Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Clippers Reaction: LeBron James ERUPTS, Lakers massive 4th quarter comeback

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You're at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody, If all of you guys are having an incredible week. Well, we got what looks like a complete dud of a game between the Lakers and the Clippers before Lebron James decided to single handly turn it into a very interesting basketball game.

Single handedly outscored the Clippers in the fourth quarter, single handedly broke down their switching defense, and then got the biggest play of the game at the end, stopping Kawhi Leonard when he had a chance to tie the game. We're gonna break that game down from the perspective of both teams. You guys are there before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. It mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second

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let's talk some basketball. So you know, it's funny. I was thinking as I was getting ready for the show, this game tonight just kind of felt like a microcosm of the last few years, or I should say this entire you know, half decade that Lebron has been with the Lakers, because it's been just a whole lot of

mediocrity and incompetence that Lebron has been covering for. I'm watching a team that doesn't have any two way athletes on the perimeter, Guys that can defend and rebound at a high level while also being a plus offensive player that aren't Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That was a problem we knew of after the Denver Nugget series, and the front office was unable to solve that problem over the offseason and chose to not solve that problem over

this deadline. I'm watching a team that tactically doesn't seem to have any idea how to deal with the switching defense, which we'll talk about in a little bit when we get more into the x's and o's, and Lebron just single handedly saves them from themselves they're down the stretch

of that fourth quarter. And it's so interesting to me over the years, whether it's Lebron bringing Anthony Davis to town obviously, what he brings to the table as a basketball player and as a basketball mind in his ability to solve the chess match that's taking place on the court time and time again. It's incompetence that Lebron turns

into results, and it's just crazy. It's honestly a bummer to me that he's in this type of situation where it requires him doing absurd stuff like this to win, while many of his peers at the top of the league are playing on teams and for organizations that just do a better job setting their star players up to succeed. It's a little discouraging, but at the same time, it's

a testament to Lebron's greatness. And I just thought tonight that game was just a microcosm of everything that we saw from the Lakers over the course of this last half decade. Now, this game had a really interesting tactical dynamic that was taking place. The Lakers really struggled for the first three quarters and change as they went down by I think twenty plus there in the early part of the fourth quarter. Now, the question is why why

were the Lakers struggling so much early? There were three things that I want to kind of draw attention to. First of all, the Lakers roster, because they don't have athletes on the perimeter, and they're one guy who really they are two guys that really can create an advantage in terms of like individual greatness as athletes are Anthony Davis and Lebron James right, and Anthony Davis was being schemed out of this game by the Clippers in a

lot of ways, which we'll talk about. And then Lebron on because he's older, you know, he doesn't want to have to try to hit the gas all the damn time to try to inflict his physical will on the game.

All of the other guys, even though they're young, they're all skill oriented players that primarily rely on advantage situations. Guys like Osa Reeves, Dangel Russell, even Spencer didn't witty to a certain extent. Ruey has got a little bit of physical, overwhelming stuff that he brings to the table. But obviously he's a player that has some limitations. But they've got a lot of guys that require advantage situations to succeed. So against traditional NBA coverages, there are a

lot of baked in advantage situations. So if you run a ball screen and a team has a scheme set up where their guard is chasing over the top and they have a big man sitting in a drop coverage, there is a baked in driving lane. Dangel Russell knows I'm gonna turn the corner here because the guy who's guarding me is his scheme is to go over the top of the screen. Same thing goes for Austin Reeve, right, and that's where you see D'anngela Russell be the pick

and roll maestro that we know he can be. That's where we've seen Austin Reeves take leaps as a pick and roll playmaker over the course of this season compared to where he was early in the season. But when you face a team like the Clippers and they switch as much as they do, all of a sudden, those

baked in openings aren't there anymore. Instead of Austin Reeves d'angela Russell coming off of a ball screen into a like a schemed in driving lane, instead, he's meeting another defender right away, and that defender is another athlete on the perimeter that can guard. That's one of the strengths of the Clippers roster, right, which is why they switch

as much as they do. And so what ends up happening so often for the Lakers in these environments as they run into a team that does a lot of switching, and all of a sudden, there's just a lot of dribbling around on the perimeter, and no one's able to get the ball into the paint. No one's able to draw a second defender to get the ball into rotation so that those guys can work with an advantage. Again,

there's multiple ways to work with an advantage. We talked about the baked in ones in the coverage, but the

other big one is if you can bring two guys to the basketball in some way, shape or former. That's a double team in the post, a double team on the perimeter, or even driving and engaging a help defender. Then when you start swinging the ball around like in a driving kick situation. Now Austin Reez or Daniel Russell or Torrian Prince or whatever is catching the ball on the perimeter with a guy sprinting at him, Now he has an advantage because if he doesn't sprint out at him,

he can shoot the three. If he does sprint out at him, he can pick an angle, beat him off the dribble, and make the next play from there, whether that's finishing the play or making that next pass to the next closeout guy. Right. So like literally when they're in rotation, they can look really skilled. And the Laker offense has looked awesome over the course of the last month or so in large part because they have so

much offensive skill on the floor. But what they don't have are offensive players that are like root force athletes that can beat matchups consistently in a one on one setting. Except for Lebron James and Anthony Davis, and so early in the game, it was a lot of passivity. Lebron himself was kind of pass I thought in that second quarter run when Anthony Davis was in foul trouble, he was kind of in chill mode a little bit, totally get it, thirty nine years old. He's waiting to see

when he needs to hit the gas. Right, Anthony Davis was in foul trouble. In addition to that, he picked up his second foul being physically aggressive with a rip through to the left on Mason Plumley. Mason Plumley did a nice job sliding his feet, taking the contact in the chest and taking a charge. So now even Anthony

Davis is being a little physically passive. And then on the other end of the floor, the Clippers were getting awesome stuff because early in the game, Lebron wasn't guarding Kawhi, so he was taking advantage of Ruiya Chimura, taking advantage of Torrean Prince, just killing those guys in individual like individual basketball. And then in that second quarter run when the Clippers took their lead, it was a combination of James Harden picking on Jackson Hayes in pick and roll

and week on ball defense. Right, So as James Harden's coming downhill, Jackson Hayes is in this deep drop coverage and Harden's just killing him with the classic like low gather where he just kind of dribbles the ball and kind of exposes his arms out and he tries to bait the big man into raking across his arms so that he can go up and finish. And he was

killing Jackson Hayes. So as the Clippers were pulling away, it was like James Harden and pick and roll generating all these quality shots and then on the other end of the floor the clipper switching, just stagnating the Lakers and causing all of these problems. But that dynamic flipped there in that fourth quarter, and there were two major factors that I thought led to that dynamic flipping. First, what was, in my opinion, a smart adjustment from Darvin hand.

He brings Jackson Hayes into that lineup to start the fourth quarter, and he starts blitzing hardened pick and rolls instead of dropping. Now again pick and roll drop guards chasing over the top. Big man's waiting in the lane. So there's the baked in driving lane like we talked about earlier. Harden's really good at working with that. Right a blitz, the guard's still chasing over the top, but Jackson Hayes is meeting Harden at the other side of the screen, and they are trapping him and trying to

make that over the top past difficult. Now, offensively, what do you do to be a blitz? You've got to get the ball over the top to the big man rolling to the basket in that short roll situation, and he's got to make reads four on three and pick the team apart. This was smart by the Lakers because it was Mason Plumbley, who is by far the best athlete among all of the Clippers centers that they have.

So Plumbley immediately just just has a complete meltdown against the Lakers blitz and has no idea how to handle those four on threes. The Lakers start turning the Clippers over, getting out in transition, they start having all this success. As a result, the Clippers had to Tyloo, had to take Mason Plumley out of the game and bring in Daniel Tye, who's a much better offensive player than Mason Plumbley, but is nowhere near the athlete and defender that Mason

Plumbley is. From there, Lebron started picking on Daniel Tye and switches, and again when it comes to when it comes to this switching defense, there's a bunch of different ways that you can attack it tactically, and we're not gonna get into that tonight just for time's sake, but one of the best ways to do it is just pick on matchups. And if you can pick on matchups, you can either score one on one or start to

draw multiple defenders into the equation. Lebron starts picking on daniel Tyson switches and is hitting his step back three as he's cooking daniel Tyson switches. That's not only scoring points, but that's putting Tylu in a predicament where now he's like, Ah, what are we gonna do. We gotta do something. Okay, we're gonna start just openly doubling Lebron thirty feet from the basket. So now they're doubling Lebron. What do the Lakers have on the other side of that? A four

on three? Except for who's operating that four on three? D'Angelo Russell, Austin Reeves, Ruya Tamura, Anthony Davis, a bunch of really skilled offensive players and they all are in advantage situations. Now. One of the things that was really smart that Dlo was doing. We talked about the short role, right so you set the ball screen, you're all right

there to the top of the key. What Dlo was doing, he was making himself available in the middle of the floor, so instead of just standing out on the perimeter, as soon as Lebron got doubled, he would flash to the middle of the floor and then he was making the kickout pass from there. He made the kickout pass to Ruy. Right, Ruey has a wide open three. He misses it, but there's another mismatch because Lebron switched or because the ball

screen switched Tice onto Lebron. Now Anthony Davis has Kawhi on him and as a result, he's by far the biggest player around the rim. He had multiple offensive rebounds down the stretch, gets a big offensive rebound, he gets worked back around Ruey. Hachi Mura makes the next three. Another double team of Lebron at the top of the key to D'Angelo Russell to Ruey in the corner, hard close out. Ruey rips baseline and gets that up and under and finishes on the other side of the rim.

Again an advantage situation. He's working with the player closing out at him. He was able to get that because Lebron was torching Tice in switches, which was bringing the double teams. You could guys can kind of get the drift. And then one of the biggest plays of the game was that skip pass to Lebron or from Lebron to d Lo when he had another double team, and Delo

hit what's called a no dip jumper. So a lot of guys that catch, you know, regardless of where you throw the ball, they have like a muscle memory for their jump shot, and their muscle memory starts from like down in their shooting pocket, like down here, So if the pass doesn't get like right into the shooting pocket,

they can have some issues. And even some guys even on the catch, they need to like set their rhythm, so they'll like take a step and like kind of like reset their shooting pocket and then they'll go up. But the best shooters in the world, their shooting release starts from up here, so no matter where they catch, they can catch from up here and go right into the pocket. They can catch down here, go right up into the pocket. They catch out here go right up

into the pocket. Or hell, that pass from Lebron literally hit him up here and he just caught it and shot it. That's what the best shooters in the world can do. And D'Angelo Russell, again when he has an advantage, is one of the more skilled offensive players in the league that can make plays out of that. And so all of it fundamentally came down to the Lakers blitzing Mason Plumbley off the floor, and then Lebron just absolutely flam banging Daniel Tye and forcing double teams so that

they can get the defense into rotation. I thought it was. It was one of one of the craziest, the craziest like single handed, you know, superstar efforts to turn around a basketball game that I've ever seen. The Lakers looked completely lifeless. They looked like they didn't believe they can win. They looked like they were on the verge of falling apart completely, and Lebron pulled them back from the brink.

It was unbelievable. And then the other thing on the defensive end of the floor, the Lakers continued solid blitzing even after Tyson came into the game, solid blitzing and rotating on the back end. Just again, once belief is a huge part of this. You gotta believe in what you're doing. If you believe in what you're doing, you'll play hard. If you don't believe in what you're doing, you won't play hard. And that was what was happening

to the Lakers early. They weren't scoring, they couldn't get it, like, it all just fell apart for them in the effort and energy parts in the game down the stretch, all of a sudden, Lebron just injected like a giant shot of belief into the team. Now, all of a sudden, they're giving a defensive effort and intensity that they just didn't give earlier in the game. So they were blitzing and rotating the hard and pick and rolls really well.

And then Lebron James, you know, it's funny at this phase of his career, because of his age, he's not quick enough to deal with the super super fast players in the league. But Kawhi Leonard is another power player, and Lebron can do a lot to disrupt Kawhi's power related game. And one of the things they were doing, Kawhi was bringing up, you know, like other Clipper guards into the screening action to try to attack to Angela Russell.

The Lakers were just hedging and recovering, right, so Lebron would step back, dl would hedge, Delo would recover, Lebron would sprint back up to Kawhi and he'd get there before he could load up into his shot, and Kawi broke forre you a couple of times out of set actions for the Clippers down the stretch, but Lebron did a really really good job on him, including some off ball deny and then on the biggest play of the game when the Lakers are up to why he is

not going to go to the bully ball on Lebron. He knows that's not going to work on Lebron, so he goes to a really tough left shoulder fade along the baseline. Lebron gets a great contest, it's way short, and the Lakers come out with the win. Just unbelievable stuff from Lebron. James. I continue to be completely amazed by what he's able to do at this phase of his career. He is flat out better than he was last year. Just flat out better than he was last year.

In year twenty one, it doesn't even make any sense. One last Laker I wanted to shout out. I thought Austin Reeves, even through the dregs of the game when things were really not going well, he was one of the big elements to keeping the Lakers involved in this game. He was really active at the point of attack, active with his hands, forcing deflections, forcing turnovers, and then he was consistently the guy that was beating the Clippers down the floor in transition. I feel like he had four

or five runouts in this game. Austin reeves defensive playmaking was a big part of why this was in a twenty five to thirty point game. During some of the middle portions of the game. You know, he missed a couple shots late, and he wasn't one of the guys who was super active on the offensive end during that late game comeback, but he was a huge reason why that comeback comeback was even possible with some of the playmaking that he had during the middle of the game,

particularly on the defensive end of the floor. And then lastly, just a big picture with the Lakers, Lebron's jump shot was always something that I was super encouraged about with this Lakers team. This year, he just trusts it and is so much more confident with it than he was last year. Last year, who was like one of the worst seasons of this phase of his career as a jump shooter, this season is like one of the best

seasons of his entire career as a jump shooter. That was something that gave me a lot of optimism about this team. That was why I wanted the Lakers to make some sort of trade at the deadline to bring in a two way athlete. It was because of the fact that I believed that this was worth investing in. And now here's the thing. If Jared Vanderbilt can't come back, this Laker team, in my opinion, has only a very,

very very minuscule chance of winning the title. I just do not think they are good enough in terms of two way talent on the perimeter. But that's your case. The case is Lebron is still insane. Anthony Davis brings you incredible two way play. You have this skill guard corps, and then Jared Vanderbilt brings basically that do everything Swiss army knife athlete on the perimeter. I can guard the other team's best player, help you clean up the defensive glass.

They even figured out a bunch of stuff over the course of January, the end of January, in early February, to like find a way to get Jared Aderbilt, Jared Vanderbilt involved more offensively without having to just spot him up at the three point line, more cutting and screening and moving and getting him around the basket. They had a bunch of double figure scoring games that they got out of him. That's the case. Lebron brings you, you know, top five to six player in the world type of play.

Anthony Davis does the same. You get Jared Vanderbilt back healthy, bringing you that do everything for and then Austin Reeves

and Dandela Russell bring the skill the skill core. There's just a tiny, tiny, tiny light there at the end of the tunnel. That's what the light looks like. And it's just a question of whether or not they can stay locked in long enough and believe in it long enough to have a chance when they actually get to that point. And we'll see, we'll see what they can do over the course of the next couple of weeks. But they have a game the tail end of a

back to back tomorrow against Washington. That win tonight is gigantic on that front because it goes from splitting a back to back to turning it into a two and oh stretch. And you're about to have a bunch of home games against good teams, but a bunch of home games. And one of the things with these home games for the Lakers is they do tend to bring the effort eventually,

even if it's not early in the game. Something about that Laker home crowd just just gets them to fight in a way that at least down the stretch, in a way that sometimes they struggle with on the road. And so again, tiny little light at the end of the tunnel, there's gonna be a question of whether or

not the Lakers can get there. On the Clippers front, being down Paul George obviously is a severe lack takes away from your playmaking versatility, right, Like it's one of those things where you kind of run out of bodies, right, So like, if you're blitzing James Harden picking rolls and you have the personnel to do so, and Lebron's doing a good job on Kawhi Leonard, but Paul George is

drawing a lesser defender. That's where or if Paul George brings the better defender that's on Harden over to Paul George. Now Harden's got a better, a weaker defender on him. That's where you have just an additional option to go to offensively in a quarter where you only scored sixteen points. Also, Avika Zubats is your best combination of like size and

length and offensive skill. Not quite then, obviously not the athlete that Mason Plumbley is, but he's bigger and longer than Daniel Tice's and he's a much better player that can operate in the short role and do more damage on the offensive glass and those blitz because like again, if you blitz Anthony Davis or the big man has to come further out from the basket. Right in that situation, that's where you can have rebounding issues on the back line.

That's where Zubach could have some success. Right, the Lakers got more of the contested rebounds down the stretch by virtue of Zubatch not being out there. And then lastly on the Clippers front, a Clippers front, sometimes you just

get Lebron like he's at worst the second best player of all time, the best player, depending on who you ask. I think it's razor thin margin between him and MJ. Sometimes Lebron James just does Lebron James things and you lose. And so I don't really take too much away from the Clippers on this front. They're going through a little bit of a lull right now. Their defense isn't as good as it typically is, they're dealing with some injuries,

so I wouldn't overthink it. But it just goes to show you just like all these contenders, they need to be healthy in order to reach their individual ceiling. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. We're going to be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Nick's Warriors live on YouTube, so I'll see you guys. Then I'll see you guys. Then we also have a video coming out tomorrow morning going over some Champ ancient betting

odds stuff opportunities as well as MVP stuff, and we're gonna talk about the Philadelphia seventy six ers for a little bit, so that'll be in tomorrow's video. As always, I really appreciate you guys, and I'll see you that the volume