Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Bucks Reaction: LeBron & Giannis SHINE in NBA preseason + Rockets-Thunder

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to Who's Tonight here at the volume heavy Friday. Everybody hope all you guys have had a great week so far. Got a jampack show for you today. We're gonna hit two more preseason games. A couple of teams that we haven't hit yet, we haven't talked bucks. We're gonna be leading off with them in their matchup with the Lakers last night, I'll give you guys a couple updated notes on my thought on the thoughts on the Lakers after their second game with Lebron James and Anthony Davis in

the lineup. After that, the Houston Rockets in the Oklahoma City Thunder faced off in a game where we got to see the Thunder tryout. They're kind of new, super charged starting lineup. So we're gonna talk about that game. And then I've got fourteen clips for a session of Timp's tape at the tail end of the show, so we can go over some of these concepts with visuals for you guys to look at. You guys are the

Joe before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT. You guys, don't miss you announcementsn't forget about our podcast feeds where we get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mailback questions and the YouTube comments so we can keep

hitting them throughout the remainder of the season. Also, I had Claire to louon on the show Earlier this week, we released the episode this morning though, talking about the GM survey, and obviously the GM survey is a little complicated because there are some GM who do it something that put it off on staffers, but it gave us an opportunity to argue about some kind of big picture NBA topics, like whether or not Ad and Draymond or underrated defensively, whether or not Jason Tatum is the best

small forward in the league. Kind of like the Luka Jokic debate. We talked about the CBA for a little while. We hit all sorts of stuff all around the NBA, so make sure you guys check out that episode as well. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Lakers Bucks started the buck side of things, so they kind of were spamming this action early in the game that I really liked because it's going to create some more cleared side

two man game for Damon Giannis. This is something I've been talking about a lot over the course of the last year. Basically, like when you I'm a big believer, like if you're dealing with a player who's a very high level playmaker and I'm not talking like good, I mean like in the top tier. I like them operating in the middle of the floor more. Why Because in the middle of the floor, your court awareness becomes more important because you're only really looking at half the floor

whatever you're facing. Right. But if you have good court awareness, if you're really good at just kind of quickly processing and cataloging where everything is and making those reads, then you can operate out of the middle of the floor not worry about having guys behind you that you can't see. Right. That's a superpower. There's only a small handful of players in the league that I like operating in situations like that, right,

really really high level playmakers. For guys that are not as good with the high level playmaking, I actually like more cleared side action, the main reason being when they catch on the roll. Let's say, for instance, you run a cleared action on the right side, you screen the guy come, the ball handler comes off, and I'm rolling into the short corner on the right side. When I catch, everything is in front of me, and so at that point,

now this is an easier read to make. Right. So this is something I've been calling for for a while, but it's just something the Bucks didn't do very often. One of these actions that they've been running and they spammed in a bunch at the start of this game. Was it basically a Torreum print. It's like kind of like a horn setup. They had Toryum prints start on

the right elbow. They run dame through all the way over into the right corner right and that guy Torrian Prince that could also be Chris Middleton when he's healthy. And then I believe that Brook Lopez operating is kind of like the passing vocrum at the top of the key. And then basically they have Giannis come up in set a backscreen for Torrian Prince to come off and look

for a catch near the left block. Right now, there's an easy region make there right, like if Jannis's man doesn't help and Giannis, that's a good screen and Tourrion or Chris Middleton comes off of that boom layup right. That's the easy read that comes if the defense makes

a mistake. But in a lot of cases, Giannis's defender is going to linger back just a tiny bit so you can give a little tiny bit of help so that it can buy a minute or a second, I should say, for Chris Middleton's defender or Torrian Prince's defender to recover from that screen, so you can get back in front. This way, when Giannis catches on that right elbow, he can quick look to turn into attack right. And one of the beautiful things there is you've got Dame

in the strong side corner. They're almost certainly not going to help there, so there's a lot of space there for Yannis to operate as you're clearing out with the cut and you have your best shooter in the strong side corner. But one of the things I noticed is they have it kind of baked in their offense where if Giannis turns and looks and he doesn't like what he sees there, or he just simply wants to run more action, then he can flow into a dribble handoff

with Dame out of the right corner. One of the big things that stood out to me in this particular game is just a lot more dribble handoffs as opposed to just simple ball screens. It's kind of more of a five out concept, and it's something that I really like. It's something that's a helped Dame not have to deal with as much ball pressure because he's not dribbling into the action, he's running into the action. And then also, as I've been breaking down, it can be part of

larger concepts within the offense. There's multiple options out of that type of set. If you guys are looking for a visual of what I'm breaking down, this is going to be covered in the TIMPs tape segment at the tail end of the show, so you guys can check that out there after we cover the rest of the games. Again, I'm always going to do the monologue stuff first for the sake of our podcast audience, and I'm always going to the visual tape stuff at the tail end for

that specific purpose. And we also release our tape our film session separately as breakout clips on YouTube, so you can check him out there as well. But I like that concept. They ran a they got a really good two on the ball situation where Janni's cott turned and flowed into that dribble hand off with Dame Max. Christy was chasing. I can't remember who I think it was. Ruey was guarding. Giannis ended up showing high, Jannis got

a clean catch on the baseline. He ended up turning it over, but there was a wide open read on the weekside corner too. I believe it was Torri and Prince after he kind of cleared out, so or it might have been Gary Trent. But like there was an easy read there, there's a lot of really good stuff that came out of it. So I really liked the dhos. I really liked the cleared side stuff that they were running. Using Dame as a screener before he gets the ball on the ball screen. This is something I saw a

little bit of in the first half. Same type of concept we were just talking about Yannis. Right when Yannis sets a screen, Jannis's man has to be the guy who hedges or helps as the other players coming off the screen. Same thing for Dame. There was a play where they got a wide open three for brook Lopez because at the beginning of the possession Dame set a backscreen and on the backscreen Max Christy had to just barely hesitate back to help. Then Dame sprinted out of

that into the dribble handoff with Giannis. As a result, Max was late chasing over the top. This forced Ruy to switch out onto Dame at that point Yiannis had inside position after setting the screen, Dame hit him boom extra pass on the roll to brook Lopez in the corner. They got a wide open three. And again, those are little details. You can run a ball screen with Giannis and you might get two on the ball, you might

get a decent pocket catch. But if you run action leading into it, more opportunity for mistakes, more opportunity for separation, and that separation just makes the action work better. These, again are little things that I harp on all the time because they just help you squeeze a little bit more out of the sponge, just a little bit more efficiency out of each individual possession. Ball screen stuff looks

great early on in the season. Dame has run nineteen ball screens including passes, and they've generated twenty four points. That's one point two to six points per pick and roll so far in preseason. That is through the roof Good and remember Giannis didn't even play in one of those games. Dame is also at one point four to two points per jump shot so far through two preseason games, and one point five to six points per pull up jump shots. So Dame looks awesome, looking like a good

start to the year for him. Jannis looks great. He absolutely bludge into the Lakers in transition. Eighteen of his twenty points were in transition. Nine made field goals. He's just gonna punish you every single time you don't get back and build that wall at the rim and the half courty was a little sloppy, but it's his first game of the season. He's just one for six from the field. Was missing a lot of short range shots and missing some of those easy reads on rolls to

the rim. I'll show you, guys an example in the film session stuffing that he'll get better at. Still taking some bad early clock jump shots. He took like a contested long elbow jump shot with an eighteen seconds left on the shot clock in the late second quarters. Like those are kind of things that you don't want him taking. But at the same time, it's in preseason. Guys are just trying stuff. He's probably been working on that shot all summer and he just wants to see if he

can bring it out this year. So I tend to not overreact. There's a lot of reacting to shots selection around all these teams, right, you know, all these teams want to shoot more threes. But at the same time that kind of inherently leads to some bad shots. When we get to the Lakers segment, we talk about Anthony Davis. I have kind of like a little take that I want to go through involving like good three point shots versus bad three point shots, promoting confidence versus trying to

help coach players through bad shots selection. We'll get to that here in a minute. Jannis also guarded Lebron really well. They kind of got into like a little bit of The two of them were really going at it for a preseason game. They're physical on each other, trying to guard each other, trying to one up each other, trying to score on each other. It was fun just watching the two of them go at each other in a pointless preseason game. Bobby port Is is just completely insane.

He's just just blazing hot to start the year. He has taken thirteen jump shots through two preseason games and he's made eleven of them, two four points per shot attempt. That's just like completely insane. Through the roof, easy stuff too, just like stuff in transition, picking and popping, spacing off of post ups, just a little bit of post up kind of shot making over either shoulder. He's just locked in to start the year. Gary Trent. I thought he

did a really nice job on d' Angelo Russell. It's kind of a good matchup for him because Delo is not overly fast and Delo can struggle with ball pressure. But at the same time, this is something that Gary Trent can do. Gary Trent has not many good defensive player for the most part in his career, and especially

last year not great. But he does have a specific gift, which is physical ball pressure in attacking the basketball, and so like again, if you just weaponize that specific strength and you've got the back line help to help him when he gives up dribal penetration, I think he could work. He did a really nice job on D'Angelo Russell. They were a little sloppy in their transition defense the Bucks. That's the main thing that I think they need to look at. Both the Lakers and the Bucks are abominable

transition defenses right now. It's honestly, just you watch that game and it's like there's all this kind of high level half court basketball going on between the two teams, and then like one out of every four possessions for either teams just like, oh, we just had a made basket. Now we're giving up a dunk three seconds into the

shot clock because we just didn't get back. Like that sort of thing was happening right and left for both teams, but definitely something that the Bucks need to be working on as well as the Lakers. On the Lakers front, I love the transition pushes. Again, these are little things

about capitalizing on mistakes. I've been harping on this all preseason. Like, you against an elite defense in the half court, even when you run action, even when you have your best players on the floor, your efficiency is going to sync a little bit because half court, slow down basketball is

just tough. So like as much extra points that you can generate by pushing in transition to capitalize on mistakes or running action early in possessions to get the defense to make mistakes, that's where you can kind of supplement your offense. Right. So I liked that Anthony Davis was taking a ton of jump shots and not hitting him. He hit a couple mid range ones, but he wasn't hitting his threes. I want to kind of like talk

about this concept for a minute. So, like the Lakers have obviously dramatically increased the amount of three point shots that they're hunting in their offense through at least through three preseason games. Again, it's early, but here's a basic stat to kind of like demonstrate to you guys the difference in the types of shots they're taking. So last year, the Lakers took forty nine percent of their jump shots were classified as guarded by Synergy, meaning more than half

of the jump shots they took were considered unguarded. So far, through three preseason games, fifty seven percent of the jump shots the Lakers have taken have been classified as guarded and only forty three percent have been classified as unguarded. So, in a very very simple sense, the Lakers are taking more contested jump shots, specifically early in the clock they see anything, if they see any separation, they're just letting

it fly, and they're not making them. Right now, on those guarded jump shots, they're getting just zero point eight points per shot. So it's a tricky it's a tricky concept, right because again I'm I actually had a mailback question about this. Why I believe in hunting the highest quality

shot that your team can get on any possession. So if you're in the very bottom of three point volume, you're probably just missing out on too many opportunities, right, But I also don't believe in just jacking up threes for the sake of jacking up threes. For instance, eight of the top twelve teams in the NBA last year in three point attempt volume missed the playoffs. So like

just jacking up threes isn't necessarily good offense either. Now, one of the interesting things is the two teams that played in the finals, Boston and Dallas, were both extremely high three point volume teams. But then we have all these other examples in recent NBA history of low volume three point teams making long runs or winning the title, most recently even just Denver in twenty twenty three. The main reason why is there's actually a more valuable shot

than a three. If you are classifying shot attempts in the NBA, by far the most valuable shot attempt in the NBA is anything at the rim. That's the most valuable shot attempt in the NBA. It's not close either. They're far, far, far more efficient than three point shots. So those are the number one shots that every offense

should be hunting every time down the floor. From there, the next best thing you can do is a wide open catch and shoot three right now after that, if you're choosing between contested mid ranges, tougher shots in the short range, or a contested three, then yeah, probably a contested three is better than a contested mid range shot

or something along those lines. But when you take a contested three early in the shot clock before working your offense to try to get one of the other two, which is a high quality rim attempt or a high quality catch and shoot three, those need to be your your entire approach to offense for the majority of the shot clock. Okay, now there's six or seven shot seconds

left on the shot clock. Yeah, I would recommend trying to generate something from the three point land because at least at that point, if it goes in, you get an extra point. It just juices those efficiency numbers a little bit. But there is a big difference between increasing your three point attempt volume and increasing your shot quality. Increasing your shot quality is being deliberate about rim attempts, open catch and shoot threes, then contested threes, then contested twos. Right,

that's our order of operations to improve shot value. But to just put up threes for the sake of putting up threes, You're gonna get a lot of contested threes, which are actually the third best shot that we can get on any given possession. Right now, it gets a little more complicated than that, because you want to promote confidence, right, especially for teams like the Lakers, who were so low

in three point volume in previous seasons. They basically only took open and wide open threes for the most part in the last season, which helped them in percentage. The three point percentage was one of the best in the league over the half second half of the season, but it's not as again, there's just not that volume that they need. Right. So when you start getting in your player's ears and constantly telling them, I want you to

take more threes. I want you to be confident. You have the green light shoot that thing, shoot that thing, shoot that thing all day long. Right When you're telling guys like that to do that, it promotes confidence. It gets them to not think so much and to just let it fly. I'm a big believer in it's better for you to try to like coach a guy down into taking fewer shots than to coach a guy up

into taking more shots. Right, Like, it's I would rather have these guys all confident in firing away and then little by little over the season be like, hey, maybe this one's not great. Hey maybe we make one extra pass, then it's gonna it might make its way back to you anyway for higher quality shot. Hey, there were still seventeen seconds on the shot clock. I love this shot. But how about we take this when there's less than ten on the shot clock? Right? Then you trim the

fat on those. Then you can improve your shot quality while also maintaining confidence. So it's a delicate balance, right. You want to hunt shot value, but you also don't want guys overthinking it and getting tight. Right, So like it right now? As far as the Lakers go, do I love all these three point shots that they're taking. No, But as long as it's part of a larger mission, which is promoting confidence and then trimming the fat, I think I can get behind it. So again, it's a

really small sample size. Let's give it more time. Let's wait to see how things look through like twenty regular season games. If there's still taking a ton of really bad threes and there's no real improvement that's taking place, now we need to have a separate conversation about the Lakers taking bad shots. But I do believe that JJ Reddick is firmly in this, like, hey, everybody, be confident,

green light, let it fly. Let's build this confidence, and then we'll kind of work our way back to higher shot quality from there. But again, as we look around the league and we look about three point shot volume, remember just jacking up a three for the sake of jacking up threes is not the best shot in basketball.

The best shot in basketball is a rim attempt, then an open three, And so those are the two that need to be the priority of an offense throughout the first you know, two thirds, three fourths of the shot clock before you change change your kind of order of operations. Max Christy interesting game from him. I thought he defended Damian Lillard really well. He gets some really nice spot up possessions, but once again, all of his on ball

reps look really bad. And it's one of those things too, where he's missing easy reads, like forced to float or over three bodies in the paint when there's a wide open shooter in the right corner. But then at the same time he's like trying to force reads that aren't there, like turn the ball over on a pocket pass to Anthony Davis. It gets into that, like I talked about like all summer about how Max like the one thing

I'm concerned about with him is his decision making. He can shoot the ball really well when he's open, he can guard multiple types of defenders. He had a really nice possession where he even got peeled off in a switch for like, he got screened really hard by Giannis and he had to switch, and so Ruey went out on Dame and it's like he battled Yep fronted the post, which with ad on the floor, I d was behind him, which took away the passing angle, and so Yannis wasn't

able to punish the switch. They had to swing the ball around and run more action. Loved all the stuff that I saw from Max in role player capacities, but every single time they ran action with him, it looked bad. So there's this delicate balance, right, It's like, we need to give Max reps to see what he can do

on the ball. But also this team has some real urgency around this season to try to make something happen, and they already have better ball handlers, So I'm kind of the opinion that like the time will come for Max to work out on ball reps. Like let's say, for instance, Lebron James retires after this season, or he has some sort of injuries, some sort of serious injury that makes it so that this era is over right, Like when Lebron is done, this team's any chance this

team has to make playoff noises over right. So when that happens, whether it's retirement or an injury or something like that happens, Max is going to have years with a rebuilding Lakers team to dribble to basketball and see what he can do. And so within this specific context, he actually has the ability to be a highly paid, long career role player in this league by just guarding

the ball and doing role player stuff on offense. And so again, I just want to see I just want to see like a little bit less of Max on the ball when he is on the ball, like quicker decisions to get rid of the ball, more like making like connective reads rather than trying to actually break down the defense. I think that's the sort of thing that'll get more out of him. The Lakers showed in the last two games actually, but we saw it quite a

bit last night. This like three to two zone. Look where they put Anthony Davis at the top of the key. It's a kind of interesting look because you have Lebron and they did it with once with Lebron and Jackson Hayes on the bottom side. They did it with Lebron and Ruey on the bottom side. So you've got these two big forwards or backup center that are on the baseline kind of running back and forth, right, But then you've got your guards up on the wings and you

have Anthony Davis at the top of the key. It kind of gives them the unique ability to cover the three point line. Anthony Davis making swing passes very difficult. That's why you put ad at the top of the key because now all of a sudden, you want to reverse the ball to get to the other side of the zone to force the zone to shift. But Anthony Davis has his long assed arms out there like this, making that sort of pass difficult. Right. So like looked

pretty good. They've run. They ran it ten possessions last night and gave up just seven points. That's er point seven points per possession. So far in preseason, they've ran that three to two zone look for eighteen possessions and given up just twelve points, which is a sixty seven

defensive ratings. So a nice little look there. And obviously this is not something that I think will be super relevant for the Lakers this year, just simply because their roster is so packed and I don't think that Quincy Olivari is going to be able to necessarily retain a spot on the full time roster. But really cool moment at the end of the game, Quincy just picking up full court changing the tone and tempo of the game.

JJ Reddick had a really interesting postgame press or comment where he talked about how it just kind of invigorated everybody, and it's something that I've always believed very strongly, and it's kind of the idea of leading by example, Right. We always talk about verbal leadership or like like behind the scenes leadership, like in the locker room, navigating personalities and stuff like that. Leading by example is one of

the best ways that you can invigorate your basketball team. Like, it's really hard to be lazy when your teammate is busting his ass, right when your teammates picking up full court pressure in the ball, yelling screaming, getting up the floor and transition sprinting off of off ball actions, you

look like an idiot being lazy. And so it's kind of like the rising tide that floats all boats, like it can be very infectious to have an energetic player on the court and like him just bringing that energy. All of a sudden, the Lakers go on this crazy run and they end up getting a win with their

bench group at the tail end of the game. Big moment for Quincy, And it's one of those things where like, even if it doesn't necessarily manifest in a roster spot for him on the Lakers, am I very well manifesting a roster spot for him somewhere else? All right, let's move on to the Thunder and the Rockets, and then we got some film at the tail end of the show. Thunder. First off, first look at their kind of like starting

lineup configuration with the smaller group. Right, so we basically have starters from last year with Alex Crusoe in for Josh Kitty, so a little smaller, but a little bit more athletic, a lot better defensively, different type of offensive player in Alex Crusoe, and we're gonna talk about Alex and his fit on offense here in a minute. But first thing that stood out to me is a lot less heliocentric and a lot more equal opportunity in their

approach to offense. They were just it wasn't like Shaye determining every single possession dribble in the air out of the basketball's side to side, quick decisions, guys, everybody, everybody getting a chance to do something with the basketball in their hands. The easiest way to kind of statistically represent this Shay so far, his usage rate is that twenty four point four percent in preseason right last year in

the regular season, it was thirty two percent. Now, do I expect Shay's usage rate to drop twenty four No, I would imagine it'll be somewhere around like twenty nine or thirty. But if you cut it from thirty two down to twenty nine or thirty, that will help Shay be more efficient. It will help him pick a spots more, which will help with fatigue over the course of the season, and it makes their offense harder to guard because it's

more impredictable, not to unpredictable. Not to mention the younger players, guys, like chet guys like Jalen, they get more on ball reps, which helps them get better in the long run as they learn from their mistakes. They're still missing some kickout reads.

Remember that was the thing in Dallas. There's a simple example like Jalen Williams driving into the paint trying this like crazy up and under through three bodies when Aaron Wagins is like wide open in the right corner, and so like there's again, I think the idealized version of this team is like the Boston Celtics. We talked about it earlier, the shot value thing, and I kind of put rim attempts as like all one thing. But there's two different kinds of rim attempts too, right, Like there's

high quality rim attempts and there's bad rim attempts. Right, Ideally we want high quality room attempts, high quality threes, then low quality rim attempts, right, So like we want to hunt a wide open catch and shoot three is going to be a higher quality shot than trying a shot around four bodies in the paint, right, So like there's a little bit of stuff like that they have to work out again, what made Boston come together wasn't just jacking up a bunch of threes. It was putting

up good threes and good shots at the rim. That's the key for Oklahoma City to reach their ceiling. It's just kind of tapping a little bit more into that driving kick stuff. But they're getting the ball side to side, everyone's touching. It looks pretty on offense right now. On defense, a lot of really smart switching and positioning. Again, like with Jalen Williams and Lou Dort and Alice Cruso out there, you could switch just about everything Shay can switch to.

You had a really nice defensive possession. I think on Jabari Smith on an island where he tried to post him up and he ended up just meeting him at the summit and blocking and clean. Shehadkin Garden switches too. So there's a lot of different stuff that can do there, but a lot of like really smart positioning stuff right. So like for instance, especially when Hartenstein was on the four, they have Chet in lowmanhelp, which is where you want him, right.

He's your best vertical athlete and probably your best player at like covering ground with his overall length, right, And so he's a guy that can be in two places at once. He can help at the rim but also take a shooter away in the corner. But one of the little things you'll see is like as the ball and player movement's happening for Houston, they do a really good job of like switching off ball to make sure

Chet is in that lowman spot. I have a very specific example of this that I'll show you guys when we get into our film session. But these are just little details. And Alex Cruso is just such a smart defensive player and he's so keyed in on the game plan. It's just it's fun watching him where it's like, okay, he realizes that he's in the lowman position and chets up on the wing. He's the one that grabs Chet, pushes him back down and gets that defense set on

the weak side. Or there was a play where he ended up getting switched onto Alprin Shangoun. Alprin Shangun is not really much of a jump shooting threat. As soon as he switches on to Shangun, he just SAgs all the way off because Shangoon went to the left wing, and he just sits there and helps on the ball and just makes that player give up the basketball. He's so keyed in on the game plan. He's so keyed in all the time on what he's supposed to do

on the offensive end of the floor. Again, he missed a couple threes in the first half, but it's like he does so much more off the ball that makes him a connective piece and a plus offensive player in a way that Josh Giddy isn't quite as good at that. Cruso can maintain himself as a threat offensively tons of screening off the ball. If you watch, Alex is always setting off ball screens to try to free up his

teammates and then cutting. If this was something I noticed with the Lakers, is such a natural fit with Lebron James because of his feel for cutting, and it kind of reminds me of the Celtics in the way that he can kind of slip into that area in the dunker spot there, kind of like Derek White and Drew Holliday do and creates space as a guard that can quickly finish in traffic underneath the rim. Because he's got good size for the position. He's just such a natural

and easy fit. He's gonna make them so damn good, Shaye was hunting more pull up threes. Last year's Shaye he shot forty seven percent on pull up jump shots, which is an extremely high percentage, but he got only one point zero three points per shot, which is good but not amazing because so many of them were long two's, and so supplementing that with just a few more threes will help you get two easy pull up threes. In the first half that looked smooth and easy for him.

You could tell he's been working on it all summer. We talked about Hartenstein and how he puts Chet in lowman position. Again. What that means is if Chet is at center, he's defending ball screens most likely right. But if you put Hartenstein at center, he's defending ball screens. Now Chet is the guy that can operate as the

lowman off the ball. They ran some two man game for Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet, where like they'd have the ball up at the top of the key and Hartenstein would just pin down for Chet and Chet would like come over and like quickly look for a quick catch right in front of the rim. They drew in a third defender doing that, which got lou dort An easy close out opportunity. Hartenstein was operating as that five out passing fulkrim at the top of the key that I

talked about. He hit a guy for a backcut for a layup. He was flowing action from side to side. He had a catch into short row where he hit a lefty floater in the lane. He just is once again, both Caruso and harden segn are just natural shoeing fits on this team that are just going to make them so much better. Not to mention hart and sign is just a legit backup center, which is something that they

didn't have in years. Pass. I like jay Lynn Williams, but Hardenstein's a better player, is the reason why he makes almost thirty million a year. Only concern for the Thunder there's still as a team giving up an offensive rebound on over thirty percent of their opponent's misses. Right now, it is just preseason, but something to keep an eye on because that was their biggest weakness last year and something that we knew they needed to address coming into

this offseason. A couple notes on the Rockets. Their defense looks great. They're really athletic on the perimeter. They did a great job contesting shots. They match up pretty well with some of these perimeter teams just because how many athletes. They have a lot of swarming and rotating. They were digging down on lobs, digging down on pocket passes, and just kind of making those catches and finishes really difficult

around the basket. They held Oklahoma City's half court offense to a one h two offensive rating in the first half, which is really good against a team like Oka See that has so much offensive talent. But Houston's offense was really really ugly. I want to credit okay See. They're going to be one of the best defensive teams in the league this year. But there's a specific problem that's rising to the surface, which is the Rockets can't shoot. They were a bottom ten jump shooting team last year.

They just have a lot of mediocre shooters who are struggling to hit shots. The stat from the stat of the night, basically from last night. In the first half when the starters were still playing, the Thunders scored six more points on jump shots than Houston despite taking six fewer attempts. Houston got just zero point seven to eight points per jump shot in the first half. Guys like Jabari Smith Junior and Jalen Green just haven't developed into

reliable shooters yet. Dylan Brooks is a guy that teams are comfortable helping off and rotating. I talked about Shangun and the Cruso possession. It's clearly in the game plan. If you have Shangun on the perimeter, don't worry about him shooting. You can help into the lane. Amen Thompson

is the guy teams are going to completely ignore. Jalen Green in particular, the thunder were running a very deep drop coverage against him, so he was able to come off of those ball screens free and clear to take pull threes, but they're just not concerned about him making them. He made one of them in the first half, but like, it's just it's not an issue that teams are gonna be worried about over the course of the large sample right now. Hopefully Read Shepherd will help with that issue,

but it's something to keep an eye on. This team can't shoot and a lot of teams are gonna pack the pain against them and it's gonna make life harder for them on the offensive end of the floor. Last note on the on the rockets read Shepperd looked good again. I only watched the first half, but he had a couple of nice pull up twos out of action, like

little mid range shots around the elbow. Had this beautiful skip pass to Jeff Green where he ran a ball screen, dumped it back to Shangun, came off of the screen again, and then while backpedaling into like a one leg kind of fade, he rifled a two hand over the top pass that beat the low man help and hit Jeff Green wide open in the right corner. He ended up missing the shop, but it's just a really high level read. On defense, you could tell he struggles a little bit

with size. There was a play where Jalen Williams just went like right through him to the basket with like almost no resistance. He ended up getting and one. But you can tell he's gonna be a good option against guards. He can press the ball, he's good at attacking the dribble pocket. But most importantly, reach effort brings shooting and

that's something that this team desperately needs. And again, like just putting him on the floor compared to some of the other shooters that they have in the lineup just dramatically changes they're facing. All right, let's get into timp's tape. So our first clip, we have an example of weak side screening with Max Christie. So we have our a little kind of like off ball screening action to get Ruey a catch, but he flows through because it's not open.

So now we're flowing to the opposite side. Right, we have Max Christy and Rui. Here, Jannis is running through, but as Lebron and Ad run their two man game, Yannis ends up taking the lowman help position right, So this puts Dame in a two on one on this side the floor. Max is going to set a really good screen on Dame, and by the way, I am fully aware the screen is illegal. We'll get to that

in a minute. Max Christie sets an illegal screen on Dame, basically throws a block, generates this wide open catch for Ruie. Once again, really nice off ball screen for Max. Dame then rotates and it ends up getting a wide open shot for Max on the right wing. So like good action that drags. One of the things that I notice here too, it's like, as Ruy is cutting through, he goes through, but Yannis ends up lingering in help. So

that cut through ends up creating space on this weak side. Now, as far as the illegal screen goes, this is something that I feel very strongly about. Everyone acts as though the rules are very cut and dry, and they're not. The rules are the rules, but they are officiated in a way that is imperfect. Right hand checking, for instance, technically illegal. Watch any NBA basketball game. I don't care if it's preseason, the regular season, the summer league, or

the playoffs. There will be guys that are hand checking all the time. It just goes on called, right, And one of the things like I'm a big believer, like I'd rather pick up two or three or four or five even hand check fouls over the course of the game, but be really physical at the point of attack and

do a really good job defensively. Then to never pick up a hand checking penalty and give up straight line drives all damn game loan, Right, same thing goes for my screening, Right, I would rather get called for two, three, four illegal screens a game, but I get a bunch of open shots because guys are playing super physical off the ball to get dudes open. Then to never get called for an illegal screen, but nobody gets open. And that's the thing. This is right in front of the ref.

Look at fifty four. He's got ringside seats to the left guard pulling on a on a run play here and it doesn't get called. That's right in front of the ref. So like again it's gamesmanshit understand that like these are little like I want to be a physical, ass kicking basketball team that gets some fouls called, but that I'm better on both ends of the floor as a result. Again, it's a fine line. You want to foul shooters, you want you want to get in them

penalty too fast. There's a lot of like, there's a fine line. But I'm a big believer in operate a little bit in that gray area and you'll be better off as a basketball team. Really good possession of ball pressure from Gary Trent Junior on D'Angelo Russell. Again, Remember, as I talked about, GTJ is not necessarily a very good defensive player in terms of his reputation over the last few years, but what he is is a good

ball pressure guard. Watch how he just gets his left arm, stays attached to d Lo through the whole drive, gets over the top of the screen. Good navigation. Notice that left hand staying attached, staying attached, and he ends up actually forcing a turnover on de Lo because he's got that arm in that shooting pocket and reaches in and takes it out again. If you'll get Gary Trent will get called for some on ball fouls this year, but I'd rather haven't get called for some on ball fouls.

But their on ball pressure is better throughout the game because that don't read benefits in the In the large sample, here's an example of Max Christy kind of making a decision and a ball situation, so again they run a little. This is again it's a wedge screen into a pick and roll. This is really common action you'll see around the NBA. Basically, Gabe is setting this wedge screen for Ad. Ad is going to flow into the ball screen. The

general ideas you get separation between Ad and Brooke. Then when he sets this screen, it'll be easier for Max to get downhill. That's the general idea. But Brooke gets through it kind of easy. Now we're head to get to this ball screen. Right, it's cleared side. We have Gabe spacing, we have Dalton spacing. Watch Jackson. Jackson in the dunker spot is going to set a backpick on Pat Conatton gets into position. There's our backscreen. Max is

going into basically five bodies in the paint. Dalton connect is one of the best shooters on the team, is wide open, and Max is going to once again that's three, that's the ree, but he's going to force a floater over all these bodies and miss. These are those like kind of decisions that it's like Max needs reps to kind of figure out how to do this better. But I'm not sure that this season and is the best opportunity for him to get those reps. Really good defensive

possession with Max on Dame. Just watch the screen navigation. They're far enough away from the basket, like this is a decision. Typically you want to chase Dame, right, but now we're like a legit thirty thirty two feet away from the basket. So Max goes under the first pick, meets him on the other side, absorbs the contact, gets

a great contest, forces a miss on Dame. Really really, it's crazy to even just watch a good point of attack defender playing for the Lakers, because it just was not in the rotation at the tail end of the year. Last year. One more example a really good defense from Max. Here's an example of him getting caught into a switch because of a good screen right. So two man game, you can see it setting up a lot of as I mentioned earlier, a lot more dribble handoff stuff with

the bucks. In this game, dribble handoff runs into the screen. Now we got a switch, right, So Ruy does a good job cutting off that initial drive and forces Dame to pull the ball out. So now the natural next kind of read is Giannis is being guarded by Max. Christie, we want to go attack this in the post, right, So Dame dribbles it out. Giannis tries to post, but he's got that leg in front. Now watch Max battle to get back in front of Giannis. Watched his left

leg swoops around, gets that left foot in front. Now he's got that front position and as a result, Ad can now split the difference between Brooke and Giannis and make it so that the only passing read for Dame is to throw this over the top. And if he throws it over the top, Ad is gonna get it. But if he throws a skip pass, AD's also in position to close out. So Max doing a good job fronting the post, shuts down the counter to this switch. Really nice defense for Max. You can see like he

wants to throw it, but he just can't. It's just not open with ad bracketing on that week side. I don't even remember what happens at the end of this possession. Looks like a little contested midi from Gary Trent. So good defense from Max in this game. All right, let's talk about that Milwaukee Bucks action that I was talking about in the beginning of today's show. So this is the action they were spanning at the beginning of the game. That kind of naturally sets up some cleared side action

for Giannis. Right, So all we're doing is it's a dribble hand off with Dame Tatorium Prince out of the right corner that's going to flow into a swing pass to Brook Lopez. From there, Giannis is going to backscreen for Taurian Prince. As you can see in this situation, Rui has to kind of offer a little bit of help.

If Ruey doesn't and he stays glued up, Torrian's gonna cut through and end up getting a layup, or Dlo will have to help and Gary Trent will be open, right, But this gives Yannis the ability to catch, and Rui's not up on him yet, so Jannis can immediately look to attack on the catch, gets downhill, gets in a lane, he just smokes the shot. And again, as we talked about in the show, I think Giannis was one for six and a half court just kind of struggled to

finish around the rim in this game. But that's not something I expect to happen in the large sample. But so that's like the kind of initial look, right, The initial look is yanis looking to attack. There. Here's the exact same thing, exact same setup. Dame brings the ball off the floor, dribble hand of a Torreum Prince swing past the Lopez. Here's the screen. This time Torrian doesn't cut quite as hard, so Jannis doesn't get as good of a look. Ruy's right on him, right, But that's okay.

Now we're flowing into the cleared side ball screen. See how that's kind of naturally set up as the read. If it's not there for Giannis to attack, they can flow into this cleared side action. Dame comes off the dho watch Ruy Ruey has to show boom two on the ball. Now we have Yannis going downhill and he's got a really easy read available. He makes the wrong read here. He should have just thrown the skip past the trum Prince. It's a wide open three every single time.

Instead he tries to force it to Brook Lopez and Anthony Davis gets a piece of it, knocks it out of bounds. But again, look at how easy that is though. Run the action Giannis catches. We flow into the dhow with Dame. One of the beautiful things about dribble handoffs instead of on ball screens too, is he doesn't have to mess around with ball pressure. He just sprints to the basketball. It's a great counter for ball pressure. All right, let's move on to the Oklahoma City Thunder example of

Caruso's activity off the ball. Okay, so we have Jalen Williams running a two man game with chat Holmgren comes off the ball screen. Watch Alex Crusoe. Instead of just standing, he's going to be like, I need to do something to be active off the ball. He's gonna set a screen. Look at him screening to try to create an opening for lou Dort. But then also he's going to slip into the dunker spot here. Watch just kind of creates an availability for himself, seals Jalen Green to make sure

Jalen Green can't get in there. And he's big and strong enough to finish in traffic around bigger players around the rim. Again, that's a lot of the of the stuff that you see Boston do with their guards. Alex Crusoe. It doesn't have the reputation as like a knockdown three point shooter, but he is a successful off ball offensive player because because of his activity. Here's some good side to side action for the Thunder. We get like a

little brush screen with Crusoe. We're flowing into Chet. Chet's flowing into this action with Shay Shays coming off the ball, We're back to Chet. Now we're coming back to Jalen Williams. Jalen william gets a wide open catch and shoot three. So really good action. But let's watch a couple of specific things. Watch as Jalen Williams cuts through, Dylan Brooks follows him at first, but then Dylan Brooks gets sucked into help in this three man action. Right, watch Crusoe too.

Watch Crusoe as this is taking place. Crusoe is going to set a screen here on Jalen Green, just making making sure he's got a little bit of contact, and that gets this separation for Jalen Williams coming off. So again off ball activity from Cruso. The side to side action pulls Dylan Brooks into help. It's just really hard to track man and ball when everyone's moving around. As a result, Jalen Williams gets wide open. Here's an example

of those defensive principles I was talking about. So the first thing we're gonna see here, as we set up into our ball screen, clear out all right, seven on the shot clock. Watch how this develops. So first of all, as we see when Hartensteign is on the floor, Chet doesn't have to guard ball screens because hard and signs guarding the ball screen. This allows Chet to be in help. These are the kinds of smart things that the thunderdo. Though. Watch Caruso. He sees this play developing. We have a

two man game. We have two guys spacing here read Shepard is spacing above the break. So you can't bring low man help from the left side. The low man help has to come from Cruso right, So Caruso is going to be like, I shouldn't be the low man. Chet should be. Look at him. Point He points at Chet and he switches spots with him, pushes him down. Get down, get down. I need you to be the lowman. Now Hartenstein can come up to the level not have

to worry about Jack Landale getting behind him again. Most pick and roll coverages that want to guard two on two don't want to let the roller get behind. But when you have an athlete like Chet, look at how Chet can be in two places at once. Throw it to Landale, I dare you, Chet's right there. Skip it to Cam Whitmore, Chet's gonna close out. He is probably the best player on the team in term of overall

ground coverage, combination of mobility and length right. So if you put him in a position where you need him to be in two places at once, it allows Hartenstein to do a simple job. Attack the basketball right. As soon as the guard doesn't turn the corner, then he can drive. But that will stop guards from turning the corner on this team, and the passing reads that are available,

Chet can cover both of them. Now hard Siege ends up committing a foul on this play on a little driving move from Jalen Green, but he appears to think that he got all ball to which I didn't see replay. But the point is more focusing on those principles, the pre switch from Crusoe off the ball to keep Chet and low Man help, and just how devastating Check can be in low man position. We have four more. This

is that off ball action with Hartenstein and Chat. So you can't see it because of the way that the screen is setting up, but Chet's kind of down in the dunker spot. Hartenstein's around the free throw line. He's gonna pin down for Chet. You can see it now, So he goes to pin down for Chet. Cam Whitmore is trying to chase Chet over the top of this action. Okay, as he chases Chet over the action that forces jack Landale to show As jack Landale shows that forces I

believe that's Jalen Green. I can't tell in this exact situation. Yeah, that forces Jalen Green to step over and tag Hartenstein. Right If he doesn't do that, Chet's just throwing a little floating past and Hartenstein's getting a finish. This generates a close out opportunity for Lou Dord on the weak side. Here's our closeout just looks at the rim and that gives him the ability to beat Jalen Green off. The

dribble gets downhill known as to Hartenstein's. I was talking about this in the other game, the one where check out the dunk when the guards didn't play but Chet and Isaiah did. Isaiah's just really good at these like seals in the lane to keep big guys away from the rim. That puts Cam Whitmore as the helper. Lou's able to pretty easily finish around him with a little up and undermove. Here's that beautiful skip pass from Reed

Shepherd to Jeff Green. So he's gonna start with the ball scream and again this is the beauty of like rescreening, right. So the first screen, Keason Walls guards it really well, but then he throws the pass back and gets the dribble handoff. This time he gets a little bit more separation that pulls Hartenstein up. Because Hartenstein comes up, that

pulls Jalen Williams over and help. Look at this beautiful one legged fade away two handed skip pass that's on a rope that hits Jeff Green right in the shooting pocket ready to shoot, gets a really good look, really nice passing read from Reed Shepherd by two more quick ones, then we'll be out of here. I talked about Isaiah Hartenstein is kind of like a five out fulcrum. Here's a great example Isaiah's going. These are the kinds of

decisions you're making as a passing fulcrum. Everyone's cutting and screening around him. He's got to find the openings. Oh, slip the screen there it is, boom, easy layoup. Hardenstein's really good at making those reads. And then if you leave him open on the roll, flows to the side, hand off to Crusoe, ball screen, flowing back shay two man game, pocket pass, patented lefty floater that he's gonna make a great percentage of the time. Such a nice

pickup for the Thunder. He's gonna make them so much better. All right, guess that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and for supporting the show. I hope you guys have a great weekend. We'll be back on Monday with more preseason reaction. I will see you guys. Then the volume what's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting

OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.