Hoops Tonight - Lakers dominate Pelicans, Bucks D stifles Suns, Jokic & Nuggets drop 4th straight

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first place that you guys can get these shows. We're written four games from last night. The Los Angeles Lakers, in a very important game in the Western Conference standings, went into New Orleans and dominated the Pelicans. We're gonna talk about that game. The Milwaukee Bucks finished an impressive back to back by going into Phoenix and winning really interesting stuff defensively. At the end of that game that

I want to get into. The New York Knicks finished off their road trip with a second consecutive win, this time over the Portland Trailblazers. A lot more of the same stuff we talked about earlier this week, so I want to talk some Nicks. And then at the end of the show, the Toronto Rafters dominated the Denver Nuggets and a bunch of interesting stuff on both sides of that.

That's four straight losses for the Nuggets and the Raptors are about five hundreds since trading for Yaka Purdle, and I find them to be very interesting team, so we're gonna talk a little bit about them as well. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason

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slash Volume merch Madness. Fill in your bracket and the top five finishers are gonna win some free volume merch. So if you want to compete against me with my bracket, I was gonna fill it out yesterday, but I didn't have enough Time'm gonna fill it out today. You know this particular year, I'm an Arizona fan, so I'm excited about Arizona, but they have some limitations in terms of backcourt skills. I'm a little nervous for them in this tournament.

But hey, we can have some fun. We can compete against each other with brackets, and you guys have a chance to win some merch, So make sure that you guys get up there and fill out a bracket and get a discount on some merch on our website. All right, on that NOO stocks and basketball. So this was a very important game for the Lakers on a couple of

different levels. They had just dropped a game against the Knicks that was kind of important, especially under the circumstances in the standings, and they have a back to back and a game in Houston tonight that Anthony Davis was going to sit. We knew he was going to sit. It's basically been made clear from the Lakers that they do not want to play him in any back to backs the rest of the season. There's one more in

April that they'll probably sit him out. So obviously you have a chance to lose in Houston without Anthony Davis. There's a chance that Alpern Shangoon is going to play tonight, that obviously is a bad matchup for that Laker front court without Anthony Davis. So you needed to win in New Orleans last night to really have any chance to get into that position that the Lakers want, which is in that seven to eight seed, which we'll talk about here more in just a minute. But they just absolutely

dominated the matchup. This is a good Pelicans team who is very good at home. For as many issues as they've had, they've been a very good home team, and they just went in there and absolutely demolished him. They were up forty points in the third quarter. You don't see that too often in the NBA. There's twenty point leads. Occasionally you'll see a thirty point lead. A forty point lead is utter domination. And what was interesting is I remember I told you guys after the Knicks game, like

I was crediting the Knicks. They won that game, but it was a weird game for a bunch of different Lakers, like Anthony Davis had his worst game probably in two or three weeks at that point. Malik Beasley could not buy a shot to save his life. Troy Brown Junior was over seven from three. Austin Reeves was less effective than he usually had ben Jared Vanderbilt, for the first time in his entire time in the Lakers' Jersey, struggled with the defensive match up with Julius Randall, albeit with

a little bit of an iffy whistle. A lot of guys just didn't play well for the Lakers, and if it wasn't for Gangela Russell shooting the lights out, that game probably would have been a lot more ugly than it was. And here's the thing. Bad nights just happen. It's part of being a basketball player. You're not always going to be playing at your absolute best all the time.

There are little things in your game that oscillate based on shot result, and when you start to miss some shots that contends to impact other areas of your game. It's all very natural stuff, but ideally it's a little more balanced because in this game against the Pelicans, everybody played amazing. Anthony Davis completely dominated the game from the opening tip at twenty in the first half, finished with thirty five and seventeen. He pretty typically will destroy traditional

centers like Jonas valichots. He'll have more problems when he's going against the og Ogna Nobe types or even Isaiah Hartenstein, who's not necessarily a traditional center, is a little bit better of an athlete who can move his feet better. When guys actually force him to shoot over the top, some of his offensive skill limitations will show up. But traditional center when he's got a footspeed advantage. That's barbecue chicken every single time, and he absolutely destroyed, you know,

his valanciunist in this game. Jared Vanderbilt got back on track by doing it just an amazing job guarding Brandon Ingram. He didn't really got a good job guarding Brandon Ingram last time, but Brandon just hit a bunch of really tough shots. Did a much better job, really the same job this time, with Brandon missing more shots and dissuading him from even attempting in a lot of cases. Troy Brown Junior got back on track from three two for three.

Daniel Russell finished five for fifteen, but he actually had a really good first half, I thought. And then Malik Beasley, you know, I just talked in the last game about how he was due for some positive regression. He had been shooting about thirty two percent since he came to the Lakers. While in his career, he's kind of like a high volume thirty six percent kind of guys. Shouldn't say first career, but for recent history's kind of like

a thirty six percent, high volume guy. And he went, he hit seven threes in the first half, and guess what He's shooting for with the Lakers now thirty six percent, So that's textbook positive regression there. Ruby Hatch hit a couple of big threes. When you in Gabriel five offensive rebounds in fifteen minutes, Austin reeves fourteen points on five shots. So the exact opposite of what happened in the NIXT game.

Everybody played well. And you know, ideally, like I said, you want more balance there, you'd rather have a few guys struggle and you win the NIXT game. And then you'd rather have a few guys struggle and you win the Pelicans game. But that's just now, not how it works all the time, but utter dominance in that game. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Pelicans here

in just a minute. But now the Lakers are in a three way tie for eighth place, and I think you know we've heard the intel is is that Lebron is probably going to miss most of the rest of the regular season. I would be surprised if he didn't play, you know, I'd be surprised if he played more than just like even just two or three games at the end of the season. I expect him to come back in early April play a couple of games. I don't

think they're worried about his basketball, I Q fit. I don't think they're necessarily worried about a long ramp up there, especially when you get into the postseason and you have more days off between games. So I think I think they're being cautious there deliberately, and with this current group,

I've been saying this. I think I think they're up to nine and four now since the trade pieces started playing after that Bucks game, after the trade deadline, So nine and four, like the Lakers out of all those teams that are in that mix. Now, there's kind of like the upper tier, which is like the top six teams. Right, that's where you've got the Denver Nuggets, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Sacramento Kings, the Sons, the Clippers, and the Warriors. Right, they're all kind of in that top six. And I

think that top six is pretty set. I give the Lakers an outside chance to crack into that group, but I find it to be relatively unlikely, especially since there's a good chance you end up dropping one or two of these games in the back to backs because of Anthony Davis sitting down right, So like, I think that realistically they're looking at the seventh or the eighth seed. Right This is where I think that's important because and

they're one game behind Minnesota. I think Minnesota and the Lakers are going to be the two teams that end up getting that seven eighth seed in some order. Minnesota's up a game. I'd give them. Minnesota is really good. They're playing really good basketball right now. They've unlocked some stuff defensively with Jade McDaniels and with Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert, So I wouldn't be surprised if they got

that seven seed. Ideally, you want you want to have a home game for that play in game, but that play in game becomes a great opportunity for the Lakers to go into the postseason with a realistic path to get out. So even on the low end, let's say that they get the eight seed and they have to win in Minnesota. Theoretically, Lebron James, Anthony Davis, this group of players incredibly locked in defensively, they should be able

to go into Minnesota and win. Okay, we talked a lot about how perimeter defense was a dynamic that won that game for Minnesota when they beat the Lakers last week. Lebron James kind of flips that dynamic because he's gonna be able to get the defense into rotation without having to use your guards to beat people off the dribble. Lebron is way too big and strong for Jadie McDaniels, and Anthony Edwards is going to have to guard D'Angel Russell. So like that matchup is a really good matchup for

the Lakers. I think they can win that game if they win the play in game, regardless of what. Obviously, they have a better chance to win it at home, but if they win it as the eight seed, even on the road, that gives them the seven seed. I believe Sacramento currently is the three seed. I believe they'll surpass Memphis and finish the season as the two seed. We'll see, but either way, I like their chances in that first round matchup against Memphis or against Sacramento. It's

a great matchup for both of them. Memphis is a bad half court offense, and the Lakers are unbelievably good half court defense after the trade deadline, so I think they'd be able to get a lot of stops, and they'd be much better executing at the end of games. Memphis is a bad, bad execution team. They're a horrible fourth quarter team. Lots of things that favor the Lakers.

Right Sacramento, it would just be Lebron James and Anthony Davis utterly bludgeoning Harrison Barnes and Demonis Sabonis for the entire series. I'd pick the Lakers to win both of those series. Then from there, obviously it depends on how things shake off in the middle of the standings. You can end up with an easier matchup in the second round against a team that you like your chances against, right, but it could just as easily be the Warriors, and

you could have a tough matchup. But most importantly, you save the Nuggets for the Western Conference finals. So things are actually kind of shaping up pretty well here for the Lakers. If they can get into that seven eight matchup win a play in game, they have a realistic pathway to get out of the Western Conference, to keep Lebron's minutes down in the first round of the playoffs so that he can ramp up, and I really think that they have a decent chance there Obviously health has

to be factored in there. Anthony Davis is healthy now and playing great, but who knows if that will last. And then obviously Lebron needs to get back to the floor without having a setback. So there's a lot of different steps they've got to go through. The Pelicans this season is super weird. On December twelfth, they were eighteen and eight, that was the best record in the Western Conference,

the third best record in the league. During that span, they were fifth in offense and third in defense, so looked like a bona fide Western Conference contender. Since then, fifteen and twenty eight, fifth worst record in all of basketball, twenty sixth in offense, and eighteenth in defense. And now, I haven't watched a ton of Pelicans this year. I've seen probably twenty twenty five Pelicans games, and so I really encourage Pelicans fans who are listening to give their

two cents in the comments. I'd be curious to hear what you guys think. The couple of things that stand out to me when I watched them, though, One, their wings aren't as good defensively as they should be, right like Brandon ingram on a night on the games that I've watched him is still getting lost without the basketball or off ball quite a bit. He's not taking the higher level on ball assignments because they're giving those to

Herb Jones obviously, and then Trey Murphy. He's got the athleticism and I do believe one day he'll be a good wing defensive player, but he hasn't been great, and so as good as they have all these wings, but Herb Jones is really the only guy that's impacting the game defensively at a high level. And then their point

of attack defense is just disastrous. CJ. McCollum is not providing any impedance on those original on those initial driderble penetrations, and when you get the Pelicans into rotation, it's a lot to ask to run around and chase shooters when Yonas found Tunis Is on the floor and you don't

have great foot speed. Although they've been cutting back on Yonas's minutes a lot lately, so it hasn't been as much of an issue there, but I don't think defensively they're nearly as good as they should be given their personnel, and I think you've seen a lack of fight. There's a weird energy around the team. They're having a lot of games where they lay down and lose, but then you'll watch them on another night, Like I think they beat the hell out of Portland the other night, So

like there's kind of like a weird competitive energy. They don't have a lot of guys that like to play hard as like a natural part of their basketball identity, and I think that's a little bit of an issue for them. And then on the offensive end, I think it's a lack of rim pressure on that same using that same December twelfth date, which before December twelfth, Zion played most of the games. After December twelfth, Zion only played a couple of the games before we got out.

But they're not generating any rim pressure because all of their offensive initiators are guys that like to hunt pull up jump shot. Right. So CJ. McCollum is coming off these screens, he's not relentlessly attacking the rim. He's trying to get to his pull up jump shot. Brandon ingram same thing. He's not relentlessly attacking the rim. He's trying to get to his pull up jump shot. And the reason why you need those guys that like to get

downhill and go to the rim. Is that's what collapses the defense to get you higher quality three point shots than the tougher shots that you get when you're not getting that type of dribble penetration. That's what Zion Williamson did for this team. Forget about the defensive limitations, forget about like some of the half court stuff when he can plow into too many bodies and have some turnovers

and things like that. Just having him on the floor provides that rim pressure element that just opens everything up for them offensively. And even then Brandon Ingram and CJ. McCollum are attacking with more of an advantage in getting better looks out of that. So I think you're seeing that specifically in their lack of driving kick basketball, and

that shows up an assist per game. So before December twelfth, they were sixth and assist per game, and they were the thirteenth best team in the league at taking care of the ball and turnovers per game. After December twelfth, again most of that without Zion, they're down to twentieth and assist per game and they have the sixth most

turnovers per game in that span. So as you could tell, like flipping the dynamic from it being a zion oriented team attacking the rim, playing drive and kick off of that to suddenly a lot of high ball screens and dribble handoffs with Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum hunting dribble pull up jump shots. I think that's hurting them a lot. I think you saw that a lot against the Lakers last night, Like how many possessions did you see Trey Murphy just dribble the ball off the floor and take

a transition three? CJ McCollum dribble up the floor and take it. They were just running up the floor and shooting threes. There's no dribble penetration and no driving and kicking, and I think that that's slowing down their offense. Again, I haven't watched too much of the Pelicans this year, So Pelicans fans who are listening, if you think I'm wrong about that, or if you have another perspective to add,

drop it in the comments. All right, buck Sons, this was an absolute defensive masterclass from the Milwaukee Bucks down the stretch in the fourth quarter. I thought it was really interesting to watch the dynamic of shot creation on both ends. Okay, I talk a lot about perimeter defense on this show and how that ends up being the thing that stops the team, the offense from getting into that wheel. We just talked about it with the Pelicans, right, So look at how this dynamic switched at the end

of this game. You know, things were a little bit open floor, a little bit more loose, and Campaign hits a couple of pull up threes and the Suns have I think a three point lead. But down the stretch, both teams go to their closing groups and Phoenix couldn't score.

When Devin Booker was the lead ball handler, they had Drew Holliday on the ball, and Drew Holliday did an amazing job guarding Devin Booker as he usually does, and Devin will have his nights every once in a while where he hits tough shots over the top of Drew, but Drew's guarded him a lot over the years, and he's starting to figure out his moves a little bit and he's starting to have more success. They had a matchup earlier this year where Drew had a key steal

on Devin book at the end of the game. If you guys remember in this game, when Devin Booker had the ball, Milwaukee was running an aggressive drop coverage, so Lopez is coming high out of his drop almost to catch Hedge up at the level of the screen, and Drew Holliday's playing super physical chasing Devin Booker over the top. Then they're conceding the Roman, They're letting DeAndre and catch the ball going downhill, and Jannis Antenna Kompo is blowing

that up every single time. And this is I want to wait to get into it a little bit deeper here in just a second, but Jannis's help defense is such a ridiculous problem to deal with as an opposing offense because of what he can do taking away the week side corner and the rollman. We'll get back into that in just a second. But I thought it was super interesting that they were hyper aggressive with Devin Booker

ignoring the rollman to contain him. But then when Chris Paul had the ball, Brook Lopez was sagging all the way back. And basically, Joe Ingles and Joe Ingles is not everything defensively has to do with how you can contribute to your scheme, not necessarily what your skill set is. Like if Joe Ingles played for the Clippers and they don't have rim protection and they're switching everything, and it's a lot of isolation defense, and you need your man

to contain the ball. He's going to get beat off the dribble a lot. That's not his strength. He's not going to be able to recover and block shots at the rim as a wing. But if you simplify his responsibility by having brook Lopez basically parking his ass right under the basket, now, all of a sudden, he doesn't need to contain Chris Paul as a ball handling as

a guy driving to the basket. All he needs to do is chase him over the top of the screen and apply a little bit of back pressure so that Chris Paul doesn't get off those easy little fifteen footers. The only time Chris Paul was able to get decent looks down the stretch were floaters over the top of brook Lopez going downhill. And Chris Paul's going through a phase of his career where he doesn't like to be

aggressive as a score. So Joe Ingles was actually doing a really nice job applying that back pressure and stopping Chris from getting to the high quality twos and he didn't have to worry about the rim because that's where Brooke was. And so it's super interesting to see that dynamic hyper aggressive against Devin Booker trying to turn him into a passer, which is what he can do but doesn't want to do, and then against Chris Paul playing super passive and trying to turn him into a score

which he can do but doesn't want to do. I thought it was a super interesting defensive strategy from the Bucks, and they strangled the Sun's down the stretch of this game. And this is where I want to get into the honest dynamic. So in pick and roll defense, or it's in every type of defense, but let's just use pick

and roll as example. So in pick and roll defense, there are basically two backline responsibilities, right, So theoretically, you're gonna have your on ball defender that's gonna have some job depending on the coverage. He's either gonna go under the screen, or he's gonna go over the screen, or he's gonna deny the screen if they're icing, which is usually on the side of the floor. The pick and roll defender, the screen defender he's doing basically one of

three things. He's either in a high drop up at the level of the screen, he's in a low drop back at the basket, or he's trapping or blitzing the screen right and some combination of that is going to make your pick and roll coverage. But let's use the Devin Booker one as an example. Devin Booker's coming off the ball screen, Lopez and Drew are both out right. Lopez is high out of the drop to contain that pull up shot. Drew's chasing over the top DeAndre and

is rolling to the basket. This is where the lowman comes into the play. It The lowman is just what most NBA teams refer to it as, but basically it's just the help defender that's in the week side corner, and usually it's a guard or a wing, and most of guards or wings will opt to try to take

a charge. So like a lot of teams will run drills while they're practice this where you're guarding a shooter in the week side corner and there'll be a rollman kind of catching the ball going towards the basket and you sprint to the top of the charge circle. And you set your feet and you take a charge and you fall backwards. Right. What makes jana Is so interesting is that backline lowman defender is he's defending that as

an above the rim defender. So like when they're rowing the ball to that rollman, Janice is is elevating and disrupting the lob pass at the rim. If you try to catch, he's coming fly. There was a play at the end of this game where Dean Dreyton was there for the catch and Janice just came in and swiped it clean from his hands as he caught it in the middle of the floor. But at the same time, most teams, when that guard steps in to take that charge or whatever, that opens up the skip pass and

now that shooter in the week side corner is wide open. Well, makes Jannis such a frightening help defender is he can split the difference and on those plays he doesn't have to commit to the rollman or commit to the week side corner. He can just stand in the middle. And he's such a free gathlete that regardless of which pass you make as the ball handling guard, he's blowing it up. If you throw the skip pass, he's stealing that thing. If you throw it to the rollman, he's blowing that

up too. It completely disrupts that pick and roll as the weak side defender because most teams don't want to bring in that week side defender if they can avoid it, because that's how they get wide open threes on the back line. Every team in a dream scenario would like to defend pick and roll two on two if they can help it, but especially against teams like the Suns that have such gifted ball handlers and guys like DeAndre and you almost have to bring in that third defender.

That's where the Suns were getting all that stuff in the past with Michaal Bridges, right, mcaal Bridges on the skip pass, knocking down corner threes. They're attacking closeouts and hitting those little drifting jumpers in the lane. Now Michael Bridges has gone from that equation, which makes it a little bit tougher because you don't have as much skill

over there. But it doesn't matter because Jannis would have swallowed that up to Janie is just this world beating help defender that can contain that be the third man in that pick and roll defense. While simultaneously not leaving

a shooter open because of his recovery athleticism. I don't know if you guys remember, there was a game last year I talked a lot about some of you guys who listening to the show back then, we'll remember this, But there was a game against the Mavericks in the Bucks where Luca was running a lot of high pick and roll and Jannis was in that low man position and as a result, like Luca was drawing us in to help on that role man and then throwing the

skit pass and making textbook Luca fantastic skit passes. And on those skit passes, Jannis just immediately was recovering out to the corner and taking away the shot, and that defender, that offensive player in the week side corner was just passing out of it because he just had nothing, and

so it was disrupting Dallas's whole offense. And so what Luca did, if you guys remember, which I thought was super interesting, is he started calling for Jannis in the ball screen and he would get Jannis on the switch or get him trailing him on the ball screen and then make that same ski pass. He's not trying to

score on Jannis. He's just trying to get that same help rotation from Milwaukee while throwing to a shooter in the Week's side corner with a much worse help defender making that rotation, and he started to get some good looks in the weeks side corner from that. It's a random game from last year to demonstrate this concept, and that's going to be the thing that teams are going to have to do if they want to have any hope of beating that Buck's defensive vir Gin pick and roll.

You're gonna have to, as crazy as it sounds, start pulling Jannis up into the ball screen because you have a much better chance getting an open shot on the backside from a different help defender than you do from Jannis hawking everything on the back side of the floor. It's a it's such a weapon to have in a playoff series, and it was a huge factor down the stretch of this Sun's game, blowing up their pick and roll when they were getting those stops at the end

and then on the other end of the floor. Joe Ingles He's been one of my favorite signings of this season. I obviously he brings that important spot up shooting element that the Bucks need so badly with Jannis on the floor. But he's also just like a pretty damn solid initiator offensively, and the Bucks ran a lot of offense threw him down the stretch of this game once again. Matchups right, Drew Holiday is drawing josh Akogi, and Joshua cogis actually

a pretty damn good point of attack defender. He had a rough night against the Warriors last night. The rest of the Sun's point of attack defense is hot garbage, but Josha Cogi is pretty solid, So from a matchup perspective, Drew attacking josh Akogi wasn't as good of an option as it was for Joe Ingles to run the action with Chris Paul as his defender. Chris Paul is not in the same stratosphere of a defender as he was when he was younger, and Joe was giving them all

kinds of problems. Chris in particular is really struggling navigating over the top of ball screens. But there were three big plays that Joe Ingles made at the end of this game that ended up sealing the game offensively for the Bucks. First, there was a play where he ran just a regular ball screen kind of going to his right.

Chris died on the screen. Joe Ingles just rose up and knocked down a pull up three that you know, that's that offensive skill that you need to beat that particular coverage, and he was getting better separation from Chris Paul than Drew Holiday was getting from a Kogi. Then he made two plays rolling down the rim as a ball hitler. One was out of a dribble handoff, one was out of a pick and roll, but it's the same concept ball screen slash dribble handoff from Brook Lopez.

The first one was with Chris Paul. The second one was with Tory Craig, who's also not a good point of attack defend when it comes to navigating screens and stuff like that or handling quicker guards, which Ingles is not, but he was going over his screen on this play. Ingles. On both of these plays, Ingles just takes a wide banana route basically around the screen and just starts to get downhill towards the rim, and DeAndre Ayton, as Chris Paul or Tory Craig is getting caught on the screen

has to step up to contain Joe Ingles. Joe Ingles is a big six seven lefty that can finish that left handed lay up off the glass. So he's got to step over. Now Chris Paul or Tory Craig, they have to recover and dig down on brook Lopez to stop him from catching as the role man. But what Ingles did, which was really smart, is on both of these plays, he threw the ball high to brook Lopez. So he just kind of threw like a little popping lob pass into Lopez as he's rolling to the rim,

so that Lopez could catch high and finish high. Why is that important Because what do smaller defenders do when a bigger player catches around them, They attack the ball down low. So if he throws a bounce pass to low Pez there, Chris Paul can swipe at it. If he throws a bounce pass with Tory Craig there, Tory

Craig can swipe at it. By keeping it high, he allowed brook Lopez to catch high in finish high, and they got two big layups from brook Lopez down the stretch of that game that helps seal the game on the offensive end of the flour It was just a and obviously Honest was amazing again, but we talked a lot about him yesterday, so I'm not going to get into it. It was just a really impressive championship level

type of back to back from the Bucks. That's not an easy back to back to win, to go into Sacramento when they desperately want to win that game in a raucous crowd and to win and then yeah, I know the Sons are down Kevin Durant, but they're still at home, a tough team with a lot of offensive skill, and that's just not an easy game to win. And it was an impressive back to back from them. For Phoenix, that's the second game in a row where point of

attack defense was an issue for them. Obviously, Tory Craig and Chris Paul we just talked about last night. It was a lot of Josh Coogi and Devin Booker struggling, and then obviously and Lee and Devin Booker as well struggling to communicate switches that they were leaving the Warriors open. That all it says to me is that they're going to need an otherworldly defensive effort from Kevin Durant to win the title. Which for the record, I think he's

capable of. We just talked about that week side help defender role from Jannis. That's the role that Kevin Durant has to have. They're going to need to have Eton and whoever their point of attack defender guard the pick and roll aggressively in the playoffs, which is going to leave the role man open, and they're going to need Kevin Durant to be able to blow up those Brook Lopez catches while at the same time recover into shooters

on the week side. It's going to be a lot to ask, but Kevin Durant does have the athleticism to do that, and that, to me is going to be the swing factor for Phoenix this year. Can Kevin Durant be a good enough help defender to compensate for Phoenix's bad point of attack defense. One other note on Phoenix too, It was a big issue that they had to go to Chris Paul down the stretch offensively and he wasn't

aggressive enough of his as a scorer. This just goes back to what I said at the beginning when they made the Kevin Durant trade. The ultimate ceiling for this team again, because everything is different when you're talking about the twenty six or twenty seven opponents you'll face that are not championship level rosters, and then the three or

four teams that you'll face that are championship level rosters. Defensively, the way that changes the way the game goes when all that easy stuff is taken away and you really

need to grind out quality shots. The Bucks are such a great example of that, and that's why I look at Kevin Durant as the guy they're gonna need to use as their primary on ball guy and a little bit less of him off ball, because at the end of that game, your best chance of getting a good look against the Milwaukee Bucks is Kevin Durant is going to have to be the guy that draws in that

initial defensive attention. All Right, We're gonna hit on a couple of Eastern Conference big wins from last night as well. The New York Knicks won a big game in Toronto, and I keep confusing Toronto and Portland. In Portland against the Trailblazers, Dame was going off for two and a half quarters and Portland had four different double digit leads.

They were controlling the game but there was an interesting adjustment there down the stretch of the third quarter and specifically offensively from the Knicks to get going in transition

that I thought changed the game. So they started kind of trapping Dame as much as they can, of getting the ball out of his hands, being more aggressive off of guys like Trendon Watford and Matisse Thyble and conceding them open shots to try to contain the skill players, and so they were getting stops and then from there, and you know, we saw this a lot against the Lakers the other night too, where you know, the New York Knicks are a bad half court offense, even with

Jalen Brunson, like, they're a middle of the pack half court offense. So what do you do when you're a bad half court offense? You need to try to avoid the half court environment as much as possible. And without Jalen Brunson, you're an even worse half court offense, right because he's your best half court surgeon. So the best

way to avoid that is to push in transition. And they keep going with these three guard lineups as of late, which I think is super fascinating, and again it's matchup dependent they're not going to be able to do that against everybody. They did it against a Laker team, excuse me, that didn't have a forward star and was relying a lot on their guards to create stuff. You know. They did it against this Portland team that doesn't have a lot of forward shot creation and is relying on their

guards to create stuff. So a lot of it has to do with matchups, but they were they've been going with these smaller lineups and they're they're just running the ball down everyone's throat, Like the sheer amount of transition threes that they got. Miles McBride, who I found out today is called Duce McBride. Duce McBride hit four threes, I believe, like four transition threes down the stretch of

this game. And he hasn't shot the ball particularly well this season, but again, if you're gonna get those high quality shots, and apparently he has a good history of shooting back when he was in college. So it's just a lot of it. A lot of it has to do with role guys, Like if you're not getting as many touches as you might think, it disrupts your rhythm and then you don't really get a chance to dial in and fine tune your shot on the floor, and

you're gonna miss a lot of shots. And Jalen Brunson being out has bought Duce McBride more minutes and he's capitalizing on that. But like it all starts with rim pressure, guys like Emmanuel Quickly and Josh Hart flying down the floor in transition, attacking the rim but not forcing shots over length at the rim, throwing those kickout passes to trailing shooters. And one of the big reasons why transition threes are such a high percentage shot, especially when the

ball has popped around a little bit. I'm not talking about like walking into a three. Those are tough shots, and there's a few guys in the league that are really good at them. But they're tough shots. But when you get transition threes that are off kickouts, when guys attack the rim, your feet are set and your momentum

is carrying you forward to the rim. So if I'm trailing down the left wing and Josh Hart drives and he makes a kick out to Julius Randall in the left corner, and Julius Randall makes a shovel pass to me and I'm Duce McBride trailing on the left wing. I've got my feet set, my momentum is carrying forward

because I was running up the floor. So I always talked about how jump shooting has a lot more to do with legs than people realize that Transition three kind of has the legs part baked into it because you're already moving forward, so then you can really focus on getting a good balanced shot attempt with good lift, and that's a high percentage shot. And they were killing them with transition thrace. Like I Saiduce McBride made four of them. I think, I mean, you know, quickly came in and

made a couple. Josh Hart was attacking the rim and transition. They were drawn fouls like it just was a It was a bludgeoning in transition of Portland's defense. They went on a twenty one to five run. Then the game was basically over. It was a nice way to end the road trip. They lost a couple of tough games, but then they went and won two tough road games. That Lakers team, like I said, they're nine and four

including the knickslaws since they made the trades. That's not an easy team to beat and they won that game. The Blazers is freaking terrible as they've been there seventeen and sixteen at home, they were seventeen and fifteen going into that game. It's not an easy win, and they went in there and they got it done. So nice

work for the Knicks. They've been like the Knicks. I was a huge Knick skeptic for the first half of the season, and they've been really impressive here down the stretch, and I do actually believe that they have a puncher's chance to win a series or two, which is not something I would have said in the last route last couple of months all right before we get out of here, Nuggets Raptors. So Denver was on a three game losing

street coming in. They had all these defensive issues, so you wanted them to come in and bringing a better defensive effort to try to write the ship, and it just could not have been further from the truth. They were incredibly sloppy, especially off ball. Toronto took a lot of advantage of Denver's entry points, like I talked about a lot. They ended up giving up forty nine points in the first quarter, So an un serious defensive effort once again from Denver. Toronto led by twenty four points

in the third quarter. Yes, Denver made a little bit of a run, they got it back to three, but we've talked about this before. This is a very common thing that happens in the NBA. Team who's playing better gets out to a huge lead, then they let their foot off the gas. Team that's down big finally starts to show a little bit of fight. They grind their

way back. As soon as they start to get a little bit close, the team that's been playing better locks back in and the team that had to expend all that energy to get back in the game gets fatigued, and the league grows right back up. They got it to within three in the fourth quarter, and then Toronto is back seventeen. They were up by seventeen before the end of the game, so I don't really look at the comeback as much. The Toronto completely dominated this game.

I do want to talk a little bit more about Denver and their entry points here in just a second, but I want to focus on Toronto for a minute, because there there's something super interesting going on in Toronto now since the Pearl trade. They're seven and six, doesn't sound that interesting, right. They're in the play in tournament as of right now, I think they're I think they're in the nine seed or something like either eight or nine. But here's what's interesting to me. Their starting lineup is

destroying people. Even in the Lakers game that they lost, their starters destroyed everyone in that game. And the reason why, I'll go into the numbers first. They are plus fifty seven in their first one hundred and fifty minutes together. They are outscoring teams by nineteen points per one hundred possessions. They have a one twenty five offensive rating, which is off the charts good, and a one oh seven defensive rating, which is extremely good. And it comes down to a

couple of things. They're a huge matchup problem for teams. They've always played a lot of big players. But one of the reasons why it didn't quite work because they didn't have a natural rim protector and most wing defenders they didn't grow up playing rim protector, so they're not good at that specific skill, and a lot of traditional defensive coverages require a decent rim protector, especially pick and

roll coverages. Right, So it's slotted Toronto into a more natural configuration as a defensive team right on the offensive end of the floor. It has provided them with matchup flexibility that just about I will just go out and say it, no other team in the league has so. Fred van Vliet is an excellent onball creator and he's going to draw the other team's best point of it

act defender right. One of the three of O g n and Obi, Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam is going to get a small guard, the second smallest guy in the opposing lineup is gonna be end up guarding one of Toronto's big forwards, and chances are that your small forward is also going to be giving up an advantage because Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam in particular are both gigantic human beings and bigger than your traditional small fourds

that you see around the league. For instance, like Minnesota and you're playing you know Gobert and Kyle Anderson Jaden McDaniels, that the three is going to be giving up a solid twenty pounds a muscle and two inches two three inches to Siakam or Barnes, like he's gonna be giving up a physical advantage there, So what ends up happening is like they're a brute force offense. There's there's not a lot really pretty about what they're doing. It's a

lot of just who's got the better matchup. Give that guy the ball, he's gonna back him down and somebody helps. When somebody helps, will play driving kick from there. And part of it is they're shooting really well, like that group of shooting forty percent from three in their one hundred and fifty minutes together. But in the games that I've watched them, a lot of it is shot quality, Like is that going to come down a little bit?

Maybe like that, there's some guys in that lineup that are inconsistent shooters that have been knocking down some shots, but like ogn and Obie is locked in with his spot up shooting right now, like Pascal Siakam has had stretches this year where he's locked in and he's knocking down shots, and a lot of it is shot quality. And if you can get the defense into rotation by constantly having a seize mismatch, you're gonna get high quality

catch and shoot threes. And if you get high quality catch and shoot threes, it is possible that you're gonna shoot forty percent. Now there will be teams that are gonna be able to match up a little bit better with them. There there. I don't view them as a title favorite but or even a contender, but they are an interesting playing team who at least is going to

be a pain in the ass to deal with. And if they can figure out a way to get that success from the starting lineup to train late through to other areas of the game, either by staggering a little bit better or by bolstering their bench in the coming season.

This offseason, they could become a very interesting team because there was intel that there was intel that Toronto believes that Siu Jerry still believes in this core and that basically what they did around the trade deadline was purposefully pretend like they were going to trade some guys just to gauge their value, and then they went the complete opposite direction and gave up a first round pick for Yaka Purtle, right, So like, clearly they're still thinking all in,

even if they were bluffing to blow up, And that tells you that they still believe and I can see I can see why when that group that starting lineup has already been one of the better plus minus lineups in the league in terms of their total plus minus for the season. In just one hundred and fifty minutes together. That's a lot to be encouraged about. Outscoring teams by

nineteen points per one hundred possession. That's like Golden State Warriors starters type of dominance, albeit in a smaller sample size. So like, it is interesting, and I can see why. I can see why me Siu Jerry's excited about them.

But this is where I want to get into Denver, because I talked a lot about Denver's entry points, and what I've always said about Denver is like you can put together the fact simile of a good regular season defense, but when you get into the postseason, it becomes more about matchups, right, And the two guys in particular, like Yokis was bad defensively in this game, as he's been for most of the season, but in this particular game,

I thought the guards were the problem. The like Jamal Murray and Contavious calledwal Pope in particular, and Contavious Colbo Pope is competing. It's not that it's just he's giving

up too much weight. This goes back to what we were talking about, like Jamal Murray and Contavious calledwal Pope, or you're starting backcourt, you've got Contavious Calledboal Pope matched up with one of those big forwards and they were just going right at him and drawing those help defenders and specifically guys like like Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr. Jamal Murray got lost couple of times, Yokis was getting beat on the back line. I shared a clip of

that today. When that second defender was coming in. The Toronto players are doing a good job of relocating along the three point line and cutting to the basket, and they were just losing guys and that was a big part of how they had forty nine points in the first quarter. That's what concerns me about entry points. Your scheme doesn't matter at all. When they just take one of your defenders and back him down from there, you have no choice but to double. And then once you double,

your in rotation. So it doesn't matter what your pick and roll coverage is, doesn't matter how good Aaron Gordon might be as your back line help defender, blowing up stuff at the basket and on the week side corner. If they don't even have to run a pick and roll and they can just walk down one of your smaller defenders, bring in that help and play driving kickball from there. That's the kind of thing that you're going to see a lot of teams do. Why would you

play into their bait? Why would you play into Denver's base scheme defensively when you can just attack one of their smaller defenders, and I think you're going to see a lot of teams do that. And then once you start playing drive and kick, it's yokis trying to chase guys around in rotation getting pulled away from the rim. That's where things can get ugly for them. Denver is allowing one hundred and twenty five points per one hundred possessions in their last four games, as dead last in

the NBA over that span. They have now slipped down to eighteenth and defensive rating for the season. If you guys remember before the season, I said that I expected Denver to be the best offense in the league, and

they have been for most of the season. They've been one of the top offenses in the league, but I said they still need it I said they didn't necessarily need to be a top ten defense because of how good their offense was, and I genuinely believe Denver is gonna get a lot of good shots when they get into the postseason. I do not think scoring is going to be an issue for them. Yokis's offensive skill set has been proven to translate to the postseason resoundingly, But

on the defensive end, they need to be sharper. I said before the season, I wanted to see them finished between ten and fifteen for me to give them a legitimate chance to win the title, and they just haven't

been sharp enough. And what concerns me the most is not just that they're eighteenth, but that they're slipping towards the end of the season, because if the only way you can succeed without good defensive personnel is with extremely sharp defensive principles, and they're getting sloppy in those areas.

I've talked all the time that one of the big reasons why I do value offense over defense when I'm evaluating players is because of the fact that you can coach up a team to be a functional defense in a way that you can't coach up an offense to be functional against good defenses, and so they've got to be sharper. They've got to lock in down the stretch. Mike Malone was talking after the game about how they got to get their swagger back. Yes, you do, because

you're running out of time and it's getting ugly. I want to talk a little bit about Jamal Murray really quick before we get out of here. So Jamal Murray, since returning from his injury, took like six games off. He's averaging nineteen points and seven assists, which is okay, but he's shooting thirty nine percent from the field and thirty four percent from three. Now. In his defense, he's been dealing with the nagging knee thing left early from

that Nets game the other night. So obviously I talk a lot about pull up jump shooting and how important your lift is, and you gotta jump in order to make that work. So obviously that's playing a role. But this team has no championship ceiling if Jamal Murray can't play like an All Star. So if his knee is an issue, that kind of removes Denver from the equation.

The main reason why is because with the way that Yokis plays It's kind of similar to what we were talking about with Anthony Davis and how he needs that high level guard like in order, Yokis can win games as a floor raiser with anybody, even just four league average role players. So I want to be clear, like as a floor raiser, he might be the best in

the league. But when we are talking about the championship ceiling again what we were talking about with Phoenix, talking about those top tier defenses, the three or four teams that you might have to go through that have defensive personnel that are going to take you out of all of your core stuff and force you to have incredible, high level shot creation when you get to that level, Yokich needs Jamal Murray at an all star level, especially

with the way they operate so much inverted pick and roll, so many dribble handoffs from the top of the key. None of that is working at the highest levels unless you have Jamal Murray as that high level three three level shot creator that he can be. And so it is concerning he represents j Jamal Murray represents Denver ceiling. Obviously, Yokich is the best player, he's the floor raiser, but you've we've seen so many times over the course of

his career. He's kind of like Lebron in the earlier phases of his career, before Lebron became an excellent shot maker. He doesn't want to break you down by taking tough fade aways and going into his bag to score at the end of these games. He likes to score within the flow of the offense, and so they need a guy who can be their aggressive shot maker, just like

Lebron needed Kyrie right in the earlier phases. Now, Lebron when he got to the Lakers, by the time twenty seventeen, two eighteen, and two twenty came around, he had advanced so far as a shot maker that he became that guy. And then when he got to with the Anthony Davis, he was the high level shotmaker for that team. But Yokich is not that guy yet. We literally saw him in a situation against Joel Embid where Joel Embie was shooting his face off on one end of the floor

and on the other end of the floor. Just didn't just that's not his game. That's not his game. He's playing in the flow of the offense, and so he needs that guy, and that guy is Jamal Murray, and if he's not going to be that guy, that's a big concern. So it goes deeper than the defensive end. They also are only averaging about one hundred and thirteen points per one hundred possessions on offense during the four

game losing streak. That's not good enough. So if I'm not mistaken, I don't have the schedule in front of me, but I think things get even tougher for them on the schedule now as they go on the road. So it doesn't look pretty for Denver right now. They better get it together before they get to the end of the season. All right, guys, it's all I have for today. We have one more daytime show tomorrow and covering Warriors, Clippers and some other games from tonight's late. Then we're

taking Friday off. We'll have a Saturday afternoon show, taking Sunday off, and then we're getting into next week. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume