Hoops Tonight - Knicks blast Warriors, Giannis & Bucks down Pelicans, 76ers take down Raptors

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in West Virginia. YEA, all right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday everyone. We are live on AMP. If you guys are watching on YouTube or on the podcast feeds, don't forget that AMP is the very first place that you guys can get our postgame analysis. We're gonna hit on six games tonight, including twelve different teams, starting with the Golden State Warriors getting shellacked on the road in Madison Square Garden without

Steph Curry. You guys know the drill before we get started. Don't forget to subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel. So you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt s you guys don't miss any show announcements. And then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts on or hoops tonight, So the Knicks, the New York Knicks

have won eight games in a row. Now, I don't want to rain on the parade too much here, but there it is against a weaker stretch of their schedule. They beat the Calves without Jared Allen, They beat the Atlanta Hawks at home with most of their guys playing, so that's a solid win. Then they beat the Charlotte

Hornets and the Sacramento Kings. They beat a terrible Bulls team twice, and then they had a solid, solid road win in Indiana UM and then tonight against Golden State without steph Now, to be clear, winning streaks are almost always against weaker stretches of your schedule, to be honest. With how talented the league is now, it's nearly impossible to rip off a wind streak against really good teams.

Just go to ESPN dot com and go to standings, and if you click on expanded standings, they show the breakdown of you know, versus teams that are five hundred or better versus teams that are below five hundred. And even the best teams in the league are only winning, like the Bucks and Celtics are only winning three out of every four games against teams that are above five hundred. That's not against the top ten teams in the league. That's not against the top five teams in the league.

That's literally against anybody who wins more than they lose, you're gonna usually drop one out of four of them, even if you're one of the best teams in the league, and most of the good teams are hovering around five hundred there, So I want to be clear, it's typical for win streaks to happen against weaker stretches of their schedule. Um, if you zoom in on it a little bit, you've

got three Knicks averaging double figures over this span. Coming into tonight, Julius Randall was averaging eleven and four over the seven game streak. On true shooting got his pull up jump shot going final leaves, shooting on six attempts per game. That was something that was he was struggling with a lot last year and at the beginning of this year. R J. Barrett twenty two points and six

rebounds on fifty percent true shooting. He's hitting his catch and shoot threes about thirty eight percent on five attempts per game during the streak. And Jalen Brunson twenty points and six assists on fifty i percent true shooting on eight pull up jumpers per game, which is great on pull up threes, which is outstanding. And I really like Quentin Grimes. He's pitching in about twelve a game during the streak on from three. I love his aggressive spot

up shooting gets really good lift. When you get really good lift in shooting situations, it limits the muscle memory part at the top of the shot. It makes it easier for you to replicate your shot so that it's, you know, easier to be more consistent as a shooter. There's lots of good stuff going on offensively for the New York Knicks, but the truth of the matter is

is they're winning because they're just absolutely dominating teams physically. Um, this is one of the most commonly forgotten things about the game of basketball, and I think highlights and just the way that the game is consumed by the younger generation. Uh, no disrespect, It's been like that forever and that's just part of what makes the game marketable. But everything focuses on the scoring and on the ball handling and the nifty passes and all of the highlight type of plays

around the game of basketball. But at its core, basketball is a contact sport. This is something I hammer home all the time with the high school kids that I coached, like, yeah, all of this is cool, and I want you guys to get better at this stuff, and we're gonna practice this stuff. But at the end of the day, we have to win the in the trenches. We have to win in all of the physical confrontations to have any chance to win basketball games. A huge chunk of what

the sides basketball games is physicality. So coming into tonight, obviously the numbers have an updated yet, but in the last seven games, the Knicks have an are only giving up per one hundre possessions. They're the only team in the league giving up under a hundred points per one hundred possessions in their last seven games, so their number one in defense, and this is crazy. They're grabbing fifty six point three of available rebounds, which is first in

the league. Bio. Tonight against Golden State, they outrebounded them forty seven to twenty nine, fourteen offensive rebounds to just four for Golden State, fifty to thirty eight in points in the paint, thirty six points off of turnovers, just running it down their throat every time they get every time they forced a turnover, sixteen to six in second

chance points. And it's funny because if you look at it up close, you know, I was I kept checking the box score through the game because I was like, you know, when they're in the half court, Golden States actually playing pretty well. You know, Jordan Pool is making shots, you get guys contributing. You know, on the other end, they're doing an okay job in the half court on defense against against the Knicks, getting stops. And you looked at the box score and Golden State through almost three

quarters of the game was out shooting the Knicks. They were shooting about fifty three. The Knicks were shooting about through a good two thirds almost three fourths of the game they were executing better when they were in those half court settings. But after the game, the New York Knicks shot thirteen more shots then the Golden State Warriors. By by securing offensive rebounds, by forcing turnovers in the physicality of the game, they give themselves more shots on goal.

You guys hear me talk a lot about half court offense half court defense when we uh when we're evaluating teams, and a huge reason for that is because that's the static basket. That's the static basketball environment, and when you get into the deep stretches of the playoffs, the static half court environment is a good way to evaluate teams because teams are usually a little more coached at that phase. There's a lot more scouting, you're in front of all

your the other team sets. Usually you're gonna take away the easy stuff and forced teams to beat you in

the half court. That's why we look at them. But at the end of the day, who cares if I'm getting one point one seven points per possession and you're getting one point one four points per possession if I get thirteen more shots than you, Because if I get thirteen more shots than you, that's more than thirteen additional points that I'm pitching into the pile there just by beating you in all of the physicality areas of the game.

And you know we're gonna do uh, I'm not gonna say too long in the Nicks tonight because we want to do a deep dive on them. So we're we're going on doing these deep dives with adding film. As some of you guys noticed last week, we did like a twenty five minute breakdown on the Memphis Grizzlies, really diving into what they do on both ends of the floor with a lot of footage. We are going to do that with the New York Knicks. That is going to air on Thursday, So keep an eye on the feeds.

We're gonna do a deep dive into the Knicks on Thursday. But make no mistake, we're gonna talk a lot about individual players. We're gonna talk a lot about individual skill sets. But the New York Knicks are winning because they are bigger and stronger than you. They're playing harder than you and there and Tom Thibodeau has them committed to all of the details of the game of basketball. Um the Golden State Warriors continue to struggle with physicality, specifically on

the road. They are now a not counting tonight stats obviously, they're twenty nine in road defense, in road rebounding, and they have the personnel to be better with Kevon Looney and Draymond Green. They have enough front court personnel to to thrive in those environments. They have athletic wings like Jonathan Cominga and Andrew Wiggins who can crack down and grab defensive rebounds. They have guards and Steph Curry and Clay Thompson that have a history of competing in those settings.

They are capable of being better. A big way to tell is just look at how they play at home. Their third in defense at home, in rebounding at home, which is not great, But I have have a lot better than they do on the road. Now, Yes, Andrew Wiggins being out absolutely hurts there, but this has been an issue throughout the season, even when Andrew Wiggins has been available. At some point, the urgency on the road is going to have to kick in. And I think a big part of this is just how many young

guys they rely on in their rotation. We talked about this a lot. I think it was about a week ago. Um. But when you're a young basketball player, you're usually more emotional. You struggle to replicate success, you struggle to avoid failure because you just haven't learned the lesson enough times and you don't really have good habits when you're a young player.

It's no different than just being an adult. Like, you know, I'm a lot better at taking care of my adult life now in my thirties than I was in my twenties. I was a lot more sloppy with my habits and details throughout my daily schedule. Right, you know, you just learned to be an adult. And that extends to the game of basketball, with competing the same way every single night, not just feeding on the energy of the home crowd or getting discouraged when the road crowd gets energetic as

your team is starting to struggle. I think that's a big part of it. Young players have always struggled with that home road dynamic. But we're gonna find out they got Brooklyn tomorrow night. We're gonna find out if they can bring a better effort on the road against a team in Brooklyn that's a very good defensive team, but that is not very physically imposing, So they should be able to hang hang around a little bit better. There. The one last thing I want to talk about with

Golden State. With Jordan Pool, um, you know, this is becoming kind of a recurring theme. Yet twenty six points tonight on eighteen shots, he had several highlight plays, but there was a euro step there in the early second half that was just ridiculous, and I just remember thinking, I'm not sure how many athletes in the NBA can make that kind of euro step on moving at the sheer straight line speed that he was moving at on

that play. But he only had one assist. And this is becoming a thing with Jordan Pool, particularly when Steph

is out of the lineup. He When Steph is there and the team is kind of functioning the way it normally does, Jordan Pool embraces a role which is shot creator, you know, tertiary shot creator if you want to call it that, behind Steph and Clay, right, But when Steph is out, he almost like it, almost like he gets in his own head to the point where he thinks, I have to shoot my way into replacing what step rings to the table, And more often than not, what

ends up happening is you'll see games like that where you'll have twenty six points, but the team doesn't really jive on the offensive end of the floor. And he was a minus twenty seven tonight, And so I'd like to see, you know, and this is gonna gonna be a good little extended stretch here. Steph did a little interview on the sideline during the game where he basically said, I'm not doing anything right now, not even touching a basketball.

Probably won't touch a basketball till January one. So STEP's gonna be out a little while here. You know, we we heard about that when that original report came out. Adriano Zanowski said a few weeks, Sham's like probably more than a month, and Steph all but confirmed that tonight. So what that means is Jordan Pool is going to have a long stretch of basketball here, and I hope that he understands that the best chance he has of doing his part to help the team win is two more.

Embrace shot creation rather than shot making, and shot creation is all of the above. Shot creation is about making reads. Sometimes that means you're shooting, Sometimes that means you're creating shots for your teammates. But no matter what your best chance to win as if the whole team is vibing offensively. So I'd like to see him tweak his approach just

a little bit. But dude, the talent is insane, and a lot of times we forget because Jordan Pool has been around a long time, Like Jordan Pool has been playing it like he was playing in that playing game against the Lakers, making big plays in his early twenties, like he is still very young, and just because he's been around a while, we kind of separating him from

Jonathan Comingut and Moses Moody and James Wiseman. But he's a hell of a lot closer to those guys in terms of experience than he is to the older players. All Right, So we are going to rip through five games from last night, which was just a jam packed NBA slate, tons of good basketball to get to. We're gonna hit on ten teams in total, starting with the Bucks and the Pelicans. So the Bucks beat the Pelicans on the road one nineteen. Chris Middleton and Brandon Ingram

were both out for this game. It was supposed to be kind of like a Janice verse Zion type of battle. That was the way it was billed, but a Zion had an absolute nightmare of a time dealing with Milwaukee's defense. They just pressured him on the ball with Drew Holiday attacking his handle, and knowing that Drew Holiday was he had the freedom to get beat off the dribble because he had brook Lopez and Janice helping on the back line. He finished just seven for sixteen in the painted area

in that game. He did have seven assists, but he also had six turnovers um. And then you know, as far as the battle with Joannis goes, Joannas poured in forty two and ten on only seventeen shots, so not

much of a battle there. But what was really interesting to me about this particular game was it was kind of like a great explanation of the importance of stretch pigs, which this is gonna be a theme throughout the rest of this show tonight, because we're gonna talk about it a little bit with another team that's playing really well lately, the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have been leaning on Nas read a stretch big which is really opening things for them

on the offensive end of the floor. And what's the counter to having Brook Lopez hawk the paint all night to contain Zion Well. Jonas Valanciunas is not a not not typically a super aggressive three point shooter, but he is a capable three point shooter, and he made six threes in that first half, making brook Lopez pay for hawking the paint, and he had twenty eight points in the first half. But flip that dynamic a little bit.

How does Jonas Valanciunas like to play defense, same type of thing, a super deep drop coverage, lingering around the paint, helping on every drive, just like brook Lopez does. And brook Lopez is arguably the best rim protector three point shooter big that we have in the league. In the third quarter, brook Lopez had thirteen points on five jump shots, a couple of big corner threes when Jonas was helping over on on drives, you know, picking pop three above

the break. He had like an Iso face up jump shot and in their short corner on the right side against Ian Williamson um and that same dynamic lipped on New Orleans for them over helping with their rim protecting center. The Bucks really dominated the second half. They led by as many as eighteen. The Pelicans did go on a late run and got it within three before Drew Holiday. Um they ran, they got it within three. They come down the floor, Brook Lopez comes and sets the ball screen.

C J. C J. McCollum, who has had a nightmare defending and pick and roll the last week or two, goes under the screen, and Drew Holiday, who's a professional pull up shooter, just rises up and knocks down what

effectively amounts to the dagger Um. The Milwaukee Bucks are now in sole possession of the best record in basketball, and it's been kind of funny because it's been a really uneven stretch from them, because they won four straight after losing to the Lakers, and then they blew a game on the road in Houston with all of their stars playing. Then they absolutely dominated the Warriors, and then

they got fifty pieced by the Memphis Grizzlies. They were down by fifty points in the fourth quarter, and then they you know, finished that streak off by handling the Utah Jazz in New Orleans. Pelicans, it's been kind of uneven, but the bottom is completely falling out for the Boston Celtics, and next thing you know, now they are twenty two and eight in first place overall in the NBA. It's kind of unusual to see a twenty two and eight

team as the best record in the league. But that just goes to show you how much parody there is in the NBA right now. Um, the Pelicans have now lost four games in a row and it's their defense

that's mainly followed apart. They have a one defensive rating in their last four games against some good offenses too in Utah, Phoenix and Milwaukee and I. This is something that you know, this is something that you're gonna see kind of be a recurring theme for these heavy drop coverage teams that that kind of have some limited defensive players playing right because c Jim McCollum not a great defensive player. Trey Murphy will one day to be a

good defensive player. Right now not a great defensive player. Zion Williamson shows some flashes, had a big corner three block the other night, you know, looking like he was at Duke. He's making more plays than he used to make, but he still is getting hunted a lot in specific situations, particularly at the end of games. The Utah Jazz in their second match up, hunted him a lot in that

overtime game. So like they've got some limited offensive players, and so against bad teams that don't have great pull up jump shooting and aren't graded executing in the half court, they can funnel Jonas Valancunis and they can replicate a good defense, and they are sixth and defense overall this season. Right.

That seems good on the surface, but the truth of the matter is, according to Cleaning the Glass, when they are playing against top ten teams by point differential, the Pelicans are allowing a hundred and six team point two points per one hundred possessions, which ranks twenty in the league against that particular set of teams. As a result, they are six and ten against teams that are five hundred or better and twelve and two against below five

hundred teams. So there's some fools gold stuff going on with the Pelicans where they're kind of main handling bad teams on the strength of their drop coverage and playing better defense against those teams, and they're really struggling against the best teams. Now, brandon Ingram when he's engaged as a very good defensive that solves a lot of problems, right, And when they get into the playoffs. I don't think they're gonna play Jonas as much. I think they're gonna

go small a lot. It's gonna be a lot more Larry Nan. So I'm not down on them overall, but I do think that, you know, when they were at the top of the West, maybe that's not a realistic idea of where they are. They're probably a little bit more middle of the pact type of team in the Western Conference. Alright, moving on to Mavericks Timberwolves. So the Timberwols were missing Carl Towns and Rudy Gobert in this

game and won sixteen to one oh six. Minnesota was actually trailing thirty seven to twenty nine and second quarter and finished second quarter on a seven run to take a thirteen point lead and really never looked back at that point. It was a really interesting lineup that they won that particular game with, if you remember when they made the trade. I didn't fundamentally like the way that they had changed their identity because they were kind of

like a five out basketball team. You know, they would have uh, they would have Carl Town's at the center and they would play you know, Patrick really was a good perimeter defender. You know, Jada McDaniels would be out

there a lot as a as a perimeter defender. You know, they had a lot of good perimeter defense players that they shipped out in the deal, and as a result, they were playing a lot of Dangel Russell and Carl Town's at the four having to guard perimeter players, and the whole fundamental identity of the team shifted, and now you've got Rudy Gobert clogging things up in the paint all the time. Well, the lineup that they ran to get this advantage against Dallas in the second quarter was

Anthony Edwards. It was a very good on ball defender. Obviously, he still has some ways to go in terms of team defense, but he's a very good on ball defender. Jalen Knewell, who's young and a very good athlete, is

capable of good on ball defense. Austin Rivers, who literally gets an NBA paycheck because he's a good on ball defender, Jada McDaniels, who literally gets an NBA paycheck because he's a good defensive wing, and nasri and so as a result, they will able to play five out basketball on the offensive end of the four and on the perimeter they will be able to contain, which makes it so that their defense is more functional even without you go bear

on the floor. And I thought they did a really nice job in that second quarter run of just like pressing up on Dallas, because Dallas can be really slow and they walk the ball up the floor and then they run their action and they you know, end up kicking out to some dude for three most of the time, but they usually only can get one action in, and you really limit their ability to attack a close out when you pressure them, because now they're not getting into

their offense until like ten twelve seconds on the shot clock. Luca, you know, gets his matchup, gets to work off the dribble, gets to his spot, draws that double team, makes that kickout pass and there's only like four seconds on the

shot clock. So if you catch it and they make one solid defensive rotation, all of a sudden, a limited offensive player someone like Dorian Phinney Smith who can knock down and catch and shoot three but isn't an outstanding closeout attacker, that dude now has to make a play and man, Dallas's offense just completely felt the pieces in that second quarter run just because they were Minnesota was doing a good job of pressuring them while they were

trying to walk the ball up which was slowing them down, getting them into their offense. And then on the offensive end of the floor, that true five out spacing with nas Re picking and popping to the three point line as opposed to rolling to the basket opened up everything for people driving to the basket. So they Kemba Walker on the floor during the nevericks at Kemba Walker on the floor during the stretch, they straight up just attacked

him with Austin rivers twice. He had a driving layup and one along the baseline and a driving floating and one out of pick and roll off of the left wing. Because Kemba Walker's a limited defensive player and it's really hard to offer help when you've got a big guy who's camping out of the three point line that can beat you with catching shoot threes. Jalen Noel and Anthony Edwards both had driving layups in the second quarter run. Nas Read had a catch pump fake attack close out

good all the way the rim for a layup. They got to the rim at will in that group against the good defensive team in Dallas because they had space. And this, you know, this just goes to show you, guys what we were talking about with the that last game, with that between the Bucks and the Pelicans, and then with this one the importance of five out spacing, because let me just give you guys some numbers to demonstrate this.

When nas Read is on the floor, is the only center for the Timberwolves, they have a one nineteen offensive rating and they are plus nine per one possessions in

five and sixty three possessions. With Carl Town's another stretch, Big as the only center on the floor a hundred and twenty four offensive rating, Big Shock, He's a better version of nas Read plus five per one hundred possessions and five fifty four possessions anything that ever involves Rudy Gobert one oh eight offensive rating minus two net in

one thousand, six d eighty five possessions. So when you guys hear me talk about the difference between vertical spacing in five out spacing, because vertical spacing is a fancy word that like you literally hear all the time, particularly against with Rudy Gobert, Like a lot of Rudy Gobert supporters, you always will hear screen assists in vertical spacing, because those are two basketball concepts which are real, but they are miniscule and value relative to what any average player

in the NBA can do, which is finished out of the dunker spot. There is value there. There is value in screening. There is value and being in the dunker spot, but that is a much more replaceable value on the offensive end compared to what five out spacing does. Five out spacing is about making much longer defensive rotations. It's very simple. If I'm on the right wing and I beat my man off the dribble, and I have my

big man is guarding somebody in the dunker spot. He's already there because he's arms distance away from the guy in the dunker spot. He's already under the rim. It's an easy rotation to make, and typically there's already a shooter in the corner. That defender can then crack down on the big man in the dunker spot. Right, it's

an easy rotation to make. If I am guarding the man in the corner and there is nobody in the dunker spot, I have to cover significantly more ground to get over there, and chances are, especially when you're dealing with guys that are working on the perimeter, you have to have quicker defensive players out there, which are usually smaller. So the lack of rim protection makes it so much

easier for you to get to the rim. And the thing that's so frustrating about it is, how is it that the general manager, how is it that the front office for the Minnesota Timberwolves didn't look at the roster see who your star is. Your star is Anthony Edwards literally guard Lebron. That's what he reminds me of, because he's a downhill power guard getting to the rim. He

needs space to get to the rim. The best version of this team was always going to be spacing, just like Lebron needed Chris Bosh, just like Lebron needed Kevin Love, just like Lebron needed Anthony Davis. You, when you are a downhill power player, you were always going to be at your best and when you have space to operate.

And that I that concept I think has been overlooked way too frequently in the NBA these days because teams are obsessed with navigating the NBA regular season with a good drop coverage, And I'm not undercutting the value of that. It is value, but it's a given a take. You're giving rim protection at the expense of easy offense. When

offense is clunky, it gets discouraging. When guys are struggling on the offensive end, they're less willing to work hard on defense because they're not feeling good and confident about themselves. Anthony Edwards, if he's feeling good about himself getting to the rim, he's gonna be more willing to sit in a stance and contain a ball handler. If you contain a ball handler, you don't need a rim protector. The

best former rim protection in basketball is perimeter defense. And so I think that I think that the Minnesota timber Wils have been a great like case study and how team building in an old style persuaded a team to waste a bunch of assets on a player that kind of caps there the success of this particular team. They are six and four since the Carl Town's injury, they've

won three straight. Anthony Edwards on the floor with nas Read and no Gobart or Carl Towns this season is plus thirteen per one possessions in fourty possessions could not be more clear the direction this team needs to go. And the problem is is they overpaid for what is a really bad contract and Rudy Gobert, and there's no chance in hell that they're ever going to recoup those assets, So they're probably gonna end up camping on him as a as a matter of pride at this point, especially

for a newly higher gm UM. The last thing I wanted to hit on in this game was just Dallas's offense. They're really prone to these cold spells because they become super predictable bringing the ball at the floor slow. We

just talked about this. If you bring the ball up slow and you don't get into your action until you get the right matchup, then you might not actually start beating someone off the dribble till ten seconds or left, which means you're not making that kickout past so there's only a handful of seconds left, which means you limit your ability to have multiple attacks or to give people the chance to drive and kick a little bit. So what I'd like to see is more of a change

up from Luca. Now it's more like a fastball to everything he throws. As a change up, but at the end of the day, Luca needs to change the pace a little bit when they get super stat I'd like to see him try to bring the ball up with pace, specifically as a mix up when they're getting a little bit too stagnant on the offensive end. Alright, Portland, okay, see, this was a really fun duel. The next two games. We're just gonna talk about the very end of the games.

UM Portland O Okay see. It was a fundled between Shae Gilds, Just Alexander and Damian Lillard and Anthony Simon's um. It was really close about middle of the fourth quarter. The Anthony sign assignmon sits back to back pull up three's get a bunch of pull up jumpers down the

stretch of this game. A couple of them that were right in shake gild just Alexander's face, and then on the other end of the floor shake Gils Just Alexander was just completely bullying Anthony Simon's getting to his spot, literally just hitting the same move over and over again. Spread is so top of the key. Couple hard ribbles to the left, get to ten ft pound dribble, step back and just rise up from like ten to twelve

ft for that little short jump shot. You know, one of the things I love about s g As he's got a super versatile scoring skill set, almost no two shots alike, because he's got so many different spots on the floor that he can rise up and shoot. It's kind of like the opposite of what you've seen from

James Harden over the years. Um But then down the stretch, Damian Lillard makes two massive reverse layups to tie the game, but with three seconds like s g A, guarded by Justice Winslow, kind of cuts down to the block and on the catch just quick spins to the baseline, which forces Justice Winslow to take a couple of hard defensive slides and does another pound dribble step back, gets plenty of separation, rises up and squishes a little fifteen foot or on the baseline at the buzzer for his second

buzzer beating game winner of the season. Check this out. S g A leads the entire NBA with seventy nine points and clutch situations this year on just fifty shot attempts. That's insane. He's playing like an m v P this year. He's just on a terrible team. He's got the the When he's on the floor, they're about dead even with teams, which is doesn't sound impressive, but when you look at the roster, it absolutely he is, and they get outscored by eight points per one hun possessions when he's off.

That's that's an on off split that replicates what most m vps do. It's just a combination of outstanding pull up jump shooting and downhill scoring at the rim. He is sixth in field goal percentage among pull up shooters who are taking at least eight per game at which is outstanding. And John Morant is the only guard in the league who scores more in the restricted area per game. All right, Orlando Atlanta. So Orlando comes in on a

six game winning streak. Atlanta actually led this game one twelve with three minutes left, Trey Young had a pull up three because More Wagner was just a little bit slow getting up. Trey of course, gets right in Mobile Wagner's face, starts talking ship, you know, because the Hawks just talk tons of ship for being a pretty average basketball team. Um, and then the wheels just completely came off.

Jont and Trey started turning the basketball over Trey kept the Magic played Cavan Harris down the stretch of this game, and he did a really nice job defending Trey Young, just walling him up, cutting him off from the rim and forcing him to shoot over the top. He kept trying this like Jankie floating bank shot. I want to be cleared. Trey had a great game, but he really struggled down the stretch of this game. But he kept trying this like jan Kie floating bank shot that he

kept missing. And then Marquelle Folds. You know, we talked a lot about how his hustle plays on the glass helped the Magic beat the Celtics in that second road matchup the other day. Well he did it as a score in this particular game. Got Downhill twice in the final minutes, including a reverse layup with three seconds left

that put the Magic up by one. And then out of a time out, the Magic or the Hawks run like an action the screening action to get to Jant Murray on the left baseline and he shoots a pull up jump shot, a tough, fading, drifting pull up jump shot that he misses, but Pala Bancho gets up into his landing area. Easy call. This wasn't one of those like,

oh he jumped way forward like they did. He legitimately fouled him and Jon Dmry goes the line, makes two free throws in the game is over and it's you know you, you really have to be conscious fouling jump shooters at the end of games, because you'd much rather lose on a guy making a tough shot, like a tough, drifting jump shot, than to watch him win the game standing by himself fifteen feet away from the basket at

the free throw line, right. But it's just a good lesson for a young player on a young team in UH and it sucks, but this is the year where they can afford to make mistakes because they don't have any real ambitions. But this could have been their seventh consecutive win had they not made that mistake. So it's a good lesson for Paladon Care to learn. So I want to talk about Marco Folks for just a second. Um. We talked about his hustle plays, but I want to

talk about his overall production. So on the season, he's averaging twelve four and five in twenty seven minutes per game, with one point seven blocks and steals combined in just twenty seven minutes. So if you extrapolate that out to per thirty six, which is a normal high volume player, that's sixteen five and seven with two point two stocks.

That was this season I twenty four against Atlanta, And if you look at his production, he has a seventeen points on a hundred and eighteen pick and rolls counting passes, which is above average. That's fifty eight percentile, twenty six points on twenty ISOs, which is excellent. That's in the ninety three percentile, and eighty seven points if you if you just look at him as a passer so plays where he passed out of isso or passed out of pick and roll, They've scored eighty seven points on eighty

two possessions, which is very good. He's also twenty three for fifty two on jumpers, which is which is great, seven for fifteen on threes, which is outstanding, sixteen forty one off the dribble, which is thirty nine percent, which is not good, but it's respectable. You know, good, is right around forty great, it's right around forty five. He is over four on pull up threes though, uh the the only real weak spot right here, right now for him is at the rim. He's about on the rim.

But he's just forty. He's just twenty four years old. You know, we've he's been through such a weird journey since he came into the league. But he's still is a very exciting young guard who just has not been able to stay healthy and available on the court. But there's a lot of really interesting stuff coming from him to start of this season. Um, the Hawks, even with their fortunate free throw in against Orlando, are just five and eight in their last thirteen games. They have the

ninth word, the ninth worst record in the league. Over that span, their seventeenth and offense and twenty in defense and rebounding. Trey Young is shooting just from the field and from three, with four and a half turnovers per game. The reality is is that just like we've always talked about with Lebron and a D, with Kawai and Paul George, with any of the other star pairings around the league, you had better be a super duperstar or be really

good in the details of the game. And if you're gonna be twenty seven and rebounding and twenty second in defense, You're going to have to have your stars produced better, and Trey Young and Dijon ty Murray just simply have not been good enough. And I don't really like the energy around this team. They talk a lot of ship, like I said, for being a pretty average basketball team, and they don't really look like they're having a ton

of fun on a night to night basis. Plus there's all that stuff going on with Trey and the coach as well. It's just really disappointing season for the Atlanta Hawks. Overall, Raptors sixers. So this is the Tobias Harris corner three game. So the Raptors looked like they were gonna run away

with this one. In regulation. They were up by seven with four minutes left, and Tobias Harris we talked a lot about rescuing possessions with shot making catches in the corner, late clock situation guarded and just rises up over a contest, probably got foul, he didn't get called and knocks down a three, which kind of changed the dynamic to the game. Then Ebi draws a double team swing swing the Anthony

Melton the same corner, knocked down three. Now it's a one point game and b draws another foul, goes to make two free throws. Now they're up one. Then James Harden gets to driving, layup and transition. Now they're up by three. They flipped the script on the Raptors pretty quick down the stretch. But then Pascal Siackem transition drive, draws a foul, makes a free throw, then he makes like a really high difficulty scoop shot to send the

game to ot. Pascal Siackem was great tonight or last night thirty fifteen and six, but in overtime it was locked at one oh one forever before Tobias Harris, once again on a corner kick out, hits the three to break the tie. He actually hit another three on a pass from the Anthony Melton that put the lead up to six, but it got wiped away by an illegal scream by p J. Tucker on review um. And then in the final minute, Pascal Siakam missed to pull up

threes and the Raptors loose. They've now lost nine of their last eleven games. Fred VanVleet is gonna have nightmares about that game. He missed several wide open threes down the stretch and finish just three for fifteen from the field. But you guys can probably guess where I'm going here. The story of this game, once again was Toronto in transition through the first third. These numbers are absolutely wild.

Through the first thirty eight minutes of the game, Toronto had twenty one transition possessions, leading to twenty seven points.

They averaged twenty four transition points a game, like we talked about in the Golden State game when gold State held into twelve over the last ten minutes of regulation in ot they managed just one single transition possession that Sam drive where he drew the free throw right before or his scoop shot, which then be blocked and they called a foul on p. J. Tucker and he made

one free throw. So all but one of their possessions down the stretch over the last fifteen minutes of action was in the half court and they are one of the very worst half court offenses in the league. Philly is the second best half court defense in the league, and they managed just twenty one total points in the final fifteen minutes of that game. That's the story of

the season for the Raptors. A complete lack of offensive skill that makes it so that they cannot win unless the game is fast and loose up and down the court. As soon as you strangle the pace on them and trapped them in the half court, you can beat this team. And that's precisely why I was pitching that O G and a Nobi for Darius Garland trade as something that

would just influx some offensive talent into this team. Um Zach Low had a report that O G Andnobe has sky high trade value and that a lot of teams are interested. I mentioned O G and Aobe is a potential trade target if the Lakers wanted to go win now with Anthony Davis. But the bottom line is they got to do something because fundamentally, this team is not capable of scoring in the half court, and you have to be able to score in the half court to

win in the NBA playoffs. It's just it's just a reality. Unless you are a all world defensive team the way the Lakers were in the Toronto raptor the Toronto Raptors are not an all world defensive team. That's just a fact um, you know. And then for Philly that's always going to be their best indicator of success. Can they control the pace when they split back in transition, and they keep teams in the half court, they get stops. They have the second best half court defense in the league.

They're up to eleventh and transition defense after their nightmare start. You guys probably remember us talking a lot about that at the beginning of the season. You know, after the Lakers game, I told you guys that I thought the Sixers were primed to go on a run to start the year. Why because they fixed their transition defense and they were starting to get healthy final and they've won five in a row. Now, I was saying that would probably start next year when Tyrese Maxie came back. They're

already starting without him. So this isn't it's It's an exciting team, and it all begins with them playing lights out on the defensive end of the floor. You know, I also said before the year that if you guys remember, in our power rankings, I had my top four, you know, Golden State, Boston, Milwaukee, and the Clippers. I think I had Milwaukee and second in Boston and third. But if you remember five and six, I had Philly in Brooklyn

because of how much talent they had. I just had them as if things go right contenders because they had so many question marks. You know, James Harden's health, Joel and Beats health, doc rivers, you know, everything going on in Brooklyn. We talked about those things. Well, they got off to rough starts, but both of those teams are hot now and they are now fourth and fifth in the Eastern Conference. Al Right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. Remember our plan for the rest of

the week. We are taking Tomorrow off, but keep an eye on the feeds. For Thursday, we are going to have a full breakdown of the New York mix and the recent success. Then we're gonna take a couple of days off for the holidays. We'll take uh Friday, Saturday off, and then Sunday for Christmas Day, we plan on doing three different instant reaction videos. So keep an eye on the feeds and I will see you guys on Thursday and then again on Sunday. The volume