Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Kings Reaction: LeBron James & L.A. DISASTROUS LOSS in Sacramento

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and I here at the volume. Happy Winesday everybody, hope all if you guys are having an incredible week, We're gonna be reacting to the Lakers in a mustling game getting their ass kicked yet again by the Sacramento Kings. Have really had their number this year, and the Kings win with defense, something that's been a consistent theme for

them this season. Where to break that game down from the perspective of both teams, If you're looking for Nuggets heat, we're gonna be hitting that thing first thing in the morning. I only caught the fourth quarter this afternoon. With the time change, it started much earlier. We're gonna be hitting that in the morning as long as well as probably

one additional game from tonight's slate. But saw that Reggie Jackson came in hit a bunch of big shots in that fourth quarter, as the Nuggets have one of their textbook fourth quarter execution runs that they went on. So we'll be hitting that in the morning, but just hitting Lakers Kings in tonight's show. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. It I mean a lot to me. If you guys will take a second to scroll down and hit that

subscribe button. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason Lts. You guys, don't miss show announcements as well as the film threads that I do from time to time. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful of alleviate rating and review on that. On that front, we're also going to do a mail bag at least one more this week, if not two more, so make sure you drop some mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk

some basketball. So I've talked about this a lot. I kind of last week in the Wednesday game, the one that the Kings went into LA and won, I talked a little bit about some of the matchup issues that the Kings present for the Lakers, and then that game was a resounding example of those matchup issues being exploited. And then you know, the Lakers had an opportunity in a must win game for them really and so many

different levels. Obviously, to try to get out of the nine to ten slot, this specific game is vitally important to have any hope of climbing out of that specific position that they're in. And once again, like, it's the

same stuff that keeps happening. And when you see a large sample size of basketball games and the same thing happening between two opponents, that typically means that it's a matchup related issue because like, obviously basketball games have a certain amount of varias, right, Like, there's always like random guys that get hot from three, right, Like, all these guys can shoot, but you're gonna have games where certain

guys shoot above what they normally shoot. Right, Austin Reeves hid seven threes tonight, Right, Harrison Barnes hid seven threes tonight. Those are your guys that get hot. There's gonna be random kind of occurrences that take place, but the key facets of the game in matchup situations like this tend to be the same, right, And like first match up

to hit on is Sabonis versus Anthony Davis. One of the things that happened with Anthony Davis is as that twenty twenty season unfolded, we saw an evolution of him that we saw that began with the Pelicans, where he was this great a guy that really showed some high level jump shooting, right, and then he peaks in the twenty twenty bubble and a lot of people look at it as just the bubble if you really zoom in on that season, and I covered that team very closely

obviously that year. The Anthony Davis shot really well at the tail end of the regular season going into that bubble run, and then shot really well for the first stretch of the following season until he got hurt. So it was an extended stretch there where he was shooting the ball really, really well. And you know, one of the things that happens when you're a really tall player like Anthony Davis, you usually have one of two You either have like a speed advantage or a strength advantage.

And when AD has one of those two, so for instance, when he's playing against a really slow footed center that he can just go right around. He looks great on the offensive end of the four when he plays against a a particularly skinny center that he can just bully under the basket, kind of like what we've seen with

Chet Holmgren so many times this year. He can have a ton of success, right, but once he runs into a guy that is both stronger and quicker than him, which is what Sabonis is all of a sudden, when Sabonis can beat him to spots and withstand the physical onslaught of Anthony Davis in those situations, it exposes his flaws as a shot maker. And Anthony Davis has had little improvements over the years, Like he's become a guy that can hit the floater in ball screens around you know,

fifty five percent right. And he's a guy that can occasionally get to a left shoulder hook as long as the spacing is right and shoot that little hook shot over the top, and he can hit it like fifty to fifty five percent of the time. Nowhere near as efficient as a Yokis per se, but at least it's a shot that he has in his bag. But in general, as an over the top shot maker, that's a weakness

of Anthony Davis for whatever reason. I don't know if it's a combination of injuries or just how much muscle he's put on on his upper body, even though that's not really his archetype as a player. Whatever it is, there's been a lack of development in that specific area.

And you know, one of the things that happens in the NBA is especially when you get into games that carry a certain amount of importance, which obviously is in the playoffs, but also during big moments in the regular season where there's like you know, especially important games in the standings, and the physicality and the intensity ramps up, especially as we saw in general since the All Star Break in terms of the way the game has been

officiated around the league, just allowing more physicality, Like the league will find your flaws. It's not about what you're great at when you get into these kinds of games. It's very much about what you're bad at. And that's a thing like against against demonesst of Bonus, when ad is on offense, he Sabonis can beat him to spots and hold his ground, and so because of that, Anthony Davis has to make over the top shots to beat him,

and he just can't. It's not a strength of his Right then, when we flip and go to the other end of the floor, Anthony Davis has put on a lot of muscle, but he's a high center of gravity guy. That was never his advantage. His advantage as a basketball player was speed and quickness and skill compared to other centers, right, Like that was what made Anthony Davis one of the best young center prospects in the league. It was his speed, quickness,

and skill in addition to his length. It wasn't strength. And so as AD's put on strength, it hasn't changed the fact that with his frame, he is a really high center of gravity. So even though he's bigger and longer than Demonas Sabonis overall as a player, Sabonis and his low center of gravity can just power through Anthony Davis. And we saw that in a bunch of different ways in this game, powering through him on cuts, powering through him on rolls cut, powering through him on straight post ups.

To the point where here's the thing, Ad was really competing, and that that's what I mean when I say related in the sense that like AD's trying really hard, So Bonus is trying really hard. This wasn't an effort thing. S Bonus is just a bad matchup versus Anthony Davis. Now, obviously, Sabonis has his own issues when he runs into other really big, strong players that have really strong bases, kind of like what we saw with Kevon Looney and Draymond Green.

He can struggle to create the separation he needs to finish around the rim, and then all of a sudden that starts to shine a light on some of his flaws. Right, but specifically, as we zoom in on the Ad Sabonis battle. On the offensive end, it's he can beat him to spots and force him to make shots over the top, which he's not good at. And on the defensive end, he can bump him off of his spot because of his high center of gravity and still find finishing angles.

And then in that fourth quarter run, it was a lot of work on the offensive glass. So Bonus had I think five offensive rebounds in total in the game, but he had several. He had like three in a row there in the fourth quarter where it was like either tapouts or offensive rebounds, where one of two things would happen. Either Ad would have to help in a

ball screen situation or a dribble handoff situation. I talk a lot about that bracket of a two man game coverage, right the over the top guy in the screen defender as Ad has to come out, that leaves a vacancy for Sabonis to operate there, and sa Bonis did a lot of damage to Ad there and then in there were two offensive rebounds in that fourth quarter stretch where

Ad was engaged with Sabonis underneath the rim. But once again, what Sabonus is doing is he's basically it's a rebounding strategy where you're basically giving yourself a field of play that's your side, meaning like Sabonis will just bury Ad up into that the side of the rim that's closest to the shooter, and he's basically making it so that any long rebound that comes over the top, he can

disengage from Ad and go get the basketball. And one of the things as a team you need to do to counter that is crack down from the perimeter to help Ad in those situations. And that's something that the Lakers have always struggled with this season. So, like again a matchup related thing AD struggles with big guys that can kind of fight him off for position and seal off elements of the of the court where they can offensive rebound, and then the Lakers don't have the perimeter

rebounding to account for it. So that's kind of an example of the SA bonus versus AD element here. Now. Secondly, the Kings have a ton of speed at the guard

position on the defensive end the floor as well. We're gonna talk about offense, but I want to zoom in on the offense on the specifically when the Lakers are on offense, because one of the things the Kings are twentieth in defense this year coming into the night, and they haven't defended nearly as consistently as they need to, which is definitely something the Kings have to sharpen up if they're gonna have any chance to make a deep

playoff run. Right like after tonight. They're now sixteen and three when they hold their opponents to one hundred and ten points or fewer, and they're ten and fifteen when they allow over one hundred and twenty points. They've always won with defense. This year, they have not been a team that is good at outscoring teams and shootout types of games. The tenth and offense. They are a good offense, but they're not good enough offensively to do that. They

have to identify what their strength is. Like perimeter speed is the best strength of this roster, and perimeter speed can be deployed in two ways. We've talked endlessly about Malik Monk and Deer and Fox and then coming off of these dribble handoffs and their ability to work in the mid range and their ability to attack the rim and beat guys just off the dribble and straight ISO

situations as well. And that's all great, that's all great, But at the end of the day, one of the best ways to deploy perimeter speed is in ball pressure, just like and flying around in rotation right and like one of the specific weaknesses that D'Angelo Russell has had throughout his career, who saw this in a big way against Bruce Brown in Kentavious callboll Pope in the Conference finals against the Nuggets last year, is when you're a guard that is quicker than d Lo and strong enough

to hold your ground against some of the leverage plays that he makes, you could really cause him problems, and from the opening tip of this game, Kean Ellis was just up in D'angela Russell's jersey, and then as soon as he stepped off the floor, here came Here came Davion Mitchell, and he did the exact same thing, and they were just up in D'Angelo Russell's space, being super physical and bumping him off his spots and not giving him the kind of baked in openings that Delo's accustomed

to operating with. He ends up going two for nine in the game, so like like that's the thing. And again Dlo has been twenty three points per game for like literally like two months now. He's killing everybody. Again. They held the Lakers to one hundred and seven points, an excellent defensive effort from the Kings. The Lakers have been the second best offense in the league since the beginning of February. They've been the sixth best offense in

the league since January seventh. That's a thirty game sample size. This is an This is an elite offense that the Kings just completely shut down tonight. It started at the point of attack, started with Keon Ellis and Davion Mitchell for the entirety of the game just making D'Angelo Russell uncomfortable. And again, one of the problems with D'angela Russell just overall as a basketball player is like he kind of is like James Harden in the sense that in the

flow of an eighty two game regular season his skill. Obviously, James Harden is a much much better player than d Angela Russell. I don't mean to compare him like that, but it's a similar issue that James Harden runs into when he gets into the postseason. D'angela Russell wants the athleticism steps up a level, the intensity steps up a level, the physicality steps up a level, and teams are willing to do things like pick up full court and ball pressure and deny and do all that kind of stuff.

All of a sudden, d Loo's athletic shortcomings start to rise to the surface. And again, this is why I talk about like the playoffs and important regular season games as like exposures of your flaws. The reason why they matter is like it's just like anything else. It's like a video game. Each level you pass gets harder and harder. Lebron said that during the postseason last year. Every time they want a series, he'd be like, the next one's gonna be even harder. It's because he knows, he's been

through this. He knows it's like you every consecutive series. It's like it's another team that has made it to this point, that has better person that is better coached, that plays harder, that is more firm in their details and more firm in their habits, and they will expose what you're bad at. And in this particular game, there's one guy in this matchup that has a significant advantage. We talked about Sabonis and how he struggled Ad and

how he struggles with Sabonis. We talked about D'Angelo Russell and how he can struggle with the speed guards for the Kings. Even osinries he shot the three ball really really well, but this is not a team that he can like really create off the bounce against the way that he can against some other teams. Although Austin had a great game Tonatia twenty eight six and four, kind

of seventeen from the field, hit seven three. He's a great game from Austin, but Austin has struggled in this matchup this year, he's had rough games against the Kings, and so we talked about the guards. We talked about Anthony Davis. The one guy who really has a big time advantage is Lebron James. None of their wings are big enough to guard him, none of their bigs are fast enough to guard him, none of their guards are big enough to guard him. No one can guard it.

But it requires him to play with a certain level of physical imposition. His advantage there is strength and power, and for three quarters Lebron was just floating around the dam perimeter and content to throw up jump shots and was sloppy with the basketball, and to tie it all together,

he was also having a bad defensive game. Ei There were countless possessions in this game where he was ducking under picks on Harrison Barnes and letting him walk into three point shots, or just not paying attention off the ball. There was a big three that I think he can Murray hit on the left wing in the third quarter, where Lebron was standing in the dunker spot on the right side of the floor guarding his man. The Kings had moved around and every Laker moved and Lebron just

stood there and next thing. You know, there's a wide open shooter on the left wing because Lebron's not paying attention, and so, like, honestly, it was one of the worst games I've seen Lebron James play in his time in

a Laker and heresy. And so when you already have disadvance that you're working against from a personnel standpoint, with ad On Sibonis and with d Lo and Austin Reeves against their athletic and speedy backcourt, and you have this one guy who's got like this the the tools to really punish this team, and he gives you just one of his worst efforts of the season, not just in terms of his shot making, but also just in general with his approach. Took too much of a passive approach

on both ends of the floor. And you're just not gonna beat a really good team in a must win setting like this if you don't get better play out of Lebron James and Anthony Davis. But at least with Anthony Davis, I thought he was competing. I thought ad was trying. This is just a bad matchup for him. These are weaknesses in his game that are exposed. Look, Lebron, he has the strengths in his game and the lack

of weaknesses in his game to attack this team. He just needs to bring the requisite level of physical imposition and he just did not. And that's that's where it kind of turned quickly for them. I want to come back to the Kings a little bit. I want a little bit about defense. We talked about how they're sixteen and three when they hold opponents to one ten or fewer. They're ten and fifteen when they allow over one hundred and twenty points. In this particular game, you saw they're

capable of defending at a really high level. Kean Ellis and Davion Mitchell because of what they can do on the ball taking the primary guard. It leaves Daron Fox and Malik Monk to take a matchup like Austin Reeves, who is a really good player but obviously is not as involved in the offense typically as the Angela Russell typically is. It's an easier job, right, And that's just that goes down the line to other matchups as well.

When you can throw a ke On Ellis and a Davion Mitchell at a Damian Lillard and you can keep Dearon Fox in Malik Monk in an easier, lower intensity defensive matchup right. But it's that speed flying around on the perimeter. It's rebounding Like Keg and Murray had eleven

rebounds tonight, eight of them defensive. It's like that. That to me, it's the wave after wave of perimeter speed for them when they're defending on the ball, being physical in their ball pressure, denying off the ball, flying around in rotation. When they really weaponize their speed, they can be good. And like when we you know, when we look back at the offensive end, obviously we get seven threes out of Harrison Barnes. Big one there was the

Lakers were ducking under picks. So with the with the guards they were chasing over the top, but with Harrison Barnes in particular, they were going under. And so Harrison got into a rhythm early by basically finding that soft spot right behind the screen as the defenders ducking under to go to the other side of the screen, and he was just rising and fire firing, and so he got comfortable like that and he started hitting catch and

shoot threes after that. Again, Kean Ellis, we talked about his defensive effort, but he also did a really nice job punishing D'Angelo Russell in this game early for overhelping, just sitting in that right corner and being ready to take and make the big threes in the corner when de Lo overhelps. We talked about Keagan Murray hit the five threes, also took two super important charges on Lebron

the eight defensive rebounds. Darren Fox had a bad three point shooting night, but he cooked him in the mid range and at the rim like he always and you didn't need him to score much tonight. And then you know, here's the thing. The Kings have their own issues. They're a little bit matchup dependent too, Like when they face teams with really good perimeter defenders like Houston, like Chicago.

They've taken some bad losses and they in the last couple of weeks they've lost at home to Houston, to Chicago, to Miami. They have their own matchup related issues, right, But this type of matchup they can thrive against. They kicked the Bucks ass last night, same sort of thing, a team that lacks speed on the perimeter and they

just did a ton of damage to them. But like they do have their advantages, and so the question is for the Kings, just like we've talked about with the Lakers and their kind of path, their sliver that they can kind of slip through to try to make a playoff run. For the Kings, it's consistently defending. You have better personnel than the twentieth ranked defense in the league. You've got guys that can really fly around and make

things difficult on the perimeter. That has to be something that becomes a part of your identity in the next month two. So Bonus has to maintain his element of rim finishing and the confidence that he's had in his jump shot this year, because that was what hurt him against the Warriors last year, right ignoring him in jump shooting situations and then kind of withstanding the drop shoulder left handed finish. That's the Bonus can kill teams with.

Third Deeranon Fox has to play like a superstar. He did for the most part in the playoffs last year. This has been the best scoring season of his career. I think Dearon Fox is encroaching on that superstar tier. He needs to play like that when they get there. And then again, Malik Monk, I thought Milik Monks showed that he can succeed in the playoffs last year and the Warriors series. Obviously they need him to maintain that.

But if they can put all that together, they have a puncher's chance, just like anybody else after the Denver in Boston tier. But did you twentieth on defense is not good enough. That's something that for their personnel they need to be better at. On the Lakers front, this is just what they are. They're a good team, but they're a flawed team. I had a lot of fans in my Twitter mentions being like, oh, they're maybe the

Lakers are just bad. No, they're not. They They're what twelve and six in their last eighteen games, that's, you know, two wins for every loss. They're what nineteen and twelve in their last thirty one games They've started the season fifteen and nine counting the n season tournament win. Like, they're not a bad team, They're just a flawed team. They're exactly what they were last year. If they catch the right matchups, they can beat teams. They catch bad matchups,

they can lose the teams. That puts them in that tier with the rest of the teams down there. But the problem is is because they let their foot off the gas and went three to ten for a thirteen

game stretch. After the n season tournament, they don't have the luxury of being in a situation where they can have a home playing game to win one to get in, let alone, maybe even a secured in a playoff spot there in the four to five to six range, which they very well might have had if they didn't let their foot off the gas in such a big way

in the middle of the season. And so they've now put themselves in a situation they were already flawed, they were already matchup dependent, but now they put themselves in a situation where they might not even have an opportunity to beat a team four times out of seven because they mailed in so many games during the middle of the season. Now they're in the playing tournament, you know.

And like, as we look at their kind of personnel situation, like Lebron is old and he's not as consistent as the younger stars in the league because he's old, and because he's dealing with the nagging ankle injury, and like the legs just aren't there like they usually are. I mean, hell, I'm thirty two and I feel like, my legs are not as consistently good as they were when I was in my mid twenties. I can't even imagine how that dude's feeling at thirty nine with all the minutes that

he has on his body. Right, So, like that's just something that comes with the territory, right, Anthony Davis, he is, in my opinion, firmly one of the ten best basketball players in the world, but he has a significant matchup weakness against big bodied centers that can withstand his physical approach while also sliding their feet well enough to make him into a shot maker and that can bury him under the rim on the other end of the floor.

And then their role players. They all have abilities, but they've got some redundancies, right, Like Ruey's more or less the same type of player as Lebron Delo is more or less the same type of player as Austin Delo in particular, really really struggles with ball pressure and physicality. Ruey straight up can't play him in certain matchups defensively because of his inability to navigate screens and defend on

the perimeter. And again, everything for this team comes down to what kind of path lays in front of them, and at this point there's so much luck that they need to get in terms of the team they place a face in the play in the team they face in the first round. It just like with each passing day, it just seems like that window gets narrow or and narrow.

There's still a path there. But like I in a lot of ways, I looked at this particular game against Sacramento is a certain gateway test, like if you're gonna do something in the playoffs, this is the game you win. They each have three times already, Like you have the motivational advantage, you need the game more than Sacramento does.

You have the embarrassment like sort of thing going on after everything that's happened to you against them this season, and you go on the road and your two best players play like crap and you get your butt kicked, Like that's that to me is one of those things where like if you look back at a team that makes a deep playoff run, they typically pass tests like this in the regular season, and the Lakers more often

than not have failed these kinds of tests. And I'm a big believer, and like a basketball team will tell you who they are and you know, even early in the season, when they started fourteen fifteen to nine counting the N Season Tournament win, even at that point they were winning kind of ugly games. They would bs for three quarters and then lock in and win at the end. That was how they were winning early. They would play bad for three quarters and then come back and win.

Like they were an inconsistent effort team from the start. So are we surprised that they went three to ten after the N Season Tournament and immediately relaxed once they

had a little bit of success. I'm not surprised. Are we surprised that they've been not very sharp off ball defensively, which is what killed them tonight getting you know, we talked about the bracket coverages, like they constantly were just in predicaments where like they had to bring that third defender over and then they get burned on a skip pass, or Lebron would have to come down to box out some bonus and then he'd get burned on a skip pass, and like they just this has It's been a consistent

issue all year, and so again when teams try to tell us who they are, we got to listen to them, all right, I'm off my soapbox for tonight. Big win for the Kings kind of just feels like that kind of season for the Lakers, and I feel like all Lakers fans should adjust their expectations accordingly. But I do want to just say before we get out of here that I sincerely appreciate all of you guys for supporting

the show. Tomorrow morning, we'll be back with Heat Nuggets in probably one other game, and then just a typical game breakdown mail bag type of day on Friday, so I will see you guys tomorrow morning. I appreciate you see that the volume