Hoops Tonight - Lakers' big road win, 76ers championship ceiling, Westbrook shines for Clippers

super easy. You can jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting and I love building those same game parlays and fanduels now live in Ohio, so use promo code Jason T and download the FanDuel app today to start making every moment more twenty one plus In select states, FanDuel is offering online sports way during in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC.

Gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG In Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia call one eight hundred next step or text next step to five three three four two. In Arizona dial one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org slash chat. In Connecticut dial one eight hundred nine with it. In Indiana, dial one eight hundred five two two forty seven hundred,

or visit KS gamblinghelp dot com. In Kansas dial one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop. In La call one eight hundred three two seven five zero five zero, or visit www dot M A h E. LP l I NE dot org. Slash problem Gambling visit www dot MD gambling help dot org. In Maryland, dial one eight seven seven eight Hope n Y. Or text Hope n Y to four six seven three six nine in New York. Dial one eight hundred five two two forty seven hundred in Wyoming, or visit www dot one eight hundred gambler

dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, I presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend so far. We're just gonna briefly touch on four games from last night. The Lakers notching a huge road win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, locking down the seven seed for the time being. The Philadelphia is seventy six ers beat the Toronto Rafters, although the Raptors did make it

close there at the end, they pulled away. But I really want to dive in on just all of the championship boxes, like those expectations that we have for champions and whether or not Philly meets those expectations. I want to dive into them a little bit. Then we got a preview of our four five first round matchup in the Eastern Conference between the Calves and the Heat. Jalen Brunson notches a career high forty eight points and a

road win in Cleveland. And last, but not least, I want to talk a little bit about Russell Westbrook and his time with the Clippers, especially after his thirty six point night a couple of games ago against the Memphis Grizzlies. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. Don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt

so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And if for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So this was a really interesting game between the Wolves and

the Lakers. I actually didn't watch the game live because I was at a rehearsal dinner for a wedding that I'm going to this weekend, but I kind of saw some of the people talking, and you know, Lakers fans were very optimistic about how things went, felt like they dominated the game, but Timberwolves fans were convinced that, like, there was this weird sequence that took place with Anthony Davis spraining his ankle and a small little run that the Lakers went on during that stretch, and how it

might have changed the game. And then Rudy Gobert effectively credited that for what turned the game around. And so I was really curious to watch it because it was a classic case of like the two fan basis had very different impressions on what went down, and so I wanted to see the basketball because, you know, I do believe that momentum swings can happen in games. We've talked

a lot about this. I talk about how you know, we talked about it during the Mark Cuban thing with that weird play in the Warriors Mavericks game where there was that inbounds pass or or a misscall here or a miscall the players complaining about officiating. I talk about all the time, there's like five or six things that happen in every single basketball game that are entirely out

of your control. And what do I always say, Sometimes they can all go against you, but you've got to find a way to win like that, that's just the reality. And so like that, you have to be prepared as a basketball team going into a game or going into a series, like there's just going to be a bunch of shit that's completely out of your control that doesn't go your way, and you have to find a way to overcome that. That's just part of being a competitor. That's part of being a winner. And so I hate

that excuse process from the start. But I wanted to see what happened in the basketball So I was watching the game, and you know, it's very back and forth for most of the first half. The Lakers take a little lead, the Wolves take a little lead, right but just in the final few minutes of the first half, the Wolves go on a big run. Going into the halftime period, Kyle Anders hits a corner three, Rudy Gobert does this vicious spin move on Anthony Davis in isolation

for a layup. Anthony Edwards finally get gets going a really smart play design from Chris from Chris Finch to get him a backdoor cut. They have Carl Towns in the left corner and they have Rudy Gobert go set a pin down for him, and it looks like Carl Toowns is gonna come off that screen that he didn't actually end up using it, but Rudy was setting the

screen like he was gonna go out. So Anthony Davis, because he has to be there to show out on that screen to stop Carltown's from getting that easy catch and shoot, he steps out of the lane. Anthony Edwards just runs a backdoor cut and gets a dunk that kind of broke the ice and that I believe that was his first basket of the game at that point. Then he gets another driving reverse layout before the half. Bam, you go into halftime, you're up ten. Complexion of the

game has completely changed. They kind of go back and forth to start the third quarter for a few minutes. But on film, and this is what's so funny about Rudy Gobert with that postgame comment, I was really interested to see if it was the Laker d that turned the tide of the game or if it was just some random sequence that turned the tide of the game. And it was the Lakers defense. They got stops on five of the previous six possessions before Anthony Davis tweaked

his ankle. That ended up being the defensive wave that carried them through the rest of the game. The Lakers had a defensive rating in the second half of this game of eighty five point two, which is off the charge good. So the real story of the second half of this game is the Lakers just completely locked down Minnesota. It came down to a couple of specific schematic things.

But if I had to attribute it to one, I would say Ruby Hatchamura and his ability to guard Carl Anthony Towns, because one of the predicaments that the Lakers were put in is that when Carltowns and Rudy Gobert were both on the court, they'd put Anthony Davis on Rudy Gobert so that he could linger around the paint, right,

But that ended up putting Jared Vanderbilt on Carltowns. And the problem there is Jared Vanderbilt is a very good perimeter defender, but Carltowns is by far the biggest player they've given him as an assignment to guard at this point in the season, and he's just too big and too strong and shoots the ball too well. Had twenty.

I think in the first half they were having all sorts of problems guarding Carl Towns, But as soon as they figured out that they could they could put Ruey Hotcha Mura on Carltowns and hold their own defensively there. That allowed Anthony Davis to remain around the basket for the rest of the game. Because early in that second half they sub Carl Towns out, they have Kyle Anderson

in the game, that's when the run starts. The run begins with Anthony Davis protecting the rim, guarding on the perimeter really well with guys like Jared Vanderbilt in Dennis Schroeder and just getting into the basketball. Then when Carl Towns came back in the game and Rudy Gobert left the game, they were able to slide Anthony Davis over onto Kyle Anderson, a player they want to concede three point shots too. That was only possible because Ruey hotcher Mura was able to hold his own in that Carl

Towns matchup. I tuck a about the different types of forwards in the NBA. We have our wirery, lanky athletic forwards, and then we have our bigger, stronger, more power forwards. Jared Vanderbilt's more in the middle, to be honest, because he's taller, like a bigger forward, and he does have good muscle mass, but he does have a little bit of a higher center of gravity and he's not going

to hold up against really really strong post players. We even saw him struggle a little bit with Julius Randall in a matchup a little while back. If you guys remember, the only real lanky athlete that the Lakers have is a guy like Troy Brown junior who's a bit undersized, right, So that's kind of like their one position that they don't have, you know, your stereotypical type of athlete there.

But Ruby had Chamura. He struggled a little bit with some perimeter matchups this year, but he is big and strong, and he is a much lower center of gravity with much stronger legs than Jared Vanderbilt. That gives him the ability to hold up under more physical forwards in the NBA, So Rui had Chamurra ends up actually being a really good matchup for a guy like Carl Town's in a way that you wouldn't expect, even though Jared Vanderbilt's a better vender overall. Right, and then you saw the slotting

start to take place from there. They actually went with Jared Vanderbilt and Ruy Hotchmer at the same time. At one point, Now you've got Jared Vanderbilt being able to slot over onto Anthony Edwards. Why because Anthony Davis can stay on Kyle Anderson, Ruey hodcher Mura's on Carl Towns, and then you've got Jared Vanderbilt freed up for a perimeter assignment. There, then you're able to slide Dennis Schroeder over onto Mike Conley, who had been red hot in

the whole game. The two big matchup problems that cause the Lakers issues in this game were Carl Town's, particularly in the first half, and then Mike Conley throughout the game with his shot making just that ridiculous floater that he never misses and his pull up three that he's been hitting at a high clip since coming to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So you saw the matchups kind of start to slot into place and then suddenly they couldn't score.

And the other big thing with Ruey hotcher Mura is when they were running Kyle Anderson ball screens with Carl Towns, they were able to just switch that and the switching ability, and there were a couple possessions where Ruey actually switched on to Rudy Gobert in fronted the post and pushed

him out of the lane. Like it just it was a stifling defensive effort triggered by outstanding point of attack defense from guys like Jared Vanderbilt and Dennis Schroeder, and then on the back line the switchability of guys like Ruy Hatchermer and Anthony Davis. You even got like even Lebron. Lebron had a nightmare offensive game in this game, but he was engaged defensively. I talked a lot about how as soon as Lebron came back, they don't need MVP Lebron.

They just don't. They have so much backcourt skill and Anthony Davis playing at such a high level they don't need him to They will need him to to beat like a team like Boston or Milwaukee, there's no doubt they're gonna need superstar Lebron. But he's got plenty of time to get his rhythm back. Jade McDaniels did a

number on him yesterday. He still doesn't quite have the lift that he needs and doesn't quite have his rhythm and his shot and his handle dialed in right to be the dominant score in the against those really, really good defensive teams. But he's got time, and we know he's capable of that, just look at what he's done during other stretches of the season. But I thought, you know again, don't let don't get confused by the narrative. It was a weird sequence, like, yeah, Anthony Davis fell down,

Rudy Gobert said he could have dunked on him. Go watch the three play. That's absurd. First of all, Anthony Davis is laying on the ground in front of the basket. Technically he's in his way. It's not like he can just step on him right, so he doesn't have his

steps right to be able to dunk. And when you and Gabriel's literally sitting in help, like if if Anthony Davis wasn't standing there, when Yan's gonna run over and jump with verticality, and Rudy Goberts is not a very good finisher around the rim, that probably turns into a hook shot that he probably missed. Either way, the ball got worked around and Mike Conley shot a wide open three on that possession. One of their best shooters, who's shooting really well that game, shot a wide open three.

He just missed it. Then they didn't get matched up in transition and left Angela Russell opened for a layup on a push ahead pass from Lebron And it wasn't just about the Anthony Davis injury. They were killing him with those push ahead passes the entire game. Ruby Hotchamura got a backdoor lobbed, I should say in the second half. Ruey hotch Amerra got a backdoor lob dunk from Austin

Reeves in transition because nobody picked him up. That was after the ad injury, after the game had already returned to its normal flow. There was a play where Anthony Davis got a deep seal in transition with nobody around him against a smaller defender. He just happened to smoke a layup, but the Lakers were beating them in transition consistently as an issue there in that second half, I

just don't buy that. And then Jade McDaniels comes down the floor after the d'angela Russell layup, and a d is still writhing on the floor and he's just dribbling like super careless with the basketball, and when you and Gabriel just comes up and picks him clean, like, yeah, it was. It was. There's no doubt it was a weird sequence. I also wouldn't be surprised if the weirdness of Anthony Davis writhing around in pain on the ground had some sort of brief mental disruption to the Timberwolves.

But like I said, that's going to happen in a basketball game. You've got to find a way to regain control. There were still eighteen plus minutes left in the game, and the reality was is you couldn't score in The Lakers started to demonstrate that before the injury, and then they resoundingly demonstrated it down the stretch, and then Anthony

Davis just took them home in the post. And it was crazy because just NonStop again like, first it was against Gobert earlier in the fourth quarter, and then Gobert comes off the floor and it's against Carltowns, and he's just surrounded by so much offensive skill with this new Laker lineup that they're leaving him on an island. And

he just took Carltowns to school. And what was crazy is it wasn't even jumpers, like he hit a little fade away on the baseline, but for the most part he was in the damn lane, just hitting him with pivots and fakes and spins and hookshots and just making every single one of them. It was a clinic of post work against Carltown's. In a little bit against Gobert

as well. He continues his tour of dominance with thirty eight points and seventeen rebounds with two blocks, and his Steel Lakers are fourteen and seven since the deadline, despite Lebron missing most of that stretch. They also lost that Houston game with Anthony Davis resting and giving up seventy something paint points. We'll get to see if I was right about a d changing that matchup here on Sunday

when the Lakers go to Houston. Then you had that heartbreak against Dallas, So they've had some a little bit of bad luck. And they're still fourteen and seven since the deadline, which is the sixth best record in the league during that span. They also have the very best defense, and they're the fourth best rebounding team over that span. So best defense, fourth best rebounding team. They're physically beating the hell out of teams, and that's mostly without Lebron.

With Lebron is just a forced multiplier in that regard with what he can do generating attention around the post, Like defensively at this phase of his career, is still a pretty good help defender, Like he's just going to exacerbate that problem for teams and so, and that sort of physical dominance is something that I always look at

for teams in a potential playoff run. Now they are nineteenth and offense over this span, but again that's where Lebron getting back to his ceiling offensively at some point in the next couple of weeks will be the thing that can push them over the edge offensively as well. And here's the other thing too. One of the I always talk about how in NBA history, you gotta be a top ten defense in order to have a real

chance to win a championship. That's just unless you have an otherworldly talent advantage, you got to be a top ten defense. Here's what's crazy. The Lakers are now basically in a virtual tie for tenth place in defense for the entire season, So even that goal of getting into the top ten is very much within reach if they put together even just one more good defensive night. They

now have sole possession of the seven seed. Now, Minnesota does have a tiebreaker over them, so they got to make sure that they stay one game ahead of Minnesota in the lost column. They are one game back of both Golden State and the Clippers, but they only have the tiebreaker against Golden State. They do not have the tiebreaker against the Clippers. Obviously, three way ties, the tiebreaker gets way more convoluted, so everything's still up in the air.

But they do control their own destiny, and they're heading into an easier stretch of their schedule. They play the Rockets in the Jazz next three of their last five games against the Rockets and the Jazz, and then they've got a couple of tough matchups against the Clippers and the Suns. But the Lakers are in a good position to potentially end up getting either that home court for the first round of the play in tournament or to miss the play in tournament entirely. They're they're in a

good spot right now. Good time to be a Lakers fan, all right. I want to talk a little bit about the Raptors Sixers game. Not so much about the game, but I want to focus on the Sixers. The Sixers really blew them out in this game. They had seventy seven in the first half. The Raptors kind of grinded back and got it close. They got back to within two on a Fred van Vleet pull up three in the middle of the fourth quarter, but then immediately the

Sixers won on a run and be got a bucket. PJ. Tucker hit a corner three, James Harden had a driving layup. James Harden was fantastic in this game, in his second game returning from that achilles sore neus. We talked a lot about, you know, Harden having like a revenge campaign this season, and he's had some injuries that have banged

him up. Obviously the foot injury earlier on and then the achilles injury more recently, but really for the most part this season, I think James Harden has had an excellent season both as a score and a playmaker, doing exactly as much as this team needs him to do to have a chance to win a championship. Most importantly, Harden's legs looked explosive. He talked about how at one point he was in excruciating pain and that achilles and that was causing him problems getting lift and pushing off.

He looked spry in this game and the big, the big driving layup he had that basically was the dagger against the Raptors. At the end of this game. It was he was against og and an Obi and Yaka Peurtle was guarding Joel Embiad and he kept calling for

that and bead ball screen. He's trying to get switched on to Peartles so he can get his switch, but they og and Obi was just doing a really nice job of fighting through the screen, and Nick Nurse, as he always does, was like ridiculously overaggressively doubling and beat

out of the high post. So Harden just pulled it out and he's like, oh shit, Like I guess I got a score and an obi and he hit him with a move and a counter move and got all the way to the rim and made a left handed layup, and on that counter move, he was engaged physically with Og, and Og was playing very physical, and so for him to be able to shed Og like that and maintain his leg strength to get the necessary lift to get up to the rim, I think is a really good

sign for him physically. But I wanted to talk about the Sixers in their championship boxes because I always talk about these things that are like mandatory, right, and the Sixers more and more I look at them above and beyond the things that we don't even really have a measurable way of accounting for, like, oh, James Harden's playoff performance, or Joel Embiat's playoff performance, or Doc Rivers playoff performance like which again, those it's I'm not saying they're not concerns,

but it's just it's really hard to quantify those things in the grand scheme of things. And like, if they have figured it out, like we're not, the only way we're gonna find out is they're just gonna go beat everybody in the playoffs, right, So It's hard to really plan for that, so to speak. It's just kind of a wild card that you have to account for. But if we set those aside, they check everything else. I

always talk you need to have elite rim protection. They do Joel Embiat, especially in this last half of the season, his rim protection has been off the charge good. You need to have guys who can take high leverage, perimeter assignments. D Anthony Melton can take higher level ball handler like perimeter ball handler, like guard, high pick and roll assignments. PJ. Tucker can guard all of your big forwards that you're gonna need to have guarded in the Eastern Conference. Even

Tobias Harris like having PJ. Tucker and Tobias Harris's options to throw at you know, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, for instance. That's that's that's real weapon. That's a real weapon have. Especially with Joel Embiid on the back line. You can't just attack James Harden on a switch because of his ability to guard in the post right. So they have a lot of matchup versatility. Defensively, I really like that they are the very best spot up team in the league. So if you do what Nick Nurse did,

and you just double team the shit out of Joel Embiid. Yeah, he might have some turnovers and he had five turnovers in this game, but if he can make that first pass out and have James Harden make that second read, there's just so much skill on the back side of the floor, like PJ. Tucker was hitting his corner three in this game. De Anthony Melton driving blows outs and cutting off of extra passes and stuff. They just have so much skill off the ball that they're gonna be

able to score. And then they most importantly, they have two elite shot creators, but it goes beyond what they do individually. Yes, James Harden and Joel and beat two superstars. That gives you the ability to create shots. But it's because they can create shots in both specific defensive environments

that I'm so optimistic they can. If you're in a traditional drop coverage, they can pick you to part a pick to pieces with pick and roll, just straight up James Harden with the ball and beat sets the screen, rolls down to the free throw line, pocket pass go to work, help out of the weak side you're kicking to shooters. They can play that way, but both of

them can beat switches. So if it turns into a thing where all of a sudden you can't run drop coverage anymore, or you're going up against a team like the Rafters that has all these forwards and they start switching. James Harden is beating some of the best perimeter defenders in the league to the basket still to these days, to this day, and Joel Embi has been just an absolute monster in isolation all season long, and so they can. They have a versatility of offensive approach. I think that

makes them extremely dangerous. So I mean again, I still have them comfortably third behind the Bucks and the Celtics in the conference, but I think as a group they are right there with them, and I absolutely think they have a chance to come out of the conference. All right, So we got our preview of the four five matchup between the Knicks and Calves last night. It was interesting because both teams were really red hot in this game.

Donovan Mitchell came out red hot in the first quarter, but then the Calves cool off and Jalen Brunson just never cooled off. And it started in the first half with like this clinic of just short rains, little pump fake pull up twos and pump fake floaters and pump fake hook shots in the lane. Everything was defended extremely well.

Like the Cavs defended they lost him a couple times in the second half on peel off switches where like they were hedging onto Jalen Brunson and then the hedging defender would leave to go back to his man, but the original on ball defender wouldn't get back into the play and Jalen would end up wide open. There were a couple of defensive mistakes, but for the most part, the Cavs defended Jalen Brunson extremely well, and he just

made everything. And that goes back to what I've been talking about forever with the Knicks is if Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall do that, which is a superstar type of behavior, the ability to knock down consistently tough shots against good defense, that raises their ceiling to a level that I don't think a lot of people expected from the Knicks. And by the way, this is not just a one game sample size. Jalen Brunson is shooting fifty

two percent on floaters this year. There are six players that have taken two hundred floaters, Trey Young, Josh Kiddy, John Morant, Tias Jones and Trey Jones, and Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson's fifty two percent is best in the league, so he is the best volume floaters shooter in the league by far. Right now, he's also shooting forty nine percent on short jumpers inside of seventeen feet, which is

obviously excellent. And then he's having a really good three point shooting season two forty two percent from three this year, about thirty eight and a half percent or so on pull up three, so it's not flukey that he's shooting as well as he has. And it was all the short stuff early, but then there in the second half it was the pull up threes, and it seemed like every single time the Calves started to make a run, Jalen Brunson was there to knock down a huge three

to stem the tide. And again, it's gonna look very different in the playoff series. I'll be really interested to see how the matchups work out, because not only I mean the Calves were missing Jared Allen and Isaac a Cooro obviously, and Lamar Stevens ended up drawing that Jalen Brunson matchup. To start, I liked Lamar Stevens better on bigger forwards, and I like Isaac Accorro more on the quicker guards, So obviously that's a slightly better matchup. But

you're not gonna get any sympathy from the Nicks. They didn't have Julius Randall, and that changes matchups a lot. And like, I know, the easy answers like, oh, we're gonna put Evan Mobley on Julius Randall, but in a physical playoff environment, I wonder if he might be a little too thin there. That's gonna be an interesting matchup.

I would love to see how Evan Mobley can hold up against Julius Randall, because if he doesn't hold up on Julius Randall, they're gonna have to go as someone like Lamar Stevens, and Lamar Stevens will have to guard Julius Randall, which will end up putting, you know, Jalen Brunson in a position where you have to guard him with one of the guards, and that's just gonna be

barbecue chicken at that point. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how the matchups shake out, and obviously it's gonna look very different than it did in this particular game. But one thing was apparent from this game, even with Lamar Stevens on the ball, Jalen Brunson looked very comfortable getting to his spots and getting to the shots that he likes to take. All Right, lastly, before

we get out of her, Russ versus the Grizzlies. So I had a bunch of people in the comments asking why didn't I talk about Russ in his thirty six point game the other night. The short version is is the the Grizzlies sat everybody like, yeah, John Morant played, Yeah, Xavier Tilman played. John Morant's trying to get back in shape, right, Dylan Brooks played, But they sat Desmond Baine, and most importantly, they sat Jaren Jackson Jr. Who has been arguably the

best room protector in the NBA this year. And the thing with Jaron reason we've talked about this. I think John Rand's a better player overall, and he represents the Grizzlies ceiling, but I think Jaron Jackson's the most valuable player to the Grizzlies that he is the foundational piece to everything they do defensively. That's why the Grizzlies are better with him on the Like his on off numbers

are better than anybody else on the team. Jaron Jackson's vitally important and so honestly, like it just wasn't a game to really learn anything because you were just basically watching a shell of the Memphis Grizzlies go against the Clippers. Right that said, Russ did play really well, and we're gonna talk about how well Russ has played with the Clippers. I just didn't think it was worth covering as a

result of all those guys missing. And here's the thing, Jaron Jackson came back last night, and suddenly Russ went from going for thirty six to scoring four points on two for eight shooting. You know, because now you had rim protection, real perimeter defense on the floor. It's just a whole other battle at that point. But like, let's be clear, the Russ has been excellent with the Clippers in the aggregate. He's done everything that they've needed him

to do. That thirty six the other night, that was kind of more just a vintage throwback moment. It was a cool moment. There was that awesome photo coming from the rafters of him laying on the ground screaming. That was cool. He was red hot from three, was getting to the rim. That was an awesome game, just as a moment for a basketball fan to remember what it was like when Russ was at his peak. But that's

not what's going to happen with the Clippers. That's not what they need from him, and it's just not reliable. I mean, as you saw in what happened in the next game. What really is impressive to me about rust with this time and the Clipper with the Clippers is just doing everything he did for the Lakers in a system that makes more sense for him. Pushing the pace to generate easy shots before the team can set their

half court defense, applying rim pressure. We've talked about this a million times, but it generates so many positive residual effects for your team when you've got a guy that's consistently pressuring the rim point of attack defense, which is something that he's actually been better at this year than

he's been in recent seasons. I was talking to some Clipper fans the other day who said they actually think he's their best card defender right now, which is a significant asset to have on the team, and his efficiency has ticked up in large part because he's actually surrounded by shooting. It actually makes sense for him to play in a team with this style as opposed to what he did with the Lakers. For example, rushtot forty one point seven percent with the Lakers this year, He's shooting

forty eight point two percent with the Clippers. Here's how crazy the fit is from the standpoint of efficiency with the spacing that the Clippers provide. If he keeps this level of efficiency where he's at right now through the end of the season, which was a decent chance, this will be the first time in Russell Westbrook's entire career that he has notched for a single team in one season an effective field goal percentage above fifty percent. That's how much of a natural fit this has been with

the Clippers. He is more efficient now than he has ever been. That's significant. But, like I mean, I'm not going to cover the Clippers super closely simply because without Paul George they have no ceiling. Without Paul George, they're just like any of those other teams. In the play and other than the Lakers, who don't actually have the talent necessary to get the job done. Kauhai is a

player that I believe in. But the Clippers, we've learned this season their lack of rim protection and their lack of perimeter speed. They've got a lot of wings, but they don't have a lot of speed on the perimeter. Has made them a little bit vulnerable to specific types of matchups, and they don't have the top end star

power to compensate for that without Paul George. Now, maybe Paul George comes back, and if he comes back in the first round of the playoffs and he looks like Paul George, we can reevaluate the Clippers at that point. But that knee injury looked pretty narrowly and him getting reevaluated in three weeks doesn't bode well for him getting back onto the floor anytime soon. So love us is fit with the Clippers. I think he should stay there

into the future as well. I'm proud of us and happy for us that he's found this spot that's working out well for him, But it doesn't change the calculus for the Clippers at all whatsoever. All Right, guys, That is all I have for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Warriors Nuggets. As always, I appreciate you guys and I will see you back the volume