Hoops Tonight - Julius Randle leads Knicks to 8th straight win, Jokic & Nuggets beat Grizzlies | Hoops Tonight

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game Time Today, Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So if you were waiting for Julius Randall and Jalen Brunson to cool off, tonight was not that night. On the road in Miami, Randall started red hot, Brunson had it going to but the Heat made a run in that fourth quarter and actually took a lead on Caleb Martin three to go up one

oh seven, one oh six. And we did a show that went on the feeds yesterday talking about the Knicks, and I told Carson, and I've said this throughout the season, that you know, when we're discussing the ceiling for the Knicks, it really is as far as or as high as Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall can take them. If they can produce like offensive superstars, that absolutely changes their ceiling to the same level as the teams that we see

at the top of the league. It all falls on those two guys, just like it does for all the teams at the top of the league. If Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum weren't superstars all of a sudden, the Celtics wouldn't be as good. If Jhannas Antenna co Bout didn't play like the best player in the world, the

Bucks wouldn't be as good as they are. That top tier, superstar level production from the players on the best team in the league is what separates them and Randall and Brunson playing the way they've been playing is exactly why they've been winning the way they've been winning. I wanted to go play by played down the stretch of this game just to talk about how Julius Randall and Jalen Brunson pulled this out with that superstar level shot making.

This was a tough environment down the stretch. Julius Randall was getting a steady dose of Jimmy Butler like pressuring the hell out of him attacking his handle, even caught Bam at a bio on a specific possession down at the end, which we'll talk about. Jalen Brunson was getting a steady dose of Victor al Ladipo. And you know, Victor has fallen off in a lot of ways, but one of the things he can still do at a high level is guard guards around the NBA, and he

had that matchup. But the heat go up one oh seven, one oh six on a Caleb Martin three, and down the stretch, every single big important play was Jalen Brunson or Julius Randall making a tough play over good defense.

So it's one of seven, one or six and Jalo Brunson, Jalen Brunson runs a pick and roll with Mitchell Robinson on the right side of the floor and Bam is kind of in like a high drop coverage and Brunson comes over the top of that pick, gets downhill and knocks down a floater in the lane, and you're gonna see a chess match kind of take place over the next several possessions. So they get a stop, knicks are

still up one o eight, one oh seven. They run that same action that Brunson Robinson pick and roll, and this time they switch it so he's got Bam at a Bio on the switch. He actually drives on Bam At a Bio and BAM's defending him pretty well, but out of nowhere, inexplicably, Victor Oladipo leaves Mitchell Robinson to help Bam when he doesn't need help. Julius or Jalen Brunson makes the right read and makes a nice bounce pass in the lane to Mitchell Robinson for dunk. They're

up one ten, one oh seven. Then Caleb Martin makes a couple of free throws to get it back to one ten, one o nine. They go right back down

to that exact same action. This time they switch it again and Bam At a bo on Jalen Brunson, but they set a second ball screen with Josh Hart, this time to get Caleb Martin switched onto Jalen Brunson, and from there he goes straight iso and knocks down a really nifty spinning fade away over his left shoulder, so you can see that progression of the coverage right, so like they're in a drop coverage. He gets the floater that's too easy. So next time they switch, well they

get a basket out of it. But Jalen Brunson knows, well, it was really because Victor Oladipo made a mistake. It's not because I was beaten Bam off the dribble. Let's not do that again. So let's run a second ball screen. I like my chances against Caleb Martin better. He gets that spinning fade away knocks it down. That's that chess match that takes place at the end of games and further record the only team the only types of players that force defenses to make those types of adjustments are

the superstar level players. And that's the advantage of having players that can warp defenses to that extent. When you have Eric Spoelstra having to kind of reach deep into his bag to come up with strategy to slow you down. That when you know you're performing at a high level offensively. So they're up one twelve, one on nine, Jimmy Butler draws a couple of fouls on the next two possessions. He goes three for four. That ties the game. Jimmy Butler was awesome in this game. He's such a warrior.

I tweeted after the game, like, is are there many players in the league that you'd rather have in the trenches with you in a must win game than Jimmy Butler, Like it must be so awesome to be that guy's teammate. But anyway, so it's one, one twelve and the Knicks run that exact same action, the Jalen Brunson pick and roll with Mitchell Robinson on the right side. Spolstra's next move, now that this has been a problem, is he just says, screw it, Let's get the ball out of Jalen Brunson's hand.

So they blitz the ball screen both of Victor Oladipo and bam at A Bios to start pressuring Jalen Brunson. He takes a retreat dribble and swings it to Julius Randall. Julius Randall has it in a late clock situation, and he just backs Jimmy Butler down to the foul line just below the fall line and knocks down a really nice little left shoulder fade in the lane to put

the Knicks back up one fourteen to one twelve. The Knicks get another stop next possession, down Jalen Brunson doesn't want the blitz, so what's the best way to avoid the blitz? Don't even bring the second defender into the play. He just goes straight iso on Victor Oladipo, kind of hits him with the hesitation move and gets into the lane and makes a really nice, tough floating bank shot off the glass to put the Knicks up one sixteen to one twelve. Then the heat go on another run.

Bam hits gets an ally from Tyler Harrow, then Jimmy Butler gets to put back. Screams of the crowd. It's one sixteen, one sixteen, there's one or three left. Nick's call a time out. There's another interesting chess match chess match peach piece here, So Tom Thibeto takes Mitchell Robinson out of the game for this possession to go all

in on offense. Right. This allows Eric Spoelstra to put bam At a bio on Julius Randall now because he doesn't need Julius Randall to contend with Mitchell Robinson on the glass. Right. That's that's like a little side effect of going to offensive subs as you opened up a

bigger defender to put on too Julius Randall. But Randall literally just went right at bam at a baio on the right block, backed him down and hit him with that shoulder in his chest and spun over his left shoulder and hits an and one fade away on the baseline to put them up one nineteen to one sixteen.

Then the Heat come at him again. Tyler Harrow goes on a personal four oh run puts the Heat up one twenty to one nineteen, and on the ensuing possession, the Heat trap Brunson again, who throws a bad pass to Julius Randall. He has to like retreat back to half court, bobbles it, he gets it, and he secures the pass with eight seconds on the game clock, and he's out at half court and he rips through. Jimmy Butler in this situation opts for ball pressure, so he's

attacking the hell out of Julius Randall. He's swinging at the ball. He actually picks it clean, but it bounces back to Julius Randall. He somehow composes himself and takes his step back three on the right wing with Tyler Harrow all up in his grill and he knocks it down the toughest shot of the game in the game winner, time and time again down the stretch of this game.

No matter what punch Miami threw offensively to get the lead or to get back into the game, no matter what coverage Eric Spoelstra threw at those guys, those two guys made superstar offensive plays every single possessions possession down the floor. That's what superstars do. They make tough shots over good defense. And why do I talk about that all the time, Because when you get to the playoffs,

it's always good defense. You might get lucky and catch a flawed opponent in the first round, but as soon as you get to round two, the rest of the way, everyone's good at it. Everyone's good defensively. And then the deeper you get into the series, they're ahead of all your actions. They've guarded you seventy possessions already in that series, and they know all your moves, and it comes down to good defense and guys having to make shots over that defense. That's why I talk so much about that

half court shot creation. That's why I talk so much about your star talent. Absolutely have to have it. It is a prerequisite to score when you get to the late rounds of the NBA playoffs, and it's super encouraging to see a game like tonight where Miami plays damn near perfect defense down the stretch of the game with good defensive players, but you just go down and make tough shots in their face to win the game. Now, is this recent stretch real from the Knicks. I don't know.

We're gonna find out when we get to the playoffs, but I can tell you that I'm very excited to find out, and I absolutely think they do have that chance. And I'm again, I want to wait until we get to April, but I'm like this close to saying that they'd beat the Calves in that first round series. So we'll see what happens over the course of the next few weeks. All right, let's move on to Grizzlies Nuggets. So Memphis through one hell of a punch in this game.

I was really impressed with their defense. They were swarming Nickela Yokich and did a really nice jot rotating on the back line to make sure they didn't give up too many of those wide open threes on the back side of the court. They held that high, that high powered Nuggets offense to just fifty points in the first half. But they also, you know, Denver, to their credit, also battled through that whole stretch, and they did a nice job defending and keeping Memphis in the half court, preventing

those fast break opportunities that they get so frequently. Memphis only had twelve points in transition in this game. It's far cry from the thirty six points in transition that they scored against the Lakers on Tuesday. But that's how we ended up in a close game going into the fourth quarter. Excellent Memphis defense, excellent execution from Denver to

prevent turnovers and getting out in transition. And then in that fourth quarter, Jamal Murray, who had been kind of locked down by Dylan Brooks for most of the game, finally shook loose. Made four shots in the quarter. He had all of them were high degree of difficulty, two of them on Dylan Brooks and straight Iso, who's one of the best defenders in the league. He had a

spinning step back jump shot on the right wing. He had a play where Dylan was kind of pressing him on the left wing and he just kind of held the ball out to his right and did kind of like an invert to jab step where he kind of faked like he was gonna go left and went into the middle and made like a little push shot. You know, he set up Dylan Brooks really well on an off ball screen for a curling layup, Like setting up your man is the key is succeeding in those off ball situations.

He just kind of got physical with him and pushed him out of position and then came off the screen. That was what allowed him to get open, and then he sealed the deal. The dagger was a kind of a chaotic play that ended up with him on Xavier Tilman on the left wing, and he just tough shot, making a jab step three writing Xavier Tillman's face. And you combine that with a ridiculous defensive half from the Nuggets.

They held the Grizzlies to just thirty nine points in the second half, and that's how you end up with a very very comfortable win against a very good team at home, revenge for the loss in Memphis. I think it was earlier this week or last week. I can't remember exactly where Jokis has another triple double at eighteen points on just ten shots tennisis eighteen rebounds really quickly. On the stat padding, stupid storyline that was around from Kendrick Perkins, I don't really have an opinion on it

because it's just wrong. I have never seen a single basketball possession where Nicola Yokich made an unnatural basketball play in pursuit of a stat. I just have never seen it. And like, I haven't seen every single Nuggets games game like Nuggets fans, but I've watched the I watched the majority of them because they're one of the teams that I'm covering closely, and I've never seen him do it. When Russ was you know, Kendrick Perkins was making the

point like, oh well, everyone called Russ's stat pattern. Look, I didn't. I believe in the legitimacy of Russ's statistical achievement. I thought it was remarkable, But yeah, he was doing some Jakie stuff. I'm sorry. Like I watched Thunder games where Steven Adams would have a rebound right in front of him and deliberately not grab it so Russ could come in and grab it. Like that's where that narrative came from. It wasn't from people just hating on Russ.

It was what we saw when we watched the games. Like Russ was doing unbelievable things that year, but he also was going out of his way to accumulate stats. That's not what Nikola Yokich is doing. If anything, I would argue that Nikola Yokich's impact is not properly quantified by a box score. It goes far beyond the box score.

I think he's the best offensive player in the league, or right there with Steph and he took ten shots tonight, so you're not going to see that type of impact in eighteen points on what he does to a defense warping it and creating quality shots for his teammates. Last thought on that game, Brandon Clark went down with what looked like a lower leg injury early in this one. I really hope he's all right, because not only does that suck for him, but that's a very very important

piece for Memphis. So prayers up for Brandon Clark. I hope that he's all right. Net Celtics. So the Celtics led by twenty eight in the middle of the second quarter and ended up trailing by sixteen in the fourth in what was probably their worst loss of the season. There's two things I want to hit from this game.

First of all, switching defense. This is something I've talked about forever and something that I was specifically excited about with this NETS team, which is struggled obviously because they don't have a ton of offensive skill, but they do

have a ton of defensive versatility. And you know, one of the things that I always have loved about switching defenses is the way that they stagnate teams and force them to create off the dribble for themselves against excuse me, against a set defense, and they stagnated the hell out of Boston down the stretch. In this game. Boston scored

just forty one in the second half. And when you look at those lineups, like the primary lineup Spencer Dinwoodie with Dorian Phinney, Smith, Michael Bridges, Cam Johnson and Nick Claxton, there's just not really an easy target to go after. But again, you have to beat switching defenses in one

of two ways. You can either use complicated screen actions to try to confuse the switching defense right So like screens are a great example, there was a play in this particular game where I believe Jaylen Brown got a dunk, and JJ Reddick, who's obviously one of the best people in our business. I think he's the very best at what he does. He did an amazing job breaking down for the people listening to the broadcast how a ghost

screen works. And basically all the ghost screen is is you take usually a perimeter player who the ball handler is also a perimeter player, but the screener is the perimeter player, and you have him run just right behind the defender as if he's about to set his screen, but then you just run right past him to the three point line. And you're hoping that those two defenders hesitate or miscommunicate as to whether or not they're supposed

to switch. And on this particular play, I think it was Royce O'Neill was guarding the screener and Royce O'Neil did not switch at all, but the defender guarding Jaylen Brown, which I believe is Micail Bridges on this play, thought a switch was coming and Jalen had an opportunity to drive. So you need to use actions like that to try to confuse switching. Another great way to confuse switching schemes

is a three player screening action. So like any sequence of screens that involves three players in rapid secession, because then it's not just a I take your man, you take my man. It's like which one of those two guys am I getting and that guy's thinking the same thing, and that guy's thinking it just gets It's it's like an order of magnitude above the decision making process of a normal switch. And you can hope to get some

mistakes there. But if you're not going to do it through the screening actions, you have to beat the switches by applying rim pressure. I talked about this a ton in that Lakers Mavericks come back in the first half of that game, Dallas is switching everything and Lebron James and Anthony Davis weren't pressuring the rim the way they were supposed to to get the defense in rotation. That gets you the open shots. Because again, in a switching scheme, if as soon as you draw help, now you're playing

normal basketball. Now it's driving kick extend the advantage a good shooter with an open shot or an easy opportunity at the rim. But the only way you're going to draw multiple defenders against the switching scheme is by driving to the basket. If you're taking off the dribble jump shots, you're not going to be bringing multiple defenders in. That's when you start to get stagnant, when you're just taking difficult shots over the top of isolation defense and you're

not drawing multiple defenders. In the second half of that Mavericks Lakers game, Lebron James and Anthony Davis just bullied the Mavericks to the basket every single time, and they either scored at the rim or move the ball around for open shooter. Right. That's the way you have to attack a switching defense. But the Celtics could never regain control of this game. They could never get the requisite rim pressure, and before you knew it, the game was over.

Mikail Bridges in this game when for thirty eight, ten and four in eight games since joining the Brooklyn Nets, twenty five six and three fifty three percent from the field, fifty percent from three, ninety two percent from the That's a sixty seven percent true shooting percentage, forty three percent on five pull up jump shots per game in two

stocks per game. That steals plus blocks. So not only do you get a big win, strategically over a good Celtics team, but mcaial Bridges continues to flash that high level scoring now they do have, there's a couple of specific things that he has to work on to get to the next level to go from being the guy who can score the basketball to the guy who's an All Star. That next step for him is getting to the rim and finishing. He's still low volume at the rim for a wing and low efficiency at the rim

for a wing. He's blow seventy percent and I think he's like two point two restricted air he makes per game. I always like to see that for wings up above three makes per game and up over seventy percent. That's where he needs to get to reach that all star level. And then the other thing he needs to get better at making plays for his teammates that assists to turnover

ratio isn't where it needs to be. But the scoring is real, and when you combine that with what he can do defensively, you know the Nets have a serious star are from that Kevin Durant deal, and when you combine that with all the draft compensation and all the other three and D wings that they got at the deadline, they're in pretty good shape in the long run in

my opinion. All Right, Pelicans Warriors, So keeping with the trend, the Warriors dug themselves in a seventeen point hole before going up by double digits in the fourth quarter for a comfortable win. I'm not gonna spend too long on this game because Sunday is definitely Warriors Lakers game day. Since the two of them are playing each other, they will be the focal point of our show on Sunday, and we're gonna be going live on AMP right after

the final buzzer of that game. But I wanted to shout out Clay Thompson again, and I know I've done that late a lot lately, but he's been incredible and he's one of my favorite players, and honestly, he just deserves it. He did an absolute number on CJ. McCollum on both ends of the floor down the stretch of this game. I'm gonna go play by play down the

stretch like I usually do. So the Pells were up for middle fourth quarter on a pretty tough fade away from Brandon Ingram on a deep post sal I think

it was over Jordan Pool. If I remember correctly. Then Anthony Lamb hits a three to get it back to one, and then Clay Thompson checks back into the game and from there he demonstrates once again high level half court shot creation, which again continues to be the revelation of the season for Golden State, one of the main reasons why they've been able to float in the standings despite being down their two best players for most of the season.

It's Clay Thompson half court shot creation on the basketball, which is such an unusual thing compared to what we've seen from him over the course of the rest of his career. So Trey Murphy misses the three, and Murphy's guarding Clay Thompson on the other end of the floor. Again, no point in taking on a better defensive player if you don't have to. He calls for a ball screen from Jordan Pool to get a switch on too CJ McCollum.

Soon as CJ McCollums switches onto him, he just confidently steps into a thirty foot pull up three and knocks it down in CJ's face to put the Warriors up too. So then Brandon Ingram comes down and he makes a nice play out of a double team that leads to a foul under the basket. Pelicans split split the Parrots back to one point game, same thing down the floor. Clay Thompson on the right wing calls for the ball screen from Jordan Pool to get CJ. McCollum on a switch.

Clay Thompson just drives by CJ McCollum to the right, draws multiple defenders, makes a nice kind of hook pass out to Jordan Pool on the left wing, hockey assist over to Dante DiVincenzo top of the key, knocks down the three again. Permiter initiation is not necessarily about making the assist or making the basket. It's about drawing multiple defenders.

It's about getting the defense into rotation. Offensive initiation is about that initial compromising and then you're counting on your teammates to further the advantage and get the great shot. That's what you're asked to do, possession after possession after possession.

It doesn't always have to be you scoring or making v play and this was a great example that gets into the lane, draws Herb Jones and help makes a pass to a kind of open teammate who makes the right who makes the right play to the wide open teammate who is the original player who helped on Clay Thompson's drive. So the Warriors were up four at that point. And again like just so you guys know, plays half court shot creation has been off the charts. Oh year long.

He's eightieth percentile in pick and roll ball handling this year. That's one point zero five points per possession. He's ninety first percentile in isolation. That's one point two points per possession in sixty possessions. He's even scored twenty two points on twenty one post ups, which is considered above average in all of those are including passes. This is no longer just oh, he's doing pretty good for an off ball player in a small situation when we've needed him.

No, no no, no, he's actually just been really damn good at initiating offense with the ball in his hands. So tip of the caps, Clay. So from that point, brandon Ingram makes another tough fade away. He was brandon Ingram so damn good. He makes another tough fade away over Dante gets it back to ninety eight ninety six and

they go down in Golden State. Tries to run the exact same play again, and on this play, Draymond Green actually loses control of the basketball, and when he loses control of the basketball, that allows Herb Jones to kind of fight through Clay's position and deny the basketball. So then Draymond has the audible and he goes to Jordan Pool, and Jordan Pool takes like an extremely difficult step back

three and misses it. But Dante de Vincenzo, who all year long has been a monster on the offensive glass, just comes flying in and grabs the rebound and hits Jonathan Kamenica cutting down the lane for a dunk. But from here was what I thought was Clay's best moment

of the game. So on a crazy offensive rebound, after CJ McCollum misses a pull up three, Clay Thompson gets switched onto CJ, and CJ tries to iso Clay just like Clay's been going to work on him, and Clay literally just completely swallows him up, just sits in his stay, its arms out wide, sliding with them everywhere. CJ doesn't know where to go. Eventually, CJ literally retreats and goes all the way back out to the top of the key and just throws like an aimless swing pass over

to Trey Murphy, who misses the three. They go right back down the floor. Clay Thompson calls for the same damn ball screen from Jordan Pool, gets back on CJ. McCollum and just walks him down to the foul line and takes his step back right in his face and knocks it down to put the Warriors up six, effectively the dagger to win the game again. Like especially when I'm starting, that's when you really know Clay's back is when he's got that perimeter defense element of his game going.

I think he's one of the better perimeter defenders in the league when he's right physically. I've said this before, but I think his individual defense on Jylen Brown in the NBA Finals was one of the huge swing factors that swung things back towards Golden State in Games four, five,

and six. He's one of the best in the league at that and to see him doing what he's doing on the basketball too, like I've said before, just just an absolute just sheer willpower and just a refusal to lose games, allowing them to win five games in a row. Without Steph again this year, and Steph's coming back against the Lakers on Sunday. Steve Kerr said after the game that he thinks the team has turned to corner, and

I agree. I think they are much more poised for a stretch run then I would have expected at this point given the injuries and man like, if you're a Warriors fan right now, you've got to be feeling great about about the way things are falling into place after how nightmarish this year has been on so many different levels. All right, Grizzlies, Lakers. So everything broke right for the

Lakers on the schedule tonight. The Blazers got their ass kicked, the Jazz got their ass kicked, the Pelicans lost, the Clippers lost, so the Lakers had a chance to move into a tie in the lost column for the seven seed, but they had to beat the Minnesota Nimberwolves, and I had a feeling they would really struggle in this particular game. Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards, as I've talked about so much on this show, are arguably the best to like

perimeter defense pairing in the league. And they go through these defensive runs where they can shut down even some of the best players in the league. And when you take Lebron James out of the equation and D'Angel Russell out of the equation. And look, here's the thing with Delo, Like, I'll be honest, I'm really confused as to how an ankle tweak that he continued to play on is keeping

him out for this long. I mean, I understand it from the standpoint of like he's in a contract year, and I get that he probably wants to be one hundred percent healthy for his own sake, and I do understand that, to be clear, but like, it is so unfortunate for the Lakers that he's not available because they cannot beat even play in level teams with that level of ball handling on the floor. Dennis Schroder's not good enough.

Guys like Austin Reeves and Lonnie Walker there. I really like Austin Reeves, but you can't have him in this type of high usage role. You need him slotted in a position where he's a little bit more selective. Right, same thing goes with Dennis. He's better off leading bench units, not being your primary guy. And so as soon as D'Angelo Russell's out of the lineup, and Lebron James is out of the lineup. Everybody is slotted into a position

that they're underqualified for and it's gonna go poorly. Like the Laker guards were an absolute hell tonight against Anthony Edwards and Jade McDaniels. It was an extremely impressive defensive performance from them. Rudy Gobert was awesome, Naz Reid hit a bunch of really important threes. You know, it was just Minnesota has been playing decently well here in their last couple of games, but I was really impressed with

them on the defensive end of the floor tonight. Anthony Davis, he had thirty eight points, got to the foul line a ton but he just the thing with ad is he can't really manage a basketball game in like a high usage role the way that some of his peers around the league can. His winning impact when he's alongside that complimentary ball handling star, his winning impact is every bit as high as the best players in the league when he's locked in and he's got that complimentary star.

But when you take away that complimentary ball handling star, his impact just tanks because he just can't. He's not the guy that can start fifty offensive possessions in a game. He doesn't dribble the ball well enough, he doesn't pass well enough. He had six turnovers tonight to just to assists. He takes way too many high difficulty jumpshots without necessarily

needing to. And it's frustrating because again, it's like Anthony Davis had thirty eight How ridiculous do I sound like talking about Anthony Davis having kind of an uneven night when he had thirty eight points. But that's the Anthony Davis experience. I've been talking about this forever, Like that dude can fill up the box score like nobody's business because of what he does on the glass and his ability to finish around the rim and all of that stuff.

But like, for whatever reason, like I'm sorry, but like I always say, Anthony Davis is one of the best players in the world when he's right. If I take one of the best players in the world, healthy and right and I drop him into that game, he's winning that game. Jannis is winning that game against Minnesota, you know, Like I even think Jason Tatum has a chance to go win that game against Minnesota. It's just because he's

a perimeter initiator. Like That's the thing that's tough with Anthony Davis is like he is absolutely one of the guys, but he absolutely has to be next to a complimentary ball handling star to unlock that level of winning impact. Like if Delo doesn't play on Sunday, I don't think they can beat the Warriors either, even at home. Yeah, it's just too hard to do without the requisite ball handling. All right, lastly, before we get out of here, tonight,

Sun's Bulls. So and I only watched the first quarter of this game, so we're not going to talk too much about it. Suns pulled away late, beat the Bulls by twenty one. Katie was plus twenty four and thirty one minutes. But I have two takeaways that I wanted to get into. First of all, I liked how much switching the Suns did. They switched every single action that involved Kevin Durant, DeAndre Aiden, and the Bulls scored on

them a few times. Damarda Rosen hit a couple of pull up jump shots on DeAndre Aden Vussevic had like a deep seal little hook shot over Kevin Durant, but it takes Chicago out of the flow of their offense. Like again, with switching, it's always a given a take. You're going to give some easy shots and some matchups, you're gonna give up some offensive rebounds. There are going

to be some miscommunications. But the upside is is you take an MBA offense that is used to a certain rhythm and flow and you completely screw that up, and now all of a sudden, it forces them to play, like we talked about earlier about the Nets and the Celtics, a specific type of switch attacking offense, and it throws a lot of teams out of whack. And so I'd like to see that the Suns aren't leaning too heavily on drop coverage and they're doing some switching with their

front core players that I thought was encouraging. The other thing I really liked was just how many easy shots that specifically Devin Booker got off the ball, because the Suns were running a lot of their actions with Kevin Durant in the action, which I thought was interesting because I've talked a lot about how I expected him to be more off ball, but Booker got some wide open catch and shoot threes earlier in this game, And I think that's a big part of why he went for

thirty five. Like I always talk about like building your rhythm, like if if you're a tough shot maker, like in my as i've gotten older, I've worked really hard on off the dribble shooting, and so like most of the guys in town, like are expecting me to take a certain amount of you know, fade aways over both shoulders or step back threes, or pull up twos or pull

up threes off the dribble. But like, if I go into a game and just right at the start, just start taking really difficult fadeaways and step back threes, like it's gonna be I'll be lucky to make a bunch

of them and get into a rhythm. But if I build my rhythm by attacking the rim or getting a cup the catch and shoot threes in the flow of the offense to where I feel good about myself and I feel like I have my touch dialed in, and then I take a fade away or a step back, that shot has a higher percentage chance of going in. We talked about this a lot with Paul George yesterday with Carson. But you want to build your rhythm with

easy shots and then take the tougher shots. And that's what's so scary about this Phoenix offense in particular Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, DeAndre and Chris Paul. These guys are all going to get a boatload of easy shots within the flow of the offense that are gonna help bolster their rhythm. Those rhythm builders are going to help lead to more explosive scoring nights like Devin Booker having thirty five tonight. The Sons have a couple more easy games before they

get into that tough stretch like we talked about. I think it's Sacramento and then Golden State in the Milwaukee. That's gonna be when we learned the most about them. All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight. We're gonna be covering. I think it's it's six bucks tomorrow night, So sixers Bucks Tomorrow night. We're gonna be covering as part of that show on Sunday when we talk Lakers Warriors.

So keep an eye on my twitter feed. I'll keep you posted as to when we'll go live, but it's going to be right after the final buzzer of Lakers Warriors. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I'll see you on Sunday. The volume