Hoops Tonight - LeBron and Lakers fall to 76ers, Bucks take down Mavericks, Zion dominates vs. Suns

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nice and simple. Today we're covering the two nationally televised games from last night, so Lakers sixers and then Bucks Mavericks. And then we're also going to talk about the New Orleans Pelicans, who beat the Phoenix Suns last night underhanded without brandon ingram or IRV Jones. An impressive win for the Pelicans, who continue to look like potentially the best team in the West, and then tomorrow we're gonna be breaking down the NBA Finals rematch from tonight between the

Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors. Then we're taking Monday off before we come back on Tuesday. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements, video breakdowns, live

tweeting through games, all that kind of stuff. 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, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So that Lakers Sixers game had probably, at least at the top of my head, the strangest ending I've ever seen.

We've all seen wild comebacks, whether that's a team coming down from you know, points in a fourth quarter, or even some late comebacks where you're up five six points with like a minute left and you blow it something along those lines. I can't ever remember seeing a team have a nine point lead with less than thirty seconds left, and then you blink and the other team's got an opportunity to win the game at the free throw line. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

Slipper the the Sixers got really sloppy with the basketball, and the Lakers kept turning those turnovers into baskets. And then there at that last sequence the foul aust and Reeves makes the first two misses, the third Sixers turn it over again Anthony Anthony Davis gets hacked underneath the rim, makes the first free throw, misses the second free throw. We're going to ot. And how did the Lakers, who scored ten points in that thirty second stretch responding ot?

They would scoreless for the first four minutes of overtime and the Sixers win comfortable. It's just a truly bizarre basketball game. I thought the story of this game was Anthony Davis's foul trouble. Lakers fans were complaining about the officiating all night. Um Lakers fans in general have done a lot of complaining about officiating. I generally am frustrated with officiating around the league, just you know, the points

of emphasis, stuff like this carrying and traveling thing. I think that if you really look close on any NBA possession, you could call a carry, a travel and a foul on just about every single NBA possession. That it's just that kind of stuff is happening way more frequently than people are willing to admit, and we've kind of just come to uh an acceptance as the NBA fan base that we're okay with that because we want a little bit of flow in the game. So I have been

critical of officiating on that front. However, questionable foul calls, especially on you know, like the traditional foul calls, they're kind of part of the game, you know. Like A D did have some questionable fouls called him on him last night. I thought the first one when Joel and Be got the offensive rebound and went up, I thought that was minimal contact. Should not have been a foul

in an NBA game. I thought an A D s third foul when p J. Tucker was cutting along the base on and A D kind of checked him a little bit. Checking cutters is part of NBA defense. It's what you're coached to do from the youngest levels. If you're in help side and an offensive player cuts in front of you or behind you, you're supposed to hit it just to slow him down, so whoever's guarding him

has a little bit better chance to recover. It's part of NBA basketball that should not be a foul call, and that kind of contact happens on once again, just about every NBA possession. So yeah, those are two really questionable calls. The thing is is that's part of the game, and that's why you get six fouls, because you're not gonna get removed from the game over two questionable foul calls.

But that's precisely why you have to avoid the sloppy foul calls or this silly lazy fouls because those incombina, in combination with a couple of you know, questionable calls, will put you in foul trouble. So for instance, you know, early in the first quarter, Anthony Davis already has a foul questionable call on that and beat offensive rebound and beats posting him up on the left block right in

front of the ref. A d hacks at the basketball from behind with his left hand, that's gonna get called the time. Even if you hit the ball. Sometimes the refs just equate that to lazy hacking defense, and they're gonna call it. And what's the risk reward there? Like, you poke it away, you get a turnover, Okay, cool, Maybe you get a bucket on the other end. If you foul him, that's your second foul. And now you've

changed the entire dynamic of the basketball game. The risk reward factor there was way too low to do that. Then he got himself removed from the game. Now we go forward to the third quarter. So you know we saw in the second half um Darvin Ham went zone. In the second quarter, the Lakers had to I think they outscored the six or thirty nine to thirty in that quarter. You get it back within two. You come out of the locker room at a halftime, it's a

D has three fouls clean slate. Basically, if you play normal basketball from there, you should be okay. Joel and beat gets Lebron on a post up on the left block, rips through towards the middle and beats him off the dribble, and a D just steps up and hacks the hell out of him. And again I don't understand the risk reward there, Like if you let him go, he gets a dunk. If you foul him, he goes to the free throw line where he's a good free throw shooter,

and guess what he made both. But what you did is you got yourself your fourth foul and you checked out of the game again. So basically, for the first three quarters of this game, it wasn't the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Philadelphia seventy Sixers. It was the Philadelphia seventy Sixers versus Lebron James at center with a bunch of small guards, which turned into exactly what you could have expected, a really jan Kee zone that the Lakers had to stay in and the Sixers getting hot from

three point line. The Anthony Melton went eight for twelve from three. He finished with thirty three points, and he'd had a bunch of key offensive rebounds. Like it just it wasn't exactly how you'd expect when the best player on the Lakers took himself out of the game with silly fouls. You know. The thing with the zone, I'm glad that the Lakers have a zone. Look, they didn't use it at all really in the first you know, month of the season or so, And I really like

zone as a rhythm disruptor. Like I like it when you randomly do go to his own like two three possessions in a row, just because it's like a changeup. It changes the flow of the game. If there's a score that's in a rhythm, you kind of like em beat like and beat lit the world on fire in that first quarter. I think you had twenty points in that first quarter. You go zone a little bit in the second quarter, it kind of throws him out of rhythm a little bit, gives you a chance to kind

of regain control of the game. But when you stay in his zone for a really long time. These are NBA players, and zone defenses are designed to capitalize on teams that are one not smart or two can't shoot, So it works a lot at lower levels. You can see zone defenses be really successful in high school and

in the call at the college level. Why because perimeter shooting is you know, when it comes to actually knockdown perimeter shooting, there's just not a lot of it at those levels, and the overall basketball queue is much lower, so you're not going to get the high level execution to pick zones apart for layups very often. But in the n b A. It's like, like d Anthony Melton is shooting, I'll catching shoot threes this year. Like if you leave him open in his own the dude's going

to get hot. And he did. You know, Joel Embiat is a smart basketball player who understands, oh wait, none of these guys on this team are over six nine. I'm just gonna battle for offensive rebounds, you know, and that that's just kind of the inevitable pathway with that sort of thing when you stay with the zone for too long. So credit to the to the Sixers for

taking advantage of it. But Anthony Davis by getting himself in foul trouble, Yes, some questionable calls, but by picking up the two silly fouls, he removed himself from the game. The Lakers had to play a Jankee style, and the better team, especially with Anthony Davis out, was able to take advantage of it. And look a d came out

in that fourth quarter and played extremely well. I finished with thirty one points or whatever it was, but it was just too late to really at her, I mean at least until they were down nine with thirty seconds left, and then all hell broke loose. What a game from Joel Embid thirty eight points and nineteen shots. Took full advantage of eighties absence, obliterating the undersized Lakers lineups. Showed

really impressive perimeter shot making again in this game. He had a big shot in overtime right after Lebron missed a layup heading nice like little pull up jump shot um over a double team out of a jab step at the free throw line. Made a bunch of perimeter shots early in the game. Overall in the game, I counted eight for thirteen outside of the restricted area. On the season, Joel Embiad is a hundred and six out of two hundred and thirty six outside of the restricted area.

That means he's making more than six shots per game over the top of the defense at a forty clip. If you guys, remember when I talked about this offseason with Joel Embid's limitations as a passer, he has to be able to hit shots over the top of the defense.

Same goes for Anthony Davis. Like when you are a dominant individual score, defenses are going to collapse the paint, especially if you're rim pressuring type of player like most of the big, strong athletes in the league like Janice, Joel and beating Anthony Davis, so on and so forth, Lebron James. When that's the case, you have one of two options. You either need to be able to pass to beat the defense to make them pay for helping, or you need to be able to consistently hit shots

over the top of the defense when they're packing the pain. Now, for a guy like Lebron, he's doing it with passing. For a guy like Nicola Yokich, he's doing it with passing. For a guy like Janice, he's doing it with passing. But for guys like him beating Anthony Davis that's struggled to pass at a high level, although both of them have shown a little bit of an improvement there this year. You have to be able to hit shots over the

top of the defense. And Joel embat is having his best perimeter shooting season of his career, and I'm really interested to see if it translates to the playoffs this year because that's been something that has failed him in the past. James Harden contributed with twenty eight points and twelve assists, a couple of huge plays in ot a driving and one on Austin Reeves got into his chest, and then he hit another pull up mid range jumper

over Awestin Reaves later in the overtime period. That's such an important tool to have, especially when you're going up against undersized defensive players like the uh. You know, long distance jump shots require a great deal of lift, and so as games get going and you fatigue, it's hard to get the necessary lift on those shots to knock them down. But if you're working closer ten to fifteen feet and you're taller than your defender, you don't need

to get as much lift. It's a much higher percentage shot. It's such an important shot to have in your bag, and it wasn't in James Harden's bag for basically this last massive chunk of his career. He hit four pull up mid range jump shots yesterday. This season, he's made seventeen. Last year he combined in all of the games to make four for the Philadelphia seventy six. So he made just as many pull up mid range jump shots last night as he did the entire regular season in his

sixers uniform last year. So that's the difference that we're seeing from James Harden there, and I think that's a big part of him coming back. I I predicted a revenge season from him this year. I thought he played pretty damn well until his injury. Then it's been a mixed bag since he's come back from his injury. I'd like to see him stay on the court for a little while to see if he can prove me right.

We'll see what happens. Nice win though for the Sixers to stop the three game, said skin and get back about I want to talk about Darvin Ham for a minute because there's been a lot of criticism throwing his way by Lakers fans for his lineup decisions, and a lot of it I don't think is fair. Like, for instance, with the starters, a lot of people are complaining, why are they starting Patrick Beverley and Dennis schroder Um. Let's look at Patrick Beverley really quick. It's I don't like

Monday morning quarterbacking. Like I've seen some Russ fans be like, a ha ha, look at this. You know the Lakers were smart to keep Russ. It's like or you're playing the result because everything we saw from a massive sample size last year was that Russ was bad and he is playing better this year, and that's great, but it was a risk that Rob Polinka took by not trading Russ by keeping him on the roster. If you play that scenario out a bunch of different times, the vast

majority of the times it goes poorly. Just because it went well doesn't mean it was the right decision. But that goes both ways. So, for instance, it's not fair to be like man that Patrick Beverley trade. That was stupid. I'd rather have Taylor Horton Tucker and Stanley Johnson. I don't agree with that because in the moment, Patrick Beverley was coming off of a great season with Minnesota coming into last night. Patrick Beverley was shooting on catching shoot threes.

You know what he shot last year thirty eight percent on catching shoot threes. He's been around fort on catching catching shoot threes for a half a decade. So Patrick really was player A. That was the information that was available during the time of the trade. Then the trade was made. This year he's been worse. That's playing the results.

That's not fair, it's not that's not a realistic way to, uh, you know, to critique decision making, because it's not Rob Polinka's fault that Patrick Beverley came to Los Angeles and has been a much lesser basketball player, and and and that's the thing. So it's easier to Monday morning quarterback than it is to take advantage of the city. The information that you have actually is available at the time

that you're making the decision. I liked the Patrick Beverley trade because you turned what was a pretty much useless player in Taylor Norton Tucker and a wing, but a wing that you would have struggled to find the rotation this year because of how well Lonnie Walker and Troy Brown Jr. Are playing. You turned those two guys into Patrick Beverley, who fit a specific need at the point guard position of on BALLD defense, and that was a

good spot up shooter. I liked the trade. It just so happens that through this early fourth of the season hasn't worked out, you know. And I think when we look at the starting lineup, that's what Darvin Hamm is counting on there. He's counting on Dennis Shooter and Patrick Beverley pressuring ball handlers and making people feel uncomfortable to start games. And eventually Pat's gonna get it together. That's what they're banking on. They're thinking this is clearly an anomaly.

He's making half as many catch and shoot threes as he did last year. That should turn around. I respect that. And then in general, like when you're talking about the lineup functionality of the entire rotation for the game, this is a really limited roster, so there's gonna be jankie lineups like I see you know, Lakers fans being like, you gotta start Austin Reeves. Yeah, that's great, But Ostres is a really important ball handler with the bench group.

So if you put Patrick Beverley, the guy you're begging to take out of the starting lineup, in with the bench group, maybe the starters get a little bit better. But now Patrick Beverley is not getting the same level of shots because there's less ball handling in that group and he's not getting the wide open looks he's getting with Lebron and Anthony Davis, and maybe he does struggle to get going that way. At the point there is

there's just not a lot of good decisions. The rosters limited, and there's bound to be jankie lineups with like Russ and when you in Gabriel, you know, or Thomas Bryant and three other small guards like that kind of thing is just gonna happen until they make a trade that brings in some more functional wings, because functional wings are

what make NBA lineups work. So I want to defend him in the in the grand scheme with the lineups, but if we zoom in on crunch time, I've been really confused by his decision making because as much as the roster itself doesn't make a ton of sense for forty eight minutes, they do have enough good players to

run a really solid crunch time lineup. Lebron and a D gotta be out there for size, you know, Like Lebron's your only real wing, so you gotta play him alongside Anthony Davis to make a D at the five functional Lonnie walker As aid well enough to close every game he's been their third best player, Oscar Reeves Asser issue close every game he's been the fourth best player.

Those two are completely unassailable. And then right now, Patrick Beverley, for all of the things you guys want to criticize him for, he is a good defensive player that grabs makes winning plays, that grabs key defensive rebounds, key offensive rebounds, and they can just count on him to not do anything stupid, typically in late game situations. So I like that Lebrono, Anthony Davis, Ossi Reaves, and uh Lonnie Walker and Patrick Beverley. Maybe Troy Brown Jr. For Patrick Beverley

if he's having a bad night. But way too often this year, Ham has gone with Dennis Schroeder or Russell Westbrook in closing groups and that's handicapped the team. Russ is having a good year, but that's because of his role. What he's doing attacking bench groups, going against bench guards during the phases of the game when it's more up and down and free flowing and there's less defense being played. He's doing a really nice job generating high all these

shots first teammates in those stretches. However, as we've always known, in clutch situations, the game slows down, it turns into a half court chess match, and schematically, teams will try to make you do what you don't want to do. So what happened last night we got into overtime, Russa ran two pick and rolls, one with Anthony Davis on the left wing, one with Lebron James on the right wing. What did the Sixers do? Both defenders went with the

role man. Literally, Russ's man ran into the screen and rolled with a d to the basket. He ran into Lebron James and rolled with Lebron to the basket. And so Russ had two wide open pull up jump shots. That is by design. They're making the Lakers turn Russ into a jump shooter. And guess what. Russ is shooting twenty eight point six percent on pull up jumpers this year.

So he missed the two pull up jumpers. He took an ot Okay, So you can't put Russ on ball in clutch situations because they're gonna do stuff like that or what they did earlier this season where they just put the center on Russ and have him sit back into the paint. So let's put him off ball. Well, Russ is shooting on catching shoot jumpers this year and he's registered just fourteen cut possessions, meaning that of NBA players have cut to the basket more frequently than Russ

during his minutes. So if he's not going to cut to the basket and he can't make a catch and shoot jumper, you can't have him off ball. If he's if the defensive coverages are just gonna dare him to take pull up jump shots. If he's on ball, that makes him impossible to play in crunch time. But guess who has played in more crunch time games this year than any other Laker. Russell Westbrook at ten. I think Austin Reaves has played in ten as well, but the

no Laker has played in more crunch time games. So any sort of conversation that's been out there about benching Russ, it hasn't happened. They're not benching Russ. They're playing him every time the game is close and it's going poorly at a certain point, Darvin Ann has to make that adjustment really quick. Before we move on, I want to talk about Lebron Anthony Davis. Lebron had some bright spots in the first half. He battled and beat in the

post after a d got in foul trouble. He did a night shop fronting him and got hot offensively in the second quarter for a little bit, but once again at the end of the game, settling for jumpers on a night when his jumpers not going in, and then sloppy turnovers, Like I see a lot of people complaining like, oh, it's because of the spacing. It's become of the spacing. Is the spacing the reason why Lebron keeps throwing swing passes directly into defender's arms or just pointlessly throwing skip

passes two guys that aren't open. Like his decision making hasn't been good. It wasn't good last night. At least, that's just slopping us again, Like, I don't care about the missed shots when it like that's bound to happen. It's part of the night and night out process of the n B A. I don't think it's fair to be like on a five for twenty night to be like, oh, that guy sucks, and then on the night be like, oh that guy's great. That's the natural flow of an

NBA season. What I look at is are you committed on the defensive end? How is your decision making? Ben? How is your shot selection? Bet? Those are things that are under your control. And it was a really sloppy game from Lebron. And then looking at Anthony Davis like yeah, look, E d has been way better than Lebron this year. Lebron's been pretty bad, and like six or seven of the Lakers losses, I'd probably have Anthony Davis first team All NBA this year. I have him as my Defensive

Player of the Year. You know. A D has been great, But this was the third game that I can think of that the Lakers probably win if Anthony Davis brings the requisite effort and play smart basketball. They lost the game in Denver because Anthony Davis just refused to run back in transition defense. That did a whole video about it.

They lost to the Clippers earlier this year because he just wouldn't battle with Zubot physically and got bullied underneath the basket on a bunch of post ups and offensive rebounds. And then last night he removed himself from the Philly game with bad decision making in two stupid fouls, you know. And so I tweeted this last night, and I mean it. The Lakers are ten in fifteen, but they'd be fifteen and ten if Lebron and a D actually were more

consistent with their impact. How many times this year of Lebron and Nadi both played great in the same game two times, maybe three times in the season. That was two thirds and nights. The two of them were great. You know, even if they were fifteen in ten right now instead of ten and fifteen, would still be talking about the roster, would still be talking about how they make it, need to make a trade to get to the ultimate championship ceiling. But at least they'd be a

flow in the standings. So like, there's two problems for the Lakers this year. Roster related problems in Lebron and Anthony Davis are two inconsistent. When Lebron and Anthony Davis were playing well, they want eight out of ten. They beat the Bucks, they beat the Wizards, they beat the Pacers, they beat the Or, they beat the Blazers. They've had some quality wins in there. Then Anthony Davis missed two games and they lost. And then Lebron and A d

played poorly in Philly and they lost. Like, at the end of the day, those two guys cannot afford to have bad games, especially against good teams. Maybe that maybe you get a little bit more margin for air if they make a good trade, but that's gonna be an issue all season no matter what. Looking to get more out of this NBA season, well, now is the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sports book because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to

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The Masks were up double digits at one point. Early in the fourth. Christian Wood was scoring in the post, doing a nice job attacking George Hill, but he was getting absolutely obliterated by Janice on the other end. Jannie had fifteen in the quarter to get the Bucks back into it. George Hill also hit two massive corner threes on just like basic possessions for Drew Holiday, dribbled the ball at the floor, just passed the ball into the corner and uh, the Dallas was sucked in too far

into help Spencer Dinwood. He dunked all over Janice and dunked all over Brook Lopez on two separate plays like to really really nasty dunks. Dwight Powell was grabbing a million offensive rebounds. The MAVs missed at least a half dozen wide open threes. They went over eight overall in

the quarter. The man has also missed eight free throws in the fourth quarter, including Tim Hardaway Jr. Missing all three free throws when he was fouled on a three point shot by Jannis, and then Dorian Finney Smith, with a chance to put the MAVs up three, missed both free throws on a late take foul. Um. By the way, Dallas is Uh was ten for twenty four from the free throw line last night. They are now down to twenty nine in the league in three point in the

free throw percentage. But after all that we got after basically came down to a sequence where the Um the Bucks were up one O four, one O three after Uh Spencer Dinwood he dunked all over brook Lopez and

the Man's go down. They get a stop and they come down and um Luca does a really nice job navigating a couple of different screening actions to get brook Lopez on a switch and then from a skill development standpoint, did a really nice job turning his entire body to the left and tipping Lopez to think he was going to go to his step back and then crossing back over to get Lopez out of position up on his left side, beats Lopez to the basket for a layup.

Mavericks are up by one. From there, we had two out of time out plays, and both plays were drawn up by the head coach. One team executed, the other team did it defensively, I should say so the Bucks they just run a simple backscreen action. As a matter of fact, it was such a simple backscreen action that I'm pretty sure that wasn't even the target of the

play Originally. Maxi Cleber's guarding Brook Lopez and he's there in kind of like a box set out up high um and Chris Middleton is being guarded by Dorian Phinney Smith. Chris Middleton just walks up and sets a backscreen on Maxi Cleber. Maxi Cleber gets caught on the screen. Brooke Lopez goes to the basket, nobody's there, Lob goes up. They laid up Bucks by one. Now what you're supposed to do on that play, because guys are gonna get caught on screens often, especially when you don't know what

play is coming. There's it's just a classic concept of checking a cutter, like we were talking about earlier with p J. Tucker. So If I'm Dorrian Phinney Smith and I see Chris Middleton back screen Maxicleba, and I see that he's caught, and I see Lopez barreling down towards the rim, it is my job to run up and Chuck brook Lopez hit him. Literally stop the cut. When you do that, that buys Cleiba enough time to get

out from the screen and to recover back to brook Lopez. Now, typically what happens there is Middleton will have an opportunity to break free because you're offering help on the brook Lopez back cut. But you continue that process down the line and you can recover right If Middleton runs out, he's probably running off of another screen at that point to go out get a catch and shoe jumper, or to initiate an action. Your teammate will run out to

grab Chris Middleton. You now recover to your teammates man. That is a classic help the helper type of situation. When you see a man get caught on a screen, the first thing you do is you help him. Then once you've done your job, you look to see who needs help, because one of your teammates probably had to help you there. It's like a chain that that that goes down the line in defensive rotation, but there was

one week link in that chain. Dorian Phinney Smith did not check brook Lopez, so Cleveland got caught on the screen. Brook Lopez got a wide up and lay up. Now we go to the other end. The Bucks run in action where they have a screener at the top of the key Lucas underneath the basket. They run a guy off the wing and kind of towards the basket, and

then that guy screens down for for Luca. It's play that the MAVs have run a lot and crunch time this year, and uh, the Bucks get do a really nice job of of hedging out on Luca to give Drew Holiday a chance to recover. Luca ends up catching it out at like thirty ft with two seconds left, and he takes a garbage step back three that has almost no chance of going in and the game is over.

So as you can see, like the difference there is from a scouting perspective that the Mavericks clearly did not know what was coming, got caught off guard, botched a defensive rotation, gave up a basket. On the other end, Dallas the Gibson Pipers who coaches UM college basketball somewhere here in the US. I'm not actually sure, but he

did a really nice video breakdown last night. I think his Twitter handles at half court hoops if I remember correctly, he did a really nice Twitter breakdown video breakdown on Twitter last night that just kind of explained how the Bucks got ahead of that coverage or that play because they knew it was coming. And then Luca was having like a conniption fit on the court before and after the play because he knew the Bucks knew the play.

But again, that's scouting. In execution, determining a game at the end, late game situations almost always come down to execution shop making part of it. Like it's a maker misleague. We always hear that, right, and I do believe that making and missing is a big part of the game of basketball. Never try to to to minimize that. However, shot making has a big defensive element. The best way to influence shot making in your for your team is

too on the offensive end. Run smart offense, set good screens, be sharp with the basketball to generate quality looks. Typically that involves either screening actions that are executed well to get an opening or dribble penetration, whether that's off the dribble or curling over the top of the screens, someone's got to get downhill to draw help. And if you do that and you're smart with your passing on the

back end, you will get open shots. On defense. If you execute your defensive coverage is well enough to force the opponent to take difficult shots over the top of the defense, they are less likely to make their shots. So yes, it's a maker miss league, but execution is a big part of it. The Bucks executed and forced Luca into a tough at back three. The Mavericks did not execute defensively, while the Bucks executed their play properly. A good screen from Chris Middleton and they got a

wide open layup out of it. The Bucks are a better execution team, which is why they're eight and three in games that involved clutch situations this year, and the Mavericks are nine and nine in games that involved clutch situations this year, so they've lost three times as many games that were close as Milwaukee has um Chris Middleton.

This was his fourth game back. He's averaging just fourteen points per game on thirty six percent shooting in his first four games, which seems bad, but I've always thought that it looked good on tape, and the shot creation metrics have been excellent overall. He's got twenty three assists to four turnovers. I said the other day and if this may or may not be the case, but he

might be the best playmaker on the team. He's either him or Yannice, but getting a legit off ball or non Janice playmaker has been a big time for them. He had a in the fourth quarter. He had a really nice, like left handed feed to Pat Connaughton who was sneaking along the baseline as a cutter in the fourth quarter. Um he's run twenty seven pick and roll so far since he came back for thirty one points. That's one point one five points per possession, which is incentile.

And then he's scored nine points on eight post ups, which is one point one three points per possession. And he had a really nice little baseline hook shot off the off the glass over Dorian Finnie Smith late in the fourth quarter. Really impressive game from Jannice. I you know, one of my favorite things about Janice is dependable fight and energy. You never have to worry about Janice caring enough to try to impact the game and downtown in

the fourth quarter. I can't tell you how many times I've seen Stars go out there and maybe jack a few shots up and if they miss, they just kind of mail things in. Janice always has that like big run and and it's typically third or fourth quarter of a game that's close or where their team is losing, where it's like Janice is basically saying, I'm gonna put my head down and go to the rim every single time, and if it works great, If not, hey, I went

down fighting. And he did that in that third, in that early early fourth quarter through three quarters, he was five or fourteen from the field. Dallas was swarming him in the paint. But there was that weird MAV's lineup that they went to a couple of times last night where they have Kleiba and Christian wood out there together and um, just by pushing the ball in transition, Janice kept catching Christian wooden cross matches and he just boldozed him to the basket for layups time and time again.

Got it really was responsible for getting the Bucks back into that game. Alright. Moving on to that Son's Pelicans game, so the Suns. This was another back and fourth game. The Suns kept it close in the first half, the Pelicans completely dominated the third quarter. Then the Suns went on a run and took a brief lead in the fourth quarter, and then Zion Williamson just closed the game with three gigantic plays, one of which was a steel on a post entry where he ran out and got

a dunk with his left hand. Um Then there was a play where late in the game, because he was just torching Tory Craig and mcaial Bridges all game long, which we'll get to in a minute. But late in the game he got DeAndre Aton on a switch because they wanted to try to put some bigger on him so that he couldn't bully them. But one of the problems with Zion is he's too fast for guys like that, and they ran like kind of like an inverted screen

roll over. Jose Alvarado set a screen and and and reversed it so like he was on one side and then switched and set the screen on the other side, and a Zion got to the baseline and just threw down a nasty left handed dunk and then we all saw the the cherry on top, which was the leak out dunk in the final seconds where he did the three sixty wind mill. By the way, all years, Zone has been good, um, but he's always looked a little less athletic than we remember him, you know, from when

he was younger. Last night was like the most springy I've seen Zi, and I wonder if he's starting to really catch his conditioning and and really get his body into a good groove because that that three sixty wind mill was. It was very hoop mixtape esque from his time when he was in in uh In high school. Overall, I thought that was one of the best two way

games I've seen Zion play. He was he was being guarded by Tory Craig for the most part, but he also got a bunch of Michale bridges and he just ripped right through those guys like tissue paper, time and

time again, finished with thirty five on seventeen shots. You know, the dynamic that Zion presents reminds me of the dynamic that Janice presents, which is that mismatch problem specifically targeting NBA defenses modern NBA defenses, So back in the day, you'd have a center that was typically slow and plotting

because the pace of the game was slow. But you'd also have like a legit power forward, like a big, strong guy I Drew good In, a you know, Kenyan Martin, a dude who's you know, between six nine and six ten, who's like a solid two and fifty pounds a muscle that just was like a bulldozer of a player. That guy is out of the league now, and now that bulldozer power forward is just another wing, you know, like a guy like Tory Craig who had literally no chance

carding Zion yesterday. Michael Bridges one of the best defensive wings in the NBA, and he was tissue paper against science that that that's the predicament that Zion and Janice puts you in. The most valuable defensive piece in the league right now is a player between six eight or six six and six nine, you know, who's got long arms and is super fast and can guard multiple positions.

That's like the bread and butter of NBA defense these days, and a lot of lineups have two or three of those guys on the floor at any given moment, and that works really well. Against just about every type of player in the NBA. But these honest, these Jannat Zion possessions that these wings just have no chance. He's just going right through him. And so then you switch a bigger guy onto him and they're just too fast for him, like what they did with DeAndre and there on that

last possession. Zion's ISOs are up to a hundred and twenty nine points on a hundred five possessions, which is in the percentile that's insane for a young player. Josie Alvarado continued his great season. He pitched in twenty points, not Marshall at fourteen. But you know, a bunch of sneaky good like there's always like these, uh these role players that you see Austin Red just kind of like this for the Lakers, where they don't really get a ton of on ball reps, but you can tell they

have really natural passing feel. Nagy Marshall is one of those guys where he's one of the sneaky good passers in the league right now. He had fifty assists to just twenty one turnovers to this point in the season at fourteen points. Again last night, um Devin Booker finished with fourteen points and seventeen shots. He's now averaging fifteen and a half on thirty five percent shooting in his

last four games. So I cursed him apparently when I did that whole video about how I thought he was a superstar, because he has not played well since then. Chris Paul had twenty four. Looks like he's still still has New Orleans number a little bit. Sons have lost four out of five. Lots of bad body language, not looking good. Um right now, alright, guess that is all I have for today. So here's the plan. We're gonna

be going live, are not live. We're gonna have a video tomorrow morning breaking down like breaking down Celtics Warriors, and then we're gonna take Monday off and then we will be back Tuesday night with game breakdowns as always. I sincerely appreciate your guys support and I will see you next time. The volume