Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Knicks reaction + how LeBron James & LA become NBA Finals contenders

is super easy. You can jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting and I love building those same game parlays and Fanduels now live in Ohio, so use promo code Jason T and download the fandel app today to start making every moment more twenty one plus In select states, gambling problem called one

hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com. Slash r g in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio called one hundred next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona called one eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Slash chat in Connecticut called one hundred Mine with it in Indiana, visit k S Gambling help dot com. In Kansas call one eight seven seven

seven seven zero stop. In l A visit www dot m D gambling help dot org in Maryland dial one eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York, called one five to two four seven zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www Dot one gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight, forsented my Fanuel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great

start to your week. We are live on and don't forget if you're watching on YouTube for the podcast feeds there anywhere else. That amp is the very first place that you guys can get these shows, these postgame uh instant reactions. Today we're gonna be talking about that another crazy Lakers game, because that's just the way all of them are this season. Uh. That entire organization is kind of sloppy from the top down, So you're gonna get a lot of sloppy basketball because process usually leads to

results that you deserve with that type of process. We're also going to talk just a tiny bit about the Warriors recent windstreak. I'm not gonna dive too long into it because provided all their starters play, we're gonna be hitting them tomorrow when they play the Minnesota Timberwolves. And then I've been holding off for too long, guys, I have a solid I have a lot of thoughts about officiating in the NBA that I'm going to be saving for the end of the show. Before we get started.

You guys have heard me talking about game Time, the fastest growing ticketing app in the US. If you're looking to get out to any NBA, NHL, NFL playoff games, or even a concert or comedy show, game Time has amazing last minute deals on tickets to all of these. Uh two nights from now, I'm going to see in the Chale Center the organ Ducks play against Arizona Wildcats, a little chance for the Wildcats to get some revenge. Got the tickets on game Time. It was super easy

to use. I knew exactly where the seats were gonna be. They have a lot of cool features, like the ability even just to move your phone around to get an idea allay of the land as it pertains to the stadium. I really want you guys to check it out. No matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the game Time app and to your email and redeem code Hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again and to your email and the code Hoops that's h o O p s for

twenty dollars off. Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Okay, like I said, another wild Lakers game, Um, the Lakers had no idea how to guard. Jalen Brunson absolutely towards them all game long. A couple of the specific things that Jalen Brunson did that I thought were

super interesting for young guards to pay attention to. He started with the head of steam, started his attack either in semi transition or would back away to get a head of steam before he go into these pick and rolls. It puts the defender in a situation where they're on their heels. It makes it so they can't be aggressive towards the basketball. And then another thing he did is he did a really nice job of flipping screen angles.

So uh, in the modern n b A, when you're a guard and you have to defend all these pull up jumpsters, you gotta chase guys over the top of screens, and what ends up happening is you have to prep for that by taking specific steps or positioning yourself to get over that screen. Jalen Brunson did a real good job of waiting for his defender to get out of balance or to get prepped for the screen just to go the other way, and was getting all sorts of

downhill penetration. Anthony Davis is still not moving the way that he did before his injury, so they were having a nightmare of a time trying to contain Jalen brunts and then if they happened to get over the top of the screen and stay stay with Jalen. He does such a good job of putting you in jail, trapping you on his shoulder, and just kind of work into his spots and then using that physicality to quickly get a little bit of separation to take his little floaters

and pop shots. Julius Randall was given Ruby Hatcher Mura a nightmare of a time with his foul grifting. And we're gonna talk a lot about that leader in the show, because I have a huge bone to pick with where the NBA has been going in recent weeks and really for the last several seasons, as it pertains to foul drifting.

But Julius keeping that left hand off the basketball, gathering with his right hand, looping Ruby's arm with his left hand to then put it on the basketball and try to shoot, was getting a bunch of foul calls like that. I think he shot double digit free throws if I remember correctly. And the Lakers are having a bunch of trouble, especially in the lineups when Uh with Lebron and Russ were excuse me, when Lebron and Anthony Davis were both

off the floor. But this is a must win game for the Lakers because of their predicament in the standings. They brought good effort for the most part. And we were sitting at one fourteen, one oh eight, Lebron hitting a pull up three at the top of the key, Lakers in great shape, and you think the game is over and we had to overtime, and so how do you blow a six point lead in just a couple of minutes. Well, Lebron goes down the floor and uh

and and hits the three. But I'm out of the time out the Knicks, they run a quick set for Jalen Brunson, a bunch of quick interchanges. He gets downhill, he makes a layup. Then Lebron goes down takes another pull up jump shot on Julius Randall misses this one. The Lakers get an offensive rebound and it's right in front of Ruey hot Chamura and he looks back to check on Emmanuel quickly before he secures the basketball, and

basically volleyball sets it out of bounds. Um. So the Nicks get the ball back, they force a miss, and Ruey hot Chamura again another big time mistake is guarding Isaiah Hartenstein in the left corner and forgets to box out Um. You know, I think Ruey should inevitably in the long run be in the Lakers closing lineup. But the Lakers, you know, when we're talking closing lineups, and we're gonna talk a little bit more about that later,

it's not just about skill set. It's not just about like, hey, can you knock down an open shot or can you guard this guy in ISO? Late games are all about execution, and that means that you can't make mistakes. And so one of the things Ruey's gonna have to watch out for is they're gonna go back on tape and they're gonna see that offensive rebound and they're gonna be like the next time route uh. Darvin Ham's trying to put together a closing line up. He's gonna be thinking to himself,

Can I trust Ruey to box out? Can I trust Ruey to make that extra defensive rotation? Can I trust him to do these little things that I need in that closing group? And kind of a little bit of a rough end of this game between that fumble and that miss box out of basically a four point swing depending on what the Lakers get out of that offensive rebound. But on that offensive rebound gets tapped around, ends up in Jalen Brunson's hands. He finds Quentin Grimes run into

the basket for a layup. Now it's a two point game. Russell Westbrook runs a picking pop with Lebron. Lebron gets a wide open three, and he misses it, because that's how it goes sometimes. And then Jalen Brunson once again and pick and roll gets down hill and makes a little pop shot and we're talking hide and then you know we're in We're in Madison Square Garden, clocks ticking down.

Lebron's got the ball, at the top of the key, very similar to the situation with the Celtics, and we get into the foul call, this time the right foul call, and his fate would have it, it goes against the Lakers. Lebron hits Anthony Davis with a little pocket pass in the lane. But the problem is is the Lakers consistently

in that closing group have not had enough shooting. It's a big part of why I think the Lakers need to get a shooter at the deadline because in that closing group, there's a lot of Russell Westbrook, there's a lot of Dennis Schroeder, there's a lot of There's been a lot of Troy Brown Junior throughout this season, and those guys just aren't reliable spot up shooters. So what can Jalen Brunson do when he's guarding a non shooter in the left corner and Lebron and Anthony Davis are

running pick and roll. He can abandon his man established position in front of the charge circle and take that charge on Anthony Davis as a third defender, which Anthony, it was, has no chance to see because his eyes are turned back towards Lebron being ready for the pocket pass, and that's how we ended up going to OT. Although Lebron and Anthony Davis did some nice defensive work on Julius Randall before the buzzer in o t Laker landslide.

They opened up with that set play for Lebron where they run a bunch of basically uh disguised actions off the ball, but Lebron's basically just deep ceiling Julius Randall under the basket rust throws a really nice feed over the top. Russ has been an absolute abject disaster and clutch time all season long, but this was one of his best clutch games. That overtime period was one of his best clutch periods, albeit with the ball in his hands.

A whole lot to get into. We'll get to that later, but he had a really nice play on the left wing later in OT where he attacked the clothes out on the pass from Lebron and made a really nice drop off pass to Anthony Davis. And then he had another play where he ice swed and drove to the basket and through like a hook pass to Anthony Davis under the basket for a dunk, and then he hits

effectively the dagger that pull up bank shop. So what do we get a must win game for the Lakers who came in at twenty three and twenty eight, three and a half games back of that six seed that I think most teams are targeting to get out of the play in on the road against the playoff team in the Eastern Conference, and the Lakers got it done.

So tip of the cap to them. There's a lot to get into in terms of negatives with the Lakers that I'm going to here in just a minute, but I want to start with the positive of saying it was a must win game and a tough environment against a good basketball team, not a great basketball team, but a good basketball team on their home floor, and the Lakers gotta win. Um. So I want to frame all of that with that's all that matters, that they gotta win.

But in order for the Lakers to accomplish the things that they need to accomplish, they're going to need to play very good basketball down the stretch of this season. Lakers are now three games back of Dallas for the six seed, and there's a bunch of teams in that

whole log gym. Right once you get after Sacramento, there's a little bit of a drop off, and you've got Golden State, and you've got Utah, and you've got the Pelicans, and you've got you know, the Clippers and the Lakers and the Thunder and every and the Blazers and everybody that's in that mess, right, and so it's really easy to get discouraged and to look at it and be like, hey, you know, not only are we three games back, but we have to outperform all of these teams are that

are in front. But to be clear, and this is the very specific reason why I want to talk Warriors for just a second here in a little bit, the Warriors, in the Lakers in particular, have a distinct advantage over the other teams in that set. The Lakers are much more talented when healthy than all of those other teams.

They've been above five hundred ever since they're to intend start significantly, I think like three games about five hundred, or four games about five hundred, despite Lebron missing the first chunk of those games and Anthony Davis missing the significant chunk of those games. When they are whole, when they have everybody, they are much more talented than the Jazz. You know, they're much more talented in the Blazers, you know, so they're gonna have They're much more talented to the Pelicans,

even with everybody out with injuries. So they're going to have an opportunity to gain ground. And when everybody picks up that urgency, they're gonna have the players to back it up. And that's a big reason why I haven't been out on the Lakers yet. A lot of their issues have been associated with injuries. Whereas when you're looking at like the Minnesota Timberwolves, it's like, this is just super clunky. Why do they have two centers? You know,

D'Angelo Russell is um mess. You know, Anthony Edwards is a downhill guard and they're playing him in poor spacing schemes. And they're really only good when they have one center on the floor, especially when it's like Nasri who can really shoot. There's a lot of like clunky stuff there, and even when you put it all together, it's not as much talent right there that there. It's hard to like they will have to OutKick their coverage, so to speak, in order to be the person the team that wins

this race down the stretch. And so I want to be clear that things do look on what precarious. But the Lakers have the horses, and a lot of teams don't have the horses. That's why you can't write them off, um completely. But before we move on from the Lakers, I want to talk about Darvin Ham for a second, because margin for error here is going to be key.

The Lakers do have more horses than those teams, but they don't have more horses than the top teams in the league, who also have a good amount of star power and deeper benches with more talent with the role players behind them. So what that means is that the Lakers can't afford to go seventeen and twelve. They gotta go like twenty and nine. You know, They've got to be not just good, they have to be great down the stretch of this and the difference between those two

outcomes it's not very large. And so they can't afford to leave points on the table. They can't afford to uh to to engage in self sabotage. And there's one guy in particular that I haven't talked a lot about this season, um, and it's been I've been trying to familiarize myself with him, and also he's been dealt bad hand of cards with the rotation. Players have been available no forwards for the first chunk of the season and

then Lebron and Anthony Davis missing time. But I've been I've been waiting for the team to get healthy to really take a look at Darvin Ham, because when you have a team that has all the pieces together, it's vitally important that you consistently play your best players together as much as possible, and that you stagger people appropriately so that you have conducive lineups during all the phases of the game. And Darvin has not done a good job of that as of late. There are three things

in particular that I want to hit on with Darvin Ham. One, Russell Westbrook should never ever play with Lebron James and Anthony Davis at the same time or by himself. Now. I understood early in the season, when everything was going wrong and Anthony Davis is out or Lebron is out, that you have to stagger and you need Russ out there by himself with a bunch of random NBA players trying to win those minutes. But that is no longer the case, the team is healthy now and Russell Westbrook

by himself in lineups. This season, those lineups have been getting obliterated and over nine possessions Russ on the floor. Without Lebron and Anthony Davis, the Lakers are getting outscored by seventeen points per one possessions. That is a complete abject disaster. And those lineups got rolled again tonight. Now, if you put Anthony Davison Russ together, they're about minus one point per one hundred possessions, much more palatable with

everyone available. It's violently important to stagger the players in a way that actually is beneficial to the guys that are on the floor. Lebron can carry lineups by himself. Russ can't. So the way that I would structure the rotation is that start Lebron, James and Anthony Davis, and then from there it's pretty simple. Pole Lebron round halfway through the first quarter, bringing Russ, then Russ and Anthony Davis run the end of the first quarter. When the

first quarter ends, bring out Anthony Davis. Put in Lebron, then Lebron and Russ can run for a little bit. Then midway through the second quarter, you pull Russ and you close things with Lebron James and Anthony Davis. That way, you never have a moment on the floor with even just one of them on the floor. But if you absolutely have to because a minute, restrictions or whatever it is, leave one of them on the floor. It can't be Russ, not when the team is healthy, not when those lineups

have been getting obliterated NonStop. By putting him out there with Anthony Davis, you give them a higher defensive floor, which allows you larger margin for air on the offensive end of the floor. Second, Russ with the closing group after winning tonight. The Lakers are nine and thirteen and games when Russ closes, but there are four no when he doesn't. And this goes back to that original point about never playing Russell Westbrook alongside Lebron James and Anthony

ad Us. Why because the things that Russ does well don't actually contribute or or go well alongside the things that Lebron James and Anthony Davis do well. He is an on ball player who excels at pushing the pace, punishing smaller, weaker defensive guards in the middle portions of games. When things are loose. But in late game situations, you have two options with Russ. You can give him the basketball and just hope for the best, which tonight it worked,

but that has not been the usual outcome. Usually it's

been like what you saw against Boston. The inability to knock down spot up threes or make plays off the ball, and the poor decision making on ball, like trying to isolate Al Horford or trying to isolate Nick Claxton, or trying to isolate Joel Embiide when he doesn't have an advantage against those guys, and because he's not good off the basketball, you're better off going with a player that excels doing role player things, because that's what he does

his entire NBA career. We have seen it time and time again, and again we went to ot but in regulation it wasn't good with Russ offensive rebound Lebron James cutting down the center of the lane wide open for a dunk, Russ looks him off and takes a pull up off the dribble three on the right wing, when he is one of the worst pull up shooters in the entire NBA at volume this year. With twelve seconds on the shot clock that's up here. That's a complete

lack of self awareness. And even in a small sample size, it might work against the Knicks one time, but against the good teams, especially when you get to the postseason, you will lose. And the reason why I'm bringing these specific things up is because, again, the margin for air shrinks more and more as we approach the end of the season for the Lakers, specifically as it pertains to their playoff chase and where they are in the standings.

And then when you get to the postseason, let's say you get this succeed, that means you might draw up the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the playoffs. If you play Sacramento Kings in the first round of the playoffs, they're gonna have home court advantage. So if it's Game five and the series is tied at two and you're on the road in Sacramento, if Darvin Ham plays Russ, based on what we've seen this season, it

will go poorly. And the gap between the Lakers. If let's say the Lakers are this much better than the Kings when they're healthy, and I don't know, I think they're more than that. But let's say they're this much better than the Kings when they're healthy. A couple of poor decisions, as it pertains to the rotation or the closing group, can be the difference between you winning the series in six or you losing the series in six. The further you make get into the season, the margin

for air shrinks more and more. And then the last thing with Darvin ham is just Dennis and Pat um. He's been obsessed with playing Dennis a shooter and Patrick Beverley together, these two really small ball pressure guards. And the main reason why he loves ball pressure Darvin hamm loves being disruptive. He thinks it sparks transition opportunities with the way that they get deflections and steels and things like that. But the problem is is it makes them

too small in the aggregate. In an NBA game, if you play two players that are basically six ft tall, you're giving up a lot of size on the floor. And we have seen over twelve hundred possessions this year of Dennis and Pat together and their minus six per one possessions in those minutes. And these are things where we're seeing clear evidence throughout this season that clearly demonstrate that one thing should be done, and Darvin is going

another way. And that's what makes That's why I've been discouraged specifically with Darvin Hamm's performance as of late, as the team has been getting healthy and if they're not.

Like I talk a lot about the Lakers as a potential championship contender, I am at the point now to be clear, I do not consider the Lakers to be a championship contender unless they trade Russ at the deadline, because Darvin ham has too much faith in him and when the time comes, when the chips are down in the pivotal moments of the NBA playoffs, I do not trust Darvin Ham to play the right closing groups, to

play the right lineups. And the only way to save Darvin Ham from himself is to trade Russell Westbrook and literally take the option out entirely from Darvin Ham's decision making. All right, there's my little Lakers soapbox for you guys. Really quickly on the Warriors, and again, why I brought this up is is because I think the Warriors in in a similar position, obviously just in a much more competent,

much more talented position. But they just got a quality road win in Oklahoma City last night for the third straight win. UH. They're starting to put some stuff together as they're getting healthy and getting into rhythm. UH. Staff was incredible last night, got super hot in the first quarter and then made the dagger late in the fourth quarter. He's averaging thirty in this two game stretch during this wind streak from the field, from three, from the line.

Why do I think that's important. He's starting to move better. And even when he was putting up numbers before that, he just looked like a guy who wasn't in basketball shape yet. You're starting to see Steph put a bunch of games together. Now that rhythm is starting to click. Now he's starting to play more like an m v P. But lots of Warriors are playing well. Jordan Pool has been fantastic in this little stretch. Tied Jerome and Downto di Vincenzo are still giving you a great deal of

backup ball handling, reliable backup ball handling and scoring. Jonathan Cominga is the big guy I want to talk about tonight. He's been He's been my he was my biggest misread on Golden State this summer. As we were talking about how with I never never was worried about James Wiseman because I knew when pushed came to shove at the end of the season, the Warriors would be going down

with Kavan Looney and Draymond green Um. But they lost Gary Payton the second who was one of the most important players in the playoff run, and they lost um Otto Porter Jr. And so I was really concerned about how they would feel that specific position. And I thought that, uh, you see a little bit of you know, Dante DiVincenzo filling into that Gary Payton the second role, and I think he's done well. But the auto Porter junior spot has been the one that they've struggled to fill, at

least for the most part of this season. And I thought it'd be Moses Smoodie, a little bit more reliable as a shooter, a little bit smarter basketball cute making decisions. Although compared to what Steve Kirk expects out of that position, it hasn't been good because that's been a big part of why Moody has been in and out of the lineup. But I thought he was the guy that was closest to being you know, eighty two games away from being

a dependable bench playoff player. And I could not have been more wrong because I thought Jonathan Comingo was too raw and too limited offensively to be able to fill into that spot. And he's been literally fantastic. He's already one of Golden State's best defensive players. They're using him

a lot like that. Um. You know, I've talked a lot about the difference between like that versatile scoring wing that's a little bit thinner, bit more quick, uh, and then that like big forward that's more of like a dirty work guy like and I used examples like Aaron Gordon or Jared Vanderbilt, And ironically enough, Jared Vanderbilt has been mentioned a lot in Golden State trade rumors uh

um as of late. But the way I look at it, like them slotting Cominga into essentially like a a modern version of a big man and turning him into like a vertical spacer that cuts out of the week side corner. And when gold Golden States running there four on threes

and unleashing him on ball as a primary defender. It has been, you know, honestly, a really really uh you know, underrated move from Steve Kerr to take a player that is very flawed and young, but has a couple of other worldly natural gifts with his athleticism, in finding him a role on the team where he can point and shoot.

Jonathan cominga at the things he's good at, while not asking him to do the things that he struggles at um But ironically, they've been able to throw it down to the post to him every once in a while and he can make a play. He's been shooting the three ball really well as of late, him excelling and and kind of taking that leap into that dependable modern forward in the NBA has got a long way to fixing some of the issues that Golden State has on

the bench. And now it's not as vitally important that they find somebody, although I do believe that they will be aggressive at the deadline. But this is the chance for Golden State to make a run. And this is why I brought them in here, because you know, Golden

State in particular, they're a little thin. Their biggest weaknesses depth. Ironically, the Lakers, it's not so much about depth because they have a lot of guys that aren't even in the rotation that are good NBA players, like Wayne and Gabriel has been one of the best Lakers. He's out of

the rotation. You know, the Warriors don't really have uh that type of depth, But there's so much better on the top end, you know, one through six than the Lakers are, and so in in particular for the Warriors, I think it's more important for them to claw and fight for seeding. The more they can play at home, the better. The lesser opponents they can play in the early rounds the better. And the reason why is they fatigue will affect that team in a way that some

of the other teams around the league it won't. But make no mistake, we're setting up for the stretch run. You got all those teams I'm talking about. You got Portland' you got Okay see, you got the Lakers, you got the Clippers, you got the Timberwolves, you got the Pelicans, you got the Sons, you got the Warriors. Got all these guys in this group, and they're all gonna be like having the same conversations in the locker room about

how to have to hit the Jets. But the Warriors have the personnel still to this point, after all this time, after all this negativity, after all of the bad stuff with the Warriors during the season. Their top five guys come on Looney Draymond Grey, and Andrew Wiggins. Stephen Clay are by far still the best lineup in the NBA to pay to play at least two hundred minutes. Their outscoring teams by almost twenty points per one hundred possessions.

So when they hit the jets the way everyone else does, they have a level they can get to that the other teams cannot. And so that's why I never wrote them off. The more they struggled, That's why I never gave up on them as my championship favorite. I expect the Warriors to go and run here over the course the next couple of weeks. All right, I just want to take a few minutes to talk a little bit about officiating, because this is something that's been driving crazy

as of late. It's been kind of a big storyline in light of the Lebron James foul at the end of the Boston Celtics game. But really, to me, it's it's a larger problem at the direction the game is heading, and I want to I want to throw a couple of disclaimers out up front UM officials are necessary evil you absolutely have to have them, so we have to appreciate, you know, the position that they're in, but also that

job is incredibly difficult. I don't have a lot of refereeing experiences, but the one one of the few times that I've been a ref and a basketball game was for an alumni UM. It was like a teachers versus students game. When I was playing in college at a c U and the campus pastor like cussed me out

in the game. I was the only ref officiating by myself a game with ten people running around in a casual pickup game, and I was getting cussed out for missing calls because I opted to just basically step back and not calling anything unless it was egregious. Point being, I get that it's really hard. I get that everyone's you know, is screaming at you and yelling at you the whole time. I want to say that upfront that

I understand the difficulty of the position. But to me, the role that the official plays in a basketball game is to manage the basketball game in a way that accentuates the players. What their job is not to do is to just simply enforce rules. Because as It's the case with everything in life. If you go by the book, you leave no room for discretion. If you leave no room for discretion, things slipped through the cracks and a

lot of people get treated unfairly. I think it's important to have discretion, and in my opinion, the referees job is to be unnoticeable, and instead what we're having is the actual game itself, the actual basketball players playing basketball in a way that caters to what the refs are doing. And for the reason why I'm so specifically passionate about this is I love this game so much and they

are ruining it. When Julius Randall dribbles that Ruey hat Samura and gathers with this right hand is a left handed player, and keeps his shooting hand off the basketball to loop Ruby's arm and to grab the basketball and then go up into the shots for the sole purpose

to drop out. That is not a basketball play. When Anthony Davis, you know, falls down on a turnaround fade away when no one touches him, you don't do that when you go play at l A fitness when Joel Empiad does it, you don't do that when you play in your Men's league. You play basketball, and this game in particular tonight was a slog of foul grift ing

from everybody on the floor. Jalen Brunson coming over the top of the screen, defender is right on his hip, just literally falls down to the right and just throws something up and gets a whistle. He does that because they blow the whistle. If you stop blowing the whistle. When Julie Randall does grifty stuff, Julius Randall will stop doing grifty stuff if you don't blow the whistle. When Jalen Brunston tries to flop and draw foul, he will

stop trying to flop and draw fouls. When you stop giving calls to Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid every time they fall down, they will stop falling down every single time they take a shot, even when nobody touches them. They do it because it works. And that's the problem with where officials are in the NBA right now. They officiate in a way that it's up here for the players, and as they are playing the game, they are hunting opportunities to manipulate the officials, and that becomes the vibe

of the basketball game. How many of you watching that Knick's Lakers games tonight were annoyed when every other trip down the floor we were seeing somebody go to the free throw line over some sort of garbage, non basketball play. You know. I was talking to a friend of mine, Ben DAWs to do uh that's done a bunch of deep dive articles and things like that, interviews with NBA officials, and him and I have talked a lot about this because he's on the other side of of this debate

and we go back and forth about it. And he told me about this thing called the case book. So there's the rule book, and then the officials use something called the case book. And the case book is essentially their subjectivity outlined, you know, a year to year, their points of emphasis, the things that they tweak about the rule book. And that's what's so frustrating about this. The officials take it so seriously as it pertains to their job enforcing rules, that they are missing the fact that

that's not why they're there. If it was possible to not have officials, they wouldn't be there. The game is about the players, and the game is basketball. When it becomes about the refs and the play doesn't resemble basketball. We've lost the plot. And the NBA already has a problem with the lack of urgency in the regular season because you know, stars are sitting every other night. No one cares because twenty teams get into the playoffs at

a thirty. There is absolutely no urgency already, and that hurts the NBA. If you add in a bad television product driven by poor officiating, it only conserves to further that issue. And they've said all the right things, Oh, we're gonna work on stopping non basketball moves, Well that went out the window. What was that two years ago? Like a show on this game tonight on both ends.

And again, I'm just I'm annoyed and I'm passionate about it because this is my favorite thing in the world and I'm watching it suck and it's just it's just really annoying. Um. But yeah, I'm off my soapbox. Alright, guys, that is all I have for tonight. We're gonna come back tomorrow night. We have we have net Celtics UM and then Warriors Timberwolves, depending on what happens with the with the starters, because the Warriors have a back to

back play the Nuggets on Thursday night. Uh, whether or not we covered that on Thursday night remains to be seen. A lot of stuff has to go a certain way, but as always, I appreciate you guys to support and I'll see you tomorrow night. It's something right around the same time the volume