Hoops Tonight - Donovan Mitchell & Darius Garland beat Steph Curry's Warriors + Cavs deep dive

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a jam pack show for you today. We're gonna start with the breakdown of the Cleveland Cavaliers and just their second game, having their starting lineup together, watching a huge win over the Golden State Warriors yesterday, delivering them their first road loss of the entire season. And then, as I said last week, we're gonna kind of be changing the format of the show for a little while. Now, We're gonna be shifting to more deep dives into teams.

So we're still gonna do game breakdowns, they're gonna be a part of the show, but I find that we learn more about the teams when we take more time with one team to really dive into the tape, watch multiple games, and look at season long trends. And so we're gonna be doing a deep dive of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second half of today's show. And then I have three mail bag questions for the end of the show as well. You guys are the joke before

we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel as we try to get this thing off the ground. Would mean a lot to me if you guys would scroll down to take a couple of seconds to hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. Don't forget about our Instagram, Twitter and TikTok feeds. Twitter in particular are putting a lot of video content on in the morning, so I put another ten videos or so on there.

As you guys know, we have some limitations and our ability to use footage on YouTube, but I have a little bit more freedom with it on social media, so you're gonna want to follow me there in the last but not at least keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We can hit them towards the end of

the show. Obviously, different setup today. As I told you guys last week, I've got painters working in the main house, so I'm sequestered back in my master bedroom for the rest of this week, which will be a little bit weird. With work from home and with my job being mostly watching film on a laptop, I'm gonna feel like I'm kind of trapped for a little bit. I'm also injured right now. I'm dealing with an achilles injury that's stopping me from playing basketball. Didn't tear it, but I'm dealing

with some really bad soreness. I'm taking a break because if I tear my achilles, I'll spiral into depression with an inability to play basketball. So I'm just trying to take it. So so it's gonna be a weird week, but bear with me, and then back to the studio hopefully here in a couple of days. All right, let's

talk some basketball. So last night we got to see an example of the type of matchup that caused the Golden State Warriors problems last year, which is a significant amount of rim protection centered around the two non shooters in the lineup, right, in this case Raymond Green and Kavan Looni. But it doesn't really matter who's in the lineup, They're going to find people to help off of with

rim protection. Essentially understanding that the Warriors are a team that basically likes to run these five out actions and try to curl over the top and weaponize their shooting to generate wide open looks in the paint. And so if you have the ability to legitimately protect the rim off of a non shooter, it buys your defensive players, particularly on the perimeter, a ton of leeway to overplay

the three point line. And we saw this in the Warrior in the Warriors Lakers series last year, this concept of like top locking the shooters basically forcing them to reject screens or to curl over the top and force them downhill into your rim protection, and then from there basically bothering shots with length, forcing turnovers, and then it down the other way in transition, right, And this was kind of a perfect example of that type of matchup.

We saw Evan Mobley on Draymond Green right from the opening tip. We saw Jared Allen on Kevon Looney right from the opening tip. It gives that freedom to those perimeter players to be aggressive. Cleveland held Golden State to just a one oh two offensive rating. Golden State shot just thirty six percent from the field. They were just twelve for thirty one in the paint, as the Calves outscored the Warriors in the paint fifty eight to twenty four.

And then, obviously, what do we know about missing shots in the paint. Usually shots missed in the paint, particularly by perimeter players, cause floor balance issues, and as players are unexpectedly rejected and don't get a shot up at the rim or miss off the side of the rim, it ends up leading to a fast break the other way. A lot of the time, the Caves scored thirty one points in transition. In this game, they were up over about a point in a quarter per possession on transition pushes.

Warriors pulled it in five in the in the early fourth quarter, made it look like they might make it again, but the Calves quickly pushed it right back out to double digits and they ended up winning comfortably. In general, this was kind of I wouldn't say this is the first look, because we saw a lot of this in the second half in Indiana Pacers game, but this was a look at the defensive ceiling that this Calves group

is capable of. Again, Jared Allen had missed a bunch of time at the start of the year, and we saw some improved perimeter defense from the Calves at the start of the year, particularly Donovan Mitchell playing much better perimeter defense than were accustomed to seeing him, and then Extrus being kind of a seamless fit next to those two guys defensively, but they just didn't have the higher

level rimp protection. Evan Mobley at this point in his career, I think he projects to be an excellent five in the long run, but at the five, he's a little

physically overmatched at this phase in his career right. So getting Jared Allen out there just kind of brings them that classic two big look that is so difficult to deal with in the NBA regular season, which is essentially you guard and pick and roll with one of the bigs, and then you have the other big kind of working off a non shooter as the low man kind of coming over to help as a rim protector, coming over to secure defensive rebounds or to rotate out to the

weekside corner. With his supreme athleticism. You see a lot from Evan Mobley, right, and he's been amazing as a help defender really for the entirety of his Calves career. But that's kind of the beauty of this whole thing, right is those two guys and what they can do defensively on the back line paired with the elite perimeter defense.

I'm not going to dive too deep into it right now because because we're going to do a deep dive on the Calves in a little bit, but really really happy with where the Calves are defensively in their last three halves with their starters back. But let's talk about the Warriors for a little bit before we get to the Calves. So I specifically want to zero in. We've talked a ton of Warriors so far to start the season. I want to zero in on the bench unit for a little bit. Now. To be clear, this is not

the reason they lost this game. The starters were minus eight and in general, or excuse me, when Steph was on the floor, the Warriors were minus eight. The starters I believe were minus four, So like it's hard to blame the bench when that happens. However, the bench didn't do as well in this game as they had done in earlier games this season. The specific Moody kaminga Gary Payton, Chris Paul and Darius Sarch lineup was minus seven in just four minutes in this game. In general, they were

minus three without Steph on the floor. So again, it wasn't the reason why they lost this game, but it was a little bit more of a of the negative end of the spectrum from what you got out of that lineup. And I want to zoom in on it because I think there's a specific thing from this group that is starting to come to the surface that could potentially be a problem in the long run, not so much for the regular season, but more just for the

ultimate ceiling of this Golden State Warriors team. So, as I've talked about throughout the season, the defense of that group has been excellent, Right, Gary Payton's taking your primary point of attack assignments. He's one of the best in the league at it. Moses Moody and Jonathan Kaminga are doing great work flying around in rotation and depending on

the perimeter as well. That group has been a very nice pairing with Dario Sarich in terms of like kind of limiting his brim protection issues by containing on the perimeter better. Right, But the offense has been an issue, and that's something I talked about earlier, Like the I think the last time we talked about the bench group, they were below one hundred offensive rating at that point. But I wanted to zoom in on the lineup because in general for the entire season now they are now

negative eight point five points per one hundred possessions. Now, they've run a bunch of different bench configurations, but this is the primary one that they've been running, and they did not play well against the Calves, and in large part, in my opinion, because they can't score. So they're only scoring throughout the entire season at this point one hundred points per one hundred possessions. And this is where we

have to look at Chris Paul. I would say that the Chris Paul experiment with the Warriors has been a resounding success. He's an obvious fit with the bench group, he gets them organized. They definitely have let's just say, not as low of lows as they did last year when Jordan Poole was leading those units. Right, So overall it's been a success. I think in the big picture,

it's going to be success for the entire season. However, against this Calves on the road, I think you saw an example of what can happen though, if Chris Paul is not scoring like this, because Chris Paul is really struggling to score the basketball, that's the one kind of gripe,

so to speak. On the Chris Paul experiment. So far, he's averaging a career low seven point six points per game, just thirty two percent from the field, just two for twenty six from three, just fourteen for forty four on pull up jump shots with zero three, so thirty two percent from the field and a thirty two percent effective field goal percentage because you're not getting any of that extra point from threes, right, hasn't hit a single pull up three the entire season. He's also only made five

shots at the rim all season. A Chris Paul pick and roll to this point is only worth zero point eight points per possession, and on ISOs against switches, he's just three for fifteen from the field. Now again, he's orchestrating the unit very well. Up until recently, the unit's been performing well on the scoreboard despite the offensive limitations. But this is an example of what you actually need,

Chris Ford. Right. So, an elite defense team that protects the room really well, that kind of team is always going to give young players trouble because young players typically struggle against elite defense. Is the kind of figure out all those little nuances, right, And what you need in that situation is just two or three more times a game where Chris can go get a bucket right and look to be aggressive when nothing else was working against

those Cavs coverages because their rotations were so sharp. You weren't getting anything at the rim, and you weren't getting wide open kickout threes, right, and so at a certain point, at least not for your knockdown shooters. So at a certain point, what's there is in the drop coverage, you know, especially like guys like Darius Garland are out there, like you can still get separation against them in pick and roll. You gotta have someone who can rise up and knock

a shotdown, which Chris absolutely can. He just hasn't done so yet this season. And again that's the thing to keep an eye on. It's not so much that Chris can do it, it's just a question of when he will. Right now. The counterpoints to that is he's old, right, So that's the issue. Is you look at those numbers relative to is previous seasons. They're down a lot, right, Obviously he's slumping. The question is is he gonna snap out of it? I think yes, But I'm saying that

he needs to. And the main reason why is because that's why you make the trade. You make the trade so that Chris can especially in that matchup against rim protection teams that are packing the paint. You need another guy who can run pick and roll to spell Steph and consistently generate quality shots. And he can do it as a bench shot creator and the day and day

out of the regular season. But that on the road, tough game against an elite defense, that's kind of a good kind of microcosm of what a playoff situation would look like. That's an example of a game in the playoffs where you have to lean heavier on pick and roll and spreading the floor out and you desperately need Chris to just be a little bit more productive offensively. Again, not a big deal at this point in the season,

just a trend to keep an eye on. The trend is the bench unit is struggling to score in large part because Chris is struggling to score, and he's specifically missing a lot of shots that he normally makes. So that's the trend. We'll see what ends up going on in the bigger picture. All right, Let's do our deep dive on the Cleveland Cavaliers. So they improved a three and four after beating Golden State. The Indiana game was the other game where we saw all five of the starters.

That was the first game of the NBA Cup on Friday. On the road ran into a buzz saw, so to speak. And Indiana is going to do that to teams. They're really really fast and athletic, especially on the perimeter, and so they're one of those teams where on the road, when they're fueled by their home crowd, they can be kind of a gigantic pain in the ass to deal with, for lack of a better term, right, they dug themselves

in a seventy to fifty three hole. But they came out in that second half and immediately just put the pacers in jail and got out and ran the other way and immediately made it a game. They actually took a four point lead in the fourth quarter, super super impressive defensively in the second half of that game. They ended up losing, you know, based on basically like kind of typical late game stuff that can happen going either way, right, Like Buddy Held ended up catching a heater, making a

couple of threes. He made one off of a Max Strew's turnover where Max was kind of draped over him from behind and he just somehow made it. Buddy Heilds one of the best shooters in the league. That's what he's gonna do sometimes. The Cavs had two crucial late game turnovers that killed them where they got stops. One where Evan Mobley just inexplicably through like a ninety mile an hour bounce pass that was too far ahead of

Darius Garland and went out of bounds. And then Darius Garland did the same thing when he tried to throw a swing pass across the floor in transition to Donovan Mitchell that got stolen. But so it's tough because it's a loss, and it's a loss in pool play for the play in for the the NBA Cup. But at the same time, I thought that second half was actually

a really really impressive showing from the Cavalier defense. They gave up a one oh two defensive rating in the entire game against Golden State, which is like unbelievably good against the defense, an offense that's been pretty effective all season so far this year and has a player in Steph Curry who has been arguably one of the arguably the best player in the league to start the year, depending on who you ask, right, And then they gave up a one four defensive rating in the second half against

the Indiana Pacers. That's what this team is capable of when they're really locked in. And again, like there's still little things like Darius Garland to me still is the easiest entry point into that defense and it can cause problems.

There was this weird moment at the end of the Pacers game where like, uh, Tyrese Halliburton just just he was having success, just beating Darius Garland off the dribble once in io and then another time he pick and roll where he just got by him too easily, but he got easy buckets, just just beating Darius Garland off the dribble, and then he just randomly decided, actually, I'd rather attack Jared Allen, and he started calling for ball screens and Jared would switch, and then Jared actually got

a really nice stop on Tyree's where he blocked him on a drive and then Tyree's just made a prayer, like an absolute prayer step back three on the right wing that arked seventeen feet in the air, it seemed, and somehow went in. But in general, like that's that's an issue in the big picture, right, Like Jared Allen can switch onto the perimeter guard well, soaken Evan Mobley. I like Stru's defensively. We're going to talk about him

more in a minute. Donovan Mitchell's having a good season defensively. Carousel Avert is one of their better perimeter defenders. But Darius Garland is he competes like I genuinely, I'm impressed by how often he puts his body on the line to get back in front of people. He does sprint around in rotation, and he is a willing participant in the defense, but his physical limitations do become an issue in late game situations, as you saw with Tyres Sliburton, like, hey,

get out of the way. I'm just gonna beat Darius off the dribble and get into the paint. And that's something that we saw a lot in the Knick series as they attacked specifically r J. Barrett and Jaylen Brunson

spent a lot of time attacking Darius Garland. So that's the thing, Like, I'm really impressed by the Cavalary defense in general there in spite of in spite of the injuries to start the year, they're still eleventh in defensive rating eighth and half court defense according to Cleaning the Glass, middle of the pack for transition defense fifteenth, and frequency nineteenth.

In efficiency, they're allowing the sixth fewest points in the paint one hundred possessions, and opponents are shooting just fifty eight point five percent on them inside the restricted area, which is top five in the league. Middle of the pac three pointers allowed fifteenth and the opponent three pointers made per one hundred and twenty third in percentage. The offensive glass is still a major issue. They're grabbing just

sixty nine percent of available defensive rebounds. That's twenty seventh in the NBA. Now, remember that was one of the major things that got them beat in the Knick series too, is just an inability to finish off defensive possessions. So like, in general, I'm really happy with where the Cavs defense is. Their perimeter defense, I think is much better than it was last year. Max Strus has been such a great fit. Offense has been iffy, right, Like, he's not shooting the

ball super well. He's nineteen for sixty three on jump shots. A big issue with him taking really tough movement jump shots all the time, like he's actually dead eye when he's spotting up. It's when he's taking these wild, drifting

threes coming off of screens that he's missing. As a matter of fact, by the numbers, he's shooting sixty percent effective field goal percentage in spot up situations one point two to three points per spot of possession, which is like amazing, But he's just four for fifteen when he's coming off the screen. So like, it's been a little bit of a mixed bag with Max offensively, but I think that can be fixed with approach defensively, I think

it's been a home run. He's just like he's like ninety percent of the Isaac Accorro experience in terms of his competitiveness on the defensive end. On the perimeter, teams are picking on him and switches because they think he's easy to score on, but he's not. As matter of fact, teams are just shooting four for fourteen from the field trying to attack Max Strews in isolation. So like the perimeter defense, Like I said, Donovan Mitchell's having his best

perimeter defense defensive season as a pro. In my opinion, Max Streus has been a great fit. Lavert's competing defensively. I even like Dean Wade just with his length and help and especially on the defensive glass. The front court obviously is one of the best defensive front courts in the league. There's just the two things. Darius Garland is an entry point still kind of an issue, and then

the defensive glass. For whatever reason, this team my guess, and you can kind of see it on film and long rebound situations, but this is a team that has athleticism in the front court, but they're a team that packs the paint and gives up a lot of threes. What happens when you give up a lot of threes, you give up a lot of long rebounds. Is this

a tall perimeter team? No, Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, two small guards, even though Darius, even though Donovan's a good athlete, right, you know when Carrislovert nax Strew's we're talking about a bunch of guys that are not six nine freaky athletes, right, So, like, this is not a team that's going to succeed in long rebound situations. But those are the two things to keep an eye on over the course of the season

in biggest areas for opportunity at this point. On the offensive end of the four, couple of specific things like Evan Mobley, we want to keep an eye on him in short role situations. Defensively, he's incredible. I clipped a couple clips of him today from a couple of games from him playing defense and some of just the unbelievable help and recover situations that he can turn what looks like a compromised possession into all of a sudden he blocks a shot and we're running the other way, right,

Like he's still unbelievable in that regard. But the big problem in that in that game or series against the Knicks was Mitchell Robinson's ability to kind of split the difference in pick and roll defense with him and Jared Allen and be able to effectively guard them both. And that would allow Julius Randall to basically show high on ball screens without having to worry about getting punished on

the back line. Right, And there's a lot of talk about the perimeter shooting, and it certainly is a big issue. Like they're a lot, like we just talked about Max Strews in spot up situations, like you're already seeing this year the benefit of what it's like having a guy at the end of the chain that's a knockdown three

point shooter. And again, like Max is shooting like shit at the rim, and he's shooting like shit and coming off of screens, but when it comes to the stuff that's like the kind of stuff that you actually need from him in the Cavs offense in terms of finishing plays, He's doing a really really nice job there and so like that, that's definitely a big part of it, and that's definitely going to help them in the big picture, but you need Evan Mobley in a two big system

to be an offensive threat. We haven't seen too much so far this year. His points per possession in the role is up a little bit from last series, at one point one point per possession. I'd like to see him closer to like one point three as the season progresses. He is three for four on hooks and floaters. He made less than half of them last year, so he's doing a little bit better in a very small sample size on that end, but we're gonna want to keep

an eye on that. Donovan Mitchell's playing insanely well career high thirty three points per game on a career high sixty seven percent through shooting. His jump shootings up. His rim finishing is up. He's up over eighty percent at the rim this year, which is insane. His assists are up. He's having the best defensive season of his career so far. Donovan Mitchell's just last guy in the world you need

to worry about for the Caves. Darris Garland's having a little bit of a rough start, though He's just one for twelve from three's turning the ball over a lot and again he's the weak link for them on the defensive end of the floor. So a big area of improvement for the Caves is just Darius Garland playing better, and he did have a better game against Golden State, and so maybe that's a sign of a positive trend the core five, so Max Strew, Scarland, Mitchell, with Mobley

and Allen. They've played forty six possessions so far through two games, one twenty two offensive rating and one hundred defensive rating for plus twenty two points per one hundred possessions. That's amazing as a team. One oh four defensive rating against Indy in the second half, one oh two defensive rating for the game against Golden State. So a lot of stuff trending in a positive direction for the Cavs

now that they're getting healthy again. Just to keep an eye on the entry point, Darius Garland defensive rebounding, Darius Garland on offense, improving Evan Mobley on the roll. Those are the main things we want to keep an eye on. Everything else looks good. Like Harris Lavert straight up took over the end of that Pacers game just beating people off the dribble above his isolation attack it's kind of

a counter to everything Mitchell and Garland bring. Like I said, Dean Wade's been an intriguing Tristian Thompson was like, legit good on defense against the Warriors, made a bunch of big plays. So like they're they're looking like a team that's coming together in a in a big way here early in the season. All right, guys, before we get out of here, let's hit the mailbag. First question from Miles how does altitude? I love this question. This is

super interesting. How does altitude effect visiting teams early in the year. Do you feel that Dallas's poor transition defense partially was because of the atmosphere? So I don't think it's altitude is a big part of it, But another big part of it's just on the road. Why is it the team struggling struggle and transition on the road typically, And then just view the Denver Nuggets and their altitude is basically an exaggerated version of that. With this from

the standpoint of altitude, right, here's the thing. When you're fueled by your home crowd and the energy that that brings,

you just naturally run harder. It's just kind of like, think about all the times during a basketball game when like you don't want to run, you know, whether it's back on defense or running the floor and transition on offense, and you're tired, and so you decide not to and so you jog, you know, and God knows in our pickup games as US amateur basketball players that we do it a ton, right, But like it's even when you're taking games seriously, there are times when you decide not

to run. In their times when you decide to run, when you're fueled by the energy of your home crowd, you just always run, Like there's no other way to put it. Like you just when you're really playing hard in front of your home crowd, and like you're fueled by that energy. It's like you're sprinting back on defense every possession, every time you secure a defensive rebound, you're sprinting the lane. And so for really, for the road team,

it's more about discipline than anything else. It's those decisions, those run or don't run decisions that you have to decide whether or not you're going to whether or not you're gonna go right. And more often than not, on the road, there are moments where the young energetic. It doesn't even necessarily have to do with age, but the energetic home player says screw it, I'm running, and then the road dude decides to take that possession off and

it ends up causing problems. But teams that are really good on the road are typically very mentally disciplined teams, meaning like, there are teams that are very good at forcing themselves to make the same decision every time regardless. This is why teams that defend well typically play well on the road, because defense travels. It's not about making shots, it's about your habits. Do you have a habit of every time a shot goes up, sprinting back in transition? Defense?

Do you have a habit every time a defensive remounl gets gathered of running your lane in transition? If you have those habits, then you're going to be a better road team, because habits are basically something you do involuntarily versus something that you have to consciously choose. Right, next mail back question and again to tie off the niles one again at altitude is just an even tougher version of that. Right, Like, when you're tired, you can still

make the decision to turn it sprint back. It's just easier to do when you're fueled by the home crowd, and obviously the Nuggets players are in a little bit better shape of practicing in those conditions. Next mail back question from Jake, how do we parse lineup analytics? The Warrior's second team is looking great and often has a better plus minus, but they're also mostly playing the opponent's bench players. I'm sure someone's crunching the numbers numbers somewhere

that accounts for matchups. So to me, lineup data, again, everything is relative to the circumstance. And we've talked about this before. It's not even just about line up data. It's also about play type data. So I primarily look at box score metra, defensive rating, offensive rating, net rating, so like a pace weighted metrics, right, And then I really look at play type data. So I love like looking at points per pick and roll points per ISO,

points per spot up possession, that sort of thing. I think those are the best indicators of like the scoreboard for that individual play type. Right, Like, for instance, in a spot up possession, you really are hoping for from a good player, A good spot up player about one point two points per possession. You want them to be able to consistently knock down catch and shoot threes and drive closeouts. For a pick and roll player, pick and roll is the initiation for every single possession. It's a

lower percentage play. So like anything over one possession is like a home run, right, you know. So it's like everything is a little different. Each situation is different, and so it doesn't make sense to just look at field goal percentage for two players if one of them constantly is playing in spot up situations and the others constantly running pick and roll, which is just going to be harder, right, And so that's the kind of data I like to

look at. But even then there's context from the same point of like how's the spacing off the ball, because that's going to directly affect my ability to score and pick and roller in ISO, right, same thing even goes for spot up situations, So, like all, there's always like context to these sorts of things, and specifically with lineup data, a bench lineup, for instance, talk about the Warriors. For instance, Warriors bench defending really well, but they're defending really well

against bench lineups. So what that means is it doesn't mean you should start Moody and kaminga because they're your best defenders. No, that's not the case. It's just they're doing a really good job within the context of bench lineups, guarding opposing benches and everything with that is about kind of like parsing together where they're being used. Right, Like you know, last year Lebron James was playing without a backup center, and so bench lineups got crushed with the Lakers.

Doesn't mean Lebron's bad, it just means that it was a lineup construction issue. This year, Christian Wood off the bench has been one of the best weapons for the Lakers. So now Lebron's bench numbers are way better. Is it all Lebron. No, obviously the Lebron's great in both situations, but there's lineup construction pieces there. Christian Wood has been one of the best players for the Lakers this year.

He also has been coming off the bench primarily in those Lebron groups, and so it's kind of influencing the plus minus data there. It's not like Lebron suddenly got way better than he did last year in the playoffs. It's about lineup construction. So again, there's context to everything. Anytime you ever see a piece of data, you want to ask yourself, how is this piece of data actually

translating to the court, and what's the context there. Anytime you see something on film, like let's say a guy makes a shot or a guy makes a play, you want to go to the numbers to see how often he's actually been able to do that. Every everything is about like kind of leaning on the opposite for context, if that makes sense. All right, lastly, before we get out of here, way too early, MVP race. This person in the mailbag said, it's between Steph and Luca. Who

would you pick right now? I think Luca has a slight edge, but Steph is closing the gap. I'd give four guys, and I'm not going to pick any one of them in first place just because it's way, way, way too early, But there are four guys in my opinion, that are off to like textbook MVP starts right like Luca because of the simple fact that his roster is kind of mediocre in terms of talent. They've been winning a lot of games to start the year, and he's

putting up just just absolutely obscene numbers. Right. So, like the Kyrie Irving is a co star, but he's not viewed throughout the league in terms of value like a star in the purest sense of the word, just because of the way he's destroyed his own reputation over the years. So like as a result of that, like he's got like kind of that pilot part of the narrative down

in general the rosters overachieving. That's there. He's consistently considered a top tier superstar talent and with playoff performance to back it up, and he's putting up all the numbers that you need. So that's textbook Steph obviously just playing the best basketball of his career while winning a lot of games for a team without a co star. Nicole Jokic has been phenomenal as the Nuggets have only lost once, So that's an obvious one for me. And then Jason Tatum.

I talked about it like they'd have to win sixty plus sixty five games and he'd have to put it up insane. You should see thirty plus points per game, like Tatum's doing that too. So those are the four guys that I have my eye on here early in the year, but even then I'm probably missing several guys because it's just so early. So again, we won't really talk MVP until we get outside of twenty games or so. But out the gates there are those four guys are the ones that have kind of stood out as like

a typical MVP starts. Our guys, that is all I have for today is always, I sincerely appreciate your sport. We're gonna be back tomorrow breaking down more games from Monday night as well as doing another deep dive on a team, and then we'll start our nighttime coverage on Wednesday. As always, I appreciate you, guys, and I'll see you then. The volume