Hoops Tonight - Kyrie Irving GAME-WINNER, Mavericks shock Nuggets, Suns-Bucks + NBA Power Rankings

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jam packed show for you today. We're gonna start with that absurdly entertaining matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and the Denver Nuggets last night, ended by a legendary Kyrie Irving shot. We're gonna break that game down from the perspective both teams. After that, the Phoenix Suns went on the road into Milwaukee and got their ass kicked. A nuclear shooting performance from them wasn't enough for the even more nuclear performance

that gave up from Milwaukee. So we're gonna break that game down After that there was a lot of talk going on yesterday after Tyrie's left handed hook shot to win the game, but also after Damian Lillard said that he's the most skilled player ever about whether or not

Kyrie Irving is the most skilled player ever. And so I have a take on that front, kind of diving into what I interpret to mean basketball skill, where I do think Kyrie has an edge who I would name if I had to pick a most skilled We'll do that as our third segment, and like we do every single Monday, at the end of the show, we'll have our latest edition of the Power Rankings. You guys know the Joe Foberge started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel mean a lot to me. If you guys to

take a second scroll down hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about my podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and review on that front. Don't forget about my Twitter feed underscore jsonlt where I leave film threat as well as show announcements. I did a film thread this morning on like five or six examples of some of the really really poor defense that Phoenix was playing.

Against Milwaukee. You can find out on my Twitter feed. The last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of this week. We'll have a mail bag intomorrow's show, and then before we get started. This is the best time of year to go out and

see a basketball game. Obviously, we've got the NBA season heating up going into the playoffs, and obviously playoff basketball is highly entertaining, but we also have college basketball in the tournament. Single elimination basketball, especially when we get to this phase, is the most entertaining basketball that you'll see in person, and specifically when you go to these arenas for these NCAA Tournament games, it's kind of if you've

ever been to one. I've been to two myself, and I'm sure some of you guys have had as well. When you're in those arenas, the crazy back and forth vibe of the two fan bases kind of competing with each other at every big play, it really is a unique experience for a basketball fan. I want you guys

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let's talk some basketball. So on Nuggets maps. I want to start with the end of the game, and then we'll get to some of the stuff later on, because it really was a super entertaining finish. It basically came down to match up hunting late, the same kind of

stuff we're always accustomed to seeing from Denver. Right the Jokich Murray two man game, they were specifically targeting Luka Doncic in every action that they could on that end of the floor, and then on the other end of the floor, Kyrie and Luca were constantly trying to pick on Jamal Murray. And we're gonna dive into this a little bit later when we get into some of the stuff with Denver. But I did not think Denver did

a good job trying to avoid those switches. I thought they conceded those switches, and honestly, they got away with it because the Mavericks were up by nine with about four minutes left, and they turned that. Denver turned that nine point deficit into a tie game at one O two in about three minutes. And a big part of that was there were some possessions where Luca and Kyrie got Jamal Murray onto switches, got really good looks for

them and missed both of them. The one I'm thinking of is the floater that Kyrie had in the middle of the floor, and then Luca had like a turnaround jump shot kind of one like fadeaway around the foul line. That one went in and out as well, and so like a lot of it was just kind of good fortune.

But I thought, I thought Denver could have done a better job of trying to prevent those switches from happening, because it just, you know, they're just they have the ability with Aaron Gordon to keep a big body on Luca and to make it tougher on him. They have the ability with a guard defender like KCP to to make him take tough shots over an excellent defender. And so we'll get a little bit deeper into that into when we get to the Denver side of things. But

it was a lot of matchup hunting. And then on the Dallas side they were attacking Jamal Murray and on the Denver side they were attacking Luka Doncicic, and in that stretch they were just getting better stuff. On the other end, Denver scored on almost every single possession during that stretch, just either getting you know, Luca switched onto the Jokic and Jokicic just taking him down in the post and getting an easy basket, or like Jamal Murray

in a two man game, getting Maxi Kleebudy. You know, we have all this talk about Kyrie's finished, which obviously was incredible, and we're gonna get to but Jamal Murray had a pretty nasty left handed finish himself where he got Maxi Kleiba on his right shoulder, kind of worked him down the lane. Daniel Gafford came over and he just went way out to the side and scooped in

a nasty left handed finish off the glass. And then the final one when it was one O two, one O two, so it's one of two, one or two.

Luca gets the switch on Murray misses that little turnaround jump shot, but down on the other end at one O two, one O two, Murray gets Luca on a switch and he makes a really smart play. So Kleiba's back on Jokic at this point. Jamal kind of drags Luka out to the left side and Jokic comes up to set another ball screen and Jamal Murray identifies something where he knew he was gonna be able to get

a clean look Luca. When he saw the screen coming from Jokic, Luca backed off and then prepared to go underneath Jokic so that he could switch, but stay in position on Jokic to not give up an easy, you know, over the top pass where he could just rumble into the pain without anybody in front of him. Right, So, Luca's preparing to duck underneath Jokic to switch, and Kleiba's

getting ready to jump out on the other side. But again there's a gap there between where Jamal Murray is and where Kleeba is gonna be coming on the other side of the screen and Luca's ducking under. There's a little opening in there, and Jamal Murray really smartly just throws a little bit of a fake with the dribble to get Luca to commit to the switch, and then he pulled back into that opening, got a really good look at three, knocked it down as one oh five,

one oh two. We go down to the other end and Aaron Gordon makes a huge mistake in my opinion. Luka Doncic comes off of a pin down. He's starting kind of at the right elbow. He comes down and Tim hardaway Junior is setting a screen kind of around the top of the key. Luca's not trying to come off for a shot. Luca's just coming off to try to get the basketball because there's like I think there's

like twenty six seconds left or something like that. So Luca pops out catches the ball like thirty feet but Aaron Gordon again, like imagine in the top of the key, there's Tim Hardaway Junior, there's Luca coming out thirty feet

from the rim. Gordon's down here as he's gonna trail Luca, but instead of just running out to meet Luca, he tried to duck under Tim Hardaway on the opposite side of the screen, and so as a result, he was taking a weird kind of banana route to get to where Luca was when that screen wasn't really in position to stop him. He could have just sprinted out, and again Luca wasn't looking to shoot there, but Luca caught and he was so wide open because Aaron Gordon tried

to go around the other side of the screen. He just had all day and he's like, all right, fine, I'm gonna shoot this. And it was catastrophic for two reasons. Not only was it the three point shot that tied the game, but they didn't take any time off the clock, like if that exact same thing, like if Aaron Gordon takes a better angle instead of trying to jump the screen, but just just trails behind Luca the way you're supposed to.

He catches, he turns, probably calls for a screen. By the time he actually gets a quality three point shot up, it could be another five to ten seconds. And if it takes five to ten seconds and they make the shot, then it's one oh five, one oh five, But the shot clock is turned off, and then you could take your time to get a great one. And instead there was just a little bit of a gap, which put Denver in the predicament because Dallas had a time out.

It put Denver in that predicament where they kind of had to leave some time on the clock. So at that point you just want to get the best possible shot. Jamal Murray got a great look. They had another Yokic

ball screen. PJ. Washington actually was switching out on Jamal Murray and in his backwards kind of like recovery step, he tripped and fell, and so Jamal got great lift great separation, one of the easiest shots he got all night there around the right elbow, and he just missed it, but again because of the bad angle Aaron Gordon took on the other end of the floor, they were in a position where they had to shoot before the end of the shot clock. So then we go down to

the other end. Just a couple seconds left. Kyrie Irving comes off of that ball, off of that off ball action, and Yokic switches and Yokic defends it as perfectly as you possibly can, even given the insane shot that Kyrie took. It was very very good contest form Nikole Jokic. But Kyrie Irving just goes into that that rip through news left and gets to that left handed floater or half hook or whatever the heck you want to call it,

and knocks it down. Crowd goes crazy. Really one of the most impressive game winners that I've seen, because that was not luck. That is something that Kyrie Irving is capable of doing. There are two things that I want to hit about Kyrie's lefty runner that were so interesting to me. First of all, improvisational shot making. When I talk about scoring the basketball, and you know, there's all these different roles that a player has on a basketball team.

But to me, one of the specific traits that identifies a player as a scorer is it's kind of like a natural knack for finding ways to put the ball in the basket. To me, that comes down to a combination of obviously the skill set, but there's two additional elements to it. It's audacity and improvisation. Audacity is confidence.

Audacity is like, you bet your ass I can take and make this left handed floater, like a Jamal Murray for instance, Like he's playing on a basketball team with the best player in the world, and that dude has the audacity to look him off and take his own shots sometimes and it's the right decision because of his abilities as a shot maker. Again, that first piece is

the most important part. You have to have the skill set, but from there, if you have the audacity to confidence and you connect it with the improvisation, which to me is the natural ability of a score to just find

kind of funky combinations of skill. So, for instance, you might see that left handed runner and you might think to yourself, Kyrie probably doesn't practice that, and you're right, I doubt sincerely that Kyrie has a drill where he takes a fifteen foot drifting one leg floater moving to his left hand side off of that specific footwork. He probably doesn't, but what he does do is all the individual pieces of that put together. I've talked about this

with a step back three before. The step back three looks like a complicated dribble combination and footwork combination in

to a shot, but it's really not. Like if I do an in and out dribble and then between the legs dribble and then an advanced dribble, but instead of continuing that step, I plant that right foot and push back, I stick my left foot way out to catch my momentum so that I go straight up and down, and at the end of the shot, I'm just going straight up and down. So as long as I have the handle to be able to do an in and out between the legs dribble and then another in and out

on the other side, I'm good. As long as I have the footwork to be able to make all those plants and control my body weight in those angles, and as long as I have good catch and shoot straight up and down jump shooting ability, I can put all of that together and make this advance to play. Now again, does Kyrie practice a drifting left handed floater. Probably not.

But what he does practice is a huge variety of left handed shots around the rim, left handed floaters and scoops and high finishes, low finishes, you know, trying to sneak by defenders, trying to finish over the top of defenders. He does a ton of stuff with his left hand. That move is a combination of things that Kyrie does, work on the footwork to get that little bit of separation right the handle, to get the ball into his left hand in a position where he has command of it,

and then from there the touch takes over. But that, to me is what improvisational shot making is. And all the best improvisational scorers in the league, they do take shots in games that don't necessarily resemble shots that they take in practice, but it's pieces, little bits and pieces of things that they do practice that they in the moment go, wait, I see this opening, and it's all happening in a fraction of a second. I see this opening.

I think I can get to that spot, and then from there I think I can kind of, you know, maybe just go into like a left handed kind of half hook, kind of like I do, closer to the rim, but I'll just have to put a little more juice on it, you know that kind of thing. It's it's like an instantaneous interpretation of the situation and then the ability to quickly pick from your skill set to grab these little things that you can piece together into a

move to make a shot in that specific situation. And to me, that's what separates the best scores in the world from the guys beneath them is it's they have the skill set, but they also have this overwhelming confidence or audacity as I call it. And then the improvisation, the ability to think quickly on their feet to find ways to get to a shot they can make right. And so that to me is what kind of sets that apart. It's the improvisation and the second thing, the

fundamental foundation. That was a crazy shot, but make no mistake, it was about his baseline foundation of ball handling, his baseline foundation of footwork, and his baseline foundation of touch. That is fundamental basketball that has been pieced together into basically an art form. Right, But like, don't don't make the mistake of thinking that that doesn't come from a

fundamental foundation, because it absolutely does. Now moving to the rest of the game, I thought the story of the game for Dallas was dominating the bench groups for Denver, specifically on the offensive glass. And Denver's a weird team, like when you look in the big picture, they're sixteenth in defensive rebounding percentage, their bottom half defensive rebounding team,

but they're excellent at rebounding with their starters. Even last night with the starting lineup, so Jokic with Gordon, Michael Porter, Junior, Jamal Murray and KCP, those guys grabbed almost seventy five percent of available defensive rebounds, which is excellent. So that wasn't the issue. But those bench groups what they do again, like instead of going with a slower, you know, limited

center like DeAndre Jordan, they just go with Zignaji. They do a ton of switching, and they just give the ball to Jamal Murray and just basically let him go to work. And again, like they're in a predicament. Denver's been in this predicament for a long time where they they really struggled to kind of maintain leads without Jokics, that's been a thing forever, that was the thing last

year when they won the title. This is just their best pathway to try to float the ship without Nicole Jokic is to go small, do a lot of switch and rely on Jamal Murray to make shots. And he just didn't quite have the same shot making game that he's capable of having, and they got absolutely demolished on the glass. In those units, particularly Derek Jones Junior and

Derek Lively were doing a ton of damage. Dallas had twenty two offensive rebounds in this game, leading to twenty three second chance points, and as a result, even though they were plus ten, Denver was plus ten in Nikola Jokic's minutes, Dallas was able to get out of there

with the win by dominating those specific lineups. Now, one of the things that I did think was interesting, I don't think it's a complete coincidence that Phoenix and Dallas were the two teams that got wins against Denver since the All Star Break, because this again, for people who are not aware, Denver has won every other game they

played since the All Star Break. They're eleven to two I think in the thirteen games since then, and their two losses were Phoenix and Dallas, both games where they led by three points with just a few seconds left and then crazy shot making at the end of the game took the game away from them, right. So, Like, one of the things that I think is interesting is Dallas is Dallas and Phoenix both they're uniquely capable of picking on matchups and actually getting some of Denver's more

limited on ball defenders into space. Right. So, like, for instance,

they're really diligent about getting the switches they want. They make sure that they get the right matchup before they get into their one on one play. Now, again, we've talked about it a little bit on the Denver side. We'll get a little further into it, but I think Denver needs to do a better job of trying to fight against those switches just by you know, we'll get into that in a minute. But like, Dallas was very pretty good about diligently getting the right matchups before they go.

In addition to that, they are a team that has some speed advantages, right, Like, I'll give you an example. There's a random play mid fourth quarter where Derrek Jones Junior was on the right wing and he had Michael Porter Junior on him and he just got him with a basic rip through moove to the left and got

all the way to the rim for a layup. And then like so when you look at it, and it's like they're getting a lot of shots where it's like, Okay, they're getting Michael Porter Junior on a switch and then going to work. They're getting Jamal Murray on a switch and they're going to work. So they can be very diligent about getting the right types of shots against the right matchups. And I think that's something that Dallas and

Phoenix in particular are are really good at. Now both of those matchups Denver had extended stretches where they kick their ass because they're so much bigger and there they do have better personnel that they can kind of go to on both ends of the floor to kind of

get these jobs done. So like I would pick Denver in a series against both of them, but I do think it's interesting and something to keep an eye on in terms of like a threat to beat Denver that both Dallas and Phoenix are these like kind of high level matchup attacking teams that rely a lot on helio centric kind of a ball screen attack and that can really kind of get Denver's limited defenders in space. On the Denver side of things, getting bullied on the glass

and the Yokachov groups is totally normal. Like I mentioned, like they yokichen groups this season have almost a seventy five percent defensive rebound percentage, and they had almost a seventy five percent defensive rebound percentage yesterday. This is kind of just an issue with their bench. And again, they won last year under the same circumstances. It's never been about like, oh man, you know, Denver can't overcome its bench. It's like they do overcome their bench. It's like they

have a bad bench and then they win. Anyway, That's that's pretty much been the story for Denver forever. Right that said, they need to hold up better on the glass than they did, and I did think a lot of it was just not being as quick to the ball, and that's something I think they have a room for improvement on. And then again, like this game and the Suns game, they executed perfectly down the stretch in both games.

So like if you remember in the Suns game, there was a twelve zero run that turned a what was it a ninety nine to ninety lead into a one oh two to ninety nine lead for Denver. And then in this game, what was it It was one oh nine to one hundred, I think, and then they scored. They won on a fifteen to three run to go

up one fifteen to one twelve. So very similarly in both games, Denver went on like a dominant run down the stretch, but they played better defense on the KD shot like that one was like Aaron Gordon ended pretty

damn well and ad just made the shot. I thought that they had a couple of execution lapses on the defensive end at the end of this game, not just the Aaron Gordon one where he went on the wrong side of that pick, but they were just way too willing to give the right matchups, better matchups to Dallas down the stretch offensively. And the last thing before we move on to the next game, there's a reason why I'm not a big believer in just conceding those switches

so easy. First of all, especially when you're like Denver, has the ability to put teams in a predicament where if you don't switch, or you hedge and recover, or you help or you do anything that leaves a shooter open. There's such high level shooters that it's a problem, right, Whereas you know, some of the offensive talent surrounding Dallas in these groups is they're not as good at beating

some of these some of these aggressive defensive coverages. So for instance, like there was a play where they doubled Luca on a switch and Nexic cleve at airball to three over the backside of the rint, And like there there are guys with Dallas where it's like, yeah, we don't want to just leave him wide open all game, but like a late contest we can live with kind of thing. Whereas you can't do that with Michael Porter Junior.

You can't do that with KCP and Aaron Gordon's under the rim where he's not missing much, right, So like that is that is one of those things where like I would be more willing in those situations rather than having Jamal Murray just switch, I would hedge in those situations and essentially rotate on the weak side and make

sure that you're just leaving the right guy open. Because ky both Kyrie and Luca are aware of the fact that for them, a tough contested shot is probably better than an open look for some of these other guys, and so they probably will allow you to chase over the top and to recover and get back in front and not give up the switch. Then as the shot clock winds down, they'll have no choice but to ISO

Kyrie against KCP or Luca against Aaron Gordon. If you chase over the top, I think it'll inevitably end up in a Luca Kyrie ISO, just against a better matchup. I don't think Lucas gonna pass out and just live with you know, MAXI Kleeba taking threes down the stretch of these games like they want to get the right player to take the right shot, right, And there's just more flexibility with Dallas to leave openings than there is against some of these other better teams like Boston or

like Denver for instance. Right. So, like again, I thought that was something execution wise that they could have been better at down the stretch. But we're being nitpicky. I actually had this in my power ranking segment, but I'll just say it right now. They're eleven and two since the All Star Break, and their two losses are games that they led in the final seconds by three points,

and crazy shot making took the games away. So make of that what you will, but to me, that's pretty scary and it looks a lot like a Denver team that is hell bent on repeating, and that's why I feel so confident in them, all right. Moving on to Sun's Bucks. This was an interesting game because what if I told you that Phoenix took fifty jump shots in this game. They got sixty five points out of them, so one point three points per jump shot, and they

got blown out. And that's because the Bucks took fifty six jump shots and got eighty eight points out of them, which is one point five to seven points per shot. So Phoenix had this incredible shooting performance on the road in Milwaukee and got killed because Milwaukee shot them out of the gym to an even greater extent. Now I want to I'm gonna start with the Milwaukee side, but this was one of Phoenix's worst defensive performances of the season.

We'll get a little bit deeper into it in a minute, but really the story of the game early on was Bobby Portis. And I've been defending Bobby Portis all year because there are a lot of Bucks fans that are low on him just because he's a backup center. And

you know, backup. Anybody in the league who's a backup is a backup for a reason, right, Like if Bobby Portis was everything he is offensively, but like less prone to cold spells and just way better defensively, then he's making twenty five million a year and he's starting for somebody Like it's it's unrealistic for people to have those levels of expectations, and like, to me, you can't do

much better than Bobby Portis as a backup center. Ask Nuggets fans if they'd take Bobby Portis as a backup center. Ask Lakers fans if they take Bobby Portis as a backup center. Like that, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Bobby Portis. And he was incredible at the start of this game. And for the record, he's been a good offensive player all season. Just a

couple quick numbers for you guys. Two hundred and thirty points and two hundred and twenty seven post ups including passes to over a point per possession one point one zero points per spot up possession. That's sixty seven percentile so he's a great shooter and close out attacker, picking and popping, picking and rolling. He personally shoots sixty one point four percent in effective field goal percentage on shots on pops and rolls. That's one point two points per possession.

That's awesome. He personally shoots over fifty one percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, which is gonna be a theme because Phoenix was leaving him open to start. This game started with the coverage opening. Uh, this was when Drew Eubanks came into the game. Well, I've talked a lot about this concept before, but when you run drop coverage, and again, drop coverage is real basic. The big guy who's guarding the screener is going to drop back and keep the ball handler and the roll man

in front of him. Right the on ball guy's chasing over the top. So here comes the screen guys chasing over the top. He's trying to funnel into the screen defender that's waiting. So if the guy rolls to the rim, if the guy screens and rolls, he can effectively kind of guard both, right, especially if he's an elite defensive player, and he can kind of kind of lunge and stunt

and be in the right places. But if he pops any sort of drop coverage has no counter for the drop or for the pop other than just to offer a late close out. That's all he can do. So the guy comes over the top screener pops right. The big guy's waiting. As soon as the pass goes, he's got to close out, or you have to close out from the weak side, which leaves another guy short open, right. So it is a fundamental baked in opening of the coverage.

You run pick and pop against the drop coverage, you're going to get wide up in threes for your big man. It is just like how it works. That's just how the coverage works. Right. So Drew youu Banks early is just getting absolutely barbecued by Bobby Portis screening and popping right. But then he gets hot, right, and again when the guy gets hot, you kind of have to make a

certain adjustment. Right at this point, use if Nurkic comes back into the game and he's doing a better job in his coverage of kind of like lingering by Portas,

but he's not offering hard contests. And I'm literally sitting here and I'm like, I like, this guy is engulfed in flames and is like six for seven from the field and all six of his makes have been jump shots, or I think five of his first six makes for jump shots, and you're offering like a like again, uh, did you guys remember earlier this year when the uh, when the San Antonio Spurs scouting report got released or the I think it was a Dallas' scouting report of

the Spurs for a preseason game, and it was like all the breakdown and they talk about like how you close out on shooters. We had very similar scouting reports when I was in college at the Naia School, which was the best coaching staff that I personally played for, and like they do all the research and they tell you it's like, okay, this guy, you're closing out hard, meaning like you have to be like completely up in disrupting the shooting pocket, Like even a contest doesn't work.

You have to disrupt the shooting pocket before he gets up into his release. When he gets up into the release, it's over right. And then they have everything from there to like closing out short, which is like I'm literally going to run out at you, but I'm purposefully gonna stop short and then if you shoot, I'll offer a late contest. And it's like, Bobby Portis is fifty one percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots field goal percentage not waited for threes. That's like he just makes

more than half of them. And so like at this point, he's already scorching hot and you're throwing short close outs at him. And if you guys want to see a visual example of what I'm talking about, go to my Twitter feed. I underscore jsonlt. I clipped like five or six examples of this. But Yusuf Nurkitz was just straight up just not paying attention and just letting Bobby Porters shoot.

There's another one. He comes out Bobby Porter's in a transition. Possession cuts through along the baseline and Kevin Durant points and tells Nurkics to pick him up, and Nurkics just doesn't run with him. So Portas catches on the on the right wing, and then all of a sudden, Nurkis is like, oh shit, I left him open again, and he sprints out at him. At this point, but Bobby just kind of pump fakes and takes a side step and knocks down another three. It was bad defense. Then

Malik Beasley hits a couple threes in a row. Now we're into that, like late second quarter stretch. There's a play. They're running a ball screen on the right side of the floor. Dame is and Bradley Beal, who's guarding Malik Beasley. Straight up, Malik Bezzy's Malik Beasley's on the left wing. Dame's running the ball screen on the right wing. Okay, Bradley Beal straight up turns his back like like, Malik Beasley's behind me, turns his back to go like offer

a third defender at the ball screen. The ball screen hasn't accomplished anything. They haven't even run it yet, so no one's open. So Beal's helping for no reason. So Dame just goes, okay, just throws a swing pass to a wide open Malik Beasley. They had already made sixteen threes to this point, and they're just leaving dudes wide open. Malik Beasley, by the way, went into the night as the ninth best three point shooter in the entire NBA.

Right after that, Vogel tries a little bit of zone they were on like a three to two zone, which a three two zone. The way it looked like they were, I think what Frank Vogel was thinking in this three two zone was essentially having all five three point shot spots occupied. But again, it's about execution. Kevin Durantz in the left corner guarding in the three two, but because it was unoccupied, he kind of started down at the block.

Malik Beasley runs to the corner and Kadie's just too slow getting out there, and Malik Beasley gets open again. He had just made that three, beating Bradley Beal. Now they're down twenty two points in the game's over. Like it was. It was honestly one of phoenix worst defensive

performances of the season. And they like again, like we talk a lot about shooting luck and and look, I want to be clear, I do believe that there's a variance element to shooting, and we'd be all foolish to pretend that like that doesn't exist, But there are so many different things that factor into it that go way

deeper than just like nearest defender. And it's like you let a guy get comfortable, you let a team get comfortable, with wide open looks, and then even when you do start offering token contests later that qualify as like a the defender got within you know whatever distance, but it doesn't matter because they're confident they're in rhythm, and there's a difference between being there on time and being there late, because like, if you get there and you get the

hand up, but you didn't actually disrupt the fluidity of the of the upward shooting motion, it's gonna go in when they're like that. Even further, like, I've seen teams that can concede shots into teams missing, but they're get They're like teams that drag games down into the mud. Teams that like are super physical and they kick your ass for forty eight minutes to where even when you're wide open, you're exhausted and you can't knock the shots down.

Phoenix is not one of those teams. They're not physically imposing like that. They're not going to be a team that can get away with packing the paint and leaving guys open. They're gonna have to be better about getting

out to shooters. So if Phoenix goes on a run, they get it back to six on an Eric Gordon kind of like janky pump fake give and go situation where he kind of like takes a goes up like he's gonna take a bad shot, nearly gets blocked, throws it down to the block, cuts down, gets a little lay up. It's one hundred and ninety four, so they get it down to six. There was only there was like a minute and some change left in the third quarter when that shot went in. Milwaukee went into the

fourth quarter up fifteen. They turned it from six to fifteen in less than two minutes, and it was mostly dang driving a lot of downhill pressure. Drew a foul on Devin Booker, if I remember correctly, drew another foul I can't remember who the second one was on. Got to the foul one a couple times, and then right before the buzzer just kind of takes that same kind of drifting to the right pull up three or drifting to the left pull up three when he hit the

game winner a few months ago. But just a quick little slurry from Damian Lillard and whatever run or hope that Phoenix had to get back in the game was gone like that. And I do think it's interesting that Dame has looked a lot more in rhythm in these games that Giannis has been out, and to me, that's a strong indicator that more of his issues this year have been about rhythm rather than about his decline. And

to me, that's super encouraging. And for the record, if you go back in this recent stretch, he's he's like, I can't remember the exact stretch of games that I pulled this morning, but the last sample of the last few weeks, he's up around like thirty eight percent from three and s field goal percentage is like forty four percent, and scoring volume hasn't been great, but he's been knocking down shots at a higher cliff than he did to start the season. Chris Middleton looked great twenty two points

on only fifteen shots. He had seven assists. Super important element to Milwaukee reach whatever offensive ceiling they have is getting Chris Middleton out there and humming on offense. And then here's the thing. They did not defend super well yesterday. They gave up a one to twenty eight offensive rating to Phoenix, so technically they defended bad. There were a couple of smart things they did, though, like they really

kind of removed kd's aggression from the game. And one of the things they did that was really smart is when KDI would have his cleared side ISOs, they would bring help from the baseline and then pre rotate like windshield wiper rotation from the weak side the skip pass. So basically normally like you'll see a double team from one pass away and it'll be super easy to make

that hickout pass, right. But because they were doubling from the baseline side and rotating from the skip pass and taking advantage of Phoenix's issues sometimes when beating double teams with smart decision making and quick on time and on target passes, they were able to kind of effectively rotate out of those kt KD double teams without up too much, which was though one little silver lining defensively from an otherwise you know, you know, mixed bag of defense on

the Phoenix side. It's really that simple to me, Like if they defend like that, they're gonna get beaten in the first round. They're not good enough in some of these other areas to get away with just leaving people open like that. And and again, like I've seen Phoenix have really good defensive performances. I know it's in there. It's just a question of consistency. I mean, I saw quote from Kyrie after the MAVs game saying the same kind of thing, like, oh, we know we can do that,

and it's like, yeah, that's great. But like like I talked about yesterday when we were talking about the Kings, if it's not a habit, then when shit hits the fan, I don't trust you to be able to do it. It's got to be a habit. It's got to be something that you It's unusual when you don't do it,

not unusual when you do do it. And we're getting to that point with Phoenix in Dallas where both of those teams where it's like when they do it, it looks great, but when they don't, they can lose to anybody, and it's it's in. It's a problem, all right. I re irving as the most skilled player in the league. So obviously Kyrie makes a shot. We did a breakdown of the shot in our breakdown of the game, so I won't get into it right here. MAVs fans and

Nuggets fans looking for a breakdown of mapvs. Nuggets, you can find that on our YouTube feed. In the full episode if you happen to be watching a breakout clip, but we have Damian Lillard come out after the game talking about whether or not Kyrie Irving is the most skilled player in the NBA. Now, this has been a debate around the game of basketball for a very long time, and specifically, I think this moniker is one that we use with Kyrie specifically because of the fact that he's

kind of a confusing player. What I mean by that is like Kyrie is like super super good. There's a pretty substantial gap, in my opinion, between how good Kyrie is and how much he's valued by most basketball fans. This is something I've been pushing back on for years now. It's like, Okay, so you disagree with some stuff Kyrie did off the floor. Okay, so he's had some clear examples of for teammate behavior. But when the dude is

on the court, he's incredible. He's literally incredible, And like we literally just saw the other night with Luca out, Kyrie almost single handedly hold his team to a win like they are they are. Like we over complicate this a lot of the times when we talk about basketball players, and we overlook because it's It's like it's almost become an expectation for a player. We overlook what a player is actually accomplishing on the court. Kyrie is a guy who can straight up be your number one if you're

great everywhere else. Can he be the number one on a limited team? No? Is he a floor razer like that? No, But the dude can run an offense, and he competes hard enough defensively when he's locked in that he can be a positive defensive player. He's a positive defensive player

on the twenty sixteen caves. So I think a lot of this is like Galaxy brain, right, And so the way people counteract that is when they have this half of their brain that's going like Kyrie's overrated, Kyrie's bad teammate, Kyrie's this, Kyrie's that they counteract that with like, oh, well, you know, he's the most skilled player in the NBA, instead of just talking about the fact that he's just

really great at basketball. And to me, that specific phrase most skilled, it really just depends on how you're defining that. To me, if I had to define what specifically Kyrie does better than most players in the league, it's a versatility of skills, He has the best combination of footwork, ball handling, and shot making from all of the various spots on the floor out of anybody in the league in my opinion, Like, there are guys who are better than him in ball screens, but they're not as good

in the post. There are guys that are better than in the post, but they're not as good in ball screens. There are guys who are better than him in ISO, but they aren't as good in the other areas. Kyrie is literally capable of doing every conceivable basketball thing as about as well as anybody in the league, but that doesn't necessarily make him the most skilled in my opinion. For instance, I think when when people ask me who the most skilled player in NBA history was or is,

it's very obvious to me it's Steph Curry. Who's the only player beneath the height of six ' five who is a top ten player in NBA history. It's Steph. I have him as the fifth best perimeter player of all time, and he's pretty much definitively a top ten player in NBA history. All the other dudes around him are big guys, either big forwards or centers, right or

shooting guards that are six ' six and freaky athletic. Right, So, like Steph has proven just in what he's been able to accomplish on the court that when it comes to winning basketball games on the strength of his skill, no one's better than Steph. But to me, with Steph, it's

focused in specific areas. So, for instance, Kyrie Irving in my opinion, has a more advanced ISO bag in terms of the numbers of moves that he can go to, but Steph's just way better than him at shooting, and Steph has been able to weaponize that shooting both on ball and off the ball to a greater effect than Kyrie has been able to weaponize all of his footwork

and dribble combinations and shot making. So I can't. I can't in my right mind say Kyrie's more skilled than Steph because Steph's skill beats Kyrie's skill every single time. And I don't blame Steph like, for instance, Kyrie. Here's just one simple example. Kyrie Irving is a better vertical athlete than Steph. Steph is bigger and stronger, equally quick,

but Kyrie is a better vertical athlete. He also has a shot where he shoots at the top of his jump, where Steph shoots a little bit more at the beginning, a little bit like on the way up in his shot. So, for instance, doesn't make any sense at all for Steph to work on, you know, complicated posts turnaround footwork, because

he's never gonna use that. He's not enough of a vertical athlete and his jump shot release is not built to turn over his left shoulder and elevate over the top of a defender in a post up and knock down a shot. Now, that's not to say Steph has never hit a turnaround jumper. Of course he has, but it's extremely rare. It's not a shot he goes to and he usually needs a lot of separation to do it. That's not a shot he works on because it doesn't

make sense for him to work on it. So Kyrie, because he is a better vertical athlete, and because he does shoot at the top of his release or release at the top of his jump, he is a guy that actually can use and does use turnaround jump shots

all the time. Famously, Game five of the twenty sixteen NBA Finals, in that four quarter run, I think he get two big left shoulder fades over Klay Thompson, where he drove hard to the left, planted and turned over his left shoulder, got great step got great lift, shot over the contest of Klay Thompson, and shotdown right like

it's just it's just a difference. But at the same time, like bottom line is Stepford damn near his entire career has come off of ball ball screens and off ball actions and hit threes at like forty five percent on massive volume, and and and and he's learned how to weaponize that into a playmaking element of his game, both on and off the ball. And Steph is able to weaponize his skill into more points and and therefore he's a better basketball player, and therefore he's the most skilled

player in NBA history in my opinion. But if I was looking for some sort of claim to fame for Kyrie, to me, he is the most versatile skill set in the NBA. He can score like forwards do. He can score like shooting guards do. He can score like point guards do. He can do what Steph does and come off of a wide pin down and shoot a movement three over his left or right shoulder. He can run a ball screen and make a variety of pull up threes in pick and roll, but he's not as good

at those things as Steph is. And that's why I look.

I look at Steph as the most skilled player in the NBA. But again, like to me, that really is just in the eye of the beholder, and arguing arguing about it doesn't really make a ton of sense, just simply because like, most skilled to one person may not mean the same thing to another person. For instance, like Steph, in my opinion, is a much better playmaker than Kyrie, But like, like does that factor in as a skill? Steph is a much better off ball player than Kyrie.

The ability to move without the basketball and weaponize that is that a skill? It just depends if you're factoring it in, because if we're not factoring that in, if I'm just strictly looking at like one on one play, then I might lean more towards Kyrie or I, like I have to think about it, But like it's it's a different discussion, right, And that's my point, Like it's it's really difficult to kind of nail down the parameters

of this. But what like if I had to based on my kind of interpretation of what most skilled is. It's the one guy in NBA history who's beneath the height of six five, who's a top ten player in the history of the game. That's Steph. He won with the skill and did it better than any other skill player in the history of the league. Therefore it's him, and that's why I give him that title, all right,

Moving on our power rankings. Number ten the new team Dallas Mavericks bounce back nicely from their disastrous East Coast road road trip in February. They've won five of their last six, their eighth in defense over that span. Remember, their defense really fell apart on the East Coast trip,

so obviously that's encouraging. They legitimize it all with the gigantic win over the Nuggets yesterday kind of demonstrated some of the advantages they have in terms of their ability to capitalize on the lesser defenders in Denver's roster by being more deliberate about their matchup, attacking, and some of their perimeter speed. Number nine the LA Clippers. The bottom continues to fall out for them. They've lost four of

their last five. They are also now just eight to ten in their last eighteen games, they are seventeenth in offense and twenty sixth and defense over that span. All of a sudden, this what was kind of a slump is starting to look like something that's a lot worse. This is a quarter of a season where they've been mostly a bad team, and that's a problem. Last night against the Hawks, I only checked out the second quarter of this game when the bottom kind of fell out.

Bad defense all over the floors, especially in transition, just like basic shit like not getting back and protecting the basket, really stagnant offensively as well. It just kind of looks like bad vibes. And like, again, this is one of those things you can build good habits, and the Clippers did for a long time, but they've now spent a

long time building bad habits. And again, like this is one of those things where like sometimes it's really difficult to regain control of the situation, which is why it's so important when you identify your starting to let go of the rope a little bit, that's when you have to knuckle down and kind of regain your identity. They've let this drag on for a really long time now, and they could be in some trouble number eight, the New Orleans Pelicans two in one week. They beat the

Clippers and the Blazers. They lost the Caves. Zion's last thirteen games twenty four point seven rebounds and six assists, fifty eight percent from the field, thirty three percent from three to seventy four percent from the line. Really the season turned around from them on the strength of their

defense and Zion Williamson's offensive leap that he took. It kind of seems like circum kind of seemed like a part of the circumstance of him just kind of getting into shape over the course of the season as well. Zion's been one of the best and most versatile shot creators in the NBA this year. One point zero seven points per possession and pick and roll on four hundred

and fifteen possessions. That's eighty second percentile, one point zero four points per ISO on three hundred and seventy three possessions, at seventy first percentile, one point zero five points per post up, which is in two hundred and forty eight possessions, which is fifty six percentile. He's personally shooting fifty one percent from the field in all of those situations, so really impressive shot creation season from Zion to make the mistake.

They're winning on the strength of their defense, second best in defensive rating over their last fifteen games and also second best at forcing turnovers over the course of that fifteen game span. Number seven the Cleveland Cavaliers. They beat the Pelicans, but they lost to Houston and Phoenix. Still really struggling to score the basketball with Evan Mobley out. They've put it George' kneeing in at the four, and it just hasn't go well, gone well on both ends

of the floor. He is getting attacked a lot on defense, and he's not making enough shots on the other end, probably in large part because he's having to work so hard on the defensive end with teams picking on him. Both Donovan Mitchell and Karris Lavert are slumping right now, so a little bit of a downturn going on in Cleveland. Number six the New York Knicks three and oh week right win against Sacramento on Saturday really bullied the Kings physically.

Ojan Andobi is back first three games the plus minus hero keeping it going there plus forty five in Ojan and Obi's minutes over the last three games. Number five the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kind of a light schedule week for them. They only had two games, super impressive defensive performance against the Clippers, Kawhi went down, and then they just strangled the life out of Paul George and James Harden to

get a win. Then they blew out the Jazz. I still don't love Kyle Anderson at the four, but they got another month to kind of figure out what they want to do on that front. I'm sure they will again. I still lean towards either going with nas Reed for bigger matchups and then going with the kill Alexander Walker for smaller matchups. I just don't think Hayle Anderson at this phase is having enough impact on either end of

the floor to justify it. Kind of feels like just putting a forward out there for the sake of putting a forward out there. Number four the Milwaukee Bucks. The West Coast trip was an absolute disaster. They went one to three and their defense got absolutely shredded. But they came back. They got a big bounce back win against Philly, and then their offense broke out in a huge way

against Phoenix. An outstanding jump shooting game from them. Another game where Dame looked really comfortable with higher usage, which is encouraging to me, just kind of in terms of like whether or not this has to do with his kind of rough season, whether or not it has to do with decline, or just the fit, and I lean more towards the fit, which is encouraging because all you really have to do is figure it out by the time you get to Boston, and they have plenty of

time until then. Chris Middleton's first game back, he looked great. Only thing that's concerning a one to twenty four defensive rating for Milwaukee over the last six games, which is really bad, even in the win against Phoenix that got lit up defensively of one twenty eight defensive rating in that game. So need to gain regain control of the situation on defense. Three Oklahoma City Thunder two in one week. They beat Dallas in Memphis, lost Indiana. Jalen Williams missed

the Indiana game, so they're loss. Obviously they were short handed, but he came back and was incredible in a big win over that red hot Mavericks team. Just a really interesting example of high level shot making while also getting to the rim with his power defensive plays at the end of the game, making a big block at the rim, had a nasty dunk in kind of garbage time, I should say, like kind of the ice the game on a backcut. Just love his combination of talent and competitiveness.

I think he's a star in the making. Number two the Denver Nuggets. They're lost to Dallas and Boston's undefeated week have Denver dropping to two in my power rankings. But here's all I'm gonna say. They have two losses total since the All Star Break, and both of them were games where they held a three point lead in the final seconds and lost basically just on supreme shot making, contested pull up three from Kevin Durant, a thirty foot bomb from Luka Doncic, and Kyrie Irving making a crazy

left handed flav floater. Make of that whatever you will in terms of whether or not it's a matchup weakness. I go the other way. If you're eleven and two with two last second losses and you're the defending champion and you're ramping up going into the postseason, that to me is a big box checked for. Like primes to repeat and It's a big part of why I'm still

so confident in Denver. Number one. Boston Celtics undefeated week some light games in their schedule against Portland, Utah, and Washington, but they had one of their most impressive wins of the season against Phoenix. I thought Al Horford was an absolute monster in that game, torching both of pretty much every Phoenix big man who played for overhelping in the paint. Tatum and Brown were both amazing in that game as well.

They're clicking on all cylinders. It seems to me pretty consistently whenever Boston has a disappointment like those back to back losses to Denver and Cleveland, they tend to bounce back in a big way. And they really did. They're sitting at number one in our power rankings. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. Is always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Will be back from morning with another instant reaction as well as

a mail bag. I'll see you guys. Then the volume