jamal Murray and Dame's on on Nicole Jokich. Jannis SCRAMs him out of the switch, runs over to guard to guard Jokic. Dame goes back to Aaron Gordon. But here's

the problem. Now it's brook Lopez on Jamal Murray, not Jannis and Tenna Kompo, and so Jamal Murray just goes his eyes just light up and he just hits him with a Gerbil combination into like a step back jump shot in the mid range, where Jamal gets plenty of separation and gets a really clean look at the basket and knocks it down. And what was so frustrating about it is the bucks go down and Yannis misses an

easy hook shot, which it is what it is. They go down to the other end and they run it the right way, this time with Brooke back on Aaron Gordon, with Yannis back on Jokic. They were on the same sequence. Jannis gets switched on to Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray tries another pull up jump shot on Giannis, but he's way up closer, much better contest forces a miss, but it doesn't matter at that point because it's basically too late

and the game is over. So that was like the weird thing in the Doc River's bit, which we'll get to in a little bit, which which was like they had this really good defensive game plan where they got two stops out of three possessions and on the third one forced Jokich into a pretty difficult hook shot and then he bailed on it. The one time they had a one possession game, where they had an opportunity to get a stop and then go down and potentially get

a tie, and so that was kind of weird. But I want to be clear, this is such a great example of how hard Denver is to guard, because even in the event that I described, which is Doc River sticks with his defensive strategy that I mentioned with Yiannis on Aaron Gordon and excuse me, with Jannis on Jokichen, with Brook on Aaron Gordon and all that stuff, you still are conceding a lob pass to Peyton Watson That's a pretty high percentage play, and a hook shot for

Nicole Jokic that's a pretty high percentage play. It was really just the Yannis Iso on Jamal Murray where Jamal Murray Iso Giannison missed the three, where they got kind of like a clean stop where like you almost expected the shot to miss. And that, for the record, is exactly what makes Denver my championship favorite. Just when they get into these slow down environments and I've been beating this drum all season long, but they just they get better shots down the stretch of games and it just

puts you into bind as the opponent. But again, I didn't agree with the strategy on that one. On that one singular possession from Doc Rivers, I thought it took away one of their chances to win. But it was a super interesting game. Both teams present unique personnel advantages and disadvantages for each other, but once again down the stretch, it just came down to execution. Also, one of the things that stood out to me, Jamal Murray just has a clear ability to elevate his game for the best

opponents in the league. He's only averaging twenty one points a game this year. He's only had thirty five plus points three times all season, but two of those were against Boston and Milwaukee, and I think that's a pretty

clear indicator. I mean, this is something we've known about Jamal for a while, but like just and he's having a very good regular season for the record, But that said, it's just very clear that when we get into these environments against the best teams in the league, where the other role players for Denver kind of like start to

decline a little bit just in the overall intensity. Jamal Murray's one of the those rare guys and there's maybe, like you know, fifteen to twenty of them in the league where when you get into those like super intense, super physical, super you know, competitive environments, he can take

his game up a level. And that's you know, when we talked about duos, you know, a lot of times Jamal Murray Nicole Jokic get kind of looked over because of the regular season stats from Jamal Murray, But like when push comes to shove in a really intense basketball game, there's just not a better duo in the league right now than Jamal Murray and Nicole Jokic, because Jamal Murray does play like a superstar shot maker in those environments, and Nikol Jokic is the best player in the world.

And I thought last night was a great example of that against the one duo in the NBA that has a decent chance to be better than Nikol jokicch and Jamal Murray, and I thought they demonstrated that that was not the case last night on the Doc Rivers front, I thought it was one of Dame's best defensive games of the season. Like I mentioned earlier, that early stop on KCP on that dribble handoff where he gets up over the screen and it takes that contact in the

chest and shuts the play down. Like Dane has a lot of that potential, and it matters on two different levels. One obviously, it's important for Dame to commit a certain amount just for for Milwaukee to get to like kind of that mandatory minimum level of respectable defense to be able to contend. But the second big part of it is just this is a different team than the Blazers were, Like I've talked about this a lot on the show, but a lot of Dame's play type usage is down

in terms of frequency from years past. Like he's running a few fewer picking roles than he did last year, a few fewer ISOs than he did last year. Just everything's down a little bit in terms of frequency. And a big reason for that is like he's not going your turn, My turn with CJ McCollum. He's not going your turn, my turn with Anthonty Simons. He's not going

your turn, my turn with LaMarcus Aldridge. He's got Yannis, he's got Chris Middleton who likes to go even Brook Lopez is a guy that like will look to be aggressive with the basketball in his hands. It's much more of an equal opportunity offense than what he had in Portland. And so that means two things. One, it's gonna disrupt his rhythm a little bit. It's gonna make it harder for him to kind of constantly stay in a rhythm

and flow. But two, one of the ways to deal with that is like take that extra energy that you have and devote it towards the defensive end of the floor and just do a better job there than he had done. I've talked a lot about with Doc Rivers, in particular how he can help in some very key areas for for Milwaukee in terms of their details. Right, like, Milwaukee has some personal limitations they do, especially in the back court and especially in terms of overall team speed

and playable athleticism. Right what that means is they can't afford to hemorrhage points on the margins. They will have times where they do everything right and a guy makes a shot, whether that's Yokic hitting a hook shot over Brook Lopez or at some guard hitting a tough shot over Malik Beasley, even though he's doing his best to try to get in the way, right, there are personnel

limitations that will be there. What you can't afford is to also lose points in execution, not sprinting back in transition defense, not communicating your matchups, bad floor balance on offense leading to those transition opportunities, right like just straight up punting defensive possessions with guys not doing their jobs.

Like that's that's where they can run into some real problems because again, like they don't need to be I think, I think Damon Giannis, if they optimize on the offensive end of the floor, they have the potential to be one of the very best offenses in the league right in a playoff setting, but they aren't gonna be good enough to win if they're one of the worst defenses

in the league. They have to get that defense up to the point where it's kind of like what Denver was last year, where depending on the matchup, they could just find a way to disrupt things enough to buy them margin for error for their offense to carry them

through the day. And again, I thought, I thought Dame's defensive effort last night was a great example of how Doc just by his aura in his ability to sit in a room and just kind of command the respect and in the ear of the people in his locker room, he can go a long way to getting those guys to doing their job on defense, doing their job in transition,

just more commitment to the details. And I thought between that stop on KCP and then the breakup of the lob and that clutch sequence was just an example of just a little bit better commitment to those details from Damian Lillard. I thought the game plan was sound too. Like Doc Rivers talked after the game about how he thought his half court defense was good and then it really came down to the offensive end. I agree with him.

I thought, with exception to that one singular bizarre late game adjustment where he let Brook Lopez get onto Jamal Murray, which by the way, he quickly audibled out of, so it was only a two point mistake in the game. Like it wasn't like he stuck with that for a while. He had Giannisan Jokic. He made one singular error there and then he immediately got out of it and got a stop. And again, like I agree with him, I think the offense is where the biggest area of opportunity

for this team is. And it's weird because like it feels so weird to talk about the Bucks offense because you look at their metrics and they're great. You know, It's it's kind of like with the Lakers. Like with the Lakers, everyone's talking about their rebounding issues and they're actually one of the best defensive rebounding teams in the league. But it's specific lineups. It's like, if you run this group at an end of the game, will you be

able to get enough rebounds? And that's the thing is like with the Bucks, it's not so much about how many points they score per one hundred possessions in an eighty two game season. It's can they execute like Denver does at the end of a close game. Can they get the Dame Giannis pick and roll to the point where it always generates a really high quality shot the way that Denver can. Because if they can do that, that is what buys them the margin for air to

be a mediocre defense. And you know, when you look at the trade deadline of New Nos, maybe they'll be able to pull something off. But with their asset situation, I don't necessarily think they're gonna have a super easy

time tracking down some significant upgrade at the two guard spot, right. So, like, with that being the reality, it's actually more important for them to kind of into what they've got here and get the most offensively out of this group and then try to build a coherent enough defense to make that kind of like overall partnership work the way that Denver did. One last thing I wanted to talk about on the

Milwaukee front is Bobby Portis. So Bobby Portis was like I want to say, like minus eighteen or mine it's fourteen I think in that game and really really struggled, And there were some specific stretches where for whatever reason, Doc Rivers had had him out there with Nikola Jokic, which is like a recipe for disaster, and some of that is like I think Jokic played like forty minutes and you're not going to Playbrook forty minutes. So like there was just some natural overlap that took place there.

But I saw a lot of Bucks fans last night talking about how Bobby Portis is the major issue and they got to find some sort of backup big Man and blah blah blahlah blah, And I don't necessarily disagree from the standpoint of it'd be great, it'd be great to have a better backup Big You know, like there's a lot of teams in the league that are in that situation. The Warriors would love to have a better backup big, Lakers would love to have a better backup big, right, Like,

it's a consistent issue around the league. My thing is, I wanted to use this opportunity to talk about, you know, the difference in return on your investment when it comes to a bench player versus a player that can play

in your core five. So one of the reasons I've been talking about this with the Lakers specifically is when you rank the Lakers top five players, it's like Austin Reeves, Lebron James, Anthony Davis, and it's probably like a ruiy Hachimura and like a D'Angelo Russell or Jared Vanderbilt, right. And one of the problems is is like more often than not, they end up having to leave a couple of those guys on the bench, and they have lesser

players playing in the starting lineup. And so I'm a big believer in the number one priority for a basketball team is to figure out who your main five is. That's what matters the most. And then from there, if you can make inexpensive upgrades then great. My thing is like, if I'm the Bucks and I have the opportunity to make a signific trade where I use whatever assets I have remaining, I'd rather use it to upgrade my core five into a group that makes more sense because you're

gonna scale minutes up when you get to that point. Like, Yeah, Bobby Portis looked really rough, especially in specific stretches against Denver where he was on the floor with Jokisch, But he's never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever going to be on the floor with Yokich in a playoff series, Like chances are, at least not as the sole center. Chances are you're scaling minutes up to match denver starters minutes. When you get into that environment, your core five matters

the most. If you can make ancillary upgrades for very little in terms of investment of assets, I'm on board. But then there's the flip side there. Guess what Bobby portis is better than the vast majority of veteran minimum type centers around the league. Bobby Portis is much better than the types of centers you're gonna get for a very small amount of asset spending in terms of the trade market, right, that's the issue. If you want to get a really good center as a backup, it's just

going to be difficult to pull off. And so I'm all for an upgrade at that position if it comes available for relatively inexpensive but in the event of an asset being put on the table for Milwaukee, I would try to put that asset on the table for a more specific need, which is a two way perimeter defender, a guy that can guard the other team's best guard and be a reliable floor spacing option for the Bucks. That's where I'd be putting my primary kind of efforts

in the trade market. And then yeah, if I can flip a second round pick and some salary filler for an upgrade at backup center, then great, But I wouldn't do it in any sort of significant expenditure. All right, Moving on to Timberwolves Thunder. So the key matchup in this particular game that kind of changed the way that Oklahoma City had to play offense is they put the

Timberwolves put Jaden McDaniels on chet Holmgrin. One of the biggest things that Oklahoma City does on offense is they run ball screens with chet and they have him popped to the top of the key. I've talked about this concept a lot on the show, but pick and pops are one of the hardest actions to guard in the NBA with modern pick and roll coverages. Think of it like this. If your guard can shoot a pull up jump shot, then my guard has to chase over the top.

If my guard has to chase over the top, then I need a screen defender to funnel him into. Because if there's no screen defender and I chase over the top, you can imagine what would happen if I'm guarding Shay and I'm chasing over the top of the screen. Shay's just gonna go over the screen and go right at the basket, and if there's no help defender there, I'm not gonna be able to get there in time to

meet him at the rim. So that's why that screen defender is Essentially they're waiting for you, as the on ball guy, to funnel Shay into him. Well, that works pretty well in screen and roll because you can play what's called no roller behind coverage, where like the rollers coming this way, the ball handler's coming this way, and I'm kind of splitting the difference between the two and trying to make them make a decision. And if I'm a big athletic center, can kind of cover enough ground

to be a reasonable defensive option there. But if I pop to the three point line, I can't contain the ball handler as the big man and also guard the guy at the top of the key. It's one of the easiest ways to get a defense in rotation. And that, by the way, is why these really skilled bigs, guys like Check, guys like Sabonus, guys like Anthony Davis, guys like Nikole Jokic, guys like Joel Embii, can cause so many problems for teams in pick and pop. It just

immediately gets the defense into rotation. It's one of the reasons why, by the way, I've been talking so much about Nikole Jokic's jump shot this season, because last year he was just deadly on it, and so a lot of Denver's offense was pick and pop. Jokic pump fake as the guy sprinting at him. Now he's coming downhill,

making decisions as he's barreling towards the rim. Right, So like having a big man that could set a ball screen and force a traditional pick and roll coverage and pop to the top of the key and make plays there as huge. That is what Chet does for Oklahoma City. You put Jaden McDaniels, who, because Chet is kind of thin,

is strong enough to avoid getting bullied by Chet. Now they can switch any Chet ball screen with any of the ball handlers on the floor, and it completely changed the way that Oklahoma City had to play offense because now they're taking Chet off the ball and basically having him spot up shake Guilds. Alexander ran twelve ISOs in this game. He typically only runs about seven or eight a game. As a team, Oklahoma City averages twenty seven assists per game this season. They only had twenty one

against the Timberwolves. It became much more stagnant. It became a lot more Jalen Williams and Shake Guilds Alexander playing one on one. It just was a more challenging offensive

game for Oklahoma City. Great example of some of the personnel, you know, kind of flexibility that you get by having a guy like Jaden McDaniels, and then on the flip side, having a guy like Chet that as great as he's going to be at this phase of his career is a little too skinny and can struggle in Somepacific matchups, and this was an example of one of those matchups for Chet, and like Chet in general, just had a really bad game, and I thought the way that that

kind of dynamic kind of threw him out of whack went a long way. But to shake Yos Alexander and jayaln Williams' credit, they still had a lot of success creating their own shot in this game. But Minnesota's defense just kind of dis dictated the flow of Oklahoma City's offense. They held him to just one hundred and one points. By the way, Oklahoma City is the sixth best offense in the league by offensive raiding, and they got shut down.

Minnesota has, according to Cleaning the Glass, a one to twelve point five defensive rating against the top ten offenses in the league. Only Cleveland has been better, and so Minnesota consistently has been able to get their defense to translate against the top tier offenses in the league. As I've said many times throughout the season, Minnesota's defense is for real. It was a really good Anthony Edwards and Carltown's decision making game talks a lot about this over

the course of the seas. My main concern with Minnesota is there an average clutch offense and they're an average half court offense, and when you get into those really slow down environments, that can be an issue, and specifically it gets worse than the playoffs when you've got Anthony Everwards, who's very very young, like very very young, and I think he's gonna be a very very good player for a very very long time. I think he's a bona

fide superstar in the making all that stuff. He's twenty one, so like he's just he's young. And then Carl Towns, who's historically been a pretty poor decision maker in those environments, well, this game was not one of those games. I thought Carl Towns and Aunt were excellent on offense down the stretch of this game. They were making really good kickout passes to shooters. They weren't forcing things, which is a thing that the two of them have done from time

to time in their careers. The Wolves had eight assists in eleven made field goals in that fourth quarter. They shot fifty eight percent of the field from the field. Six of those eight assists were from Carl Towns and from Anthony Edwards, but at the same time they brought the aggression when it made sense. Carl Towns hit a three off of like a flare screen at the top of the key. Anthony Edwards had a pull up three and pick and roll when the defender was too far back.

Then there was this I posted the clip of this one where ant like rejected a ball screen like thirty feet from the basket and just rose up and just dunked it with two hands and probably got fouled on the play as well. I thought they were magnificent down the stretch of this particular game. Anthony Edwards was complaining after the game about officiating. I think the plays he's referencing the dunk I mentioned he got hit by SGA

that probably should have sent him to the line. Then there was a Jaden McDaniel's foul on Shay kind of at the right block where Shaye kind of got into his body and was using his off arm like literally like fighting Jaden off with his off arm, and Jaden was kind of grabbing at his off arm, so it was like hand fighting that should have been able to go both ways, but Jaden got called for the foul, and so I think at was just kind of getting

at some of the inconsistencies. And again I'm never gonna go in on one particular team and how they're affected, but league wide, it is an issue league wide. I think officiating is a massive issue around the league, So anytime a player brings it up, I'm obviously going to support them within the context of the league wide issue.

But decision making, like I said, that specific, that specific dynamic of Ant and Carl Towns, like making the right driving kick reads and not forcing tough shots and making sure guys stay in rhythm, goes a long way towards this team's championship potential. They had a one fifty seven offensive rating in the clutch situation against Oklahoma City last night. That's been an issue for them all season. They've been

a mediocre I think there. I think I mentioned in yesterday's show they've been below one oh nine offensive rating and clutch situations all season before last night really bad. In the last month or so, they were in that like a high nineties for offensive rating. That's not very good.

I've said before, but clutch offense and half court offense are the two closest replicas we have in the NBA regular season of playoff offense, and that's why I keep such a close eye on those two categories, and they've been medio in both categories all season long. But I thought last night was a big step in the right direction on that front for Minnesota. A couple other shoutouts. Jaden McDaniels hit a huge corner three in the right tight space, too quick release and put a pass right

in the shooting pocket and he knocked it down. He also had a huge tip in late in the game when the thunder needed to stop and Anthony Edwards was tired, so he was like hiding in the right corner. They ran a ball screen for Nikhil Alexander Walker on the left side and he ended up forcing up a tough floater and he missed it. But shake Gilles Alexander was guarding Jaden McDaniels on the right wing, and Jaden noticed

Shay had his head turn and wasn't paying attention. He just snuck right in front of him, got in there and had a huge tap in with his left hand that ended up being basically the dagger in this particular game. And then also I wanted to shout out Jordan McLaughlin. He's shooting the ball much better this year than he

did last year. He had two massive threes in the second half, one off the catch and then one kind of off a ball screen where the defender ducked underneath the pick, and then as a result of that he had a pump fake driving really tough scoop shot over Chet Holmgren. That kind of came from him making those first two threes and getting the defender to kind of

chase him off the line. I thought he had That was a really important sequence in this particular game, as Oklahoma City was making the run in that second half. On the thunder front, the core players are still slumping really hard. Josh Giddy started hot, made a few threes in a row, but then he finished cold. Lou Dort missed a bunch of shots in the second half, some

good looks too. Chet had a really rough game. We talked about this in the power rankings yesterday, but this has been a theme for a little while now for ok See. Giddy, Dort, and Holmgren are all struggling right now, and as a result, Oklahoma City's offense is kind of

tanking and you know. Some of this is like young players can just be inconsistent, but I wanted to go over some specific ways, you know, not just for the thunder, but also for young basketball players out there, to help getting through a slump, because this is something that happens, So you can have slump. So I personally, I was a very streaky shooter when I was playing in college.

I had a conference play sequence one of the seasons I played where I shot like fifty percent from three, and then I had another stretch and non conference play like the very next year where I remember, over the course of a week in like four games, I missed twenty two consecutive threes. So, like, you can slump, it happens. It's part of the game, right, And I've learned as I've gotten older, there are some specific things that I think work really well as it pertains to trying to

get out of a slump. First of all, lots more off court work to try to polish things up. I know it sounds crazy, but you can derive confidence by knowing you've made that shot when you're standing in the game and you go I made five hundred of these in the last two days. I have a much better chance of making it today. So off court work is a big one two better offensive process and some of

this is matchup related. We talked about the switching that the Okay se could do by using Jade McDaniels to switch any sort of of ball screen right involving Chad Holmgrend, and that can stagnate teams and prevent driving kick. But you can still generate driving kick rotation situations by hunting

driving kick instead of hunting ISO. What I mean by that is like, rather than getting into your dribble combinations and trying to hunt to pull up jump shot, just think I got to beat this dude off the dribble so that I can draw a help defender and get the ball moving around. As the ball's popping around, it just adds a rhythm and a flow to the offense that gives guys a better chance of making shots and then lastly gain confidence in other areas of the game.

This was a big one for me in my mid twenties that I kind of figured out, which is like, when you're not shooting well and you have another tool, which is you're an athlete, go play hard, like make plays on defense, make plays on the glass, make plays elsewhere, and you will gain confidence knowing that you're impacting winning outside of the shot, which will put you in a position when when you're shooting, you don't have as much pressure on your mind to make the shot because you know,

even if you miss it, you're helping the team elsewhere. And so again, I just wanted to kind of throw that out. There is just a couple of different examples, especially for young basketball players out there, for how to deal with when you're in a slump. Work harder off the court, work harder on the court, and then as a team, play better fluid in motion basketball to keep everybody involved. All right, before we get out of here,

let's go to our mailbag. First question, Uh, maybe a hot take, but the Celtics without Porzingis playing, the Celtics without Porzingis playing don't look like a contender. The drop off from Kristaps Porzingis to Al Horford is huge at this point, and I feel like, and I feel like every time KP isn't playing, it's a really close win or they lose if the opponent is a decent team. Zubach was also out when they got blown out by the Clippers, so pretty strange. It's an interesting thing to

bring up. I agree for the record, like if Kristaps Porzingis goes down, it's a gigantic blow to any title chances for the Celtics. My thing is like, anytime someone brings that up, I go okay, But like, is there a team out there that can withstand that sort of thing? Like, let's look at Denver. They use Yo Yoki season over. Obviously, you lose Jamal Murray. Season's over. Obviously. There's just some We've saw that in the two previous playoff runs, like

there's not enough offensive firepower, and that happens. You know, Michael Porter Junior is like a rebounder, a help defender, and a spot up guy. Like it's just a big drop off going from him to like a Justin Holiday or even if you go even if you go to like a Peyton Watson. If you run Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon and Nikole Jokic, I think some of the bigger, more athletic teams are gonna really pack the paint and test Peyton and Aaron Gordon as shooters. Right, take Aaron

Gordon out of the situation. It's a significant drop off down to Peyton Watson, who's a good young player. Aaron Gordon's one of the best role players in the league. KCP is their best perimeter defender. He's like literally the guy they throw on the other team's best guard every single night. Like he's vitally important to them. So point being,

Denver can't afford to lose anybody either. Milwaukee, like, if they lose if they lose Chris Middleton, they're like, who like like Marjon Bouchampus, who you're going to Jay Crowder like is like incredibly slow at this phase in his career. Obviously, Damion Giannis are vitally important. We just talked earlier about how bad they are at backup center. So if Brook Lopez is out, that's obviously catastrophic. Malik Beasley's out, Okay,

you put in Andre Jackson junior. Now you're playing a kid in these environments like they're just a pack content, I guess. I guess going from Malik Beasley to Pat Content is like the one where you're like, it doesn't affect their chances that much. But again, if Milwaukee loses an important role player, they're in a tough spot. The Clippers.

You lose James Harden. James Harden changes that team, lose, Paul George changes that team, lose, Kawhi Leonard changes that team, louse Terrence Man changes that team, louse Zubatch changes that team. The Lakers, they can't afford anybody either. Like none of these teams can afford to lose a player. So like the margins are too tight. So I agree with you as it pertains to porzingis my thing is like, I just don't think it's a problem that's unique to Boston.

Next question. I saw someone suggested Malcolm Brogden and Jeremy Grant trade for the Lakers and was wondering what you thought about it. It's doing the two things you said you want for the Lakers that they're one in three. I would love Jeremy Grant. I think he's actually a much better defensive player than he's shown in Portland. I think we saw some of that when he was in Denver. I just don't think from what I've heard, Jeremy Grant has much interest at all in playing a role for

a contender. That doesn't mean a trade can't be made there. I'm just not sure that he's the right guy to go after it because he doesn't necessarily want to do it. But as a player, I think he'd be perfect. You shoot the ball really well, he can attack mismatches, He's got perimeter defense capability. I love Jeremy Grant. Think he can help a lot of teams, but I just don't necessarily see a team training for him. I don't think Malcolm Brogden necessarily helps the Laker back court because he's

not athletic enough. He's a better athlete than Austin or Dilo, but he's not a great athlete the way that like a Dejonte Murray or a Bruce Brown is is just another skill guard, and so I wouldn't really necessarily see Malcolm Brogden as a guy that could help too much. And I think someone else will end up hopping in there to get him. Next question, when Jason says best,

don't take him seriously. He said Anthony Davis was the best player in the world last playoffs a few days before the Denver series, then said eighty isn't good enough post Denver series to change his mind depends on what agenda he wants to say today. So this is a consistent thing that I get criticism for on this show that I wanted to bring up. There's a huge difference between the way I rank players in a vacuum versus the way I rank players in terms of like the

amount of recognition they deserve. To me, the guy who gets the trophy gets all the bragging rights. And at that point, before the Denver series last year, I was speaking about the bragging rights. Anthony Davis was a player who had a better playoff resume to that point than Nikole Jokic. That's why I had him in that position. Myself, nor anybody thought that Anthony Davis was a better player than Nikole Jokic in a vacuum. None of us thought

that that wasn't the situation. I thought it was the kind of like standing, like ego related, resume related, you know, like reputation related standing. Going into that series eighties Heriokitch is here. Let's see what happens in the series. Oh wait, Jokich is way up here. He's way better than Anthony Davis. I also ranked Luka Doncic tenth in my player rankings this summer. Do I actually I think Luca is the

tenth best player in the world. No, it has to do with the way I do rankings based on reputation and historical performance in the playoffs. That's just me as it pertains to respect and acknowledging what actually has been done. It's just kind of my overall for philosophy and philosophy philosophy regarding winning. I'm a big believer in, like, winning is why we do this. Let's acknowledge and respect and give props to the winners in a vacuum is an

entirely different conversation to me. That it just is. It's like two completely separate conversations for lack of a better word. And to Anthony Davis's credit, he did outplay nikolea Jokic in the conference finals back in twenty twenty, which was kind of the grounds for why that was the case. But the other thing too, and this is the last thing I'll say about it. I am never married to an opinion. I'm always going to react to new information. So like the idea that I have an agenda doesn't

actually make any sense. Because I had an agenda that a center couldn't win a title as a slow footed player last year, because that was based on NBA history, But then new information came to the table, and it's like, oh, actually this can work as long as XYZ happens and as long as the player can do ABC. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, Okay, this new information is going to change my outlook. Now I do believe you can win that way as long as these other

things happen, right, So, like again, like there. I know it's really hard when you watch, like because I know not everybody watches every single video, and so a lot of times, like my overarching opinions can get kind of disseminated into these like you know, out of context things, and like those of you guys who actually do follow the show more closely, I think have a better idea of what I stand on this stuff. But I wanted to use the mail bag today to clarify that kind

of thing. I usually will tell you beforehand, the difference between like what kind of list I'm making versus a different list. For instance, I have a contender's list and I have power rankings. My contenders list is purely about what I expect in the postseason. My power rankings is a method for which I can with which I can give props to players within the regular season. That's how that works, right. My player rankings are almost always going

to be big picture, resume reputation based. I'm not much into hypothetical player rankings. Hypothetically Nikole Jokic was the best player in the world, because that's what he was at that moment in time last year. But I wanted to see him get the trophy first, because to me, the trophy matters, and so hopefully that kind of kind of clarifies that for you guys. Next question, Hey, Jason was wondering, after another blowout loss to a true contender, how the

Celtics can be taken seriously as championship contenders. Last year, they felt like they lost to bad teams and beat good ones, which is why they played around too much with the Hawks, Philly without Embiid in Miami. This year is the opposite. They kill bad teams that They've been blown out by the Clippers, the Bucks, the Thunder and while they looked close after the losses, it still felt

like blowouts to Minnesota, Philly, and Denver. Just curious how you can rationalize a team being the worst in the league against top opponents winning in the Finals, since I feel like they should be much closer to or be closer to Dallas, Sacramento or the Caves tier of contenders where they could get lucky and win, but it'd be a long shot. Just don't feel like a very good team. And honestly, I think the Celtics fans should expect a full rebuild in the next year or two since Tatum

is just flat out not that good. Love the show and things for all the great content. Wow, I have to say that is one of the more negative views of the Celtics that I've seen this season. I don't think they're going to be rebuilding next year. I do not think that they're in the Dallas, Sacramento, Calves tier. Not saying you're wrong, I just disagree. I do think that there's concerns that come from their performance against good teams.

I've mentioned this, like, They've played ten games recently. The last ten games, seven of them have been against teams that are not in my top five contenders. Three of them are against teams that are in my top five contenders, and they lost all three of the games against the top five contenders, and they won all seven of the games against the other teams. Obviously, that's concerning. Specifically, in those three losses, it was their offense that struggled. That's concerning.

That ties back to a lot of the things we've talked about all season and involving their offensive process. So like obviously it's concerning. My thing is like in the big picture, Boston has still been way more impressive in this regular season than most of the teams that we've seen. They still have, in my opinion, the most talented roster in the NBA. Tatum is still a young wing in his mid twenties who is yet to really truly hit

his ceiling or even close for that matter. I just think it's foolish to count them out, and even though they have big question marks, I still very much view them as a top tier championship contender. Next question, did the Rockets beat the Lakers? Ass yes or no? Yes they did. I will say like I did. I said this in January early January, I said it became clear to me after the in season tournament that the Lakers just completely let go the rope in terms of effort

and focus and energy. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I think some of it is natural human nature, Like you feel accomplished and no one else does, so they're all coming at you, and that's part of it. I think the core players are really frustrated with their coach. There's a lot of bad body language stuff still coming out of that situation. I think there was a video going around of Anthony Davis walking away from a huddle as Darvin was drawing up a

play in last night's game, all like. Another big part of it, too, is like the starting lineup situation and like they're being overwhelming evidence that Darvin Ham is making a repeated poor decision by starting Torrian Prince next to D'angela Russell and Austin Reason. He just doesn't give a shit what any of us think, or what any of the data says, or what the scoreboard says, and he's just leaning into it, and I think that is causing

some of the discouraging stuff. But regardless of what the actual cause is, there's no doubt that the Lakers are a heavily up and down effort, energy and focused team, which is why I said in early January I said expect the Lakers to look awesome and terrible. Several more times before the deadline. They have very much done that before this last game that they just got their ass

beat in Houston. They were five and two in their previous seven games, and their offense was turning around, like this is what they do, This is what this Laker team is now. A couple things. First of all, there's a clear delineation between how they play at home and on the road. The Lakers are seventeen and eight at home and seven and sixteen on the road. Goes to show you that they're not bringing that effort and energy

in particular when they go away from home. I think a big part of that too is like the Laker faithful at Staple Center or Crypto dot Com Arena, they don't let that shit fly. They'll boo you so like, I think there's just more pressure to play harder when you're at home. I think also Lebron in particular when he's at home in front of Will Ferrell and all the celebrities and shit, like, I think he just you know,

brings a better intensity in those environments. But the second thing is, I want to be clear, the Lakers will not be on my championship contender list at the end of the season if they don't put together an extended stretch of dominant basketball. End of story. I'm not married to the Lakers. If they end the season forty one and forty one, I will not pick them to win. I will not. I will give them no chance. There is no example in NBA history of a team bullshitting

through the regular season and winning the title. It has never happened. The only time it even remotely happens is when there is a defending champion that goes into the next season and then bullshits, but they are the defending champion. This Lakers team is not the defending champion. They do not have that kind of margin for error. I do not give them that leeway. I am just leaving them

on the contender list because I believe they will. I believe that after the deadline, after Lebron and ad accept the reality that Darvin Ham's not going anywhere, after a little bit of personnel turnover, I think they'll rip off a eighteen game stretch or twenty games stretch where they

win two thirds to three fourths of their games. That's what I think is going to happen eventually in the short term, though, especially as Darvin Ham is leaning into this unathletic lineup, which is Austin di Lo Torren Prince, especially in a game like last night where Jared Vanderbilt gets ejected. They are specifically going to struggle against really athletic teams that have size. Houston's one of those teams.

They're big and strong on the perimeter, they have a lot of athleticism, and so they can expose the Lakers for their weaknesses, especially on nights when they don't bring great effort. And so again, don't really expect any sort of consistent success from the Lakers until we get through this deadline a week from Thursday. From there, if they don't put it together, then they don't have a chance to put it. Simply, they've got to show that. You've got to show an extended stretch of you playing a

championship level. Two questions left. Wonder if in Beats sitting is a strategic move by the team to not allow Denver to make any adjustments. So this is an interest question, especially as it relates to what happened in the game in Philly, which was Joel and bid down the stretch ball denial on Nikola Jokic which really heavily disrupted Denver's offense. Here's the thing, though, I'm a big believer that if you are the better team, the more you play, the

more it will bear out. That's why seven game series are a thing in the NBA. They want it. They want it so that there's not shooting variants determining the NBA champion. They want the best team to win right over a large sample size. If you are better, you are, you're going to win. So in terms of like showing off any sort of schematic whatever, to me, if you're scared of that, then you don't believe you're better. That's

you problem. If you believe you're better, go beat Denver, and Denver if they bring an adjustment in game one of a playoff series because of something in that game, you would have to figure it out anyway. Like, if you're better than Denver, go beat Denver. If you believe you're better than Denver, you're not afraid about adjustments because you think you're gonna have more adjustments at the end of the day. So I thought that was a good question and an interesting kind of way of looking at it.

But in my opinion, it's not an excuse for them not playing in the game. Last question, You being so high on the Clippers is going to backfire. Trust. Okay, So the reason why I clipped this one out of the comments is when it comes to predictions, in my opinion, predicting that a team is not going to win the title is not really much of a prediction. Twenty nine of the thirty teams don't win the title. You could have come out of twenty twenty and been like Man Lakers,

Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Nobody's beating these guys up. Picking them in twenty twenty one, you would have been wrong. You could have been like man Giannis, top of the world. He's coming back next year, He's gonna win it. In twenty twenty two, you would have been wrong. You could have been like Man, the Warriors, Andrew Wiggins, Steph Curry, Jordan Poole on the rise, Jonathan Minge is coming, They're gonna win. Twenty twenty three, you would have been wrong.

Denver is my championship favorite. I'm picking them to win the title this year. It is more likely than not that I am wrong, because only one team gets to hoist Hilari O'Brien Trophy. And so the reason why I say that is like, when I believe in a team's ability to win the title, doesn't mean I'm saying they're going to win the title. Every team out there has a small chance. I think Denver has the best chance, and it's probably only like a twenty percent chance. It's

in the Vegas hots. They're like I haven't looked in a couple of weeks, but DraftKings had him at like plus four something last time I looked. Meaning, if you've bet one hundred dollars on the Nuggets win the title, you win four hundred something dollars. So like, nobody has a great chance. So like if you say if you get on, if you get on online, and you'd be like, the Clippers suck, I guarantee you they're gonna lose. Yeah, you're probably right, But that doesn't mean they're not a

championship contender. And in my opinion, when you attack the regular season the way they have, and when you've won as many games as they've had and as they have, and you look as impressive as they have, it's a clear sign that they have a chance to win the title. And I think we'd be foolish to count the Clippers out. All right, guys, that is all I have for today

is always as sincerely appreciate you supporting the show. Big day. Tomorrow, I'm going to react to a couple of games from tonight's slate, and then in the afternoon, I'm recording with Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down Pod. Those of you guys who were hoping we would talk about Clippers calves, That's why I didn't hit that game today because we're gonna be talking with Carter tomorrow. I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you then. The volume