Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Warriors Reaction: LeBron James & LA CRUISE PAST Steph Curry & Golden State

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one of these in a long time. We know better than to go headed head to head with the NFL and the college football Playoff, but there's gonna be a lot more of these nighttime instant reaction games that we had towards the end of the season. And then you guys know the drill. We go live every single night during the postseason. We're gonna be breaking down a jam pack slate of Rivals week games as the Los Angeles Vikers continued their excellent play beating the Golden State Warriors

in Oracle. After that, we're going to be talking about the Boston Celtics putting together their most impressive performance in a while, a blowout win on the road in Dallas. After that, the Denver Nuggets might have a little bit of a Minnesota Timberwolves problem as Minnesota wins their fourth consecutive time against Denver dating back to the Western Conference semi finals. And then at the very end, just very briefly, all touched on Pacers Spurs as well as the Calves,

who have dropped five out of eight. So a bunch of games are going to be getting into today. You guys are the drip before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight Tonight. It's also super helpful if you

leave a rating in a review. On that front, we also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for the Hoops Tonight channel, where we're going to be releasing content throughout the season. And then, last but not least, keep dropping mail bag question in our YouTube comments. Every Friday throughout the year, we record a mailbag. That's where you guys can drop questions there in the

YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Anthony Davis matchup for Golden State is just a huge problem. When Draymond Green is out of the lineup. Draymon is the only player on the Warriors who can actually make

AD feel uncomfortable. AD will still win some of those battles, but Draymond has a combination of the ability to really bother AD's base with his strength and the length to get good contests up top that he's gonna at least make Anthony Davis really work for it, right, And so in iso situations, AD can't just like bully Draymond and

get wherever he wants. And then Draymond is the only player on the Warriors who's fast enough, with long enough arms and good enough defensive instincts to in ball screens show on the ball handler or help as his responsibility is, but to also recover back to Anthony David on the roll when he ends up in that foul line area to either bother him, make him get rid of the ball, or get a good contest on some of the shots

that he takes there in the pocket. So with Draymond out, it was always going to be a really tough night for the Warriors dealing with Anthony Davis, and that's exactly what it ended up being. The guys battled. Quinton Post in particular, probably logged the best looking defensive possessions against Anthony Davis, but Ady got him with some overaggression, got to the foul line against him and got enough. And all night long he just beat every Golden State big

every which way. He posted guys up and scored with hook shots. He beat guys with face up ISO moves like using his speed to get to the basket or hitting those little step back jump shots. His jump shot was just incredibly important to the Lakers in this one. And then in ball screens he kept hitting floaters if he got close enough to the basket. When he would catch in the pocket, he hit picking like kind of those picking half pop jumpers where he kind of ends

up around the top of the key. I'd prefer him to just pop to the three point line and get a bit little better at that shot, just for the math of it, because you know, even if you hit that shot of forty five percent, it's just only worth, you know, zero point nine points per attempt. I think eighties got the capability to knock down pick and pop threes. I'd like to see him do that a little bit more. But he was hitting jumpers at the top of the

key when he was catching in the pocket. And then there was a time where the Warriors tried to put two on the ball in a ball screen and ad Cot on a short roll and made a beautiful corner kick to Max Christy in the left corner and he knocked it down. They tried switching at one point in the first half and Lebron just threw an easy over the top pass to Anthony Davis and he dunked it with two hands. Like there was just nothing that Golden State could do with him all night, and so he

just looked like an absolute superhero out there. He finished with thirty six points and thirteen rebounds, three steals in a block, just an incredibly impressive performance from Anthony Davis. He got off to such an incredible start this year, and in the stretch since that time, it's been kind of uneven. There's been some injuries that he's been dealing with. But I was a little concerned and just that there wasn't that much top end with Anthony Davis in that

stretch after the start of the season. But these last two games, that game against Boston, in the game against Golden State, he's looked absolutely fantastic. So I hope that that means that he's turning a corner in terms of his health and starting to feel a little bit better, have some healthy wheels, actually be able to move around, get the lift that he needs on his jump shot.

Anthony Davis looked absolutely great tonight. But interestingly enough, the Lakers, who have struggled NonStop with Anthony Davis off the floor this year, they were plus one tonight with Anthony Davis off the floor. A big part of that was the return of Jared Vanderbilt. It was good to see him

back out there. The mythological basketball player that was Jared Vanderbilt, who was playing so well there in January when you guys saw that the one corner three that Jared Vanderbilt ended up with, he didn't take more than one of them, and he didn't end up in that spot often because throughout those possessions, for the most part that he was on the floor, he was operating more as a screen or a roller, a cutter, working in the middle of the floor, which is exactly where he succeeded back in

January of twenty twenty four. And like when he was in that group, that bench group, it was kind of like Lebron Jared Vanderbilt, Dorian Phinney Smith and two guards. That group, they were able to just kind of use Jared Vanderbilt as the ball screen guy and just have him screen and roll into open space. And he had one where he screened and rolled and made a really

nice kickout pass for a corner three as well. And Jared Vanderbilt, like every time I watch him, his combination of like size and strength with like crazy motor in terms of just how hard he plays, Like little things like there'll be a transition push and like you'll see a position where like Andrew Wiggins will be running the left side of the floor and he's got the ball.

He catches the ball and the kick head pass and he kind of has an angle on Vanderbilt, and so many players in the NBA will just like let it go because it's just a transition possession in a random regular season game in January, Jared Vanderbilt like sprints back and takes an angle and cuts Andrew Wiggins off and at least forces him to pass the ball and make Golden State make a couple of nice passing reads in a transition situation, or you'll see him go for the

offensive glass. Like literally every single possession that he's on the floor, his effort in rotation, his effort in every spot of the floor just pops because of his combination of size, strength and just long arms and just all this stuff that makes him such an impact athlete on the floor. And that group was able to guard really well. And like, this is the this is the main thing that I've found to be fascinating in the time since

Dorian Finney Smith came to this team. And you know, in exchange for D'Angelo Russell and getting Jared Vanderbilt back, there's just a lot more defensive talent on this Lakers roster now than there was a month ago. Like it's just it's kind of a fundamentally different build in that sense. And like when you have more good defensive players, you

have more lineups that have more good defensive players. When you have more lineups full of good defensive players, you've got more guys on the floor that are good at all of the things you need to be good at to be a good defense, like getting back in transition, communicating with each other, containing the basketball in isolation situations and in ball screens, rotating around when you get in scramble situations, boxing out, rebounding, like all of those things

are things that those, you know, role player athletes have always been good at because that's what they've done since they were kids. And if you get a bunch of offensive players on the floor that haven't had to do that stuff often in their careers, like there just aren't that many players on the floor that are that good at those things, and you start to see things slip

through the cracks. Bad transition possessions, too many straight line drives, bad rotations, wide open threes, too many offensive rebounds, like that kind of stuff, Like that's all part of like this like scale's like there's like a mandatory minimum of defensive talent you have to have on the floor in order to be a competent defensive team. And then there's like another level you can get to where it's like

what everyone Like what if everyone's good at defense? And there were a lot of lineups out there tonight where it's like, oh wow, like that's Austin and Max with Dorian vandoh and Lebron, Like Austin's the worst defender in that group, you know, or like you'll be like Dalton is the one week defender in that group, but like Dalton and Jackson Hayes are the only two guys that were in their rotation tonight that are not good defensive

players when they're locked in. You know, Lebron obviously can ebb and flow with his effort, but like, there's just a lot more defensive talent on this roster now than there was because of a trade and because of the

return of Jared Vanderbilt that means more defensive runs. I thought it was fascinating Dorsburg who dors Burke every time I listened to her, she I think she's one of the best in the business at that color commentary piece because she just quickly identifies what's happening in the game and expresses it in a very concise and easy way for people to digest. Shout out to Dorsburke, She's just awesome.

But she made a comment at the beginning of that game about the difference in styles between Boston and Golden State, and it's a really interesting point because Boston, you know, Boston is going to match up hunt and they're gonna do They're gonna attack a lot of like switches, right, and the Lakers are gonna compete against that team with a switching defensive scheme, right, Like they put Anthony Davis on Jaylen Brown because Jaylen Brown has a slower type

of catch and shoot release, so they felt like ad could like dig down and recover to the perimeter better

than everyone else and help against mismatch hunting. And they it's all about like communicating switches, you know, switching aggressively to stop the shooting in that switch gap that I talk about all the time that Derek White's really good at, where like when you're in the middle of a switch, there's like a transition when the one player's disengaging and the next players engaging, and if you're slow in that interchange, Derek White will torch you, right, Like the MAVs got

torched by that all night tonight, specifically guys like Gafford and Maxi Kleiba, right, And like, so you go from this challenge where it's like we're switching, We've got to be attentive and close out on our switches, and then when we end up in our precarious mismatches, we have

to help recover, rebound, compete on the ball. Very different type of challenge to Golden State, where it's just a blender of people running through all these screens all over the floor and they're not really looking to attack matchups. It's much more like advantage creation and trying to play driving kick basketball, and so they get wide open threes and layups and it taxes your defense in a fundamentally different way. And you know, they had a lot of

breakdowns as a result of that. Guys get losing shooters, guys losing guys crashing the offensive glass, like a lot of Lakers got caught in that blender. But they had defensive runs and that's really the key. They got stops in stretches that allowed them to build leads and to maintain leads, and again, like, those are the defensive runs that are going to come more frequently the more defensive

talent you have on the floor. You Lakers fans will remember if you think back to the twenty twenty team, in the twenty twenty one team the year after, that team had a tendency to go on to literally win

games with defensive runs. It wonn't all the time, and you know, it kind of felt like a special like kind of flashing a pan type of thing when it would happen, similar to like when you see a shooter get super high, like Tyros Haliburton who got insanely hot had sixteen points in three minutes at the end of the third quarter in that game against the Spurs. Like

it was like the defensive version of that. You'd see the twenty twenty Lakers and they just have these like three four five minute stretches where they would lock in and the other team would just not score, like they

would literally just not be able to score. And that was an even better team with a younger, more athletic Lebron, a younger, more athletic Anthony Davis, even better defensive talent, but like defensive runs have been the way that the Lebron and Ad Lakers have won at the highest level, even dating back to the year they made it to

the Western Conference finals. That was not a great offensive team, that was a great defensive team, and so like, it's kind of an interesting it's kind of an interesting identity that's starting to form around the Lakers as like this really good defensive team that or at least a team

that's capable of being really good on defense. I'm not about to start taking victory laps about the Lakers defense after two games, but this team that's capable of being really good defensively and then kind of like Who's got it tonight type of offensive thing, like Austin's got it tonight,

AD's got it tonight, Lebron's got it tonight. They're not gonna have some helio centric guy that's going to average thirty points a game, but a lot of really well rounded scoring and then guys making shots off of that

I'd like tonight. I thought the corner kicks were fantastic, both in ball screens from the pick and roll ball handlers skipping the ball to the corner and in short roll opportunities where guys just would cut a catch on the short roll in a four on three and make that kickout pass to the corner, and it was like Max Christy and Dalton connect just again and again and again, just making the Warriors pay for helping off the corner. And you can just kind of see the identity starting

to take shape. But the key is they're going to have to be really really shit. This is not going to be a team that's going to win by having an overwhelming talent advantage. There's gonna be help on the way. I think the Lakers will make another trade and there will be more talent on this team, but not any sort of like meaningful talent increase that's gonna have you looking at the roster next to Oklahoma City and going, man, the Lakers have more talent than Oklahoma City or Boston

or something like that. You're not gonna win with talent. You're gonna have to be an incredibly good execution team. And so that's the opportunity that the Lakers have here. They're very healthy, they're in a groove, they're about to get reinforcements. They've got to commit to this thing in terms of the day to day process to get really really sharp on the details. They're going to have to be the team that makes fewer mistakes on both ends of the floor than their opponent if they're gonna have

any real chance to win. And then from there, if you got the defense and you support them with enough talent and you execute the way you're supposed to, all you need is Lebron James to have one last throwback playoff run and for an Anthony Davis to be Anthony Davis, and for Austin Reeves to be the reliable big game player that he's been in his entire career, and you've got a puncher's chance to do some damage. And so

again it starts. Now it's it can't be. Okay, we did it against Boston and Golden State on national television, but we're about to go on this chill road trip where we play some bad teams and now we just lose all of our good habits and fall apart. It's got to be a commitment that starts from today on the Golden Safron. I'm not going to get too far into it that they're just so devoid of talent with

Jonathan Kaminga and Draymond Green out of the lineup. I mean, we talked about Draymond specifically for the Anthony Davis matchup, but like you know, Jonathan Kminga is the closest thing to like that secondary scoring option that this team has, and when he's out, it's got Dennis Schroeder slotted up into that role. And I've talked a lot about in the last couple of days on the show about how Dennis Schroder is a good player, but he's completely miscast

on this Warriors team as like a secondary star. It's not what he needs to be. He needs to be a guy who's like consistently your fifth best place player, maybe your fourth best player on the floor. And that's only gonna happen when you get healthy and if you make the type of deal that we've talked about in terms of bringing in a legitimate secondary creator. And like,

I mean, it's not gonna get any easier. I mean, you're seeing, like Steph Curry, this is yet another game tonight where he kind of really struggled to get free. Like it's not like Steph's getting good looks and missing, Like he's actually struggling to get shots off. And that's not a Lakers problem. That's been a problem that's been

periodically there throughout the year. And so like it's like the more you ride this out to where Steph has to do more while you're anchoring him with inferior talent, the more it's gonna wear his body down, and the less likely it is that he ends up actually returning to any sort of form that you need him to be out in order to be good in the playoffs anyway. And so that's why I keep talking about, like the

slotting with this team. You've got to bring in the talent that puts all these guys in the right role. The only way you're gonna do that, like we talked about it, you make a camp, Say you make a Cam Johnson deal without including Jonathan Kaminga. That's where you could end up in a situation where Steph is your best offensive player. You know, Cam Johnson is your second best offensive player, Jonathan Kaminga is your third best offensive player,

Dennis Shrewder is your fourth best offensive player. That starts to slot pretty well. Now, you can actually take advantage of the strength of your roster, which is your depth of role player talent. GUIs Santos and Quintin Post are the latest two guys in a long line of dudes on this roster that have shown the ability to play winning basketball in a role player context. You've got a plethora of those guys and you've got one good offensive player.

You've got to find a way to balance that out a little bit, all right, Moving on to Boston Dallas, No rest for the weird for the Boston Celtics. The loss in Los Angeles was their fifth game in seven nights, but they were right back to playing tonight in Dallas against the Mavericks. They do get to go home now, but they actually play every other night up until the All Star breaks, so they're gonna probably benefit from that break a lot compared to some other teams in the league.

Because they definitely looked tired against the Lakers, and they even looked tired to start this game against the MAVs as they fell down nineteen to ten. But this is the NBA regular season. You just have to find a way to survive from game to game through the grind, and the Celtics responded with an extremely impressive two way performance against the Maps. They got blitzed a little bit early, like we talked about. Dallas came out with a ton

of energy, specifically in transition and semi transition. They were just applying a lot of pressure on the rim PJ. Washington was just like a bowl in a China shop going downhill in the early part of the game. But Boston weathered the storm and slowly took control. I thought it was their best defensive performance in a while. They had two really big defensive runs in the late first quarter. Dallas had nineteen points with six forty one left in

the first quarter. They had thirty five points with three forty eight left in the second quarter, So a fifteen minute stretch where Boston allowed just sixteen points as they turned a nine point deficit into a fourteen point lead. A huge turnaround there. And then in the mid third quarter, same sort of thing they had. The MAVs had fifty nine points with nine minutes left. They had sixty eight

points with two minutes left in the third quarter. So in a seven minute span, Boston allows just nine points and turns a six point lead into a twenty five point lead. So two defensive runs completely put this game away.

I thought they did an excellent job with their physicality on both ends, on both ends of actions, like on the ball and in off ball situations, like they were pressuring the ball, they were switching with pressure like closing out, but they were also digging down really well and swiping at the ball. Drew Holliday has always been really good at this, Like there's always like a time in terms

of dig and recover. So like if you're if you're helping off the ball and there's a ball hand ball handler looking to attack and he's looking right at you and stunt down at the ball, he's just gonna throw the pass and you're gonna get burned, and that guy's gonna make the shot. But there are times when he gets distracted as he's looking at the rest of the floor where you can find an opportunity to lunge in there and swipe out the basketball but not get burned

on that kickout pass. And that's kind of the delicate balance of helping recover defense all over the floor. That's what makes a good off ball defender is those instincts in those situations. And Boston just made Dallas play in a crowd all night long, and it just caused them to rush and to make mistakes. I thought Luke Cornett in particular, had several really good like help defense possessions around the rim that forced misses, and like Dallas missed

a ton of layups. I think they had thirty seven layup attempts and made twenty seventeen missed layups in this game. PJ. Washington missed a bunch of them. That's all a pressure, a product of that pressure that you're applying on them around the rim. And then the Celtics had a really good job of running out on Dallas's turnovers. They had twenty one points off of turnovers in this game. Their

closeouts were really sharp. Dallas generated just four unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in this game, by far, the least that Dallas has had in a game this season. They've had their previous low with seven, So just an excellent defensive performance from the Boston Celtics. They actually looked like the more physically fresh team as the game progressed, which is a remarkable testament to their competitive spirit. They just dug deep and they found the energy to go

out there and outwork Dallas. They even grabbed seventeen offensive rebounds. They just looked quicker to the ball all night and then on offense some good physical aggression towards the rim. There was still a good amount of settling, which is something I've been complaining about with Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Thirty of Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown's forty three shot attempts in this game were jump shots. I would like

to see some better balance there. One thing I'll say is it was more settling in terms of Tatum because he was taking a lot of threes. And again, Tatum is the guy that I think looks the most gassed right now. I think he's the guy that could really use a night off, and hopefully Boston can find an opportunity for him to take a night off here in one of the next game, in one of these games before the All Star break. But Jalen Brown, most of his jump shots that he was taking were much closer

to the rim. As a matter of fact, Jalen Brown made four jump shots that were actually in the paint. Those are like actually easier jump shots that are very makeable in that ere three of them were like right around the semi circle, Like that's a ten footer that might as well be like a jump shot that has the same sort of touch that you have on a hook shot, right, So like those are less settling, But again, in general, that's kind of the thing I have my

eye on with Boston. And even though Jason Tatum was settling, I thought for the most part, the team was aggressive enough. Like Jalen Brown was operating in the paint all game long, even when he was taking jump shots. But outside of that, he had a couple of really nice kickout passes to Chris hops Porzingis, he had some nice physically aggressive moves towards the rim. They even posted Horford a few times and he just got to that little left shoulder hook

in the lane where he scored. It was just a much better a pro to the offensive end of the floor in terms of getting great shots instead of settling for the first ok shot that they get their eyes on. An easy way to describe this is the assists. They had thirty three assists on forty four makes. That's a seventy five percent assist percentage. In January, before that game tonight, the Celtics had been getting assists on just sixty two

percent of their mix. That's a substantial increase that by the way, that ranked nineteenth in the league so far in January, So they were a team that was not popping the ball around. They were moving the ball much much better today. They generated thirty six catch and shoot jump shots, which is tied for the most that they've

generated in a single game in January. Even the pull up jumpers that they took I thought were smart in this game, Like Dallas was doing a lot of switching with their five men, which is something you kind of have to do against Boston because of their pick and

pop attack that they can unleash on you. But it's difficult because it puts you in a predicament of asking your bigs who are accustomed to sagging back or maybe just lightly showing at the level in these ball screens, and now you're asking them to close out to the perimeter and like legitimately guard a guy out there, and like specifically Derek White, but Jaylen Brown did a couple times to like punish them for switching passively. I talked

about this in the in the Lakers segment. But like when there's a switch, there's a moment when the on ball guy disengages and the new defender engages, and it's kind of like a gap, and Derek White torches people all the time by shooting threes right in that shooting gap, and he was killing both Gafford and Klee, but even

got PJ. Washington with it once, like you and we're gonna talk about it when we get into Dallas, Like there's a certain like attention to detail you need to beat the Boston Celtics, and it just was not there for Dallas in this game. But like, uh, it was just a really nice, well rounded win for the Celtics. All five of their starters had at least seventeen points. Again, thirty three as system forty four makes dominant stretches of defense. Just a reminder that this is a really damn good

basketball team. They just have to get through two more weeks and they'll get a nice little break before they head into the home stretch. And then on the Dallas front, they just weren't nearly sharp enough in order to win a game like this. A lot of botch switches, way too stop switches, like I talked about it really got burned in transition. In the first half. They were not matched up several times and gave up corner threes. That was a big part of Boston's early run in the game.

And then on offense, two things really played the Mavericks. Too many mislayups around the rim. They had seventeen miss layups in this game, and then too many bad mid range attempts from mediocre shooters. They had eight mid range

attempts from players that were not named Kyrie Irving. And especially in the middle fourth quarter stretch they go in this run, they get it down to like twelve or eleven or something, and there were like three possessions in a row where they took mid range jump shots, and I'm like, the contested mid range jump shots are not going to be how you get back in this game. It's going to be playing defense, sprinting out in transition getting easy ones, and then really sharp execution in the

half court to get great shots. And so it just they just didn't play well enough to beat a team like Boston. Often there were kickout rereads in those situations too. Again, the mass only generate four unguarded catch and shoot jump shot attempts in that game, by far their worst mark of the season. So just Dallas didn't play a really good game, and that obviously is going to keep them out of competing in a matchup like this against Boston. I can move a little quicker now through the rest

of the show Denver, Minnesota. Minnesota blows out the Nuggets to win their fourth consecutive time this matchup, dating back to the Western Conference semi finals last year. The Nuggets have a specific weakness on each end of the floor that causes them to have issues in this matchup. On offense, they have several guys who struggle against the physicality of Minnesota's bigger, stronger defensive players. They just cause the Nuggets to rush things, which in turn causes them to get sloppy.

A similar concept to what we talked about earlier with Dallas right that leads to turnovers, that leads to miss layups, that sort of thing. Right, Jokich had seven turnovers. Who's fumbling the ball away in contact situations. He forced some bad passes. Not the first time that Jokich has kind of struggled to take care of the basketball against Minnesota. Michael Porter Junior was like smoking wide open layups and

just looked uncomfortable everywhere. He's a guy that seems to struggle with that physicality, which by the way, Michael Porter Junior really really struggled in the Minnesota series last year in the second round, Julian Strather really struggled. And so when you got these guys again, that's the first weakness in this matchup is that there are several players, key players for Denver that struggle under Minnesota's big, physical perimeter defenders.

And they're big physical frontline defenders, right, And as a result, they can just go through some really bad offensive lolls against Minnesota's defense. And then on defense, teams usually load up on Anthony Edwards and then they try to get the ball out of his hands before he can get downhill. Right. But Ant is so damn fast, and Denver always has like two or three guys on the floor that aren't great athletes, guys like Nikola Jokich, guys like Michael Porter Junior,

guys like Jamal Murray. Right, So, as a result, Ant was able to relatively easily get downhill and laps the defense kind of just by going through and around guys like he just kind of slalloms through Denver's defense even

when they're loaded up on him. He's just almost it almost looks like all of the Nuggets defenders are stuck in mud or running on beach sand, and he's running around with basketball shooes like he just looks like he's moving a step slower and as a result, he can get downhill, really claps the defense and creates some pretty simple kickout reads for him. And so I mean, both Anthony Edwards and Julius Randall were for fantastic in this one.

I don't want to overplay or overlook Julius Randall, like he was bullying Denver smaller perimeter players all game long for buckets for kickouts. Julius was great, but Ant's downhill scoring and his playmaking in this game were fantastic. It'ds several beautiful feeds to go Bear, including one like a tight window rifle pass that he caught and finished. The

Ant was like having a little celebration. I think it was late first quarter if I remember correctly, but he had a couple of nice pisses passes to go Bear, some really nice skip passes, which, by the way, like Rudy Gobert and Jada McDaniels were both great on offense in this one. Like Gobert was like actually catching and finishing things around the rim and making nice reads out of his short role situations. When he had to face a four on three, Jada McDaniels hit the one three

he took. It was on one of those kickouts from Julius Randall on a post up. He was driving closeouts and getting to the rim. Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert had twenty seven points in this game, nine assists, zero turnovers in only four missed shots. Like I'm gonna take a little bit of a detour here, do you guys remember when I talked about the concept of belief with the Lakers, as it pertains to like them being willing

to do the work. The job is hard. If you want them to do it, they need to think it's gonna lead to a reward, specifically a trophy. As soon as that belief is there, then they're gonna be willing to do the work. When they're willing to do the work, they give themselves the best chance to get the reward, right. I almost think of that as like a similar type of concept in terms of Anthony Dards as a playmaker. You guys all want Anthony Edwards to trust the passport.

Y'all want him to be willing to feed it to go bear. You all want him to be willing to break the defense down when they load up on him. But guess what's gonna make him believe that that's gonna work. Guys scoring, Guys catching the ball and finishing in traffic, Guys knocking down the threes on those skip passes. Like, I don't think it's a huge coincidence that like it has this one of his better playmaking games of the season on a night when Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert

were actually catching and finishing the basketball when they had advantages. Again, AT's got to believe that the playmaking is actually gonna

lead to him winning. And one of the things that I keep talking about with this Timberwolves team big problem throughout the season is that, like when they have Jaden, Julius and Rudy out there, you have a guy that literally can't effectively consistently score anywhere on the floor, and Rudy Jayden who is a bad spot up shooter, and Julius Randall is a bad spot up shooter, and so as a result, it puts him in a situation where, like teams can load up and Ant's gonna make these

kickout passes, but a lot of times they're not bearing fruit. And so that's why you see these clutch time situations where Ant's taking really difficult step back jump shots over the top of the defense because he didn't believe in

those guys. He didn't think they can finish, He didn't think they can make shots, right, And so, like I do think it's fascinating because, like I think that over time, as the Timberwolves continue to surround Anthony Edwards with better offensive talent, that he'll be more willing to lean into that part of his game and develop that part of his game. But I thought he was really really good as a playmaker in this one. Nice win for the

Wolves as they get their second in a row. And again we're gonna go really quick on these last two. Pacer Spurs's close game until Tyrey Saliburton caught that insane heater or he had sixteen points in three minutes. He was just had that like you know, a little step back three going. He caught the Spurs in some bad switches.

He caught like while he was red hot. Keldon Johnson did one of those softs switches as we talk about where he didn't actually close out, they lost him in transition once and then once he got hot, he was just starting to it just started to make every shot he took and hit a couple of really tough ones, like kind of a forward leaning one and then a little step back in transition that he made, and it just completely discombobulated the Spurs, like they lost all their composure.

They started to just force everything at the rim through help and started missing a lot of layups and getting blocked at the rim, which just led to bad floor balance situations, meaning like not guys ready to get back in transition defense, which is something that Indiana is just always going to turn around and kill you with in transition. And it went from a close game in the late

third quarter to Indiana winning by thirty eight. So that's all you need to know about how Tyree Saliberton shooting like legitimately just like murdered the psyche of the San Antonio Spurs. And then lastly, before we get out of here, tonight, the Cleveland Cavaliers drop a game to the Houston Rockets at home. They've now lost five out of eight. A couple things in there, Houston's a really bad matchup for

Cleveland because they're just so much more athletic on the perimeter. Now, for the record, like I don't I was thinking about this earlier in that AKVS fan actually messaged me today and I was talking about it with him, But like, I don't think Cleveland's going to face a team athletic enough in the Eastern Conference to cause that type of problem for them. And I don't think they're going to

run into a team like Houston. If it got to the finals and they ran into a team like Oklahoma City, I do think that that it could be a problem, but they're I think Houston uniquely brings the waves of these big, freaky athletic perimeter defenders that could have perimeter athletes that can cause them problems. So again, some of its matchups and some of it's a lull. Like there's a bunch of specific things. We talked about how the Calves have been shooting the absolute shit out of the

basketball all year long. Well, they're just thirty seven percent from three in this three and five stretch. Donovan Mitchell has been slumping and the five losses he's shooting below forty percent from the field with only four assists per game has really been forcing the issue has looked like

out of rhythm. And then their defense has been really bad and the five loss they have a one to twenty four defensive rating, which I think has a lot to do with just kind of a little mid season low here, so little drop down here for the Cleveland Cavaliers. We'll see how they respond to it. Adversity is part of the process. You don't see teams too often just

cruise through regular season, dominate everybody and win. Like what happened last year with Boston is pretty rare, and so you know, this is a little bit of adversity for the Cavs, and I'm interested to see how they respond to it. All right, guys, that's all half for tonight. As always, sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and for supporting the show. We're going to take the rest of the weekend off and we will be back on Monday with our typical power rankings and weekend reaction. I

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