Hoops Tonight - Doc Rivers-Bucks reaction, Heat trade for Terry Rozier, Joel Embiid & 76ers surging

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responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week. It feels great to be back. We had just unbelievable ski conditions up in Breckenridge this weekend. They got a ton of snow the week before and had all week to kind of pack everything down. I was actually talking with my wife last night.

I think Tuesday was my favorite day of skiing that her and I have had together in our entire relationship, which is which has been like almost a decade. So it was just unbelievable trip. That said, it's good to be back. We've missed a couple of significant pieces of news. Doc Rivers is now the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. That's weird, right, and it was weird the way it went down. We're going to talk about that, and then Terry Rogier is headed to or Is with the Miami Heat.

I actually watched his first game with the Heat this morning, and so I want to hit those two topics and a couple of others. What we're gonna do today is five big NBA questions. I wrote five questions that will help us hit all of these big storylines around the league. You guys know the Joe four we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about

our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast. If you prefer that format, wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight, follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlts. You guys don't miss any show announcements or the film threads that I do in the morning. And then keep dropping mail back questions in the ute two comments so we can keep hitting them over the course of the next few weeks and the last but not least before we get started.

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twenty dollars off. Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So question number one of our five NBA questions, Jason, why did the Bucks fire Adrian Griffin and hire Doc Rivers? So, first of all, there's two.

kind of like goal here was. And that gets confusing as you zoom out and you're like, okay, so you fire Mike Budenholzer because you don't think he's good enough with playoff adjustments, So you hire a rookie head coach, and then when that goes south, you then go hire Doc Rivers, another guy whose kind of reputation is being a guy who struggles with playoff adjustments and famously has blown a lot of series late after taking early series leads. So yeah, as you zoom out, like it doesn't make

a ton of sense, there's no doubt. However, if you zoom in just a little bit like cut the Mike Budenholzer and hiring Adrian Griffin, peace out, and you just zoom in on this season. It makes sense to me. Do I think it's gonna fix all of Milwaukee's problems? No, but it does make sense to me. And I want to kind of break this down so you guys can kind of understand where I'm coming from. First of all, Adrian Griffin was not the right coach for this particular team.

Forget about the decision to hire him. Just acknowledge the reality that he was the head coach for this season. Okay, It's been a pretty consistent thing. One of the things that I do in my job is I constantly am picking the brains of other people around the league. Like I'm a big believer, and I don't actually I don't know everything about basketball. I just have my personal perspective, and the best way to kind of round out that

perspective is to include as many perspectives as possible. And so I talk to a lot of people around the league. People who cover the league nationally, people cover individual teams, agents, so on and so forth. Right, So when I talk to those guys, there have been some consistent things that I've gotten back, and one of the big ones is Adrian Griffin is not doing a very good job with

the Bucks this year. Obviously, I had my own kind of suspicions there right as I'm watching the team, I'm like, hmm, okay, Adrian Griffin coach for the Raptors. The Raptors under Nick Nurse ran this like super aggressive like pick and roll, blitz and recover scheme, and Adrian Griffin's bringing that.

isn't great, so they're not great in rotation. Outside of like Giannis, they're pretty unathletic at most positions, So I'm like, this doesn't make a lot of sense, right, And then there were a lot of like clear indicators that the team wasn't playing hard consistently, right, Like twentieth in defensive rating, they don't guard their dead last and opponent transition frequency, they don't run back, there's bad body language, there's blowout losses,

all these like clear indicators that things weren't working right, and then you got to add the urgency element to it. Dame is older and appears to be on the decline, right, Like, I'm not saying that he is declined, but like this is the first season where you're starting to see like, oh, like smaller guard, a little bit undersized, shots not falling.

The defense is worse than it's ever been, Like there are some concerns there, right, and then also if things go south, Gianni's requesting a trade is a high likelihood, right, Like, this whole team is old, they don't have a ton to offer. Janis on the basketball side of things other than Dame, and Dame is older, So like you can imagine a scenario where like Dame has some struggles this year, things.

just me, that's within that locker room. Giannis himself was going up to the press conferences and he was literally saying that he was complaining about the defensive schemes.

get the most out of this group for this season. Right, They didn't want to go to an interim head coach. They sense the urgency, they go for Doc Rivers. Now, is Doc Rivers going to help with the tactical side of things? That's not what he's known for. To me, Doc Rivers' best trait that he brings to a basketball team. His personality, management, and motivation get him into a room with a bunch of guys with egos. He's got enough

of an aura surrounding him that he commands respect. He's gonna be able to get some of that buy in that they weren't getting. And if he can just clean up things on the margins, that will go a long way towards helping their situation. We're gonna talk more about the basketball side of it here in just a second. I'm just focusing on the big picture here, right. So as we zoom out and you go from Budenholzer to Griffin to Doc, you're like, what the hell are they

doing right? Right? But you zoom in and you go, Adrian Griffin's not the right coach. There's real urgency. We need someone to come in in January to turn this thing around. Doc's available, He'll at least be able to get them to buy in.

three things in specific. Number one, get defensive buy in from Dame. He's been the primary culprit and their defensive struggles all season long. He doesn't need to be amazing on that end, but he needs to do his job, and right now he's not even doing his job. To put it simply, they can't win the title this year unless they get like a Steph Curry esque just commitment to doing the job from Damian Lillard. And that's something

I think a dot can help with. From the same point of being a big enough personality to look Dame in the face and be like, this is non negotiable. This is what we need from you. And when I say Steph, what I mean. Steph was never a deeply impactful athlete. He's not a guy that like is going to go toe to toe with the best perimeter initiators of the league and hold his own. As a matter of fact, Dame is actually a little bit quicker, right. Dame is actually, even though he's undersized, is a little

bit better athlete. But Steph does his job. He understands his role in the defensive scheme. You can see him working his butt off. You can see him chasing over the top. You can see him putting himself and help and recover situations. You can see him at least trying to keep the person in front and force him to take a tough jump shot. You can see Steph trying right. And that's gone from making him too what early in his career is a bad defensive player to being an

average defensive player. And if you have an average defensive player in an excellent defensive scheme, you can get stops. That's step one. You got to get defensive buy in from day step two help Dame and Giannis maximize their success in pick and roll. The Bucks are just ninth in offense in January. They've been a really good offense most of the season, but I still think they have some significant room for improvement. By the way, this has

been something I've said all season. What if I said consistently about the Bucks, they can be so much better than they have been. Right specifically, I think if we can acknowledge the reality that they're not going to be an elite defense, right, they're not gonna be elite. They can get to okay, but they're not gonna be elite.

And so if you're not gonna be an elite a defense, you've got to be like Denver on offense, meaning in a half court, slowdown environment, you have to consistently get absolutely great shots every single time, which this group is capable of doing. In the Dame pick and roll stuff. With Yah, I think there's a lot of meat on the bone there. Still Giannis is missing reads on the roll, which we'll talk about in a minute. They're getting in each other's way a lot of the time. Obviously, this

is this is normal, is to be expected. Two stars kind of learning how to play together, and then Dame in general is struggling to find his offensive rhythm. They can run more pick and roll. These are some fixes. Dames pick and roll frequency is down this year from last year. I think that's having an effect on his rhythm. All the reps you can get not just for Dame's rhythm, but for the continuity and chemistry between those two. And then obviously I would I've been talking about this all year.

I think they need to simplify the reeds. You know, a lot of like the high pick and roll in the middle of the floor stuff leads to Gianni's catching on short rolls around the foul line. When he catches short rolls around the foul line, he has to see a ton of the floor on both sides of him,

and that can get a little tricky for Yannis. Sometimes I love middle of the floor operation for top tier passers because it is actually the hardest spot on the floor for the defense to guard because there's a lot more openings right, whereas with the cleared side you can do more loading up and then the rotations are a little bit less spread out on the weak side right.

But the problem is if you don't have a guy that can actually see all of those reads and quickly digest them, rolling into the middle of the floor, it can be a little bit of an issue. So I like clearing the side because you keep the entire floor

in front of Yannis, which makes his reads easier. I've called out several examples in my Twitter threads as I've done film sessions this year where Yannis catches in the middle of the floor and he doesn't see what's happening behind him and he misses an open shooter, or like drives into traffic and struggles to make those decisions. It's

just easier for Yannis when the side is clear. So from there I would just run more action where it's like Dame Gianis pick and roll right side of the floor, left side of the floor, everyone else is on the opposite side of the floor. Have Dame working towards the middle, with Yanis catching his rolls on the short corner on that cleared side where he's barreling down to the rim. If they zone up on that side, he has easy reads to skip because they're right in front of him.

If they don't zone up, he's going ahead. Esteam towards the rent, So run it more, run it with a more deliberate schematic approach to kind of create easy reads for Giannis. That's where I think things can kind of open up for them on the offensive end of the four. You've got to find a way to get to where that action is as reliable as a Jokich Murray pick and roll. That's got to be the goal. And then lastly, the biggest thing I think that Doc can help with

is just cleaning up the details. They have to fix their transition defense. They're literally the worst in the league. They allow teams to get out and transition on more than seventeen percent of their possessions, dead last in the NBA two. They need better contests in pick and roll. The Bucks allow opponents to shoot forty six percent in the mid range. That's the second worst mark in the

league to the Detroit Pistons. They are the fourth worst team in the league guarding opposing pick and roll ball handlers based on points per possession. Why lutely no back pressure they have Brook running this drop coverage, He's sitting back towards the Rami's offering late contests. That means that middle of the floor is where things are open, and specifically Damon Malik Beasley. Malik's trying, but he just has some limitations and he loses focus. Dame's not even trying at all whatsoever.

at the point of attack. Better closeouts. Teams score one point zero eight points per spot at possession against the Bucks. That's bottom ten in the league. That's an effort thing, closing out, containing funneling in the right direction. Every team has a help scheme set up. You're expected to give up close out opportunities. That's how it works. You run a ball screen, you're coming over to tag the roller. There's a skip pass to the left corner. You have

a job. The majority of those teams they want you to close out high side and funnel towards the baseline because that's where if you can push them behind the backboard, it's an easier secondary rotation. Every team depending on the spot on the floor, depending on the scouting report. There's a lot of guys too where it's like, oh, this guy's a lefty, always drives left. You want to close out to the left side, even regardless of which side

of the floor he's on. There's a defensive game plan when it comes to closing out to shooters on the weak side. The Bucks are bad at it. That's something that Doc can help clean up. And then lastly, paint rotations. The Bucks allow fifty two points per paint points per game in the paint, which is bottom ten in the league, which with a Jannison Brook Lopez team.

they're gonna be a devastating playoff duo. But in order to beat the best teams in the league, they can't afford to hemorrhage points and transition defense, hemorrhage points in pick and roll, hemorrhage points with bad closeouts, and hemorrhage points not making extra rotations into the paint when guys are driving.

That's why I look at it as a good move, even if it's not the perfect move, and even if it doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. Question number three, Jason, is Terry Rosier enough to put the Miami Heat onto the same tier with Boston and Milwaukee. No, of course not, but it does make them better and most importantly, it maintains their flexibility moving forward. Miami is telling you they don't think Dejonte Murray is worth whatever

the cost to pay is. They don't think DeMar DeRos In or Zach Levine are gonna be transformative players for the Miami offense. Now you can argue whether or not they let Dame slip. That's a whole other discussion. And again, similar to the conversation around Adrian Griffin, like, yes, we zoom out some of this doesn't make sense. But as we zoom in to right now, Lukhu's available, Terry Rozier, You're gonna get a good chunk of what a Dejonte Murray brings to the table and for less on a

shorter term deal. So I understand that right now, specifically on a basketball front, how does Terry Rozier make the Heat better? First and foremost, he fundamentally changes the physical

profile of the team. I've talked a lot about this with the Lakers, specifically, as it pertains to Bruce Brown, like, when you have like a really good athletic front court, like a bam Adebio and Jimmy Butler, or a Lebron James and Anthony Davis, or a Jannis and Tenna Kumbo and Brook Lopez, but you have lesser athletic players on the perimeter, you can still run into issues because it's just really hard for those guys to cover all the gaps.

We've seen that in a resounding way with the Bucks and the Lakers this year right, So specifically, what I like is you're giving yourself a really really good athlete at the guard position who also can play both sides of the floor. Alongside Jimmy Butler and bam Adebayo. You're changing the athletic profile of the team. You're making it so that you are incredibly athletic in all three position groups,

at least within your core lineups. I really really like that piece, And like, again, at the guard position, it's different we talked about at the forward position. In center position, it's like matchup attacking in the post, it's like rim protection. It's like the ability to switch on to smaller guards and hold your own. It's like help defense. Low man possessions, tagging rollers, blocking shots, cleaning up the defensive glass. Weeks had rotations at the guard position. It's like a lot

of just point of attack stuff. It's like generating dribble penetration while containing dribble penetration on the other end. That's like the fundamental athletic imposition of a really good athletic guard.

to engage the screen defender to open up other pieces. Right, That's what allows bam Adebayo to get behind the pick and roll defender. The only way to prevent a screen defender from keeping the roller and the ball handler in front is to engage him fully. Terry can do that by getting real downhill rim pressure and ball screens. And then on switches. There is a play in the second half terror rose Year gets Xavier Tillman on a switch, just a nasty dribble move gets right by Xavier Tillman

all the way to the basket. That's an important part of beating pick and roll coverages that end in switches. So like, that's the offensive side of things, and then on the defensive end of the floor, it's just a better athlete at the guard position that can contend with the other great athletes around the league. The second and like again, look at it just specifically with the player context. It just adds another two way athlete to your position group where you did not have a two way athlete.

Now you have bam As kind of like that defensive full crum, offensive full crum. Then you have Jimmy As like that versatile ford. Then you have Terry Rosier is your two way athlete guard, which again, as I've said,

one of the most important archetypes in the league. You can kind of start to see the team starting to take shape with like a skill guard like Tyler Harrow, and then an athlete guard like Terry Rozier, right, my versatile defensive coverage guru and bam and a bio that can switch and drop and high drop and blitz and do all these things. And then I've got Jimmy and like think about what Heimai Hawki's junior can do is more of like a matchup attacking forward, and Jimmy can

guard on the perimeter. It's like you start to see things just start to make sense from the athletic profile of the team.

he was passing the ball to. Terry shot fifty percent when he shot in pick and roll fifty eight percent in effective field goal percentage when we weigh it for threes, that's one point one to one points per pick and roll where he shoots, that's in the ninety third percentile. He also gets one point three points per his own shot attempt out of ISO, so like he can score the basketball. And again even when it comes to the

stuff with Charlotte and the rest of the roster. Even despite that, he had a three to one assist a turnover ratio six point six assists per game, two point two turnovers per game, So totally solid. Secondary shot creator gives you an additional offensive weapon on a team that was a bottom ten offense before the trade. He scored twenty three points per game in Charlotte.

But yeah, like, obviously we're we'd be lying to ourselves if we think if we think Terry Rogier is the difference between that Boston Celtics team and this Miami Heat team, or that Milwaukee Bucks team in this Miami Heat team.

I think both of them have good chances to win the title. After that, from three Milwaukee all the way to Golden State or whatever, as the eleventh or twelfth, whatever you want to call in that list, they all have a very small chance of winning the title in my opinion, Like, what have you seen from Milwaukee that makes you think they can beat Boston this year? Really in the big picture, right, Like, there's a clear gap there.

So even though it's three Milwaukee and two Boston, that doesn't mean they're right next to each other in terms of their capability of winning a championship. Boston is significantly more well equipped in a lot of the phases of the game to win the title. We are now splitting hairs between smaller chances from there. It's about sorting through regular season noise, right. It's just something that I've talked

to you guys about on the show. There is if you want to have a show where people are way more invested in.

offense harder. This is a this is not a Tyres Maxey thing. This is a consistent thing we see. So you combine that with his youth. Right Like, again, he struggled transitioning from the regular season to the postseason last year as his second option on the perimeter. Now he's the number one option. Now he's getting the other team's best perimeter defender in every single lineup. So it's just a little bit more of a long shot. These kinds

of things take growing pains. Look at the guys who'll be competing against to get out of the Eastern Conference. He'll be going against Damian Lillard. He'll be going against Drew Holliday and Derek White. Even Terry Rogier has played in a Game seven of an Eastern Conference Finals against Lebron James. Even he has been in wars that are

different than the wars that Tyres Maxy has faced. So like, there is no singular thing I can point to with Philly anywhere on that roster where I go, Oh, I've seen that work in the playoffs, before there's hypotheticals like the one point of optimism for Philly is like maybe emb just figures it out and kills everybody, right, And but for the record, I actually do think that will

eventually happen. I believe Joel Embiid is going to break through in the postseason eventually, But in this singular season, I think there are better bets. When I look at Denver, I can literally look at like, oh, I know, Jokichen Murray is impossible to guard, Like even Bam and Jimmy couldn't do it. Okay, they have a five man group that makes perfect sense that they're going to start and close the most majority of games with. Okay, that makes sense.

I know their late gaming execution works in the postseason. Okay, I know Contavious Colwell, Pope and Aaron Gordon can guard the opposing best players and do a really good job. That's just a way way safer bet than those question marks have talked about with Philly Boston. They have the most talented roster in the league, and even with Tatum's limitations, he's clearly been a better playoff player than Joel Embiid

to this point. So I have a more talented team and a guy in Jason Tatum who's been a better playoff player than Joel Embiid. That's pretty significant when I'm weighing title chances between Boston and Philly Milwaukee. Giannis is a much better playoff player than Joel Embiid. And I trust Dame more as a playoff initiator than I trust

Tyres Maxy. That's pretty clear cut. Guys number four, the Clippers, they have their question marks, but I know Kawhi works in the playoffs, and this is the best talented roster that I've seen around Kawhi in a playoff runt. That to me is a safe for bet. The Los Angeles Lakers. Anthony Davis has proven himself to be a better playoff player than Joel Embiid. That's just a fact. And I know Lebron James is going to find a way to

be impactful in that stage if he's healthy. Specifically, I've seen Lebron James and Anthony Davis when a lot of playoff series make two conference finals in a hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

to the later rounds. Honestly, the one team that I have to kind of reevaluate as it pertains to Philly is Phoenix. Phoenix is on my radar is a team that we need to kind of reevaluate. They've played fourteen straight games with Bradley Beal in the lineup and they're eleven and three in that group of games. So like, and we know Kevin Durant and Devin Booker can score in the postseason, So Phoenix I need to reevaluate. We're gonna do a deep dive on them soon and probably

move them significantly higher up on the list. But even with them, it's like they're small and they're just a worse version of the Clippers and Celtics. So it just feels like an incredible long shot that they would suddenly just rise above the pile and end up poisting the trophy at the end of the day. But again, like the way I do things on this show is I'm looking for playoff like specific trends that I know work in the playoffs. Why do you think I haven't written

off the Warriors. I'm like, Oh, Steph works in the playoffs. Make a couple, make a couple of roster tweaks, Draymond gets back in the lineup and fixes the defense. You know, maybe they get rid of some of the younger players that are kind of disrupting chemistry. Maybe things turn around, and it's like, I know Steph works in the playoffs. I know it does. It worked last year's they beat the Kings and it took a super like a struggling

Warriors team to a sixth game against the Lakers. It worked when they hoisted the trophy in twenty twenty two, It worked the last time everyone was healthy in twenty nineteen.

But again, before Philly fans get upset, everybody's a long shot. In my opinion, outside of the top two teams. I think we're getting to Denver Boston finals. That's what I think we're getting. But all of these other teams have a long shot.

they upset Denver right like the Clippers. It's like everyone say, he's healthy, James Harden has his best playoff run as he's getting the third best perimeter defender on every group, and Kawhi Leonard just cyborgs his way to the NBA Finals and somehow they beat Boston. Like, you can draw a line for these teams, but they're all long shots. And I'm just saying some of these long shots are better long shots than Philly for the reasons that I

laid out for you guys, all right. Fourth question, Jason D'Angelo Russell is averaging twenty seven points and seven assists on fifty four percent from the field fifty one percent from three, ninety four percent from the line over his last six games since rejoining the starting lineup. What does this mean for the Lakers in the approaching trade deadline? Now, first of all, I've been saying for a while that Dangel Russell is a very good basketball player who's just

a poor use of resources for the Lakers. Here's why. For a six game stretch in January, when you get to play three teams that are below five hundred, he's an awesome innings zeter I said this before the season. One of the reasons why I actually thought the Lakers would be a better regular season team than they were is I'm like, oh, D'Angelo Russell. Forget about the playoff stuff. The dude's great for regular season basketball. You can have

him until February help them win a lot of games. So, like, I already knew that DLO could do this, right, But two things are true. One, you're not running your offense through d Lo in the playoffs. We just know that when he runs into like really athletic and physical teams, his ability to make shots and a drive advantage situations goes down a big level, right. And then two, Lebron and ad are just going to take more control in

those situations. So all of a sudden, that specific thing that Dlo's great at becomes significantly less valuable when we get into April and May. And then two, his athleticism or lack thereof, and his lack of focus on defense causes his impact in the other areas of game to go down, especially when he's not scoring twenty seven points. Right, So what is his value?

a starter. We've talked about this, Austin de Loo, Torreon. Fine, for the regular season, you're not beating the best teams in the league in a seven game series if that's your one, two, three, So to me, in a championship team,

DL is a sixth man. But you're using seventeen million dollars in salary and a six man when you've got a guy making the biannual exception in Torrian Prince playing the three, and you've spent most of the season with a two guard named Cam Reddish who's a veteran minimum guy playing right.

at the second half of this. Bud Jason d Loo is better than Austin reeves, why not trade Austin, Because that's the thing if we're talking about it, is Austin Dilo Torreon is not good enough and we need to upgrade something in there. And I've got these two skill guards. Okay, what if I trade Austin and I have d Lo as my one and then I upgrade the two in the three somehow. Well, there's several reasons why that's not the right approach. One, Austin has clearly demonstrated himself to

be a better playoff player with more matchup resiliency. He's just better at doing the little things. So when Lebron and Ad kind of command the offense, he's a better

connective piece. He's a better like playing passing lanes, he's better at taking charges, he's better at you know, attacking closeouts, and just kind of being that connective piece on offense, right, Like, he just finds a way to be more impactful in a smaller role, Whereas with d Lo, it's like, if you give him the keys of the offense in January,

he's obviously better than Austin at that. But once the athleticism goes up and Lebron and ad have to play vullyball more and all these other things change all of a sudden, Austin's impact goes up a level. And I say matchup resiliency because no matter who the Lakers played last year, you never felt like you were bad with Austin on the floor, But with d Lo, it was like some nights it worked, some nights it didn't. Some matchups it worked, some matchups that did it. So that's

reason number one. Secondly, Austin's salary is lower, so it's just harder to use a salary filler. You'd have to include more players if you want to go get a good player. Austin makes twelve million, what are you going to do for the rest of the salary? There makes seventeen and change. That's just bigger. It's a bigger number to fill up more of that salary. Filler gap and then third, Austin is just more important to the future

of the Lakers. He's a couple of years younger, he just signed a four year contract extension on an affordable number, whereas Dlo will become an expiring contract next year. He's just more value. That's why nbagms are asking for Austin in these trades. They view him as a more valuable asset, which is why the Lakers would prefer to keep it right. So, it really is this simple. We know Austin Dilo Torrian is too small and unathletic to compete with the best

teams in the league. We know an upgrade has to be made somewhere in that group. DLO is simply the best vehicle with which to make that happen. Now, maybe the Lakers will change their mind and trade Austin instead because Delo is playing really well. I personally think that would be a mistake, but hopefully that kind of breaks it down. Like I never thought Dilo wasn't capable of this.

I never thought Dilo wasn't a good player. I just look at him as the obvious vehicle via his salary, via the length of his contract, via some of his playoff limitations and via his redundancy with Austin, I viewed him as the clear opportunity or the vehicle I should say to make an improvement in that starting five. All right, guys,

that's all I have for this episode. We're gonna be back later this afternoon with our breakdown with Jovon Buja and some of the dramas arounding the Lakers around the deadline, and then we'll have some more stuff tomorrow, game breakdowns from tonight's games. As always, I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you that the volume