Hoops Tonight - LeBron & Lakers beat Zion & Pelicans in OT, Mitchell leads Cavaliers over Celtics

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in West Virginia. YEA, all right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. The Lakers on a wind streak, the Lakers fun to watch play basketball, which could not be further from what it was like last year. We're going to be breaking down the lakers big win at home

over the New Orleans Pelicans. And then for those of you guys who stick around for the back half of the show, we're gonna talk about the Celtics Cavs matchup from earlier tonight, which was incredible, and then we are going to dive into the Knicks and the Hawks, a couple of teams that we haven't touched on yet this season. You guys know the drill. Before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscored Aason lt.

That's where show announcements will go, as well as some of our footage breakdowns that we do because of some of the limitations that we have on YouTube. And then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, so I was talking to Ryan, one of our producers before the show about how it just kind of felt like the Lakers deserved

to win this game. Um, they basically outplayed the Pelicans for the vast majority of the game, except for the lakers best player, Lebron James, is having a really rough start to this season and was giving the Lakers almost nothing and was downright detrimental at a couple of specific stretches of the game. We're gonna talk a lot about Lebron later on in the show, but I do not

want to leave a lead with him. But you know, in that kind of case, you know, it just kind of felt like on that final possession and you get a couple of missed free throws and Matt Ryan breaks free in the opposite corner, it's like, you know, you either believe in that sort of thing or you don't call it. The basketball gods call it basketball karma. I don't know what you call it, but I just generally believe that sometimes those sorts of things tend to go

your way when you're playing good basketball. And a lot of those kinds of shots did not go the Lakers way last year because they weren't playing good basketball. Are they related? Probably not, But for the sake of making it more fun, let's just pretend that it is. And you know, there were a couple of specific things on

that play that I found interesting. First of all, Austin reeves through an absolute dime across the court, hitting Matt Ryan in stride so perfectly so that Matt didn't have to go out of his way to catch the basketball, and because of that, he got to take a second to look down at his feet, and if you look at the replay, Matt is hyper focused on making sure he's behind the line, but also that he has an enough room for him to turn and plant his right

foot on that shot. And you know, um when when you're shooting over your left shoulder, turning in any sort of way, and mostly it's on post fade aways, but you'll also see it on guards and wings when they're flying around screens and movement shooting situations. But right handed shooters naturally shoot with their shoulders usually a little bit off center, with the right shoulder towards the rim, and so it's really difficult to get squared up unless you

jump extra high and kick that right foot around. It's kind of like a little detail of skill development when it comes to shooting for right handed shooters, either in fade aways over their left shoulders or in movement shots over moving towards their left and on that play, Matt had plenty of time to look down, planted that right foot, hard, kick that right foot around, and stuck the jump shot, and the Lakers had more life and in in over time, it was all about the defensive end of the floor.

They held the Pelicans to six points. Should have been four too, because there was a play where Zian Williamson stepped out of bounds. Really you had that um, really tough left handed hook shot off the glass that Zion hit over Anthony Davis's contest, a shot that Anthony Davis defended almost perfectly. You just got to tip the cap design and it's a great shot. And then they're at the end of the game when the game was basically over, c Jim McCollums stuck a pretty tough, little midrange pull

up jump shot. But other than that, it was a whole lot of stops there in that overtime run. And that has become the identity of this Laker team, and that specific type of identity the defensive end of the floor is the kind of identity that will win you a lot of basketball games because it will keep things close. Your offense can be up and down. For instance, Lebron

James is a good jump shooter. Yes, his legs look problematic right now, we're gonna get to that, and he's struggling to finish around the rim the last couple of games. But Lebron James is a good jump shooter. But he's in a shooting slump right now. There are a lot of players around the league that are in shooting slumps right now. Trey Young is in a shooting slump. We're

gonna talk about him later tonight. There are a lot of guys are in the league that can go through shooting slump if you have a defensive identity that you can lean back on that is there every single night, provided you play hard, that a good defensive teams will mail in a game here there. That sort of thing can happen. But for the most part, if you have a defensive identity and you have the personnel to do it, and you care enough to try, it is a dependable outcome.

And that's why it's such a good type of identity to have. And that's why when we look at NBA history, you almost always have to be a top ten defense in order to win an NBA championship. And then we look at last year and the two teams that were in the finals were the first and second best defense in the league. That is the most reliable way to

win basketball games. In overtime, both Lebron and Anthony Davis got key stops on Zion Lebron kind of tried to take a charge on Zion, which forces Zion to change up his steps on a transition play. It was funny. I was talking about to Ryan again and Anthony Davis fell over one of his teammates in the backcourt, and I'm like, okay, guaranteed bucket. Every time Anthony Davis falls down,

there's a bucket on the other end. And Lebron like kind of tried to took a charge, take a charge, and it messed up Zion's footwork and he changed his steps a little bit and he missed the left handed layup that he makes the time. So it's a big play from Lebron, and then that ended up leading to a runout dunk for a d who stayed on the

other end of the floor. And then Anthony Davis got a key stop late in the game where Zion tried that big fake spin move that always comes back to his left hand and ended up shooting the layup over the front of the rim. And then Patrick Beverley was a big time move from uh from Darvin Ham to go away from Russ at the end of the game.

And Russ was really good overall in this game. Arguably his best game as a Laker, at least his best half as a Laker, and again we'll talk about him in a little bit, but to go away from Russ at the end of the game because you were getting a little bit more of a natural shooting aravity from Patrick Beverley and then trusting him to defend well, it

was a big time move from Darvin Hammon. You were rewarded with two pivotal offensive rebounds by Patrick Beverley off of miss jump shots, and he played great defense on CJ. McCollum applying back pressure. And you know what's so important about back pressure on these guards is you know, when they're coming off of these ball screens, they're seeing clear airspace in front of them, usually especially in a scheme like Darvin Hams where the biggest dropping so far back.

But if you are consistently applying back pressure, the guards still will not feel comfortable because even though he sees clear airspace in front of him, he's gonna be paranoid that there's something coming from behind, whether it's a hand, a reach, or digging at the ball from behind to try to get it while it's in your shooting pocket. It just adds a level of discomfort to the offensive player, which can lead to missus. And then you know, Lebron James couldn't make a jump shot to save his life

again tonight. But there was a play there at the end where he just willed his way to the basket bullyball style for a layup to put the Lakers up five. Just you know, the stretches of good offensive basketball from Lebron in this game, which was basically that one sequence. And then there's a little stretch at the end of the third quarter we went on a six oh run

on three straight post ups. It's all just wiley, veteran old man just just just willing the basketball into the rim and uh and that's all he's got left at this point until he figures out what's going on with his legs, which we'll see. Um. You know, the Pells made it interesting. Zion was fantastic late in this game, especially at the end of the third quarter. There was a stretch there where the Lakers left winging Gabriel on

him and Zion just absolutely abused him. Another question I had about Lebron, like Lebron just didn't want that matchup, and I know He's capable of doing a better job on Zion than when you was, so I was a little confused by that as well. H J. Alvarado was incredible at the end of the third quarter and to start the fourth quarter, making momentum defensive plays, knocking down spot up, thrazy airball to three in the right corner,

and then just started making everything after that. He also has a really nice little running scoop shot and tear drop in the lane that he was making and then uh in a in o t You know, all all season long, I've been most impressed with Zion's passing ability, and even on the play that didn't count where he drove baseline or shouldn't have counted when he stepped out of bounds, Zion just has such a natural passing feel and he puts the ball with pace on target, which

makes it really difficult to rotate out off of his passes. And you know, I used to say this about Zion or about Janice all the time. If you are unstoppable at the basket, which Janice is and Zion. It fun fact about the one season I think, yeah, one season last year's Zion played a lot. Janice was not the most effective restricted area scorer in the league. It was Zion. Zion is actually the most dominent paint scorer in the league. But it doesn't matter what kind of jump shot you have.

Everyone thinks of the jump shot like, oh, you need to be able to shoot over the top, not necessarily if you can get to the basket at will, they're gonna have to send multiple defensive players and build a wall, and you have to show a willingness to beat teams with the pass and especially with the In the first half and then late fourth quarter, o T I was

really impressed was Zion's passing ability. Um, So those are just a couple of Pelicans I wanted to shout out in this particular game, a couple of specific things I saw late in this game because Russ, you know, Russ played his best half that I've ever seen him play as a Laker. He was flying around on defense. He even defended really well on c J. McCollum in the fourth quarter before Darvin ham benched him. Um, he took a charge. He was grabbing contested rebounds on both ends

of the floor. He defended Zion really well on a couple of switches that he got and that if there were a couple possessions where he was either transition cross matches or he was outright assigned to Zion. But Russ defended really really well on those possessions, and then on offense, he just played smart. He made extra passes on his spot up possessions. He made a spot up three. I think the two jump shots that he missed were both um the two early threes that he missed were both

off the dribble. He picked his spots to drive better. That's a huge, huge part of Russ's late career development is understanding that he can't just elevate over four people anymore. He's got to pick his spots better, and just in general. In the last couple of games, that's a big part of what I've noticed. It's fewer drives to the rim, but more effective when he goes because he's just being more picky about when he's doing it. And then we had that run there at the end of the second quarter,

which was incredible. I think the Lakers held the Pelicans to eleven points total over the last ten minutes because once again it's about their defensive identity. They held the Pells to eleven over the last ten minutes of the half, and at the end of the half, they just spammed Lebron. James Russell Westbrook pick and roll with Russ says the ball handle and in every single case, they gotta, they gotta.

Lebron got a dunk out of it. There were a couple plays where he hit Lebron for kickouts, but for the most part, the Pelicans are running drop covered, so they had Trey Murphy on Russ and they had Nagi Marshall Marshall on Lebron, and as Russ was coming off of the screen, Trey Murphy's chasing over the top and Naji Marshall is sitting to contain Russ, and then they're bringing help out of the weak side to bring over

to to Lebron as the role man. It was kind of like a really confusing defensive scheme because you just don't need to do that with that specific action. But Russ was just making easy kickout passes and then it was bang bang extra passes and guys started knocking down threes, and Lonnie Walker and Troy Brown Jr. In particular, the two of them made a lot of really important timely spot up threes in this game. And again, like when it comes to the Lakers shooting situation, they don't need

to be a great shooting team. That's just that's not that big of a deal. But you do need to be able to make a decent percentage of the wide open ones that you get out of really solid offensive action. You can be picky, limit your attempts, take high quality attempts, and professional basketball players are going to hit them at a decent percentage. This is not the type of team until they make a trade that's gonna be able to

hit lots of difficult three point shots. But if they're timely, they and they knocked them down, that's enough for them to win games because of how well they defended and when they were running that Lebron Russ pick and roll, Troy Brown Jr. Was knocking down shots. Lonnie Walker was knocking down shots. That's really all you need in those situations. But I thought it was really interesting because he came

out in the third quarter his shift. In that shift, he struggled a little bit, had a couple of turnovers, had a couple of mislayups, but then when he came back in the fourth quarter, he defended well and was making plays. Overall, it was a great russ S game. But I tweeted, if you guys saw those of you follow me on Twitter, I tweeted out at halftime, I went back and rewatched those Spann pick and rolls, and

the ridge was something you don't usually see against the Lakers. Russ, Lebron, James, Anthony Davis, You're gonna think a lot of pick and roll, right, Russe and Lebron are two great passers and two great downhill ball handlers. Anthony Davis is a great roleman, and even Lebron can be a great roleman. So there's all these different combinations for you to think Lakers are gonna

run a ton of pick and roll. But they haven't, not even just in the Russ era, but before that, in the Lebron James Anthony Davis area, they haven't run a lot of pick and roll. And the main reason why is because Anthony Davis can't shoot and Russell Westbrook doesn't shoot very well. And so when those guys are um um, when those guys are in those actions, they're constantly trying to get downhill and bully you physically. Lebron's

a bulleyball player. Russ as a bulleyball player, Anthony Davis can be a bulletball player and if he's taking jump shots, you win usually, right. So what happens is every team that's good puts big forwards on all three of them, and they just switched the action. And even during the championship season, when Lebron James and Anthony Davis would run

pick and roll, it was a switch. The differences is that in that season Anthony Davis was a great is A player and then when Lebron James had the ball, they had respectable enough shooting that he had lots of work room to work, and he was a great is A player. So they'd run the pick and roll, attack the match or the screening action, and they'd attack the matchup that they'd like, or they just skip the pick and roll altogether and just go to one of them too.

When teams run drop coverage against Lebron, Russ and a d it opens up all of that stuff that makes

it look all fluid and nice. And I tweeted that out because my concern was, Okay, Russ is playing great, but that coverage is not a coverage they're gonna see often, and then we got late in the game and they started switching, and all of a sudden, it becomes a little bit more problematic when Lebron James is iso wing out of a switch pick and roll against Larry Nan and Russ's man is sagging off and Anthony Davis's man is sagging off and there's just not a lot of space,

and now you're getting pull up jumpers and Lebron doesn't have the legs to just bully his way to the rim the way he usually does, and you start to get a lot of settled for jump shots and it becomes a problem. And that's kind of where I was coming back to on that whole situation, is like, like Russ was really really good. He's been really good for two games in a row. Now, I'd argue this is the best two game stretch since he came to the Lakers.

But the reality is, especially when they get into tougher matchups against teams that have the ForWords to just switch those actions or just not dumb enough to run drop coverage against them, you run into the same conundrum. They're gonna switch a big guy onto Russ and then he won't be able to bully them and then he won't shoot the ball. Well, then when you have Lebron Iso, they're gonna help off of Russ into the lane. Now, Russ has been a lot better in recent games at

being active off the ball. He grabbed pivotal offensive rebounds tonight, Russ has been a lot better. In fact, I'd say he's been good overall this season. But the problem is is that it has a certain ceiling to it, right, and then you saw tonight they couldn't actually use him in crunch time, or at least they opted not to, so even though he was really good. The idealized version of this team is you look at the roster and you go, I've got Lebron James, I've got Anthony Davis.

I've got all these guys that are defending. They have arguably the best defense in the league, uh you know, at least the best defense in the Western Conference. And you have the opportunity to turn Russ into two or three offensive role players that bring in a little bit more firepower to this team. And you're not sacrificing any defense because you've got all of these defensive players that are thriving next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis. So I I don't think it changes the outlook for how

the Lakers should proceed from a strategy standpoint. But that said, I'm very happy for Rus. He deserved to have a couple of really positive moments with the Lakers. I hope he has a couple more before they do a trade him. Hell, I hope he just flat out just continues to excel and they don't need to trade him. I just think we have to acknowledge the realities of the situation. All Right, a couple of guys I want to hit on before

we get out of here. Lebron so, I thought he was pretty bad in the third quarter run, particularly on the defensive end. Um left winding on an island too much. Uh. And then late in the game he had a bad foul on Zion and a turnaround Uh late, I think it was just end of the fourth quarter, a bad foul and a turnaround where where he should have just walled up and made Zion make a shot. Instead he reached in and then on the offensive end of the floor.

Right now. Now, there was a report that in the first quarter he took his shoe off like he took his left shoe off and was just sitting on the bench with his left foot out. Now he's been complaining about left foot soreness, and it's obviously leading to some limitations in his explosiveness. That goes without saying. You can

literally see it watching the games. I had a stress fracture in between my first and second year playing in college, and the way it manifested is foot sore, nous, your photo sore, and then you start to play and it loosens up, and then you stop playing and it just aches like all hell. And then basically what happens is it gets a little bit worse every time you play, and then if you take a day off, it gets a little better, and if you take two days off, it gets a lot better. But then as soon as

you start playing, it gets worse and worse again. And so that's the one thing that scares me with the lebron thing, is I hope that's not where that's trending. I hope it's just some foot soreness, maybe some you know, ligament inflammation or something like that, and not something more serious, because the explosiveness is not there, and as a result, he's not confident in his jump shot, and he's been

good defensively overall this season. But you just this, none of this makes any sense unless Lebron is great, and so I may think it. You know, they can't afford to bench him, and I don't mean bench in terms of for his play, but they can't afford to give him a couple of weeks for his foot to heal because of just a predicament that they're in in the standings.

But it may be worthwhile to cut his minutes because especially in these weeks before a rush trade, because if Russ is giving you what he's giving you on ball, which is a better version, a lot lot better version of what you got last year, if you're getting that from Russ, and you can cut Lebron's minutes back to thirty a game for a little while until that foot kind of starts to come back to come back to life a little bit. Then you get an idealized version

of Lebron. Because I do believe there's a better version of him that will see this season. I'm just worried that he might get hurt before then, and so it's just something that they need to be careful with because right now, I mean if it's like it's a problem, like he's not getting to the rim and finishing well. There's a play overtime where he drove to the lane um and to step on CJ mccollumn and just threw the ball in the bottom of the rip. And just

even even last year, that's a dunk. He shrugs CJ off of him and dunks the basketball in his prime, It's a Sports Center Top five type of dunk like that. That that's He's just not Lebron right now. He's honestly the one big question. Mark Ross has been the best he's been since he's been with the Lakers. Anthony Davis, I think is the early leader for defensive Player of the Year. There's no other exceptional defenders on this Laker team. The only player in the league averaging over two blocks

and two steals per game is Anthony Davis. Has been amazing And the biggest thing with Anthony Davis's standing out to me is his instincts on drop off passes and interior feeds, like things around the lane. He keeps his hands out and low in all those pocket pass areas

and drop off pass areas. I can't tell you how many times you see a player drive into the lane, think they have Anthony Davison help, and then pump Bacon then go to throw a bounce pad sat Anthony Davis just sticks his arm down and grabs it, and that triggers a lot of the Laker fast break stuff. These are guys too, that are not necessarily regarded as great defensive players. Lonnie Walker was regarded as a bad defensive

player in San Antonio. I've always thought Austin Reeves was good, But if you talk to the other guys around the league, they're like, oh yeah, attack Austin Reeves every time down the floor. Lebron is coming off of one of his worst defensive seasons because he just didn't care to do anything, although he's been a lot better this year. You know, there's there. There's a lot of guys that Russell Westbrook is another example of that. There are good defensive players.

Troy Brown Jr. Is a good defensive player. Patrick Beverley is a good defensive player who wants Ascano Anderson, who's out of the rotation now, is a good defensive player. When you Gabriel is capable, but like it's not it's not an elite defensive squad. It's it's guys competing and then Anthony Davis just being an alien and a superstar on the defensive end of the floor. But if I'm looking at the Lakers as I zoom out, you've got

the defensive identity is real. That's a real thing. It's going to help them win a lot of games this year. They're starting to shoot the ball better. That's good news. We saw that coming. There was no way they were gonna keep shooting from the field. They're starting to knock down some of their wide open threes that they get in the offense. Russell Westbrook, even though I still think he needs to be traded, is playing the best that

he's played since he came to the Lakers. Anthony Davis in the last couple of games has played like a top ten player. There's lots of good there. The one big question mark is Lebron and so I I hope, I hope it's just this foot and that he can figure it out and get it together, because if he's if this is the Lebron you're getting, then there is no there's there's no legitimate ceiling for this team. He hasn't been one of the top ten players in the

league to start this season. And here's the thing, man, he's he's in his twentieth season, he's about to turn thirty eight in December, and he's got all these commercials about him competing against Father Time. I saw one today where he blocks uh, the Father Time guy off of the glass, and and it's like, Lebron wins. And the funny thing is here, through seven games or whatever this is, I would argue Father Time is winning. So I'm rooting

for Lebron. I hope he can figure it out. And I'm glad we got a fun, fun to watch Lakers team. Like I told you guys, they're defending, so all they needed to do was get a couple of shots to fall and they were gonna start winning basketball games. And they've won two in a row. All right, let's move on and talk about the Celtics losing an ot on the road in Cleveland. Al Right, we are live on AMP.

For those of you guys who are watching on YouTuber on the podcast feeds, don't forget that AMP is the first place where you can get these post game shows. We're gonna be covering that incredible basketball game between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have given us two incredible basketball games already this season, both of which went to overtime. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about the Knicks and the Hawks, who also had

a really interesting game tonight. Those are two teams as well that I have not yet done a deep dive into this year, so I wanted to get to them. And what a perfect example Trey Young on the road in MSG. Great opportunity for us to get into that game. Nicks led by twenty three and got blown out, really really weird game. We're starting with the Celtics and the Calves, and this was This was a really interesting game that had a lot of ebb and flow, a lot of

runs from both teams. Both teams at various points felt like they had the game completely under control, but neither was able to hang on for any extended period of time. And I thought it really I thought for both teams, really it hinged on perimeter contain, which is always been what I believe is the most important skill on the defensive end of the floor over the course of the last couple of years, because you need dribble penetration to

get high quality shots. It's that simple. Even really good pull up jump shooters, that's not a good shot necessarily. It's an okay shot. It's a shot you'll live with. But nothing is as good as a driving layup already wide open three on a driving kick, or a really good post mismatch when you've got a good size advantage.

And so when as teams contain the basketball, they tend to get stops, and when they get stops, they get opportunities to get out in transition, which helps you avoid the other team's half court defense, and then you start to get easy baskets. And then you know that can sway one way or the other as one team continues or to get to do a better job containing the basketball, or to do a wars shop. That kind of reminds me of the offensive line versus defensive line battle in football.

We pay a lot of attention to things like, you know, quarterback play, skill position play, you know, coverage down the field in the secondary, but the reality is as so much as happening there in the trenches, and whichever team is controlling that area of the game usually has a significant advantage Boston's second quarter run when they took I think they took an eight point lead. In this game, there was like five or six possessions in a row where the Calves didn't even get a foot in the paint.

And then Carris LeVert and and Darius Garland kind of we're looking at each other like what are we supposed to do? At one point there was a turnover on a swing path us because like LeVert just didn't know if he should try to drive. And Boston can make you feel helpless sometimes because you know someone needs to create an advantage, and and without Robert Williams are doing a lot more switching than they usually do. A lot of times, it's like carrying at each other to attack

Jaome Brown. I don't necessarily think that's the right matchup. Or he'll be like, oh, well I got Jayson Tatum on me, Like I I don't have the right matchup, or okay, I guess we can go to this guy. He's being guarded by Marcus Smart and things can really bog down and get really stagnant, and Boston can be really intimidating in those moments, and that's when they go on their runs and then in the third quarter, when the Cams went on their run, they started to get

dribble penetration. Donovan Mitchell made a driving bank shot going to his right, and then Darius Garland started getting downhill and kicking two shooters, and then they started to gain control of that again. And then you also had a classic Boston offense stretch there in the mid second half. Over the final nine eight minutes of the third quarter, the Celtics managed only ten points. Lots of bad pull up jump shots. Again, some of that is Cleveland containing

the basketball, lots of miss layups, lots of turnovers. And then Boston goes on a huge defensive run to start the fourth quarter and Cleveland doesn't score for almost four minutes. And that was your kind of back and forth throughout the game. And then we got the crunch time and it was basically Donovan Mitchell shot making versus the Celtics punishing the Calves on the other end of the floor for having some weak perimeter defensive players. Mitchell had a

ridiculous series of shot making. He made a nasty step through floater over Marcus Smart, he had a step back three, he had a driving layup where he initiated contact with al Horford kind of caved his chest in a little bit so he had the angle to get all the way to the rim. He hit a step back two

over Jalen Brown that was really nasty. And then on the other end, UH, Marcus Smart and and Malcolm Brogden in particular were really getting good dribble penetration on Darius Garland, who's not a good perimeter defend defender in this league. And then Donovan Mitchell made a couple of really bad

defensive mistakes down the stretch as well. There's a player where Malcolm Brogden drove along the baseline and Uh Mitchell didn't help, also didn't keep a man an eye on the man and ball, and Marcus Smart batcut him and he gave up an and one. He also gave up a way too easy driving layup to Jayson Tatum, where he's quick enough that he should be able to contain

the ball a little bit better. That's gonna be an interesting conundrum for the Calves over the course of this season is they've got these two incredibly dynamic interior defenders and Jared Allen and UH and Evan Mobley, but on

the perimeter. You've got Donovan Mitchell who makes a lot of defensive mistakes, Darius Garland who's just physically not up to the task, and then at the small forward position, it's kind of like a toss up between they can go with Isaac a Cora, who is a much better defensive player but has some offensive limitations, where they can go with Dean Wade who's shooting the laces off the basketball but has defensive limitations. And they're on the final

play of the game. Um, they left Dean Wade on Jayson Tatum and he just backcut him and then elevated for one of the most disgusting dunks I have ever seen, just posterizing Jared Allen to tie the game. And then on the other end of the floor a really really good defensive play blocking Donovan Mitchell on a pull up jump shot. It was a back and forth, incredibly entertaining game, and Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland just made a couple more plays in ot. Uh they went with Dean Wade

on Jalen Brown on the final possession instead on Jayson Tatum. Uh, he did a better job containing the ball, forced him into a tough fadeaway jump shot and you win the basketball game. It's very very entertaining game, lots of back and forth. Both teams have their weaknesses. Um, but I think Cleveland in the long run, they're the team that I'm more concerned about between the two, even though they've won both of these matchups, because I didn't get a

playoff series. The Garland Mitchell thing is gonna be a little bit of an issue on the defensive end of the floor. And then that three spot you've gotta go with offense or defense, and that's just a really tough decision to make, and it's gonna be matchup dependent in most cases. And and I mean just before I have two specific topics on these two teams that I want to hit. Boston's defense and then also the Darius Garland

and Donovan Mitchell rhythm stuff. Um. But before we get there, I just have to shout out both Jason Tatum and Donovan Mitchell are so incredibly good and they made that game so much fun to watch, and both of them through just like bursts of other worldly athleticism, left their imprint on this game. Obviously the Tatum dunk, but he also had another transition layup in ot where he looked

like a freight train and Cleveland looked helpless. Donovan Mitchell had a contested rebound that he grabbed towards the end of the game, where you're the balls up in the air, there's all these tall dudes on the floor, and here comes Donovan Mitchell has what six s two whatever he is, just comes flying in and secures the rebound. Just a big time winning play from Donovan Mitchell. But I wanted to talk about Boston for a minute because after I believe this is their third loss of the year, and

they came into the night one on defense. And you know what's interesting is is last year in the playoffs, transition defense was their problem. They were unbelievably good defensively in the half court, but then they would turn the basketball over, take bad shots, and then the other team would run out for layups while Tatum and Brown were complaining to the refs for fouls and things along those lines.

It's the exact opposite this year. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Celtics coming into tonight, we're fourth in transition defense and twenty three and half court defense. And the easy excuses to say something like, oh, well, it's Robert Williams, he's out. But the truth of the matter is while Robert Williams does make them a better defense, and he is a good defensive a great defensive player, and when he comes back, I'm sure he'll fix a lot of

their problems. But last year, without Robert Williams on the floor, they were still very good defensively, and they have all of the important pieces from that team that was great defensively with Robert Williams off the floor last year. The

reality is is they just haven't been good enough. They're having stretches like they did to start the fourth quarter or in the second quarter of this game, where they defend really well and the other team looks helpless, but then they get sloppy and and you know, some of it is malaise. You've made it to the finals last year, you know you came this close to winning the title, and now you're in this grind of an eight two game season and it's hard to find the motivation. I

get that, but you need to build the habits. There's never been a team not not in recent NBA history. There's only a handful in NBA history, and they were freak talents. Um that one a title without having a top ten defense. You need to have your defensive um all of your defensive details really sharp over the course of a regular season, and right now they're simply not good enough. You can't blame Robert Williams. Yes he's coming back, but right now you're not good enough outside of that.

So that's something that they're going to have to figure out. Um On the calves, one of the biggest things I was looking at in tonight's game was obviously Darius Garland coming back, because you know Donovan Mitchell and for for all you Cavs fans, we did a deep dive on the calves earlier this week. I can't remember which day it was, but you can find that on our YouTube feed. If you scroll back, you'll find us doing a deep

dive on the calves. And I talked a lot about Donovan Mitchell in that video, and he's averaging a career high and points this year, a career high and assists a career high and true shooting percentage. He's having an incredible season and a lot of it is about the realities of the way rhythm works. Like Donovan Mitchell had a great finish to this game, but he kind of had a I think he was six for seventeen at one point and looked like a little bit lost in

how to attack, especially in that first half. And that's kind of the difference between when you're sharing responsibilities offensively versus when you have the show entirely. When you have the show entirely one there's you don't even have to think about sharing the basketball, so you can mentally just focus on shot making rather than worrying too much about your worrying too much about the rhythm and flow of

your team. Now, yes, he's he had a career high and assist, but he's kicking the shooters and throwing lobs the guys around the basket. It's not like he's sharing ball handling responsibilities to any great extent. Carris Lavert has been aggressive and he's been good in that role, but it's different when you're sharing it with three guys versus when you're sharing it with two. You're seeing this with Luca don Chech too is having a ridiculous scoring season.

Now that um um, now that uh now I'm blinking on his name. But the little Jalen Brunson, the guard that they lost to the Knicks last year, but over the summer. But when you have the responsibility solely on your plate, you get to you get to shrug off the misses. Just keep shooting the balls in your hands all the time. You have a good feel for everything

and you can just focus on that. But with Darius Garland coming back, there's gonna be nights where one of them has a rough night because they don't really feel like they have the basketball enough. And it's going it's going to be worth it. The upside of having that additional creator is a thousand percent worth it. One creator is just are you too easy to stop? In a

playoff series? Gives you much better matchup flexibility. Like if you just have Darius Garland, but you run into a team that has two or three really good guard defenders, you you're limited in what you can do. But if you have two guys and you know one of them is a bigger, stronger athlete and one's a little bit more methodical and a little bit more of a passing guard,

you have more matchup flexibility. And what in one series or in one matchup, one guy might have an advantage and then that can swing and you can go to the other guys, so you have flexibility there, you're much less predictable, and then the biggest part is just less fatigue. It's just really hard to create shots for your team without much help over the course of a series. But if you've got another guy to go to, you kind of share that burden a little bit, so the upside

is worth it. But it's gonna be an interesting dynamic for Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell to work out, because you have to learn to feel which one of you guys has it that night. Like there are gonna be nights where Darius has it and Donovan's got to play more of a supporting role and maybe not shoot through the slump but rather continue to feed the guy who's got it going and focus on other areas of the

game or vice versa. They're gonna have to read that there will also be nights where they both have it going and the give and take is great, but the dynamic when you're sharing those responsibilities is different, and they're gonna have to work that stuff out. UM, for instance, you gotta focus on um devoting more resources to the defensive end of the floor because you don't have as

much on your play offensively. For instance, Donovan Mitchell, this was one of his worst defensive games of the season, and he got uh. There were several missed rotations where he was like glued up to a shooter and one pass away there's an open guy, and instead of making that extra rotation to close out and make that shot more difficult, just kind of stands there and concedes the shot. Like when you're sharing the floor with Darius Garland, that can't be what you do anymore. Now you don't need

to save all your energy for the offensive end. You have to make those defensive rotations. And then obviously had those two really bad mistakes at the end of the game when he got backup by Marcus Smart and then when he gave about that driving lane to Jayson Tatum. And the other part two is just becoming an excellent off ball threat. You've got to find a way on

the possessions where Darius Garland has the ball to be effective. Now, both of them are good spot up shooters, and that is one part of that, but it goes deeper than that, because you can become a better off ball threat if you're more willing to set screens when you don't have the ball, when you're more willing to cut to the basket if you see an opportunity crashing the offensive glass, if it calls for it, or if depending on floor balance,

you might be responsible for transition defense, in which case you can help your team by getting back, you know what I mean. So when in this dynamic, it's gonna be really interesting to see how it affects the team moving forward because they're going to have to figure out that balance and they're both going to have to become better off the basketball. But super entertaining game two very

good teams. Yes, Cleveland's two and oh in this matchup, but I would pick Boston in a series over them, and I think they have legitimate advantages, specifically in perimeter size against Cleveland's weak perimeter defenders that would cause them problems Cleveland in Cleveland's an exciting team, um, but I don't think i'd really get behind them as a legitimate contender until Donovan Mitchell really became an impact defensive player,

which right now he just simply is not. I think you can get away with one, you can get away with Darius Garland, but you can't get away with two, and then obviously you've got to figure out that three spot as well. All right, So Nick's and Hawks, we're just gonna talk for a couple of minutes um about these teams. I had this game on on the side, so I was watching it part of the time, but obviously didn't have a super close eye on it. Uh. The Knicks were dominant early in this game. Defense in

particular was really really good. They're super physical, They help a ton to so they dig down in driving lanes and so sometimes opposing guards will have rough nights against them. But then they actually built a twenty three point lead, and then de Jon day Murray just exploded in the second quarter. Hit a ton of threes, hit some pull

up jump shots. He had to pick six too, um, and that allowed Atlanta to get out in transition, and they had a huge fast breakpoints advantage in this game game because they were able to avoid New York's half court defense. And New York's half court defense is pretty solid, so it's important to get out in transition to try

to avoid that as much as possible. And then that carried in oh over into the second half, and then New York's half court offense fell apart in Atlanta dominated in New York's twenty and half court offense this year before tonight. According to Cleaning the Glass, kind of that same kind of dynamic. I was just talking about the Cavs Celtics about perimeter defense and the EBB and flow. You start to get out in transition. You started to get baskets. You started to get baskets, you get to

set your defense. You start to set your defense. You're keeping the other team in the half court. Now you're getting more stops, which is allowing you to get out in transition. Atlanta dominated that dynamic in this game, trail by twenty three and actually blew out the Knicks before the end of the night. Really impressive game. And Dejan Murray was the best player on the floor by a mile in this game. Just came flying off the screen. UM.

I loved Jon Murray. Uh he's shooting thirty on eight point four pull up jump shots per game so far this year, including from three. He also brings like a ball pressure element with some length and uh a more turnover capability to their defense in the back court. You guys know me, I'm not a huge Tray Young Fan. I had him outside of my top five coming into

this season. I think the Miami Series kind of demonstrated the playbook for how to stop him if you can stay glued to him over the top, because they took away his jumping backwards foul drawing move. He's actually really bad at finishing around the rim, and so if you can kind of funnel him into the basket into all of your length, he's going to miss layups or take bad shots and miss shots, and so he's and then on the defensive Endy obviously is just a complete and

total nightmare. It might be the worst defensive player in the league. So for me, I'm not the biggest try Young fan. I should just be upfront with that before we go any further. But Jont Murray definitely makes this team more fun. And one thing I will say in defensive Trey Young is he's just not shooting the ball very well this year compared to the way he usually does. That will change and things will improve for them after that point. So far, the Hawks are ninth and offense

coming into tonight, and defense eighteenth and net rating. They defend the three point line really well, but they don't defend the paint well and they fell away too much. They allow more free throw attempts than any other team in the entire m B A. UM. The guy that I'm most excited about on this team right now is DeAndre Hunter. Um. He's showing some of that high level close out attacking that we've seen from Michael Bridges, where it's not just hitting threes or driving and kicking t

teammates are finishing at the rim. But he's got some of that in between game that's really impressive. Uh. He's super big and strong too, which makes him super valuable on the wing. I was watching a game uh last week on Wednesday against the Pistons where to start the game he just like ripped through and initiated contact with his left shoulder and made like little short, floating push

shots in the lane. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, man, that's the kind of stuff that makes you that that is the difference between you being three and D player and something so much more than that. So that's a guy to be really excited about. If if you're a Hawks fan, I'll be honest with you, guys, I'm never gonna believe in the Hawks until Trey Young is the second best player on the team, because I just don't believe that he can be the best player on a team.

But there's certainly a lot more fun now with de Jon Murray all right really quickly checking in on the knicks there and offense so far this year coming into tonight, and defense eleventh and net rating eleventh and paint points allowed per one possessions, which is concerning because they're giving up forty three point attempts per game, which is most

in the league. Twenty two point two of them are classified as wide open according to the NBA UH tracking data, which means the defenders at least six ft away, and you can see it on tape. I talked about that earlier. They're digging down from the wings, they're overhelping on drives. That sort of thing is okay, you saw the Bucks do that last year. But if you're going to do that, you better completely shut down the paint and they're just not.

They're giving away way too many baskets in the restricted area um too to make that a viable defense. And then they're also fouling too much their in fouls per one possessions. Coming into tonight. On the offensive end of the floor, they're super balanced. They've got three dudes averaging between seventeen and a half and eighteen and a half points per game, Julius Randall, Jalen br Brunson and um

r J Barrett. But none of them have been particularly efficient, and that's their biggest problem, and that's what's hurting them in the half court. All three of them are good enough to be good secondary creators, but none of them are good enough to be your primary creator in any sort of environment, so they're gonna struggle to score in the half court. The thing that's keeping their offensive float

right now is how good everyone else is playing. Evan Fournia has been great, Derk Rose has been great, Cam Reddish has been great, Hartenstein was a great pick up.

They're all playing really well in the roles. And then the guy that's been most impressive to me in that group is Obi Toppin, who once again is also showing some of the high level close out attacking he had to play in this game, where he attacked out of the left corner pump bake drive baseline, gets cut off, cuts back to the middle, looks for a kickout doesn't see it, realizes he is on his own, pops up and makes like a little floater in the lane. That's

high level stuff. When you're playing a great defense that's trapping you in the half court, you need guys that can improvise and make shots. And having that on the wing, and then obviously he brings everything that he brings in transition, and he's a little bit better defensively than he used to be. Overtopping is exciting. Um, if their stars can start shooting better than they'll be a pretty good team. But obviously they're not going to be a great team

until they get that true lead creator. Alright, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I will see you next time. The volume