Hoops Tonight - Lakers beat Warriors without LeBron, Luka Doncic & Kyrie Irving initial impressions

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I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend so far, although technically I'm recording this shortly before midnight on Saturday night. We have a jam packed show tonight, a highly entertaining game between the Lakers and the Warriors, despite Steph Curry and Lebron James both missing the game. I also have some thoughts about the Gary Peyton fiasco surrounding that trade and some of the shenanigans that the Portland Trailblazers may or may not have been engaging in.

And then in the back half of the show, Luca and Kyrie make their debut together in an overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings, and I've got a lot of thoughts on just the initial impressions on Kyrie irving with the Dallas Mavericks as well as the Sacramento Kings, who, on the strength of a big performance from Deer and Fox, notched a big win. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channel so

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had there. I also would encourage you guys to go check out Dead in Company and their final tour this year. If you've ever seen John Mayer, the the uh, the pop artist when he plays with Dead in Company is very blues heavy, very guitar heavy. If you're into that sort of thing, you'd really like it. I'm going to see him twice, once in Phoenix and once in San Francisco.

Hop on the game Time app. So if you guys can find some tickets uh to that concert, no matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week, download the game Time app and to your email and redeem code Hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again, enter your email and the code Hoops that's h o O p s for twenty dollars off. Download game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Lebron James was out.

Anthony Davis did not play well really in any facet of the game. Was losing contested, rebounded battle or rebound battles. He could not finish around the rim, could not make his jump shot, just was having a nightmare game. Aside from a handful of big defensive plays down the stretch, and the Lakers won a game on the road against the team that was twenty one and six at home

coming into the night. Now, obviously Steph was out, but you're not gonna have you're not gonna hear that excuse get thrown thrown around in the Warrior's locker room when Lebron James missed the game. And this is a Lakers team that was what and thirty one coming into the game. But you know the theme of this, uh show as it pertains to or theme of this game, I should say, as it pertains to the Lakers, is margin for air.

When I covered the Lakers before I worked for the Volume, I used to always say on my show, I would say that if the role players played well alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis, they would beat the ship out of you. And then if the role players played okay, they'd win by ten fifteen points. And if the role players played poorly, the game could go either way. But

that was based on the roster before the Russell Westbrook trade. Now, again, I way too much blame has been associated with Russell Westbrook as it pertains to the Lakers struggles as opposed to the Russell Westbrook trade and the talent that was sent out again in that deal, they lost Kyle Kuzma, a big forward that was a great two way player. Contavious called Pope one of the best role player two

guards in the league. In the ensuing salary crunch, they lost Alex Caruso, one of the best guard defenders in the league who had great offensive chemistry with Lebron James shadow from three his last year with the Lakers was great cutting to the rim, off the ball, lots of of synergy that those players had alongside Lebron James and Anthony Davis. And when those guys went out, that talent level dipped below whatever that, you know, absolute minimum they

needed to be a functional basketball team. And Russell Westbrook in his declined phase of his career, was not good enough to make up for that talent that went out the window. And what happened with the trades, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the downside of them waiting this long here in a little bit, but what happened with those trades is you brought back in enough talent on the from the role players to bring them back above that minimum level, and now they look a

lot more like a functional basketball team. Now. The role players are not always going to play that well. Role players are always a little bit more inconsistent than stars are. That just kind of comes with the territory. But what you saw tonight was with them playing really well, they were able to allow Anthony Davis to struggle in all of those phases of the game and to allow Lebron James to rest his foot hopefully up until the trade deadline,

if they excuse me, the All Star break. If they can rest him to the All Star Break, they can get him twelve full days off through the Sunday of the All Star Game, then ramp him up for a few days before the rematch rematch for the with the Warriors the following Thursday. But that margin for error did not exist before this trade deadline, And and you're seeing why I've been preaching so much about that, because as a result of not having that margin for air before this,

you had to run Lebron James into the ground. And and we're gonna talk a little bit more about that later, but this is why it's so important to have all of that talent in the other areas of the roster. I always talked about all the different responsibilities that have to be filled on a basketball court. Role players are monumentally important in those areas, and you saw that tonight for the Lakers. Now, um, I want to talk a little bit about the game plan that the Lakers used

and then we'll talk about the specific role players. So tactically, in basketball, every coach goes into a game with the game plan right, and for this particular game, especially since Steph Curry it was out, it opened up some options

for the Lakers to be particularly aggressive on defense. And so what they did in this game is they took Anthony Davis and Ruey Hachimura and then in the bench line of Jared Vanderbilt and when you when you Gabriel, and they basically had them completely ignore Kevan Luny and Draymond Green when they were on the floor, and also to Michael Green and Jonathan Comingo when they were on

the floor, so they were lingering around the paint. Then what they did with all of the guards is they denied them the ability to come off of those dribble handoffs and wide pin downs. Now in basketball, they call it top locking. But basically what that means is is,

like screens over here, I'm guarding this guy. Rather than locking and trailing, which would mean I'd get behind him and try to stay attached, I'm top locking, which means I'm getting between him and the screen and basically giving up a back cut at the expense of taking away his ability to come off the screen. Now, in theory, you think you're gonna get back cut all day long,

But what's happening behind those back cuts? Anthony Davis is waiting there, Ruby Hatchmer's waiting there, Jared Vanderbilt and why Gabriel are waiting there. So essentially, the Lakers ignored Draymond Green and Kevan Luni and the other Warriors nonshooters to allow their guards to overplay every single screening action that Golden State used in the game, and it shut down

most of their motion offense. I thought it was really really smart on their end, and it actually led the Lakers to holding the Warriors to twenty six or fewer points in three of the four quarters. And then they made just enough offensive plays down the stretch. Anthony Davis made a couple of big defensive plays they ended up getting the win. Now, I have some specific ideas in mind for how to counter that sort of thing. We'll get to that when they talk when we talk about

the Warriors. But I do want to stay on the Lakers for a little bit. Lots of the older Lakers played well, like Dennis Schroder had twenty six points, Austin Reeves like completely shut down Clay Thompson down the stretch of this game. He's always been an underrated defensive player in this league. But I want to focus on each of the brand new Lakers for just a minute. So that D'Angelo Russell was really good. He defended well, started the game on Clay, made enough plays offensive to be

in net positive. Uh. Anthony Davis was not screening well for him. Again, we talked about this earlier. Anthony Davis struggled in every single phase of the game. UM, so he wasn't getting those downhill opportunities that really opened up the pick and roll for him. But he still made

quite a few plays. I was talking with Carson you guys have seen him come on the show before, uh, in a text message thread during the game, and he was just saying how Dangel Russell never looks rushed when he's in his screen, and I noticed that two in the game because Golden State was pressuring the hell out of the ball. And and to the credit, you know,

we talked about Anthony davis is screening. I want to credit the Golden State guards as well, because they did a really nice job staying attached and fighting over those screens. But even with that, D'Angel Russell did a really nice job just staying slow, staying under control, and making just enough offensive plays to be in that positive. He made a huge three down the stretch of this game. He had a really nice and one in traffic down the stretch of this game. Honestly, it was a breadth of

fresh air to see a real skill guard in that backcourt. Again, D'Angel Russell's not my favorite skill guard in the NBA, but it's about fit and it's about need, and just seeing that type of offensive skill put into a backcourt that completely lacked it was really refreshing tonight. Um Jared Vanderbilt I said on I can't remember which episode of our our show I set it in, but he was my favorite player in that trade deadline deal because he's a real athletic forward like Ruby Hotchermer is more of

an offensively minded big forward. But Jared vanderbilts like a legit, like dirty work, just monster of an athlete that plays at the power forward position. And you saw him just completely wreck that game on both ends of the floor. Um, he had four I told you guys coming into the uh when we did our first preview of the Lakers trade that he was averaging four offensive rebounds per thirty six minutes. He grabbed two of them tonight in just

seventeen minutes and played excellent defense. Finished the game with twelve points, eight rebounds, and four assists in just seventeen minutes, which is an outrageous box score if I would extrapolate that out to a thirty six minute shift seventeen and eight. I told you guys right when the trade went down that I thought he was a much better version of Winning Gabriel, and you guys all got to see what

that looks like tonight. Lakers fans are going to love him, and honestly, Darvin Hamm needs to find more than seventeen minutes for him. He just played him two shifts in this game, one in the middle of each half. I'd like to see them find a way to just kind of fit him into the game a little bit longer. Uh Ruey also played extremely well. Sixteen points and seven rebounds. UM doesn't seem like much in the box score, but

it was deeply impactful. You know, one of the things that I really liked about bringing in Jared Vanderbilt is it creates a positional battle. I'll give you an example. So like when I signed at Arizona Christian after my second year in junior college, I was an All conference player in JUCO. They brought me into Arizona Christian and I took a starting spot away from a player that had an All conference selection the previous year at the small forward position UM, and his name was Jordan's very

good player. He ended up starting a bunch of games that year. I ended up starting a bunch of games that year. But we battled every single day in practice and in the games. We all brought our absolute very best because we knew that, like, if I didn't have it that night, Jordan was getting the minutes, And if Jordan didn't have it that night, I was getting the minutes. You know what I mean. It was like a real

positional battle. Between two really good forwards that had track records of success in the past, and so as a result, that actually forced us all to be on the top of our game at all times. And that's kind of the way I looked at it, Like, no, Jared Vanderbilt, Ruey Hotchmur is really the only forward on the roster. He's getting all the minutes, so there's less motivation to be dialed in on the glass or or to defend

at an extremely high level. And I thought this was Ruey Hotchmer's best defense and rebounding game of his entire Lakers tenure so far. And I think a big part of that is that positional battle with Jared. You know, if he's not playing well, if he's missing those shots and he's not contributing on the defensive end and he's not grabbing rebounds, Darvin Ham's gonna pull him and Jared Vanderbilt is gonna get those minutes. And like, just like

in any industry, competition is good. It actually drives success from everybody involved. Another thing that Ruy did really well tonight was just rescuing possessions. He had a couple of late clock three's, a couple of wonderable pull ups on possessions that broke apart. I always talk about rescue possessions or offensive players in their ability to rescue possessions as

the difference between good offenses and great offenses. Just squeezing an extra four or five points out of game is the difference between a one eleven offensive offensive rating in a one seventeen offensive read rating, right, And that's the difference between a middle of the pack offense and a great offense, right. So getting that type of offensive production from Ruey is really going to help this team, especially when they get in the playoffs and the easy opportunities

go away. Malik Beasily had a rough shooting night, like he's over six from three, but even he made some big plays attacking the rim. He had a nice little floater push shot in the first half, and then in the second half he made a drive driving layup and then missed another that occupied the rim protector, allowing Jared Vanderbilt to get an easy offensive rebound put act. And his shot quality was great uh um, So in the long run, I do believe he's gonna make a lot

of shots and fit really well. So a lot to be optimistic about for Laker fans after tonight, obviously winning a big game on the road and must win without Lebron with Anthony Davis not playing well. Um, but I do want to talk really quick about Lebron's foot because I think it was Chris Haynes reported that Lebron's foot

has been experienced. He's been experiencing quote unquote unbearable pain. Now, Rob Polinka did come out and say that the imaging that they recently got done was clean, So I think it's mainly just soreness. But I do you know this. I I want to be clear. Rod Polinka did an amazing job at this trade deadline, zooming out to the Ruby Hat to mr trade, to what happened at the deadline. Rob did a great job. So I want to I want to set that as our our initial kind of

like basement for this conversation. Um. But a couple of things. The mo Bamba trade who Mobamba didn't play tonight, But the Mobamba trade was unrelated to the summer. That could have been made even if they made a deal this summer. The Ruby Hotch Murray trade was unrelated to this summer. They could have made that trade at this deadline, even

if they didn't make it during the summer. So the only real differences is like, let's compare you know, Buddy Healed and Miles Turner versus D'Angel Russell, Malik Beasley and Jared Vanderbilt. Now, Jared Vanderbilt is very good. I think Miles Turner is a little bit better. Uh, Malik Beasley is very good. I think Buddy Heals is a little bit better. So the real swing piece in that trade is d'angela Russell and you save one pick. Now, what did I say coming into the season, If you guys remember,

I was clear. I said, I understand the thought process behind the Lakers waiting. Maybe you get a better deal. But what did I say was the risk? I said, the risk was that you were going to dig yourself a hole in the standings and put yourself in a situation where you have to have a bad uphill climb to get out of. That situation ended up being even

worse than that. And thirty one Lebron James experiencing foot pain and the reason why he is experiencing those foot issues is that when Anthony Davis went down, Lebron had to absolutely hit the Jets to a damn near m v P level just to keep the team afloat, and he did. To be clear, the Lakers net rating this year with Lebron James on the floor is I think plus two point seven per one possessions. To give you some perspective, the Milwaukee Bucks for all teams, are sixth

in net rating at plus two point nine. So that's the level of play that Lebron has been giving you this year, just to float you to six games below five hundred. So all I'm saying is like, this might all work out. The team looks great, but Lebron and Anthony Davis have to play at a playoff level now from the middle of February all the way until the end of the season, and you're asking a thirty eight year old to do that in an injury prone center. To do that. Again, results tell the story. I say

this all the time. The winner tells the story. So this might all work out and the Lakers might win the title this year, in which case Rob Polinka looks

like a genius. But let's say that they Anthony Davis breaks down because he has to play at a playoff level this whole time, or Lebron James breaks down because he has to play at a playoff level this whole time, while the Celtics can ease their way into the playoffs, while the Bucks can ease their way into the playoffs, while the Nuggets can ease their way into the playoffs. Now we have to push things forward to next year. And Rob Polinka's deals did a nice job providing future flexibility.

But I've always said that the urgency is Lebron's late prime. And why because if you don't do it this year, you gotta do it next year. And if you make it to the finals in Lebron is thirty nine and a half years old, and it's it's very likely that at thirty nine and a half he's not quite as capable of carrying YouTube Championship ceiling as he was in

the bubble. In so ro Rod got his wish, he got a better package, but he paid dearly in the standings, and he paid dearly and where and tear on his thirty eight year old SuperStar's body and results will tell the story. But if Lebron James and Anthony Davis breakdown, I do believe it is associated with the fact that you did not give them this margin for error throughout the season. And that's why I disagreed with that strategy.

That's why I would have gone, uh, made the deal this summer, this previous summer, and maybe they're sitting at thirty one and instead, and now you're more concerned about just getting to the playoffs as opposed to you literally have to go you know, twenty and six or whatever just to have an opportunity to get out of the plane, or asking Lebron James and Anthony Davis to win a must win game on the road at Golden State potentially like that, that's the predicament that they're in that has

to be factored into your calculus of the way that you interpret this trade. But to be clear, having waited, Rob did some really nice work around the deadline, bringing good players in on the Golden State front. Now. I talked a lot earlier in the show about the Lakers top locking and not allowing the shooters to come off the screen, forcing them to back cut into the rim protection. Um. I would have adjusted to that by doing what the Warriors did to the Boston Celtics, which is lean heavily

into pick and roll in isolation. Pick and roll was their most effective play type in the game by far. The Warriors ran thirty three pick and rolls tonight for thirty four points. Every other play type was below a point per possession. Off screen plays zero points six nine points per possession, handoffs zero point four six points per possession, post ups zero point six seven points per possession. All

that data is courtesy of Synergy. By the way, um I would have leaned into the pick and roll, which obviously was what was working, because in that case, when you have a live ball dribbler coming down off of a ball screen, first of all, Anthony Davis isn't drops, so you're gonna get some good looks potentially for pull up shooters guys like Lay Thompson and Jordan Pool, right, but most importantly all of your off ball players, because they're not preparing for coming off the pin downs and stuff.

They're sucked into traditional help position. So now if they ignore Draymond and you make that pitch out to him, or if they know Looney and you make that pitch out to him, they can quickly flow into those dribble handoffs that get those wide open shots because it's not like they're locked up to the shooters off the ball in pick and roll. That would just give Jordan Pool way too much space to operate. They're in traditional help side, they're not locked onto their man. That is what opens

up those dribble handoffs for those opportunities. So I would have made that adjustment personally, But to be honest, it's a regular season game and you're not always going to see those types of adjustments in that setting. And we literally saw in the finals last year the Warriors go heavy into pick and roll to adjust to Boston running

that drop cover schemes. So it's not a criticism of Steve Kerr, it's just the reality of regular season basketball, like sometimes you're just gonna lean into a game plan because it's not worth diving that far into the wheats. And then, honestly, it was also just a poor shooting night. Clay Thompson and Jordan Pool combined to go six for three from three UM, so you kind of just throw it away at that point. And credit to the the Lakers, they played really really well tonight. UM. Thoughts on the

Gary Payton situation super weird. Apparently Golden State thinks Portland didn't properly disclose the injury. There may or may not have been toward all shots being shot into Gary Payton's abdomen every single day just so he can play, which is obviously a major, major scan. I think it's a major, major scandal. But it seems to me that the league

is basically just saying take it or leave it. I I haven't I'm not a percent sure, but I've seen some reporting that they're not going to let them adjust the pit compensation, and so it's a really tough position. And it really sucks because the bridge between James Wiseman and the Warriors was already in pretty rough shape, and trading him seems to have, you know, you would think

theoretically burned that bridge completely. UM. I still think this ends up with the Warriors just accepting the deal, but who knows. We'll see. We we're gonna find out tomorrow. Um. And in theory, Gary Payton should be available for a postseason run. I've talked a lot about how much I value him, so I'm not gonna get into that today. But the Warriors are going to have to pivot to the buy out market. Now. What's interesting is the last

few years, the buyout market has not been very good. Um, but this season it actually shapes up to be pretty interesting, and I think that's a byproduct of how busy the trade market was. Um I'd be keeping on eye on guys like Danny Green, who potentially could be healthy for a playoff run. Um. I I keep an eye on new Lands Noel potentially getting bought out. Patrick Beverley, Although I'm not I'm not a huge fan of his fit in Golden State, his name got brought up on the

national broadcast tonight. I first of all, I think Golden States cards are excellent and too He's Patrick Beverley's little bit of a ball stopper, which doesn't work super well in the Golden State scheme. He doesn't make quick decisions. He kind of catches on the wing and hill jab step and do that sort of thing. Um. Another guy keep an eye on is Dwayne Deadman. The Warriors need a big and I'm not a huge Dayne Deadman fan, but he's kind of one of the only ones that

could come available this year. UM. So I do think the Warriors will be active in that market, and that might have to be the way that they show her up their depth before Gary Payton can come back. They have a big game at home on on Monday against

Washington that they have to win. Alright, Moving on to Mavericks King, So Dear and Fox really took this game over down the stretch, making all sorts of little short jump shots in the lane and and made a huge defensive play in a trap on Luca where he shot the passing lane and got a dunk and made a couple of floaters as well. I was pulling some data on floaters because it seems like every single Deer and Fox floater that he takes goes in. He's shooting fifty

four percent on floaters this year. Uh, there are seventy four players in the n b A who have taken at least fifty floaters, and darn Fox's sixth in percentage out of seventy four. Again, a little trivia, who do you guys think is best in the league at floaters? Nicola Yokich just take a wild guess at what the percentages? It's seventy. Nikolayoka just shooting sevent on floaters. Every every single Nicola Yoka stat is is just is just amazing to me. Um. The reason why I bring that up

is downhill guards, in particular, really fast downhill guards. They need something to check up before they get to the rim for a couple of different reasons. One, it's about wear and tear. You don't need to be flying into bodies all the time and trying to finish in traffic. It's gonna get you into some trouble and to your rimp. Your rim finishing will go down if the rim protector

can linger around the rim. Um. So having that float of the ability to check up short, especially with your athleticism too then short to take that little short pop floater in the lane is a great counter to that sort of thing. I see John Murant do this out

as well. UM. But the other big part of it is the midrange shooting UM and Darren Foxes shooting on two's jump shot twos that are inside the three point line this year, which is excellent, and the Mavericks just couldn't do anything with him down the stretch of this game. Another huge element to the U King's late game success in this game I thought was Terrence Davis. He did a really nice job ball pressuring Luca, and I thought it was some poor strategy on Dallas's part, which we'll

get to here in a minute. But just by pressuring Luca and having him slowly bring the ball off the floor made it really hard for Dallas to get into situations where they can actually run something like a specific pick and roll or a specific post up or things along those lines, because by the time they got the ball at the floor, Luca had to do something quickly, and more often than not he was just trying to

go downhill on Terrence davis um. But you know, for a guy that was giving up a lot of weight to Luca, just by keeping a good strong base and sliding his feet, well, he did a really nice job impact in the game with his ball pressure. What I would have done there is I would have just given the ball to Kyrie and then and had him bring

the ball off the floor and worked from there. Specifically, I thought the Mavericks best stuff that they were getting down the stretch of that game was when Luco was in the post on that right block, you know, with his left hand dribbling getting ready to shoot over his right shoulder because the Kings were doubling out of it, and the Mavericks did a nice job of putting Kyrie

irving one passed away. And you know, I I noticed this a lot when Kyrie was with the nets, where they would have, you know, because Kevin Durant was one of the best pick and roll ball handlers in the league with the nets, and what they would do is they'd have they'd have Kyrie s at the pick because then when the trap comes, Katie's making that quick pass to Kyrie on the short roll and it's a four on three, but you have one of the best offensive

players in the league making that first decision in the four on three and they would just torch teams with that, And I thought the Mavericks were getting really good shots when they would post up Luca have Kyrie one pass away, so when the double comes, it's that four on threety, but Kyrie is making that first play and they got some really good stuff out of that, and then they completely went away from it, which was confusing to me.

But um, one of the easiest ways to do that is have Kyrie bring the ball up the floor so that you have time for Luca to just jog down to the block and then fight for position against Terrence Davis. But credit to Terrence Stavis, he did a really nice job impact in the game with this ball pressure. He also hit a huge three and ot um after the Mavericks jumped out to a three point lead. The King's defense has now given up a hundred and twenty plus

points in four straight games. They are twenty three in defense. UM. Again, the Kings are really fun. I always enjoy watching them when I watched them play, but there's a clear ceiling here with their inability to get stops, which really comes down to the front court in my opinion. UM. One note on the MAVs two with their final shot. You know,

there's this debate like who gets the last shot? And it's to me, the decision is so simple when you've got two really great shot creators like that, it's who's got it going, who's in a rhythm? And what I didn't like about Luca taking that step back three and you know again like for Luca, it's a make a ball shot, sure, but like and I saw just an inkling of frustration on Kyrie after the game. I don't know if you guys noticed that, but uh, Kyrie had it going. He had just hit a while three before.

He's been freaking amazing on the offense events since he put on the jersey. That's one of those moments where it's like you get you put the ball in Kyrie's hands to try to tie the game there um, But we'll see how that shakes out over the coming months. Big picture, what I really like about Kyrie's fit with Dallas is he brings real pace and tempo to their offense.

Everything Luca does is slow, and you know, Kyrie is a live ball shot creator that does it out of ice so and pick and roll similar to Luca does, but he's much much quicker with the way that he does that. You know, if you throw the ball to Luca with eighteen seconds left on the shot clock on the left wing, it might take him nine seconds to decide what he's gonna do, whether that's a step back or beating his man off the a bill or backing

him down into the lane. Because he's gonna use a bunch of dribbles, he's gonna turn and pivot a bunch of times. He's gonna be very methodical in the way that he does it. And one of the nice things about Kyrie is he does play with real tempo. He's very quick with his decision to attack or to shoot, and there's a couple of different ways that I've seen that help. One. It's kind of like a change of

pace when lucas off the floor. You saw that a little bit tonight, and you saw that a lot in the two wins, Like Kyrie just immediately walks into Dallas and goes on the road to the Clippers and wins, and goes onto the road on the road to the Kings and wins. That's why you make the superstar trade.

And what blew my mind about everything surrounding the Kyrie discussion when his he was when he was available for trade is people continually glossed over the fact that the dude is freaking incredible at basketball, and like, yeah, if you want to have a conversation about the off court stuff, that's fine, But like, as a basketball player, the dude is an all world talent and that immediately changes everything

about the geometry of your basketball team. That's what allows you to sit Luca to rest an injury and went on the road against the Western Conference playoff team and then do it again a couple of nights later. Um, but fundamentally on the basketball court though you could even see it when Luca and Kyrie were together, just Luca making quicker decisions in the ball, popping around more. And you know, one of the things that I said about Luca when all this was going down, I said, don't

just assume that he can't play a different style. Yes, Luca is very hellocentric and slow paced when he's been running the Mavericks the last few years, but this dude grew up playing professional basketball in Europe. This dude is accustomed to ball movement and passing screen away and running sets. He's done all of that ship his entire life. So I have no idea why people were just assuming that Luca would be incapable of playing that style. And I

loved seeing that. A little bit of different tempo and pace to the way that the Mavericks play aid with Luca and Kyrie on the floor together. One other guy I wanted to talk about with the MAVs was Josh Green. You know, he came into the league is like a really great athlete, but that was a good, strong athlete that's kind of like the modern day wing that's a little bit shorter, but you know, quicker and more stout

and has a lower center of gravity. But he was a real liability in last year's playoffs, and you know, uh, Jason Kidd had some tough decisions in that bench guard role to go with either Frank Nilikina or Josh Green, and neither of them were making the corner threes that the Mavericks were generating for them, and it was a

whole thing. Um. But early in the season, I told you guys, you could tell immediately that Josh Green was in the lab all dayn summer because he had made so many improvements as a ball handler and a shooter. And you saw it every single time you watched the mass watched the Maps play. But I pulled some data today to show you, guys just how ridiculous the improvement is.

So last year, there were two and fifty seven players in the league to have at least one spot up opportunities, and Josh Green ranked two hundred and two out of two fifty seven, scoring just zero point nine two points per possession and spot up rolls or spot up situations. This year, he's averaging one point two points per spot up possession. There are a hundred and nine players who have run at least a hundred and he's twenty four.

So in one summer, he literally went from being one of the very worst spot up players in the league to one of the very best spot up players in the league. So tip of the cap to Josh Green, because I thats just the sheer thousands and thousands and thousands of reps that took this summer to make that type of improvement. I think is really really impressive. As a team, the Mavericks are still really small, and I don't know if they can hold up physically in a

playoff series. But if Maxi Kleiber can get healthy and you look at a lineup of you know, they went heavy with Reggie Bullocks to night, so theoretically would probably be like Maxi Kleiba. They could theoretically go with Powell there, but I think they're spacing is better with Cliba. Do you go kliba um with Josh Green, Reggie Bullock, Luca Luca Donche and Kyrie Irving. If they can just keep games close, that five is gonna be a pain in the ass to deal with at the end of games

and they're gonna get great shots all the time. So again, I don't have them as a top tier championship contender or anything like that I'm more interested in the Mavericks in the long run, but man, are they gonna be fun to watch, and I'm looking forward to watching the MAVs the rest of the year. Al Right, guys, we are taking the next two days off for Super Bowl, but we'll be covering Monday night's games on Tuesday morning, and then we'll be doing a show on Tuesday night,

breaking down. I believe that one is Celtics Bucks that night that will be live on AMP. The Warriors play the Clippers that night, will be breaking that game down on Wednesday morning. So that's just kind of a little look at our first three shows next week. But I enjoy the Super Bowl. I'm on the Eagles. I think they're gonna win. We're about a touchdown. Um excited to hang out with some friends and enjoy I watched the

game and we've done It's been a busy week. I was telling my wife this morning, I think we've done eight shows in the last seven days. So I'm looking forward to a couple of days off, but I'm also very very excited for the stretch run with you guys. As always, I sincerely appreciate the sport and I'll see you guys next time. The volume