Hoops Tonight - How Jaylen Brown’s resurgence has made Celtics unstoppable

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All Star break. In our nine points per one hundred possessions better on offense than anybody else has been in the league. That's the gap between one and two since the All Star break, and it's primarily been fueled, in my opinion, by a massive leap in play from Jalen Brown, who's become an incredibly gifted offensive shot creator in this league. Added a post up game that just wasn't there last year.

So what we're gonna do in that opening segment, after we talk some Celtics, We're going to do a film session that dives into Jalen Brown's development as a post up shot creator. After that, we're going to talk about the Golden State Warriors in a very important game for the ten seed, go into Houston and put any hope of them crawling into the playoff picture out of the equation by kicking their butts. Houston did a ton of switching in that game, and Golden State had a very

interesting offensive night to beat Houston's switching attack. We've talked a lot about how to beat switching over the course of the year. I want to dive into on film the different ways that Golden State beat houston switching attack. After that, we're going to go into a mail bag. I've got looks like three major three topics that we're going to hit in our mail bag section. You guys are the Joe for we gets to subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel, so you guys don't miss any

more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements as well as the film breakdowns that I do from time to time on Twitter. Also a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful v lev a rating and a review on that front. And last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them

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All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Boston Celtics, as I mentioned earlier, they're seventeen and four since the All Star break, so the first team to get to

sixty wins this season. They're averaging since the All Star break and astonishing one hundred and twenty seven point five points per one hundred possessions, and again, like I said in the intro, that is nine points better than the second best offense in the league over that span, which is the Indiana Pacers at one hundred and eighteen point five points per one hundred posessions. So even as the league has gone way more into physicality and letting contact go,

Boston's offense is actually getting better and better. Here's some crazy stats for you guys. So, as I've talked about a lot over the course of the season, I really wanted Boston to add more versatility to their attack. Obviously, we think of them as the best volume three point shooting team in the league, right and that's true. That's bared out in the statistics and is a big part of what they do offensively. But to start the season they were getting very little in the paint relative to

the rest of the league. And there have been several specific changes, a lot of them that I was specifically calling for during the middle of the season that have helped flush out a more versatile attack from Boston, who has actually become a very good paint scoring team over this span as well. To give you guys some numbers before the All Star break, the Celtics made sixteen point three threes per one hundred possessions, which obviously was the

most in the league or over that span. Though they were twenty seventh in points in the paint scored per one hundred possessions post All Star Break, they're actually making more threes eighteen point three made threes per one hundred possessions, and despite that, they are still all the way up from twenty seventh to start the season. They have moved all the way up to twelfth post All Star Break in points in the paint scored per one hundred possessions.

So they've gone from a team that can make a lot of threes but can't score in the paint relative to the rest of the league to a team that makes the most threes, is making even more threes, and is now a top twelve paint scoring offense in the league over this span. So several key areas where we're seeing changes there. First, on the offensive glass, which is one of the things I called for in the beginning

of the season. If you guys remember, they were eighteenth in offensive rebound percentage before for the All Star Break. Post All Star Break, ninth in offensive rebound percentage. They're also showing better shots selection. Pre All Star Break, they took only thirty eight point three shot attempts in the paint per game and nine point three mid range jump shots. Okay,

post All Star Break, up to thirty nine point four shot attempts in the paint per game and down to eight attempts per game in the mid range, So they shaved about a shot per game out of the mid range and added that to an inside the paint attempt They're also taking fewer pull up jumpers in general, they're taking twenty four point six per game before the All Star Break, twenty three point three per game after the All Star Break, and then lastly, they're getting way better

shots in transition at the rim. So before the All Star Break they had just a one to twenty seven point eight offensive rating in transition, which ranked fifteenth in the NBA. Big thing I noticed on tape there was they'd be running up and down the floor for three point shots, and they're running a lot more for dunks

and stuff at the rim. Now post All Star Break has moved up from one twenty seven point eight all the way to one forty five point four offensive rating in transition possessions that is the second best mark in

the NBA over that span. So really they're doing all the same stuff that they've been doing, except there's been a little bit more deliberate about getting into the paint and they are a crashing the offensive glassmore and running in transition for better looks instead of threes in transition. That has been the driving force behind Boston becoming a better paint scoring team. That's set. There's a specific player that's also taken a leap over the course of this span,

and that is Jalen Brown. Before the All Star Break, he averaged twenty two points per game on forty nine percent from the field and thirty four percent from three. Post All Star Break, Jalen Brown is at twenty seven points per game, fifty two percent from the field in forty percent from three. He has substantially improved as a shot creator year over year last year in self created possessions. Again for me, that's ISO's pick and rolls in post ups,

including passes those possessions. Last year, he was at zero point nine to seven to seven points per possession in seven hundred possessions this year and well over eight hundred he's at one point zero five to two. So he's gone from a comfortably below a point per possession to comfortably above a point per possession in one season. And the main driving force behind that, as I mentioned in the intro, is Jalen Brown attacking out of the post.

He has one hundred and ninety five post ups this year. Last year he posted up just fifty one times. In those fifty one post ups, last year, he got just zero point nine zero points per possession. This year, in four times the volume, he's getting one point zero seven points per possession including passes out of post ups. That ranks thirteenth out of the thirty players around the league that have logged at least one hundred and fifty post ups. The only non bigs that are ahead of him are Kawhi,

Pascal Siakam, Lebron, James de Rosen, and Luka Doncicch. That's it. He's ahead of guys like Jimmy Butler, ahead of guys like Kevin Durant, Jannisntenne Kumbo, Jason Tatum. He's having a very efficient post up scoring season. And so what I want to do here is I want to take a look at the film and talk a little bit about how Jalen Brown has become such a successful post up player.

And the first example that we're going to look at, and I've got four clips to demonstrate this is Jalen Brown doing his work early to get deep post position. This is a very very important part of post up basketball. The closer you get to the rim at the beginning, the less bulleyball you have to play when you actually get the ball in your hands, which is the hardest

time to do it, and when there's more contact allowed. So, and that's the flip side is there is more contact allowed before you catch the basketball, so you can actually work harder to fight for position in those situations. Let's take a look at some examples, all right. So first here we have Jalen Brown working against Roy O'Neil and again look at right here, as he's setting this like kind of flare screen here for a hawser to come off as a shooter on this end, he actually backs

into O'Neill and starts fighting for position right away. Look at that right as he set his feet to try to get in Bobo's way, he held his ground and fought for a deep catch right underneath the basket. Now he's going to take a turnaround fade away over his right shoulder. Here. Now, Jalen Brown is an excellent fadeaway jump shooter, but this is as easy a fadeaway as you can get. Like this is not like fifteen feet from the basket, three drop steps, absorbing contact and rising up.

He did his work early and then on the catch he turned and fade and this is what a seven or eight foot jump shot. That's an easy jump shot for Jalen Brown. So again it looks tough because it's a fadeaway jump shot, but because he did his work early to fight for deep position, ends up getting a great look out of it. This next one here is against the Golden State Warriors. And that complete and utter ass kicking that we saw was it a month and

a half ago or so. And we have a transition possession And in transition there's a cross match where Jalen Brown I identifies as Drew Holliday's bringing the ball to the floor. Watch Jalen Brown identify that Chris Paul is the only guy at the rim. He sees Chris Paul is the only guy in front of him at the rim and just buries him. Look at this sees the opportunity. Look at where his position is. He's inside the restricted area, so at this point he doesn't have to take any

sort of difficult shot. This is a layup. He's just going to catch and go up and finish. That's again doing your work early to get an easy shot out of the post. The entire premise of post up basketball is using your physical gifts as opposed to your skill gifts.

You're fighting for position using your tools. And again, Jalen Brown has just obscene athletic tools for a player in his position group, very very similar type of example here against Philly or running up the floor in transition, Jalen Brown's going to identify that Kyle Lowry is the man back right here. He sees he's got everyone else trailing the play around the perimeter. He sees all four sixers in front of him. He knows Kyle Lowry's the only

guy back. He's going to deep seal, get a catch there right around the semi circle, and he's going to go right through Kyle Lowry's chest to his lefty hook. Jalen Brown, by the way, he only made six hook shots all year last year. That's going to be a theme when we get into our next little segment here. But like, this is a shot that he's added, and he's got it with both hands, and he's made a lot of these nice little left handed hooks in the

lane this year, which I think is super impressive. That's not an easy shot. And then lastly, very very similar example here on an inbounds play, the Celtics are running this action here for Howser to come off of the sideline out of bounds. They're actually prepping faking. This is all a decoy, so they're pretending to set basically a double screen for Howser to come off this way. But the entire purpose of that is this defender here is

going to lock and trail on Hawser. These guys are both preparing for any sort of hedge and slip, so they're both up on the ball. This clears out this entire space for Jalen Brown to work. And if you look, you can actually see Evan Fourtier's fronting the post. And because he he's fronting the post, Jalen Brown's basically creating an easy over the top passing angle. His entire thing here,

once again is doing the work early. He's now pushing out on Fournier so that Pritchard can throw this pass over the top into this open space so that Jalen Brown can get an easy shot. Once again, the shot making piece is the easy part there. The work is being done physically at the beginning of the possession. So now let's say you get a catch and you're you know, ten to fifteen feet away from the basket, and it's time to go to work in a standard post up.

For a guy like Jaylen Brown, the key is using your physical gifts to be aggressive and play bully ball whenever you can. Now these next two clips, these are two of my favorite clips from Jalen Brown from this season. I loved the way that he went at Bradley Beal in this game. Bradley Bual is a very very good athlete, one of the best athletes in the league at his position. But Jalen Brown's bigger than him, and he wanted to send this message to Bradley Beal early and often in

this game. So here we go. We're all the way out the wing. He's gonna turn this ISO into a post up by turning his back, using pivots, using pivots. Bradley Beal's overplaying that right hand shoulder because he most right handed players coming off of the left block are

gonna try to come over their left shoulder for a hook in the lane, and most of them aren't comfortable going to their left hand side. Jalen Brown is very comfortable going to that side, as we talked about earlier. But in this case, Bradley Beal gives him such a big angle that he's able to bury him underneath the basket and basically get what amounts to a layup. And here we go again. We're gonna get on the other end, another post up, cleared side post up. Here Bradley bil

against Jalen Brown. This time he is going to go to that right handed hook. Now, he just just beat him to the baseline side right, This left foot was up higher, this foot was back more. He was squared up almost at like this angle instead of at that angle. And so now Jalen Brown actually has the ability to get back. Bradley Beal's playing him more straight up. So now he's going to go to that left shoulder hook like we talked about. But again, notice when he took

that drop step into the lane. He didn't let Beal bump him off the spot. Beal's trying to bump him and he's holding his ground. You can actually see Beal's head jerk back like a foot there. Because Jalen's bringing the physicality of that situation. He's almost straight up and down on this hook shot. That's a super high percentage shot. Here's a clear side post up in transition against Denver. He's gonna see Michael Porter Jr. And he's gonna go right through his chest to a left handed hook. Very

physically aggressive play. This is one of my favorite types of post up plays. When you see you know, I've talked about this with Jokic before, When a player is physically engaged with you, that's your best opportunity to make a physically aggressive move. When they're playing off of you, it's much harder because they can actually take a steps to beat you to a spot. So like, for instance, if there's like a gap between a player and I try to go right, the player can slide and meet me.

But if they're actually connected with my body, I can go right around them and get away with a little bit of a chicken wing. So Peyton Watson here is gonna get way too connected with Jalen Brown, way too far away from the basket. So again Jalen Brown's dribbling, Peyton Watson's connected with him like seven eight feet away from the basket, and so Jalen Brown sees that as an opportunity to go right around him. See how he kind of gets away with that little bit of a

chicken wing because they're already engaged. And then in this case, Peyton Watson actually has some size on him. So he jumps straight up into Peyton Watson's body and extends his left arm out to create the shot angle. But he's so far underneath the basket that even though that's a tough shot, he's so close that it becomes an easy shot.

And then lastly, here's one let's see here against Cason Wallace. Now, again we've talked about the hook shots, Jalen Brown's also one of the best tough shot makers out of the post in the league. He's been one of the best turnaround, fataway jump shooters in the league. Now, I prefer it as a counter and to Jalen's credit, one of the reasons why he's been so efficient as a post up player this year, he's used it as a counter. He's taken it when he's had the right matchups, when he's

feeling in a groove. This is a difficult shot, but one of the things I like about it. Watch how quickly he pivots over his right shoulder and how at the end he goes straight up and down. So he's turning, but like, watch he's going up here right when he turns squared right there. Watch he's squared all the way up. There's no more spin in his body. He did the spin early, and the jumper itself is more or less

straight up and down. And that's what I talk about when I talk about using your leg strength and using your athleticism to turn a difficult shot into basically the same muscle memory you use when you take other shots

around the floor. Alrighty, So the next piece taking the easy kick out threes when they're there, Jalen Brown is going to get a lot of favorable matchups attacking players out of the post, and he's going to see double teams, and he sees a lot of them, and it's important for him to make the right reads when those opportunities

present themselves. Here, Jalen Brown's looking to attack Aaron Wiggins on the baseline side, and as soon as he pivots right over his left shoulder, Chet Holmgren doubles down on Jalen Brown here and he immediately identifies that chrisops Porzingis is the open man. Makes the kickout pass. That's easy basketball. Just use your physical tools to draw that second defender in to make the kickout pass. Same sort of thing here with Jason Tatum against Denver, and this pass is

kind of off target. You'll see he starts attacking casep here out of the left side corner and Michael Porter Junior doubles down. And here's the thing, that pass one pass, that double team from one pass away is the hardest one to rotate out of. So Jalen Brown doesn't even make a good pass here, but it's so much space for Jason Tatum to operate with he's able to knock down the shot. Last piece, I want to hit the concept of using post up double teams to get the

defense into rotation. So it's this one actually. Okay. So one of the things I talk about a lot on the show is advantage creation basketball. Those of you guys who watched the Phoenix Suns video yesterday will know exactly what I'm talking about, and specifically, when it comes to advantage creation, there's essentially three steps to it, right. The first step is the action that gets the defense into rotation.

The second step is advantage extending, which is like guys attacking closeouts and bringing additional help defenders in to get the best possible shot. The last piece is play finishing. Whether that's a guy knocking down three on the perimeter, whether that's a guy driving a close out and making a layup, or maybe it's a lob up to a vertical space or underneath the basket, or a cutter working along the baseline. That's the play finishing piece. But the

number one piece there. None of that can happen. The advantage extending and the play finishing cannot happen unless you get the defense into rotation. There are a bunch of different ways to get the defense into rotation. The Celtics have a bunch. They'll use Tatum, Derek White, two man game, They'll use Jalen Brown, Cristops porzingis two man game. Porzingis two man game. White, porzingis two man game. All these

different things that they'll use to get the defense into rotation. Well, I love the idea of just using Jalen Brown to get the defense into rotation. Here's a great example of that right here. So Jalen Brown's gonna look to post up against Bogdan Magdonovich, and as soon as he makes that post up attempt, DeAndre Hunter ends up essentially doubling out of this right corner here. Okay, but does de Jontay Murray's going to rotate. But at this point, this

is classic Celtics basketball. The Celtics all season long have made the extra pass, the right extra pass when the defense is in rotation to get those wide open threes. So this is a wide open three for Derek White that he makes that Drew Holliday is going to get credit for the assist. For Drew Holliday is essentially the advantage extender by making the IQ to the next guy in the chain. Derek White's our play finisher. But Jalen Brown is the guy that got the defense in rotation there.

Here's another example. Against the Knicks, We're going to get a double team of Jalen Brown at the right corner kind of starting in transition. So Jalen Brown is Jalen Brunson on him, He's backing him down. Dante DiVincenzo comes into the double team. Okay, so as the double team comes, this is a rotation that's already happening with Precious Techua. He is rotating to Derek White. But one of the things I talk about a lot on the show are

the idea of baked in driving lanes. Because Precious Achuwa is closing out hard at Derek White's left shoulder, there is an automatic baked in driving lane to Derek White's strong hand, his right hand side. See how he just catches and drives. Precious rotated, but because he's rotating from Derek White's left hand side, there's that automatic read there

for him. So now as Derek White gets through, because there was in the rotation, if we go back, look, so originally Josh Hart is on Drew Holliday here in the corner right. But as soon as the double team happens, watch everybody rotate. So Precious goes to Derek White, Isaiah Hartenstein goes to Tatum, Josh Hart goes to chrisops Porzingis. So now Derek White is now making that advantage extending play.

He's taking the read, which is the baked in right hand driving lane, and he's immediately identifying that Jalen Brunson, in his rotation out of Jalen Brown, has not covered much ground, and that Josh Hart is engaged with Porzingis, and that Drew Holliday is the wide open shooter on the weak side. Makes the read. Drew Holliday makes the shot once again. Jalen Brown the advantage creator, Derek White

the advantage extender, Drew Holliday the play finisher. We got one more and then we'll be out of here for the Celtics. At least this time, we're going to get a post up of of Jalen Brown against Jalen Brunson here on the left block, same sort of thing. We get the double from one pass away, but the Knicks pre rotate, so here comes Josh Hart. But as we can see, boy On mcdonovich is rotating up to Tatum here, and it's the same sort of thing we talked about earlier.

Tatum now is one of the best offensive players in the world that's attacking not only a lesser defensive player, but a lesser defensive player that just had to close out from the weak side, and so Tatum basically just hits him with a basic jab step move. Boom, And as soon as he jabs, you can actually see boy On take that hard step to the left. Boom, see that little stutter step to the left, and then Tatum's able to beat him to his left hand side and get all the way to the rim for a layup.

Once again, same sort of thing. We have our advantage creator, which is Jalen Brown with the post up double team. Drew Holliday the advantage extender by making the read, and then Jason Tatum the play finisher by beating a close out attack getting all the way to the rim for

a layup again once again. Once again. We talked so much about about Jason Tatum, and we talked so much about Derek White and chrisopps Porzingis, and a lot of times Jalen Brown kind of falls into the background, especially after he had a pretty disappointing playoff run last year. But the truth is he's only twenty seven years old and he's still getting better. And you know, one of the things I talk about a lot on the show

is you can add talent through the draft. You can add talent through free agency, you can add talent through trades, right, but one of the best ways to add talent is just by improving the guys that you have in house. And Jalen Brown is a better basketball player this year than he was last year. He's playing better defense this year than he did last year, and again he posted

up less than once per game last year. He's become one of the higher volume post up players in the league and he's very good at it, better than many of his peers at the top of the league. He is getting better. That is made Boston better. It's been a big part of this and this late surge that he's been on. And again we're not talking about like last year where it was mostly Jason Tatum and Jalen

Brown doing the scoring. Christaps Porzingis is still averaging over twenty points per game over this post All Star Game stretch. Jalen Brown has just stepped his game up to an additional level from there. I think that again, all of

this is about margin for air. The Celtics have their weaknesses, just like every other team in the league has weaknesses, but they've dramatically increased their margin for Air this year through the additions of krisps Porzingis and Drew Holliday and also through the improvement of Jalen Brown as a shot creator. All right, now we are going to move on to the Golden State Warriors and the and their win against

the Houston Rockets. So, as I talked about when we talked about the Rockets the last time, I can't even remember which team we were covering when we were talking about the Rockets. But since since Alpha and Shangun got hurt, they've basically brought a Men Thompson into the starting lineup and started switching everything. That's been their way of dealing with that specific issue. So one of the things that is interesting with the switching defense is it's entirely type

of offensive attack, so there are advantages that come with switching. Right. One of the advantages that comes with switching is you can theoretically get ahead of screening actions. Right. So, screening actions are designed when a player is trailing another player in some way, shape or form. If you can make contact, you can generate separation which can allow that player to either get a shot or to get downhill and get

into the lane and make something happen. If the guy comes off the screen and there's just another defender waiting for him, it will shut down that action. And then all of a sudden, the way that you beat that offense or defense becomes very different. Against a traditional man to man defense, where guys are staying glued to their individual man and chasing over screens, it's so much more

about your execution in your offense. How well are you setting screens, how well are guys taking advantage of the openings that are created by those screening actions, Whereas when we get to a switching attack, it gets very, very different. And so I wanted to get into some of the specific details of how Golden State beat Houston's switching attack in that game last night. Now, I know the Warriors have another game tonight against the Dallas Mavericks. Obviously we're

heading into our weekend. Golden State might go into Dallas and get smacked tonight. Dallas will be favored, They're a team that's been playing really good basketball. But I just wanted to kind of even beyond the Warriors, just talk about for any team around the league, specific examples of how to beat a switching defense. So, first, the most rudimentary form of beating a switching defense, which has to do with your ability to beat your individual matchup in

one on one basketball. So this first one, we're going to get Steph Curry isolating a men Thompson. So, starting in transition, we're working our way down the floor. We're gonna start with a little bit of foreshadowing here. So Klay Thompson is going to run a ball screen with Chase Jackson, Tray Jackson Davis. A men Thompson is on Clay, Jabari Smith is on Tray Jackson Davis. We're gonna see a little bit of foreshadowing for a concept we're going to talk about later having to do is slipping a

switching action. So in this case, if they're gonna switch, Amn Thompson is gonna be guarding Tray Jackson Davis and Jabari Smith is gonna be guarding Clay Thompson. Right, But look at where Tray Jackson Davis is in terms of his positioning. He is already before the switch has even finished happening, he has inside position on a men Thompson. Because a men Thompson was guarding Clay on the perimeter, Trace has automatic room to slip, and so he slips

into that opening. Now Man is a good athlete, and Dylan brooks off for some help, and so they're able to kind of rotate out of it. But that's an example of slipping out of a switch. We're gonna get to a better example of that later. The ball gets works back around. As you can see, Fred Van Vliet is on Steph Curry, but he sets a little pined down Frandrew Wiggins that gets Jalen Green on him, and then he runs a little handoff type of thing with Tray Jackson Davis here, and then as soon as he

comes off Tray Jackson Davis, there's a Men Thompson. So again, all the actions that Houston ran, or that Golden State ran, Houston was able to basically switch, get in front of and shut down the advantage. When this sort of thing happens and you look down and suddenly there's only seven seconds on the shot clock, the only thing you can do is beat your individual matchup. And Steph Curry again, a lot of people talk about him is the greatest shooter of all time, and that is what he is,

but that's such a oversimplification of what he does. He is also one of the best drivers and finishers of the basketball. He's an excellent passer, he's one of the best off ball players. All these different things. We can go on and on and on. But he just takes a Men Thompson who's an excellent perimeter defender who slides his feet really well, and just simply toasts him off the dribble with the right to left crossover in a nifty little shot in the lane. That's just beating your

individual matchup to beat a switching attack. This next one very similar type of deal. Klay Thompson against a Men Thompson. This is an offensive rebound out of a free throw. Klay Thompson is Dylan Brooks. Dylon Brooks is probably the best perimeter defender on Houston. So he's going to call for a screen from Trace. We're gonna get another switch.

Trace is gonna clear. By the way, there was kind of a little bit of a slip opportunity there again, same type of over the top positioning I was talking about, and Klay Thompson is just going to go to work against a Men Thompson and take a little step back jump shot over his right shoulderknock it. Down. Now, you can beat your matchup in more than one way. You don't have to just beat it scoring the basketball. This is an example of Tray Jackson Davis beating his matchup

on the offensive glass. So he has Jeff Green on him at this point in the possession. But we're gonna get again a switch between Fred Van Vliet and Jabari Smith. And then in that dribble handoff, Trace Jackson Davis gets Jabari Smith switched on him. You can just tell by looking here. Jabari Smith not as big as Jeff Green is. So now Klay Thompson has Jeff Green on him, He's going to work. Tray Jackson Davis immediately starts backing his

way in. Watch what Trace does. I've got this size advantage. I'm working my way into the paint. I'm creating rebound positioning. So now when the ball gets worked back out to Andrew Wiggins, Andrew Wiggins ends up taking a late pull up three off the dribble. Here, Tray Jackson Davis once again working his way in. Jabari Smith's trying to box

him out. TRACE's just bigger than him, bigger and stronger, gets the offensive rebound, dunks it once again, winning a match up one on one, just this time on the offensive glass. So one of the core ways to beat a switching defense is to beat your individual matchup. Now our second way to beat a switching defense. One of the things that happens with switching is it kind of plays into the laziest tendencies of defenders. So, for instance, let's just take a guy running off of a screen.

For instance, if a guy's running off of a screen and he knows he has to chase, he's gonna run like crazy to follow him over the top of the screen. If he's chasing a guy to a screen and they're going to switch it, he might stop running and be like, Okay, my teammate's gonna take over. I can go ahead and relax here for a second. And in that split second, when teams start to relax in their switching scheme, you

can find openings. Let's look at some examples here. So Steph Curry is going to come off in transition, we get a cross match here. Jalen Green is guarding Tray Jackson Davis on the screen. When Tray sets the screen, notice Jalen Green jumps way out to the high side. He's now way out on Steph Curry's high side. If he was guarding Steph in isolation, he'd be positioned like right here, but instead he's positioned way on Steph's right

hand side. So right as Jabari Smith clears out with Tray Jackson Davis, Steph takes advantage of this baked in

driving lane to the left and then gets an easy step back jump shot. See, he wouldn't even be able to turn the corner like that as easily if Jalen Green was actually squared up with him, But in the switch he was keyed up on his right hand side. Steph saw a baked in left hand driving lane. Now look at Jalen Green's body positioning. He's taking a massive recovery step towards the basket here, which gives Steph the

ability to get separation for the step back. Now, Jalen Green still gets a contest because he's just an obscene athlete, but that's a good look that Steph was able to generate by taking advantage of a switch that had a defender automatically out of position on his right hand side. Here's my favorite example from the film session today. Tray Jackson Davis and Dymonngreen. We're getting all kinds of deflections defensively in this game too. I love having both of

them in the starting lineup. We're going to talk about that in our mail bag when we get later on in the show. All right, so this is a really really interesting example of taking advantage of that laziness that I talked about. Klay Thompson is right here, Jabari Smith is guarding him, Jalen Green is guarding Draymond Green. Draymond Green is going to signal for Clay Thompson is going to run all the way through to this right hand corner to look for a three point shot. But watch

what happens here. Draymond Green identifies it. Steph has eyes on Clay. He sees him running through. Watch Jabari Smith Junior immediately start pointing. Watch Jabari Smith here, you got him, You got him. I'm done, I've done my job. I'm switching. Where's Jalen Green? Though, Jalen Green is standing with Draymond Green between him and where Clay's running to. So what does Draymond Green do? He just screens his own man.

He screens his own man because Jabari Smith quit on the play and so Klay Thompson's able to break wide open in the corner. That's a great example of what I'm talking about with laziness. You're capitalizing on the Again, if Javari Smith was locking and trailing, there's no way he relaxes here. He relaxes here because he's expecting his switch. But the problem is Draymond Green. He's seen all this before.

The Warriors have seen all these schemes before. Draymond Green identifies that Jabari Smith is giving up on the play, and he knows his only job here is to screen the guy that's supposed to switch onto Klay Thompson catch him for a wide open three. Here's another very very similar example. So Tray Jackson Davis is being guarded by Dylan Brooks. He's pressuring the basketball bodied up with him

on his low side. Steph is backscreening for Draymond, which is going to force Jabari Smith to switch on to Steph Curry and Fred Van Vliet to take Draymond Okay now from here. Once again, he's going to capitalize on Jabari Smith quitting when he thinks the switch is coming. Dylan Brooks is not in position to switch here. He's engaged physically with Tray Jackson Davis. So Steph all he has to do is run off and get the ball. Jabari quits again. He quits because he's like, oh, I'm done.

I just have to get Tray Jackson Davis now. But the problem is is Dylan Brooks was engaged with Tray Jackson Davis. This buys Stephan opening for him to get a three point shot. Alrighty, now the two more clips I want to look at first bringing a second defender and using a mismap to get the defense in rotation. So Andrew Wiggans runs like he's gonna set a downscreen on Fred van Vliet. This forces the switch. So now Aman Thompson takes Curry and Wiggins heads Fred van Vliet.

Watch Steff immediately point he goes, we got our matchup. We got Wiggins on Fred van Vliet. If you watch it again, you can literally see them quickly identify boom switch point give it to him in the post. They make the post entry. All Wiggins has to do here is back down. He draws Dylan Brooks in rotation. We get a wide open three for Klay Thompson. Now Clay actually misses this shot, but this isn't again getting the defense into rotation. Once they're in rotation, the scheme doesn't

matter anymore. Right when the defense is loaded up the switching versus the traditional coverages, that means everything in terms of what you're gonna do next, But as soon as the defense is in rotation, it's just driving kick basketball. So one of the best ways to attack a switching defense is just to find a mismatch and use that to get the defense to lean that way or to send a second defender over, and then just make the appropriate kickout passes and play driving kick basketball from there.

And then our last one slipping the switch like we talked about earlier. So Dylan Brooks is gonna miss another three here working down the left side of the floor, we're gonna get his Steph Tray Jackson Davis ball screen. Now, like we talked about earlier, Fred's on Steph Jabbari is on Tray Jackson Davis. As soon as the screen is set, watch Trace deliberately try to get behind Van vliet Boom,

not even trying to set a screen. There's no reason for him to set a screen because they're gonna switch it anyway, as soon as he's done this, Jabari is now on Steph. Fred van Vliet is now on him. And because of that, because Klay Thompson is here on the weak side and there's no room or there's no defender here to help on this over the top pass, he can slip into this opening. Steph identifies it immediately

throws the pass over the top. Dylan Brooks is guarding Klay Thompson and he has no choice but to step over now he stepped. Trace makes the excellent read to Klay Thompson in the corner and he nails the three. This is a team that's been a good defense most of the year and that has been a pain in the ass for a bunch of different reasons, and Golden State just picked him apart. They had a one thirty four point three offensive rating in that game despite having

twenty one turnovers. As a matter of fact, when you actually look at shots that they took in the game, that had a seventy three point one percent true shooting percentage, which is like completely outrageous. It means in possessions where they actually took a shot, their offensive rating was in the high one forties. That's completely outrageous, and for a team that's been struggling offensively for a while now, a big part of it, Steph got going in this particular game.

That helps really smart high IQ basketball to beat a difficult scheme to beat, and a good example too of just of just the ceiling this team is capable of getting too off the strength of their IQ and how much of an advantage that is when you get into the postseason. We'll see what ends up happening against Dallas tonight. We will be covering that game in the Monday Show when we get back from the weekend. All right, let's get to our mail bag before we get out of

here for the night. So our first question in a second, I'm pulling up something for the mail bag. All right, So, similar to how you did a breakdown on the Spurs, can you maybe touch on the Bulls? Personally, I think it's been time to move on from Zach and Vouch and as much as I love him Dbo too, I know the whole Lonzo trade slash injury derailed our plans as we were the number one seed with everyone healthy, and now these past two years have just been ugly. However,

there's hope. Ac obviously is a stud that can fit any team. More importantly, though, I think both Kobe and Io have shown that they are capable young backcourt to build around. I went to school with Io, and I just love to see him and Kobe take the reins in a rebuild. I think it's time Chicago takes its medicine and tears everything down. Your thoughts one hundred percent agree. Let's start with I own Kobe. Obviously, I love the dynamic because you guys know how I feel about the

ideal kind of configuration of a modern NBA backcourt. I want a defensive minded guard and I want a skill guard. That's the perfect configuration that I Owe and Kobe fall into. Also, Kobe's having a really good season, and again when you it goes beyond the box score numbers, this is his first opportunity really to get high usage. To give you an example, he only ran three hundred and twenty pick and rolls last year. He's already at almost a thousand

this year. I think he's at like nine hundred and ninety seven. So that goes to show you like this is his first real opportunity with the basketball in his hand shooting over forty percent on pull up jump shots. That's substantial. And then also he's going to hit over a thousand pick and rolls, and among all the players in the league. Remember that's that that thousand pick and roll liss is my high volume pick and roll list. I look at those players at the end of the

season as a big indicator of shot creation. He's at zero point ninety seven points per possession in like almost one thousand pick and roll reps this year. That's really

good for a first time opportunity to do that. There are guys, of course, there are guys that are more efficient than him at that, and obviously you want to see him crack over a point for possession probably by next year, but for his first opportunity to do that, to basically be a one point per possession pick and roll shot creator, especially on a team that can struggle with three point shooting from time to time, which is an important part of spacing the floor for a pick

and roll attack, I think that's really impressive. And so I think he has legitimately the potential to be a number two on a really good team, but they do need a number one. So from there, again, like we talked about with the Wemby thing. First step, find out who your number one is. Once you have a legitimate number one, got to get a number two. Once you have your number two. That's where I'm not necessarily a

believer in the three star build. Once you have two legitimate star level players that both that are good enough to be slotted the way that they're slotted, then you start targeting role players that accentuate their gifts. You don't want to get out of order there. So, for instance, I know that the Bulls higher ups are super high on Alex Cruso. This is a similar thing that I've seen around the league. The Brooklyn Nets are very high on McHale Bridges. They love him. They view him as

a culture guy. That's great, you don't have your stars yet, and Mikal Bridges is not that guy. I don't think Michale Bridges is good enough to be a number two, even unless he's alongside like a true top tier type of superstar. Alex Crusoe one of my favorite players to root for, such an like he was so underrated in that Lakers title run. Was devastated when Jeanie Buss let

him walk for nothing. I'm a huge fan of Alex, but it doesn't make sense to have Alex Crusoe on your roster when he could be flipped for asset return when you don't have a legitimate superstar yet. And so that's where I agree with you. It's time to move from Zach, move from Bouc, move from Demarto Rosen. Caruso can get you a first round draft pick, maybe even two.

So like from that standpoint, you want to bring in as much asset return as you can so that you can use those assets either via through the either via trade or through the draft to bring in the guy who can be the Number one that you put next to Kobe White. So I agree. I actually enjoyed watching the Chicago Bulls this year. Tomarto Rosen is one of my favorite players in the league to watch. He's turned

into like a really savvy vet, an incredible playmaker. Always kind of viewed him as a better basketball player than Zach Lavine, but it's just this era has kind of reached reached its personal ceiling, right, it's individual ceiling that this era can get to, and so from there it's time to rebuild. Love the io, Kobe backcourt. There great to build around that. Just got to flip everything you can for asset return. Again, you ought you either want to be young and fun. You don't want to be

like old and mediocre. That like you want to be young and bad as you're progressing towards building assets, or young and good as you're progressing towards your future. The worst thing you can be is old and mediocre. And that's what the Bulls are at this point. It's time

to pivot towards their youth. All right, And next question, do you think the Warriors should keep Trace Jackson Davis in the starting lineup with Jonathan Kaminga coming back from injury as they have seemed to found something defensively, or do you think Kaminga has to start? First of all, I don't necessarily think who starts matters nearly as much as how many minutes you get. I even talked about

this with Jovan Buja this morning. We were talking some Lakers on his podcast and having to do with Jared Vanderbilt's return, like, oh, should Jared Vanderbilt start? Oh? Shoul ruy Hatcha Mura start? And to me, none of that matters as long as all of them are playing really big minutes, and as long as you close with the right guys right and no one's saying necessarily that you're going to close with Tray Jackson, Davis and Draymond every single game. That's going to depend on the matchup. But

that lineup has been killing everybody. They have forty nine minutes under their belt so far, and they're outscoring opponents by twenty eight point four points per one hundred possessions over that span, a one to nineteen point three offensive rating, which is off the charts good, in a ninety point nine defensive rating, which is way off the charts good. So like they're killing everybody with that group. Trace has been so good defensively. He's such a good read and

react player when he catches on the rolls. We talked to about some of the reads that he made in the Houston Rockets game in our film session earlier today. Huge believer in Trace Jackson Davis. I would stick with

that starting lineup. Steve Kerr actually specifically stated in a press conference I want to say yesterday that his historical preference has been to stick with the group that's working, So I expect him to but again, as long as Jonathan Coming is still playing big minutes, it really doesn't matter. All righty, our last question before we get out of here, This actually isn't a question. I just wanted to throw

a couple of crazy Laker stats at you. So this morning, prepping for my show with Jovan Buha, I wanted to pull up some numbers from Lakers rotation stuff. One of the things I complained about over the course of the season was like, yeah, the Lakers have their issues, but they're not making things any easier on themselves by playing

guys that aren't their best players. The consistent theme this year has been Torrian Prince and Cam Reddish in particular, are guys that are like way down on their roster in terms of their talent level compared to their peers, but they were like consistently towards the top and minutes played, especially Torrian Prince and Ruy Hachimura, who is definitively one of their top five or six players, was like barely

playing for much of the season. And I just this morning, over some coffee, I ran a basic search on Basketball Reference and was completely appalled to find the results. So I wanted to show that to you, guys. So I'm just going to put it on the screen here for a second. So this graphic you guys are looking at here. These are Ruey Hatcha Mura's eleven lowest point totals this year. Excuse me, a minute totals this year. So as you can see, in these eleven games he played fewer than

nineteen minutes. The Lakers went two to nine in those games. They are thirty five and seventeen. When he plays more than nineteen minutes, big shock. Playing your best players helps you win games. This is Torean Prince in his twenty six lowest minute outputs this year. What stands out to you again, sorded by minute total his twenty six lowest minute total games. They literally went twenty two to four, twenty two and four. This is again he started more

than three times as many games this year. Or excuse me, he started more games this year than he did in the previous three seasons combined. He has been miscast for the majority of this season as a high minute starter for the Lakers, when he's actually been like a two or three shift bench player everywhere else he's been, and when he's been used like that the Lakers have been awesome, but it's been an issue throughout this season. I just

thought those stats were interesting. One last stat for you guys. The Lakers are twenty and eight since February first, a twenty eight game sample size, are roughly a third of the season. That's the second best record in basketball over that span. And the crazy thing is, I'm pretty sure they were the nine seed at that point, and here we are twenty and eight since then, and they're the nine seed again. There's one reason why I'm bringing that up.

You guys might remember that I said a prerequisite for the Lakers to be taken seriously as a contender in my opinion, and I'll view them in the Boston Denver tier, but I do view them in that tier right below that. And the reason why is simple. I said they had to demonstrate an extended stretch where they kicked everybody's butt and had a dominant record. We got that. We have a twenty to eight stretch since February first, which is literally the second best record in the league over that span.

Dating further back, going back to January seventh, that is a forty one game sample size. They're twenty seven to fourteen, which is the fifth best record in basketball. So we have extended sample size now of the Lakers being a very good basketball team. That doesn't mean their personal personal limitations don't matter. I still view them in that group below Boston and Denver. I don't think they've done anything to rise above that group. They're still firmly just kind

of in the mix there. But before this stretch, when they were struggling as bad as they were post in season tournament, I didn't even and view them as someone that could be even taken seriously in that tier. They needed to demonstrate that they could play dominant basketball for an extended stretch, and they have done so, which is encouraging for the Lakers. All Right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting the show or taking the rest of the

weekend off. We'll be back Monday, breaking down a bunch of games and doing our power rankings as usual. I will see you guys there. The volume