Hoops Tonight - Giannis & Bucks shut down Nuggets, Wolves blast Clippers, Warriors & Celtics mailbag

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terms and responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoop tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, hope all if you guys are having a great week, got a fun show for you today. We had two major showdowns last night the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Clippers, as well as the Milwaukee Bucks and the Denver Nuggets, and a couple of really impressive wins where the Bucks and the Timberwolves are gonna be breaking down those two games

from the perspective of both teams. And then then I have about a half dozen mail bag questions, including some follow up stuff that I got from you guys involving the Celtics and they're kind of matchup attacking, and then the Golden State Warriors and whether or not they have real championship potential. This season should be a fun one. Today, you guys know the Joe Fobrigen started subscribe to a brandy YouTube channel with 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 podcasts under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful for us if you guys would leave a review and a rating on the podcast feed as well. Don't forget about my Twitter feed out Underscore. Jason lt did another film thread this morning on Timberwolves Clippers. It's also where I put show announcement in the last not

least keep dropping mailbag questions and the YouTube comments. Will probably do at least one more mail bag this week before we get out of here. All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, I thought the story of Timberwolve's Clippers was Rudy Gobert not just in his health defense responsibilities, but also when they shifted him onto Russell Westbrook some of the damage that he did to the

Clippers offense overall. This is the eighth time this season that Rudy Gobert had at least fifteen points in four blocks in a game. Has some really impressive offensive plays in the second half. At a pick and roll possession where he caught on the roll and Euro stepped around Zubach on his way to the basket. He had a cut underneath the front of the rim on a baseline Anthony Edwards drive where he caught and Kawhi Leonards stepped up into help and he just buried Kawhi underneath the

basket and dunked on his head. Was cleaning up the offensive glass too. It was a really good two way effort for Rudy Gobert. But I want to focus in on the defensive end of the floor. He spent a good amount of time on Russell Westbrook and just comp shut down the Clippers offense. And one of the things that you'd see is Kawhi like drive into the lane and see Rudy Gobert and instead of taking a layup have to take like some incredibly difficult left shoulder fade.

He actually made one that like was a straight up line drive that barely got over the front of the rim, but you'd see hesitation there. There was a play where Paul George drove into Gobert. Gobert was right there waiting for him. He shoveled it off to Kawhi. Rudy just turns around. He's right there waiting for him, and there's they're pump faking at ghosts, They're refusing to take shots around the rim. He just completely and utterly dominated this game.

There was even one of the most impressive plays that you'll see from a shot blocker, a block of a hook shot. Zubak in the middle of the lane kind of went over to his over his left shoulder for a hook shot in the lane and Rudy just swatted it out of there. It was an incredible two way performance for Rudy Gobert. Jayden McDaniels did great work on Kawhi,

Anthony Edwards did great work on Paul George. I thought Kyle Anderson had a key shift in the early fourth quarter because like one of the pathways of this game was as the matchups kind of shook out. James Harden was playing pretty well in that early third quarter stretch, just like hit a step back three made some good place to get the Clipper or get to get the Wolves in rotation where the Clippers were able to get some easier shots because he had Mike Conley on him.

And then when he stepped out of the game and Russ came on, there wasn't really a good entry point anymore for the Clippers and their offense completely stalled. And then when James Harden came back into the game in the fourth quarter, they put Kyle Anderson on him and he had a really good shift on him there to help them continue to grow the lead. And then from

there just really solid weak side rotations. I thought Nikhil Alexander Walker had a couple of plays where he took away threes that would for sure be decent catch and shoot opportunities for guys like a Mere Coffee or Norman Palace chasing him off the line. They held the Clippers to zero point nine to five points per spot up possession. They average one point one three for the season, so

almost twenty increase. They're the second best spot up team in the league behind the Boston Celtics, and they just completely didn't shut down, but did a significant amount of damage to that significant chunk of what the Clippers liked to do on offense. And then on the other end of the floor, Anthony Edwards had one of the best one for eleven from three games you'll ever see. He was seven for seven on twos, all right at the rim.

Analytics guys would have loved his shot chart. It was just a bunch of threes and a bunch of layups, and Anthony Edwards, as we know, will take mid range shots, just didn't take any of them in this game. Had some unbelievable drives to the rim. His physical imposition in the game, on the game makes it so that even against excellent perimeter defense teams like the Clippers, he can

just get to his spots. He had this like spure wetting spin move off of one leg where he got into the lane and Terrence Manners, a big physical guard, was being physical with him and walling him up and taking the contact in the chest, and he just powered through all of that and got all the way to the rim and scooped it in with his right hand.

And I've talked a lot about this with the young players that I coach, But like getting in the weight room and specifically leg strength is so incredibly important to get to your spots because when you're fighting through contact, every one of those bumps is like a battle. And if you are the bigger, stronger player, you're gonna be able to It's just simple physics. You'll be able to absorb that contact better than if you are the smaller

player in those altercations. And don't mistake the weight room and the role that plays in Anthony Edwards's ability to get to the rim. You had eight assists in one turnover. Good job driving and kicking to shooters. One thing with him. I've hearpd a lot on Jason Tatum for this, so I want to be fair. He does have a tendency to settle for really difficult pull up three point shots,

and he's not particularly good at them. And you know, in general, I pulled this out for that Tatum discussion, but when you look at all the guys in the league that attempt over have attempted over four hundred pull up threes this year. Pull up jump shots this year. All of them are guys that don't have great physical tools and are great at that shot, so they shoot incredible, you know, you know, fifty two to fifty three percent effective field goal percentage, So they're getting over a point

per shot on it. Jason Tatum and Anthony Edwards they take they both take almost half their shots in the form of pull up jump shots, and both of them are really inefficient. As a matter of fact, Ant is worse with it even than Jason Tatum is. And so both of them, you gotta remember, they're kind of cutting the defense a break when they settle those kinds of shots because of how dominant they are elsewhere on the floor. Again, seven for seven when he went to the rim and

one for eleven when he pulled from the perimeter. So I'm being nitpicky here, but we'd like to see a little better balance there from Anthony Edwards. Again, for both of those guys. Just cut it from half your shot diet to like a little bit under a third of your shot diet, like thirty percent of your shot diet. Now you're doing what all of the great efficient scores of all time do. From the same point of not

for letting the defense off the hook. Really balance scoring game from Caddy at twenty four points hit a little bit of everything. Was scoring out a spot up, scoring on cut, scoring on offensive rebound, put back, scoring out of the post scoring, and Iso had a really impressive hockey assist in the second half where he was driving along the left wing. I think he was driving on Terrence Man if I remember correctly, But James Harden turns to double team and Kawhiet Leonard made a perfect textbook

windshield wiper rotation. Remember whinshield wiper rotations is like when the double comes, the other guy rotates with him to take away the first pass, because the majority of players when they get double teamed panic and try to just make the quick outlet pass rather than making the kill pass, the pass that beats the defense. And kat just didn't panic,

pivoted back over his left shoulder. Read that Harden was kind of playing that passing lane and that Kawhi Leonard had jumped up to Mike Conley whipped it across the court to Anthony Edwards on the right wing extra pass. I think Paul George rotated up extra pass to the corner to Jaden McDaniels, and he knocked down the three really really high level playmaking from Carl Towns, and then that's a They just completely dominated the Clippers, and the

paint outscored them sixty four to forty two. The Clippers, as I've talked about a lot this year, they rely on pull up shooting. They take them the second most in the league behind the Dallas Mavericks, and they're eighteenth and points in the paint scored per game. So they went one for eleven on pull up threes, kind of mimicking Anthony Everage's number. The Clippers as a team went one for eleven on pull up threes and ten for

thirty two overall on pull up jump shots. They had twenty one points on thirty two pull up jump shots. What's your next punch and that's not working, what's the next thing that you can do? And as you saw in that second half when James Harden came out and they had that long stretch with Russ and then when Harden came back in and he had a better perimeter defender on him, it just they weren't able to generate that driving kick offense that they can go to as

an alternative to their pull up jump shooting attack. And like the Wolves, to their credit, like they only they're a great three point shooting team. They only shot thirty two percent from three. They're a bad spot up team when you chase them off the line, but like that's an important part of their game, is their ability to knockdown, catch and shoot three. Is they weren't shooting well right Anthony Edwards went one for eleven, And they're just good

at doing other stuff. They're a great transition team, they're a great post up team. They're one of the best teams in the league at scoring on offensive redown putbacks, a lot of stuff like what you saw from Rudy Gober in that game. So they can win ugly, they can win when a goes one for eleven from three, and win big, because as we know, the Timberwolves' biggest weakness is their late game scoring, the stuff that they do offensively when it's you know, a three point game

with five minutes left, that's usually their biggest issue. And they can win ugly and win big and not even have to put their offense, and that sort of predicament really really impressive. Dominant defensive performance from Minnesota Timberwolves again, and like I've been I've talked about this with the Timberwolves, I've been a little bit critical from the same point of their late game offense. I want to be clear, aside from the Nuggets, all of these teams are big

red flax. So whether it's Boston and their offensive execution, Minnesota and their offensive execution, Milwaukee and their point of attack defense, like the Lakers and their complete and utter lack of a point of attack defender, the Warriors and their lack of like a good veteran second option behind Steph Curry. Like all these teams and the thunder are super young and super small, right, Like, all of these

teams have big red flags. And so don't mistake me being critical of the Wolves late game offense is me saying they can't win. That's just if they lose, that'll be what gets them beat. But there's all these other teams that have similar flaws that could just get beat for their own reasons, if that makes sense. On the Clippers front, I talked about the entry points earlier James Harden on Mike Conley, that matchup piece is a big

part of it. I thought they stayed with Russell Westbrook way too long in the middle to late third and then into the fourth quarter, and he had some disastrous mistakes.

There's a play where he smoked a transition layup off the back of the rim, which led to a wide open Anthony Edwards three, which he missed, but Rudy gober got an offensive rebound put back and one as a result of them being only five on four on the other end of the Because remember I talked about this yesterday to Spencer Dinwood, he's smoking a layup, especially in transition. You're gonna have a guard who's typically responsible for being

the first line of transition defense. You're gonna have a guard behind the back of the backboard, and that's always just gonna put your defense in a compromise position. But that's a five point swing smoked layup run out for Rudy Gobert and won Rudy. And for the record, Russell Westbrooks shooting fifty one something percent from on layups this year. He's one of the worst layup shooters in the league this year, and so when he takes uncontested layups in

his spaced out environment, he typically makes him. But when he goes into traffic, he misses him almost every time at this point, and there was a wide open Kawhi Leonard on the left wing on this transition play that

led to the five point swing. There was a play where he caught in the right corner, whipped by Rudy Gobert, beat him on a closeout and then tried to dunk it off of like straight vert, which like thirty two year old Russ would have done just fine, but at this point in his career he can't do anymore, and it ended up being another runout that led to a foul.

It is a four point swing. And then lastly there was about it was somewhat late shot clock, was like six or seven seconds on the shot clock, but instead of swinging it to a better offensive player, he tried to attack Rudy gober on an ISO who was clearly backpedaling and taking the rim away. Smoked a layup over the top and it ran out the other way. In Minnesota, hit a three. That's a five point swing, a four point swing, and a five point swing off of three

mistakes from Russell Westbrook. It was a fourteen point swing all in that third quarter. But even beyond just those three plays with Rudy Gobert on him, the ball just kept ending up in his hands because again, a lot of these offensive players, they're making instinctual plays, like they're used to driving and kicking a certain way when they are they're programmed when they see a guy open wearing their jersey to throw that ball, especially as a guard,

especially a player of Russell Westbrook's reputation. But when the ball kept ending up in his hands, that was usually where the offensive possession would fall apart. And I thought Tylu just stuck with him way too long. In this game, he had twenty nine minutes. The wol were plus twenty one when Russ was on the floor, and it was

an even game when he was off the floor. And I saw a lot of Clippers fans talking about like, oh, they tried to go small, Not just Clipper fans, but Clipper people watching the game, Like the Clippers tried to go small and they still couldn't score. And it's like, yeah, they went small, but they went small with Russ. When you go with small with Russ, it's effectively like having a center on the floor offensively, a center that's gonna

struggle to finish around the rim. So they're small, but they're limited on offense when they go with that group. And if you, as we've talked about so much on this show, when you go small, you better be damn good at being small or the big team is just gonna demolish you. Because the big team has all of these advantages as well, you need to pick them apart on offense if you're gonna be small, and that's not what they did. And then lastly, on the Clippers front,

can they hold up against interior power teams? After last night zero to two versus the Wolves, one and two versus Denver, one and two versus the Lakers, that's two and six against the big front line of the Western Conference. And this has been a consistent thing I've talked about, Like they're a bad defensive rebounding team, they rely on pull up jump shooting, they don't score in the paint. Those are significant concerns against traditional playoff powerhouses. Does it?

I still have the Clippers up at fourth in my contender's list. I'm not taking them off that list, But like I talked about earlier with Minnesota, if the Clippers lose, this is how it will look. It will look like them going cold from the perimeter in a physical kind of playoff like environment and getting dominated inside of the paint. All right, moving on to Nuggets Bucks, this was a textbook buzz saw game. I thought it was Milwaukee's best

defensive effort of the season. They had an eighty eight defensive rating against Denver in the first half when they won up by twenty plus. I thought it was Brook Lopez's best defensive game of the season. You know, I've

talked a lot about in drop coverage. Drop coverage is like a bracket, right, Like if you think of it as weak back pressure and weak rim protection, the bracket is weak, right, It's spread out, Like if the bag is too passive and he's sitting back too far to the basket and he's not contesting those mid range shots, and then the on ball defender is not getting over the top of the screen in applying back pressure. If they're not doing their jobs to kind of pinch that opening.

There's an opening there for a guard to feel really comfortable and to make plays. But one of the most important parts of that bracket is Brooke being aggressive up in his cover. And I'm not talking about like coming out of his drop. I'm talking about when the opportunity comes to contest. There's a difference between like taking a soft step up and raising your hand versus like making the read. Oh he's shooting now, I'm going to close

this gap and get up in his face. He disrupted several Nikola Jokic little pop shots in the lane with stuff like that, disrupted Jamal Murray floaters and mid range shots with stuff like that. I thought it was his best defensive game of the season. He had three blocks. Also really set the tone offensively in this one. Early hit a couple of big threes that kind of like just made it you'll like more of an open type of game. And then Giannis was just a complete wrecking ball.

They put him on Aaron Gordon, a lot of timely doubles, aggressive doubles, attacking the basketball. He had three steals, then got out in transition off of that, like Giannis always does. He had thirteen of his thirty six points on runouts going the other way in transition. As matter of fact, Milwaukee had nineteen points on thirteen Denver turnovers and had a twenty four to eleven transition points scored advantage. According to Synergy, they completely outclassed them in every single phase

of the game. Condavious called the Pope left early with like hamstring tightness, a good smart move from Denver to kind of take it slow there. Jamal Murray left early was shin splints once again. The game was kind of over at that point. It was smart for them to kind of take it easy. Just a rough night from the Nuggets. They were sloppy from the jump. Contavious Callboll Pope and Michael Porter Junior both missed wide open, completely unguarded corner threes to start the game. That felt like

kind of like a missed opportunity. Jamal Murray and Nicole Yoka both missed kind of like easy floaters. There were a lot of turnovers, like it was just just kind of a funky night for Denver. Back to back funky nights blowouts at the hands of the Kings and the Bucks. Now, one of the things that I'm sure some people will ask is like, why do you keep giving Denver slack in situations like this where you don't give other teams slack?

And the answer is really simple. They're the defending champs, not just the defending champs, but the dominant defending champs that never really truly felt threatened by the Suns or the Lakers, or the Wolves or the Miami Heat. And so for me, when it comes to looking zooming in at Denver, they deserve a certain margin for air. Winning the championship buys you margin for air. That's just what

it does. And in spite of all of that, defending champions typically experience a little bit of a dip in effort. Defending champions typically get the best shot from everybody every single night as they come out with crazy effort to try to beat the defending champs. And they still are within striking distance of the number one seed in the Western Conference, and they still have had a bunch of these marquee major national television wins, and so I do just give them a lot of slack, and I think

that's slack that they deserve, quite frankly. On the Bucks front, one of the things I talked about a lot when Doc Rivers took over the coaching job was the simple fact that, like I thought he could get better commitment out of the older veteran players on this roster. Specifically with Milwaukee, they're slow when Giannis is not in the equation, and even when he is in the equation, they're five man groupings tend to lack some speed. Brook Lopez not

a particularly fast center. Jay Crowder, who's playing with Chris Middleton out of the lineup, not a particularly fast wing. Malik Beasley and Damian Lillard are both very fast as guards, but they are both very small, and so even when they are moving around, they don't bring as much length to the table. They are not a fast team. That is not their strength, and so it is abundantly important for them to always be in the right spots. Execution is going to make or break the Milwaukee Bucks season.

I've talked about this with you guys on the show, but like if you look at the scale between a good defense and a bad defense, a good chunk of it is personnel, but the rest of it is commitment to those details, constantly being engaged in the scheme, communicating sprinting back in transition, having the habits down. I talk about habits all the time on the show for a very specific reason, because when shit hits the fan, it

is your habits that you fall back on. We all have a tendency when stress rises, to kind of go back to whatever our core you know, human characteristics are. That's like classic human nature. And so when you have baked in habits, when like it's when it's it's just almost a natural, like automatic thing for you to make a defense of rotation, to sprint back into transition, to call out angles on ball screens, to call out coverages.

When when all of that is just baked into your habits, then when the shit hits the fan, you can depend on those things. And that's why I harp on those things specifically with teams like Milwaukee that have some personnel limitations in terms of the defensive end of the floor. They have excellent interior defensive personnel. Giannis and brook Lopez are still about as good as you'll find in the league as a four or five combo protecting the rim

and help and recover situations. But they're slow outside of that. So it's vitally important for them to be very attuned to the details. And you know, even through the rough start, I think they were what two to five in their first seven games with Doc under the hood. The one of the things I kept harping on is even though they were playing poorly, I saw a lot of that

defensive commitment starting to rise to the surface. And here they are in a couple of back to back wins, a super impressive defensive effort against Denver, and they have a defensive rating in eight games since Doc Rivers took over of one twelve point six. Before Adrian Griffin got fired. To that point in the season, they were up over one sixteen. There's something like eighth in the league, I believe, over the course of this eight game span in defensive rating.

So they're getting a significantly high level of defensive commitment from this group. Now again, it's about connecting those pieces because the offense hasn't been nearly as good, which has been a big part of why they've dropped so many games. And there's gonna be some some you know, transition there, because your body becomes attuned to a certain timing and a kind of rhythm offensively, and that is connected to every single other area of the game, including the defensive

end of the floor. Like I do believe that a big part of why Milwaukee was so good offensively to start the season was that they were saving their legs by not really competing on the defensive end of the floor.

And so there's a phase here where when you really raise your level of commitment to transition defense and half court defense where the fatigue element, the physicality element kind of throws off some of the rhythm and timing stuff on the offensive end of the floor, and it will take some time for them to connect on that end. But when they do, when they connect those pieces together, I think they have a chance to be a damn

good team. They can get down into that at thirteen fourteen, fifteen rank defensive rating and be a top five offense. That's a team that has a real chance to win the title. I think that's where the Doc rivers Hire was smart. It just has these guys actually playing hard and committed to the details. Have you guys, ever had

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first purchase terms apply again. Create an account and redeem code Hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guarantee. All right, it's your mail back, and then we'll get out of here. First question, and uh, there's actually three questions that kind of hit this follow up. I'm gonna hit the first

two first and then we'll do the second one. So, first, what can the Celtics do to improve from the middle of the floor or is it about the personnel they use in the middle, for example using KP's length and vision over the top versus defense. And then the second mail back question I got was isn't it easier for a defense to double team if a player is running a cleared side action because the shooters on the other side are so close together that three players can guard

four shooters. So, for those of you gus who aren't aware of the context here, yesterday we did a deep dive on the Boston Celtics and their spacing principles. They had thirty plays where they ran isolations or post ups against Miami Switches, and in those thirty possessions, sixteen of them they ran in the middle of the floor, and fourteen of them they ran with a cleared side, and on the cleared side ones, it just was consistently a

better result. They had like something like one point four points per possession, and that included Jalen Brown drawn a fallon Duncan Robinson on a cleared side post up and missing both free throws, So they should have been like twenty two points on fourteen post ups and ISOs, and then on the middle of the floor ones they were like thirteen points on sixteen post ups and ISOs, which was you know, zero point eight points per possession or

something like that. And one of the things that I've been talking about is the idea that in the middle of the floor it's harder to guard, but it's harder to read, and so only the highest level playmakers in the league are guys that can see over the defense really well, operate really well in the middle of the floor, whereas operating with the cleared side it's easier to guard, but it's easier to make the reads and so like, it's just a more achievable job for the offensive player

by making it so that they only have to look. Just think of it, really and in a real basic sense, by if I catch the ball in a triple threat in the middle of the floor or on a cleared side, I'm protecting the basketball with my back turn to the basket right, or I'm protecting the basketball by tucking it on my side and creating space with a jab step right like I'm using if I'm facing up, if that's the case, right, both cases, I'm trying to protect the

basketball while surveying the floor. But if I'm at the elbow, it's just a lot harder to read everything happening on all sides of me than it is if I'm on a cleared side and I'm cutting that field division in half. Now the baseline is cutting all of this out of my field of vision, and I'm just worrying about this. I can kind of turn myself and I can back down, and I can do a bunch of different things offensively

without having to worry about what's happening behind me. It is, again, just easier for the offensive player to manage, and so I didn't do a good enough job explaining this yesterday, and that's on me. But to put it simple the way, I agree that on the cleared side post ups and ISOs, it is easier to guard on the weak side because you have more time to rotate out of it. Put it simply, if you imagine this as the entire width

of the floor. If I am in the middle, every pass is like ten to fifteen feet away, Whereas if I am all the way on this cleared side and I need to hit a shooter over here, I might need to make a twenty five thirty foot pass, and that pass, if it gets deflected or has to be looping in some way, shape or form, it's easier to rotate out of it. Right. That is where that principle

is true. But it doesn't matter if Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum do either one of two things, either in the middle of the floor turn the basketball over or constantly settle for pull up jump shots, because they see all these bodies and they're intimidated in terms of making those reads, and it's just easier to take a difficult step back jump shot. And so in my opinion, and I saw this in the tape yesterday. They settled less on cleared sides, and so when you clear the side,

you simplify their reads. You make it more likely for them to be physically aggressive. When teams double team, they have to cross the lane entirely, which makes it easier to sneak along the baseline like that cut from Jalen Brown that we saw towards the end of the game. Right to me, it's just the best opportunity to bring the best out of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. Here's the next follow up, interesting breakdown of the Celtics attacking.

I agree clearing the side creates simpler reads. Joe Mass clearly believes that the Jays are capable of making those more complicated reads. He's trying to give them reps in case they face a team in the playoffs with personnel that makes those cross court passes that come from the

clearing the side even more difficult than they are. So what he's saying is basically, in the event that a really long athletic team is disrupting those skip passes, what if it becomes an issue there surprise you didn't talk about this, but all The zone the Celtics played in the game is another clear indication that they are experimenting,

essentially practicing for what might come in the playoffs. They ran zone versus Miami, or the zone they ran versus Miami is different than the one they've executed well versus Indiana, et cetera. Sees gave up easy looks in that zone as well as a ton of second chance points. I think Miami had sixteen offensive rebounds. That's the only reason Miami was even in this game. SE's cat lacking in last year's playoffs without a curve ball, and Joe's doing

everything he can to prevent that this year. So, first of all, on the cleared side versus middle of the

floor stuff. In theory, yes, it is great to continue to get reps and kind of make opportunities there in the middle of the floor, But in my opinion, the dead giveaway that that's not necessarily the best way to go is if you look around the league, there's really only a few guys that really thrive in the middle of the floor, and it's always like Nikola Jokic, Lebron James, like it's the best passers in the league that operate well out of the middle of the floor. I think

that's a pretty clear It's just difficult. It's really difficult to do against really good NBA defenses to read the floor that quickly in those types of situations. Now, I'm not saying you don't lean into it as a repetition in the regular season, but something to keep an eye on in the postseason. We tracked it right fourteen of

the thirty possessions on a cleared side. If we get to the postseason and they're not operating well out of the middle of the floor, we want to see that closer to like twenty five out of the thirty possessions on a cleared side. That's what I kept saying talking about with the Celtics as it pertains to like being

diligent about getting the ball to the right spots. Like it's one thing in the regular season to experiment, but when you get to the postseason, you gotta know what your best punch is and you got to go to it as much as possible. On the zone front, percent agree find time during the regular season practice it, especially in matchups where you feel like you've got a good chance to win and you're not gonna hurt yourself in

the standings. Hell, the Celtics are going to run away with the number one overall seed, like I talked about before the season. Anyway, that GAP's going to continue to grow now with the easier schedule. But like I agree, I think it's important to be able to have that punch, if anything, just as a rhythm disruptor. If you've got a team going on a run in the third quarter and you can go zone for four possessions and just kind of throw a wrench in things for a little bit,

that can win you a playoff game. And so I totally agree on that front. Next question, Hey, Jason, thanks a lot for answering my mailback question. I'm going to try my luck with another one. In your opinion, how should contact to jump shooters be officiated? Can contact to the arm at the end of the release, which goes on called a lot impact the follow through as well

as the result of the shot. Should shooters be called for an offensive foul if they contact the defender as a result of landing unnaturally in order to avoid injury when he is clearly about to land in their landing area. What should even be considered the landing area if you want to avoid injury to shooters who jump forward, but they shouldn't get an advantage over shooters that go up and down by forcing defenders to close out shorter in order

to not foul. How should refs differentiate natural and precautionary motions from flops and unnatural foul drifting? Should defensive players be called for a foul if kicking the leg on a fato a shot contacts them when they close out under control and can't create any additional contact. So I'm pretty down the middle on this. Like I think contact on the forearm on a follow through should be called

every single time. It's just when you look at the finesse element of jump shooting, especially difficult jump shooting, like you should not like the slightest tap on the forearm can cause the shot to miss by three feet. Like it just it matters too much. And for the most part, I feel like refs at least have their eye on that sort of thing. But the landing area thing, I

one hundred percent agree with you. I do understand that there are certain players that do have a natural kind of like move forward on their jump shot, and it's one thing And this is where I think discretion plays a role. It's one thing when you see a player jump up and land like one foot in front of where he took off and the dude comes up underneath him, Yeah,

that that should be a foul. But when it's a comical one like some of these James Harden step backs when he was with the Rockets, he would literally jump and then in mid air be like at a forty five degree angles he landed forward and then fell and you're like, that's that's just bullshit. It's not basketball, it's not Nobody would ever shoot like that unless they were trying to grip their way to the foul line, right, And so that to me is the delineation, like the

landing area. They need to tighten that up a little bit and give the refs the discretion to not call it if the player's doing janki stuff. Same goes for even like on that foul that really bad one at the end of the game against the Knicks yesterday, Like one of the things that happens is like if that if Aaron Holliday is shooting that play in a pick a shot in a pickup game, there's no contact there he's when he sees the close out coming, he's kind of like leaning into it a bit and like kind

of like taking that contact. It shouldn't have been a foul. And then also if you look at it, it's a prayer, like he's throwing up a prayer and the ref is jumping on and it is an opportunity to end the game at the foul line. And so in general, just the discretion has gone the wrong way too often this season.

I'd like to see them clear that up. Also, while I'm bitching about refs, there was a Kenyan Martin Junior Duncan the Sixers game where he got called for a tech and that was ridiculous and the refs just simply have to be stopped. Next question, genuine question for you, Jason, what's your opinion of Lebron launching the ball straight into Jamal Murray's face from point blank? I know you saw it.

Now let's address it. And I'm excited excited to see how you hear how you would spin it, cause if that's the other way around, you would have condemned it like you always do. One rule for Lebron and Draymond and another for Dylan Brooks. This is the most ridiculous mail back question I think I've ever gotten. If you actually think Lebron threw the ball into Jamal Murray's face on purpose, I don't know what to tell you, man. I literally don't even know how to respond to that

next question. When talking about Oklahoma City, can you ever just give a small shout out to Jalen Williams like it comes back last night and balls out yes, Gideon Door or slumping sneaking in a j Dub shout out sometimes cheesh. So here's the thing. Jadab's one of my

favorite young players in the league. I was actually talking with Sam Massini on the phone the other day, and everyone keeps like talking about, including myself, Jalen Brown that can pass, Jayalen Brown that can pass, And Sam Assini threw out the name Jimmy Butler as a camp for him. And I love that coump because he's just an insane competitor and he has that like big kind of playmaking forward type of vibe who can also be a really really good defensive player. Huge fan of Jay Dub, talked

about him a lot this season. Those of you guys who have followed the show. That's it. One of the things that happens is I'm trying to give you eight to ten minutes on a game so that I can hit three four games in a day, right Whereas like when I was covering the Lakers solely, I could go forty minutes on every single game. I did go forty minutes on every single game immediately after the final buzzer

because I was just covering the Lakers. So like a lot of times, like I choose to highlight specific things. That was a power Rankings video, I was trying to get thirty seconds on the Thunder. They're going to be longer form. There's gonna be a lot of longer form Thunder content down the season, and Jaylen Williams will get plenty of plenty large portion of the show. If that makes sense. All right, two more and then we're gonna get out of here. Hey, Jason loving the content analysis.

The Warriors clearly aren't championship contenders, and the lack of a trade deadline move confirms that this season is a wash. Although the athletic lineup of Wiggs, Cominga, and Green has dramatically improved their playoff chances. What's the next move for the Warriors in the offseason so that they do not waste another year of prime Steph. Is it making a big splash trade or making multiple moves for better role players?

So good question. I disagree with the first thing about them not being championship contenders, Like, here's the thing, like, do they have a legitimate bona fide superstar? Yes? Is the defense good enough? It has been as of late. We'll see in the larger sample size, but it has been. Jonathan Comingas scored twenty plus points in what ten of the last fourteen games if I remember correctly, So they're getting some pretty goo secondary production. They have a really

deep core of perimeter defenders. Now that Gary Payton is back, they have a versatile defensive front line. They can both switch and run traditional pick and roll coverages. They check a lot of boxes. Now, do they check as many boxes as some of the teams that are above them in the standings? No, of course not. But I think it'd be foolish to count them out because I think

beyond Denver there's a bunch of red flags. Like Boston can be out executed down the stretch of games, Minnesota can be out executed down the stretch of games, Milwaukee might really struggle to contend on the perimeter. Like the Clippers can't defensive rebound and they rely and pull up jump shots and can be bullied by bigger front lines.

The Lakers have no point of attack defenders. The Phoenix Suns can struggle in physical environments, although they signed Fatty as Young today, so like they're starting to add some physicality to their lineup. But every team has giant red flags, so to me, like if Denver had an do I think Golden State would beat Denver. Probably not, but like if a significant injury happens to one of the Denver starters, then it's wide open, and I think at that point

Golden State has a good chance as anybody else. And so again it's a small chance, but I think riding them off is silly. Now. Building from this into the future, I think the biggest thing that they're gonna have to look at I would love to see them get another

movement shooter. Specifically, with the way that they run their five out offense, You've got a lot of steph running off of these actions and drawing multiple defenders and causing these openings for the athletes to succeed on the backside, but Klay Thompson, who's been playing better as of late. But like as Klay Thompson ages out, Brandon Pitzimski is a guy who can shoot, but he's not a guy

who comes aggressively off screens looking to shoot. It would just be interesting to see them add another option on that front. I think it's all depth at this point. Really, whether or not they can win a title will come down to Jonathan Kaminga's development. Give him another year, maybe another playoff run this year, to get reps in a playoff setting, for him to identify what his weaknesses are at a better level, get better at jump shooting, get

better at reading double teams. To me, it's gonna be on the margins at this point, and then Jonathan Kaminga's big picture improvement. But yeah, like if I had to if I had to pick like a specific archetype to look at, just in terms of their shot creation, with how athletic their frontline is, getting another movement shoot or another higher level offensive guard into that mix, I think

would go a long way to help in them. Like even just like what if they made a move on the margins this summer for somebody like a Gary Trent junior for instance, would be a pickup that I think would be really helpful for them. All right, last question and then we're out here. How can you all say that the Celtics have the most talented roster while they have no bench and they're starting five? Is it better

than the Clippers? You said Kawhi is better than Tatum, and PG is better than Brown and harder and is better than white Man is kind of even with Drew hasn't found a role in Boston. Only Porzingis is better than Zubax. So I one hundred percent disagree with that. I do think the top three guys like Harden, Kawhi, PG are better than Tatum Brown, whoever is your your third guy there? But to also have Derek White, to also have Drew Holliday, do also have Christaps Porzingis, do also

have al Orford? Like they just that top six. Nobody touches that top six, And that's why I think that they have the most talented roster in the league. All Right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We'll have a quick show tomorrow morning, breaking down some games from

tonight's slate. Now we're going live tomorrow night. I think it's Clippers Warriors if I remember correctly, but there's a major national TV game on Wednesday night that we'll be hitting, so we'll have that one as well. As always, I appreciate you guys, I'll see you tomorrow. The volume