Hoops Tonight - Jokic & Nuggets upset by Kings, De'Aaron Fox becoming a superstar + NBA Mailbag

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All right, welcome to hoops to night here at the volume, Happy Thursday, everybody.

morning on the King's Nuggets game. And then also that's where I put show announcements and last minute at least keep ropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So those guys, you remember when

we talked to King's sons the other night. I talked a lot about Sacramento's defensive potential and the fact that, like, you know, are they ever going to be some top tier defense, No, because NBA history tells us to have a top tier defense, you have to have a strong defensive front line. And what that means is like your four and your five typically need to be long athletes that can do a good job of cleaning up messes on the back line. It's kind of like a foundational

part of defense. But the second chunk of that is perimeter speed, perimeter athleticism, the ability to cover ground in short order, and like, those are the two biggest elements, and there are some teams that struggle with both. They tend to be the terrible defenses around the league. But and if you have both, you have the opportunity to

be truly exceptional on defense. Teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves right, or like the Oklahoma City Thunder or another team great combination of perimeter speed and athleticism with guys like chet Holmgrin on the back line that can kind of clean things up. But like, when you have one of those two things, you should still be able to put out

a really good defense. Like if you're a team like the Lakers that doesn't have a ton of perimeter speed and athleticism but has a ton of length and size on the back line, good defensive players on the back line, they should be a better defense, right. Same thing with the team like the Sacramento Kings. They may not have much in the way of length on the back line between Sabonis and Harrison Barnes, but they have a ton

of perimeter speed. And last night, just their ability to double team Nicole jokicch in the post, or double team or guard screen and roll actions three on two and to rotate out of it without giving up high quality shots on the back end was basically the story of this game. I said in that show after the Sun's game, they were twelve and three. After that game when they allow fewer than one hundred and ten points, I give you guys all the breakdowns of the different kind of

scoring resholds and how well the Kings play. And last night, once again, now they're thirteen and three. When they hold opponents' opponents below one hundred and ten points, it is a huge part of what makes the Kings successful. You need you have advantages when you go on the basketball court, and if you only use your advantage, that's fun for you, whether that's playing offense or running up and down the floor transition or whatever, you're leaving meat on the bone.

Your perimeter athleticism is a weapon you can use to be a successful defense, and they used it in a

big way against the Nuggets last night. Now, obviously Nuggets down their back court, and there were several sequences where they were doubling and recovering, but it's a little different chasing a Calling Gillespie off of the three point line, chasing a Christian Brown off the three point line, chasing Peyton Watson off the three point line right, and even saw that where with Aaron Gordon doing a lot more off the bounce trying to make stuff happen, and Michael

Porter Junior being more aggressive just simply because they're trying to pick up the slack of their two backcourt partners, the guys that they're running. Most of these drible hand offs for those guys just weren't weren't in the game, right, And so that's certainly a part of it there. But Nicoleolkich is the best player in the world, and these are players off of him that have the ability to capitalize on that. And they just did a much much

better job than they've been doing of late. Of engaging themselves on the perimeter and then from there the big matchup on the other side of the floor. The Nuggets had an absolute hell of a time trying to contain Darreon Fox at the point of attack, and one of the consistent things that the that the Kings were doing was they were bringing Michael Porter Junior's man into the action. Now,

one time it shouldn't happen. It was a complete accident where there was a miss three and the Kings go up the floor and it's not even really a transition push, but for whatever reason, Michael Porter Junior just kicks up Dearon Fox and this was the play where the Kings took the lead.

of the floor against Michael Porter Junior. The Kings just clear the side out and he just takes Michael Porter Junior off the bounce and makes a left handed layup off the glass. No help on the weak side, just not good defense right. So then the final two possessions that Darren Fox scores, they try they start with Aaron Gordon and when Aaron Gordon's on Darren Fox, the Kings bring up of Michael Porter Junior into the action and

Michael Porter Junior attempts to hetch. This is a big thing that a lot of teams do when teams bring a weak defender into a ball screen action. Rather than switching to give that defensive player a huge mismatch right or blitzing and giving up a rotation, what they'll do is they'll hedge and recover. What that means is the guy's going to come out above the level of the

screen and basically cut off the driving lane. The idea there is now Darren Fox has to take kind of a banana route away from the basket to get around the hedge. That buys time for the on ball defender to get around to the other side and meet Darn

Fox on the other side of the screen. In that situation, there can sometimes be an opening where the screener slips out and then Michael Porter Junior might have to close out on whoever the screener is, and we've seen Denver have some issues with that in the past, but in this case never even got to that point because Aaron Gordon, even though there was a hedge waiting, was jumping way up on the high side of the screen and just giving Dearon Fox a driving lane on this play, the

specific one I'm talking about. So Kings go up one off of the Daron Fox layup on Michael Porter Junior. They go down the other end. I think the very next possession was a Michael Porter Junior catch and shoot three off of a Yokic double team that he just missed, and they go They go back down again. Aaron Gordon's guarding Fox. They set the screen with an mpj's man MPJ hedges out on the right side of the floor taking away that drive to the right, but Aaron god

sits way up on Darren Fox's right hand side. Now you can envision if you've got the the hedger on the right hand side and the on ball guy on the right hand side, what's happening for Darren Fox, one of the fastest left handed players in the world. Boom right down in the lane. Nikole Jokicic is sitting at the rim, but Darren Fox just stops right in front of the rim and pops in a floater. Now they're

up by three. Then after that the Nuggets call time out and they run a sequence for Reggie Jackson coming off of an action with Jokic, and like literally, Darren Fox makes this unbelievable defensive play where he lunges in and swipes the ball for he picks him clean, goes down the other end and dunks it.

And you know, it's funny because, like Darren Fox has gone up a huge level this year in his scoring volume and his efficiency has not taken too much of a hand. I think he's still around fifty seven percent through shooting, which is really nice. He's added a pull up three point shot that has been really reliable for him this year. He's added like a little bit of

a back to the basket game. Like Darren Fox has taken elite before our eyes and in my opinion, like he's he's encroaching on that superstar tier in a real way. But you know, I talk about this a lot on the show, like you know, the the really impressive shots, the really high level shot making stuff that is only a small part of what makes a superstar a superstar.

Like Darren Fox hit a like a in and out cross back between his legs at the top of the key in the middle of the fourth quarter on Colin Gillespie. Colin Gilespie was like damn near out of the frame as he did the pullback dribble and hit the three at the top of the key. It was disgusting. It was a nasty move. But like that's just one small part of being a star that hopefully only makes up

three or four possessions for you in a game. Ideally, what a superstar does is what Jokic does, which is just surgical precision finding of the easy shots that take place in the game. And what was interesting about that is Darren Fox won the game. There was a his superstar play was the steal him lunging into the lane and swiping or lunging in front of Reggie Jackson and swiping the ball free and going down the other way for a dunk. All of those other three shots, they

were just really smart easy basketball. Oh, Michael Porter Junior is gonna garden me here in transition. I'm going right by his ass and I'm getting into the basket right. Oh Aaron Gordon really good defender, but he's just giving me a lane to the right hand side. Okay, I look there, how about I just hit the jets for a second stop short before I get to Jokic. Make

this little floater in the lane beautiful? Right When when they tried the same thing with Peyton Watson and the right handed driving lane is open, uses it to get into the lane, likes to get back to his strong hand right and he also knows that he has Peyton Watson trailing him and sneaking the ball screen back over to the other side is a great way to create additional separation between you and the on ball defender, gets into the lane, gets to a sweet spot with that

little left handed bank shot and makes it nothing exceptional. There no highlight plays from Deer and Fox on the offensive end there aside from like I said, the steel and dunk. That to me is that next phase of superstardom. The guys that are consistently productive and efficient. It is a combination of high level shot making, but two thirds of it or more is typically locating and identifying the

easy opportunities that are there in the basketball game. Really really impressive performance from Deer and Fox just in general, really really impressive performance from the Sacramento Kings, especially on the defense end.

down the stretch on the Nuggets front. Really, the two things that I would draw attention to are again the bad defense down the stretch to some poor configurations that didn't make a ton of sense. Like so to put it simply, if I know that there's a hedge, I don't need to deny the ball screen because even if he drives into the ball screen, he's driving right into Michael Porter Jr. Or has to take a banana route around him.

into Michael Porter Junior. So in both of those cases, what Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon should have done is actually sat back a little bit, knowing that MPJ is there in the hedge, and if Daron Fox goes in the direction of the screen, you duck under the pick and meet him on the other side. If he doesn't use the screen and he comes at you, you're sitting there waiting for him. And so some poor defensive configuration down the stretch, some switches and transition cross matches that

they probably didn't need to give up a lot. Another thing that was causing some problems for the Nuggets and this game was the pocket pass to Demonis Sabonis, where they weren't tagging the roller because they were staying home. Some of that's what the Kings do to you. They'll put, you know, Kevin Herder in one corner and Keegan Murray in the other, and it's like those are the guys you need to tag the roller with. And there's like this hesitancy to leave a good shooter in the corner

to tag the roller. But if Jokic is gonna be up at the level of the screen, you have no choice but to have somebody in the lane because that pocket pass is gonna hit Sabonis and he's just gonna have too much of ahead. His team, and Sabona's got a bunch of easy baskets on the roll where the backside defense wasn't there, and maybe you have to rotate to that corner shooter rather than Again, anything's better than a wide open dunk for a Sabonis going down the

lane or when he has too much. I mean, Sabonis is not as big as Yokich, but he's strong enough that if he gets a little bit of an angle, he could kind of bump him and get enough of an angle to finish a shot. And then lastly, I thought it was another example of something I've talked about all year, which is like, the Nuggets are my championship favorite.

They have the best player in the world, but just like anybody else, they can't really afford an injury to one of their top five players, because when you go from KCP and Jamal Murray to Colin Gillespie or Reggie Jackson and Christian Brown, it's just a big drop off

an offensive skill. And you could really see that in some of those double team situations with Jokics, where those pop around that are taking place on the weak side, they're just a little bit slow, They're not as sharp you need a really good look for the guy to take a shot instead of like a slightly contested look which you know that Jamal Murray and CACP will rise

up and knock down. They both are better at the one dribble pull up stuff like just going down a level in weak side offense makes it so that you can throw multiple bodies at Yokich and get away with it. And so it's just something to keep an eye on. Like, just like anybody else, the Nuggets can't afford a significant injury. All right, before we get out here, let's get to these mail bag questions. First question, With Ruy improving more minutes this season, what would your five man lineup be

for the Lakers? I like Ruey offensively alongside the starters, but defensively, the team looks mismatched on positions one through three, with Reeves being forced to be the point of attack defenderd Lo being a bad defender overall, and really struggling to guard quicker wings. Love the show and also who

is your favorite under twenty five player to watch this season? Okay, so when it comes to the Lakers, everything's got to be matchup dependent because they don't have a traditional you know three and D type of guy on the wing that they can throw out the other team's best player at the opening tip and he can coherently function in

the offense. Everything has to be matchup dependent, and so there will be matchups where it's like, Okay, we can't get away with the RUI at the three because we're playing you know, Dallas, and we need someone to throw at Kyrie Irving. Or we're playing Golden State, we need someone to throw at Steph Curry. We're playing Sacramento, we need someone to throw a deer and fox. We need

a quicker guard that can defend on the perimeter. Okay, now that might be Max Christie, right, Or this is a bigger lineup that doesn't run a ton of off ball screening action and that three spot is going to be more in a help and recover situation. Okay, ruey makes a ton of sense here, Or like, Okay, this

particular team, we're really struggling with their defense. We need to find a way to space them out at a little bit better, and we feel like on the offensive end of the four, maybe we can do more switching

and just kind of contain the basketball. Okay, maybe Spencer Dinwiddie is our option here at the three, and it all has to be matchup based, and that's where a lot of it comes down to Darvin Ham And what specifically scares me on that front is like he just has a default option to go to Torrean Prince when he saw that at the end of the first half yesterday against the Jazz, when he takes Ruey out of the game, goes to Torreon at the four alongside three guards,

and the Lakers immediately give up a run. So do I trust Darvin to kind of toe that line properly?

think there's a gap there. I think that Janis and Nikolea Jokic have been the two best players in the regular season, and I don't think there's the wrong answer either way.

bit as much in that equation. And there's one thing I saw on Twitter yesterday that I do think is true, which is like someone said something a the lines of like the media or Jokic has the media and a stronghold, and there's some truth there. Like I love Nikol Jokic. I think he's the best player in the world by

like a comfortable margin. I think he's significantly better at basketball than Yanni Santana Kumbo personally, even though even though I think Giannis may be having a better regular season. But there's no doubt that in large part because a large portion of the media relies on advanced metrics, like these catch all metrics, like they actually believe that to be like a significant element in these kinds of discussions.

I personally disagree, but they do. And so between that and just a lot a lot of the momentum that was behind Jokic when he was kind of rising in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty.

kind of like how Denver built for Yokis. So Wendy's a little bit on the thin side, so I kind of leaned towards a big, strong forward similar to what I've been talking about for the Thunder as well. So just imagine Aaron Gordon Lori marken In type of archetype at the four and then from there, I think having a legitimate ball handling on the perimeter that can put Wemby into spots as a screen and pop screen and roll.

that Trey Young has had over the years. And then if I wanted to craft an achievable defensive role for Trey Young, it would be in a system where Victor wemen Yama is on the back line. So that's where I'd lean in that direction. Next question, what do you think was the key to the transformation of the Timberwolves this season? Giving that their personnel was similar to last season? How did Chris Finch unlock the Rudy and Kat pairing?

So a couple of different things. Cott Newdy's a big part of it, just sticking with the same lineup for a lot a long time. The Wolves were actually kind of picking up steam towards the end of last season. I thought they were one of the most impressive teams over the final third on the defensive end of the floor. Now, not all of that was with both bigs on the floor, but there was a lot of that in there as well. Then I thought they gave a good fight to the

Lakers in the playing game. Who did they kicked the shit out of it was the thunder Right, and then they had an impressive showing against the Nugget. So I think some of this did start last year. But then, like I think the second big piece of it that just needs to be acknowledged is Anthony Edwards was just getting better. Anthony Edwards is a future superstar that is on the rise in the league, and he's just a lot better than he was at this point in the

season last year. And that goes a long way towards elevating the ceiling of this Timberwolves team. And I think just in general, there's been a really good commitment to, like a championship level commitment to the details from day one of training camp.

supporting the show. I have told my superiors many times that that is a goal of mine to have more animations on the screen, graphics, things along those lines. We are working on it. It's just the volumes growing really fast and we're still figuring out some of that stuff behind the scenes. I promise you it will eventually happen. We just kind of have to figure it out. There is a to give you an idea to have plays

on the screen. It's a lot more labor intensive than you would think, and so we are going to figure that out. It's just taking some time. And again, every time I have an opportunity to kind of pitch that to the higher ups, I do so.

State throughout the season. How or why is it that Golden State can never seem to protect a lead. Thank you for all you do and keep up the great work. Again, thanks for supporting the show. I really really appreciate you guys. And as I've said, with all the negativity that I see in the comments, sometimes like this stuff just outweighs it every single time, and every single time I read through the comments, it's always an overwhelmingly positive experience because

of people like you. So what's interesting is the eye test would tell you, like, oh, when Steph can't make hero shots, they just don't have another option they can go to to score. But the reality is Steph has been making so many of the hero shots that they've still been pretty good. Offensively, they've been they've been okay offensively in the clutch, they've been okay offensively in the in the half court setting arding to cleaning the glass or hovering around that like ten mark in both of

those areas. But in general fourth quarter offense, I think they're like sixth, which is pretty good. So like the offense actually by by points per possession, has been pretty solid. It's been the defense they're the very worst fourth quarter defense in the league. Like they're just the very worst. They give up over one hundred and twenty points per

one hundred possessions. And so for whatever reason, just like we saw last night against the Clippers, their point of attack defense falls apart, they end up in rotation and they just can't get stops when it matters that that's been the big one that has been very clearly evident in the numbers as we as we get to the end of these games, all right, two more and then we're out here. This was just a funny comment from a Celtics fan. Wax the net at fifty and not

a peep as expected. I literally just covered the last two Celtics wins against the Hawks and against the Heat. I didn't cover the nets because the nets are garbage and they just traded away some guys at the deadline. They're just not very good anymore. So yeah, like I wouldn't cover Thiseltics beating the Nets for the same reason I wouldn't cover the Celtics beating the Pistons, but I did.

Just We've done just a shit ton of Celtics content over the last week, and so I encourage you Celtics fans to go back and look through the channel and you'll.

twenty four or more shots. But I don't think that has anything to do with Steph Curry and chasing clutch Player of the Year or anything like that, like they need him to shoot. They do not have reliable offense down the stretch of these games, like Kaminga is. You know, Kaminga's got the sky's the limit for Kaminga, but he's not a half court surgeon yet. Andrew Wiggins is super inconsistent.

Klay Thompson is super inconsistent. Brandon Piziemski's a rookie. They don't have a guy that they can really go to as a secondary option. It's the main reason why I don't think this Warriors team has like a big championship opportunity. They have a small championship opportunity. They are a long shot, just like the Lakers, but I don't view them as like a significant championship threat because they lack that secondary shot creation. And again, like to me, I think Steph

putting up a ton of shots is the formula. And as I've talked about in the earlier mailback question, it's not the offensive end that's been the problem. They've been a good offense despite the fact that they don't have secondary shot creation, because Steph is still one of the very best offensive players in the league. To me, it comes down to that defensive end of the floor. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show.