Hoops Tonight - LeBron & Lakers HOT START, Curry & Warriors CHAMPIONSHIP UPSIDE, Celtics SURGING

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tonight here at the volume Heavy Monday. Everybody up. All of you guys had a great weekend. We had a jam pack show for you today. I want to be able to bounce all around the league because there's so many different teams that we need to hit on, and so I came up with a format today. We're gonna do stock rising or stock falling. I'm basically going to hit on a team and tell you guys whether or not I'm feeling better about them. Compared to before the season,

or worse about them compared to before the season. And then at the tail end of the show, we're gonna have an episode of TIMPs tape where I have eighteen clips. We're going to be bouncing around the league for that as well. You guys are the Joe 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 JCNLTS. You guys, don't miss you announcementsn't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube comments so we keep hitting them throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So a little disclaimer off the top. This is all very small sample size stuff, right, Like, it's only been two or three games for most of these teams, so obviously a lot can change over the course of even just the next week for any of these teams. But this is what we have, This is what we have to work with to try to evaluate these teams. See, we're gonna have We're gonna try to find what we can learn within the small sample size. But let's also just keep in mind that it's not the end all

be all, certainly not this early in the season. Like, for instance, the Lakers. They're three to zero, that doesn't mean they're the twenty seventeen Warriors, just means they're off to a good start. Good teams can go on runs where they win a couple of good win a couple

of games in a row against other good teams. It's about sustained excellence that separates you, right The Nuggets, the Sixers, and the Bucks, three teams that are all in my top ten championship contenders, are two and six to start the year. Doesn't mean this guy is falling for them either. There's lots of things that could turn positively for them. So remember, let's just kind of keep that small sample size kind of disclaimer in the back of our minds

as we're looking forward. But let's start with first team today, stock rising the Boston Celtics. Their last two games, they blew out Washington and they ended up in a kind of a tough game in Detroit. They were down by six without four minutes left, but then they just went on this Like Vin Titch, Boston Celtics run. They generated a wide open three for Drew Holliday, where Al Horford

screen for Tatum. But like we've talked about so much on the show, when teams are switching, if you're setting the screen, you want to screen on the bottom side, Horford screen on the bottom side and slips Tatum throw Hi an easy pass formed a two on one on the weak side. Kickout pass to Drew Holliday knocks down at three very next possession, Jalen Brown just a beautiful

transition drive, gets into the lane. All hell breaks loose around him, but he makes an amazing kickout pass to the right wing swing swing another wide open three for Drew Holiday. He knocks it down. Next possession, Jason Tatum's trying to come off of an off ball screen, but Tim Hardaway Junior is top locking him, and instead of trying to force his way through the screen, he just

cuts to the post. And now he's got inside position because Tim Hardaway Junior is on his top side trying to top block, gets a quick post up, gets an easy bucket, and then Tatum ice is the game with a little iso jumper in the left short corner versus Jayden Ivy, while on the other end of the floor, just mothering defense. Drew Holliday gets a steal in transition

on Jada and Ivy. There's this crazy player, Ky Cunningham breaks open on a back door cut, looks like he's gonna get a dunk, and in comes Derek White just flying in and gets a block. And by the way, there's gonna be a lot of Knights like that for the Boston Celtics. There's gonna be nice where they beat the shit out of you, then there's gonna be nights where they're in these tougher spots. And to me, it's always a sign of a great team in the regular season when you just find a way to win on

the nights when it doesn't necessarily look great. And that what I just broke down for you. It's four really good offensive possessions in a row and four stops and bam, you got yourself a win in a game that it looked like you had a decent chance of losing. And again, those to me are like big characteristics of teams that are serious about trying to repeat, that are serious about trying to build championship habits over the course of the season. They got out of there with a win, so farther

three oh. They're number one in offense with a one twenty nine offensive rating. Their paint defense is getting shredded a little bit, but that's to be expected. They're only playing a starting caliber center for about twenty six minutes a night, smartly keeping Horford's minutes down so he doesn't get worn down. They're also really overplaying the three point line, which is gonna lead to more paint scoring. They're allowing just fourteen point seven wide open threes per game. That's

with the defender at least six feet away. That's the third best mark in the league overall. Their fifteenth in defense, which is fine. You also have to factor in there's a couple of massive blowouts in there, and that just means there's gonna be a lot of stretches of the game where there's very little urgency. So that's gonna hurt your defensive numbers as well. But we all expected the Celtics to start three to zero. So why am I saying their stock is rising? It's because Jason Tatum has

looked absolutely amazing to start the season. Thirty three point six rebound, six assists, fifty five percent from the field, forty nine percent from three. The jump shooting is absurd. He's taken forty jump shots so far the season, made twenty of them. He's sixteen for thirty four off the dribble. That's forty seven percent overall, one point three to two points per tempt. Now, obviously he's not gonna shoot that well for the entire season, because no, but he shoots it.

Not even Steph Curry shoots that well for the entire season. But if he can stay remotely close, that's a fundamentally different type of star, a fundamentally different type of player than the guy who was still really damn good, who was the best player on a championship team last year. His shot creation has been completely off the charts. He's ran seventy two ISOs pick and rolls in post ups, including passes that have generated one hundred and fourteen points.

That's one point five a points per possession. That's like, completely absurd, Guys, he is They were already the best team in the league last year with this, with a lesser version of Jason Tatum. The guy that we had last year was a very versatile defender, very good playmaker, but he was an inconsistent jump shooter and an inconsistent rim finisher. This year, he just seems to have tightened up, specifically that jump shot piece, to such a crazy level.

It's unlocked so much more of his playmaking if he rises to the ranks of the super duper stars like the Jokich Luca tier. If he gets up into that tier, we might as well just skip ahead to June when he's got the Finals MVP Trophy in his hands, because I don't know how anybody's gonna beat this team if they don't have an advantage in that best player on the team category, which used to be the one thing that teams would look at. It's like, if we end up in a series with Boston, at least we have

Luka don chicch and even that wasn't even enough. But if if Jason Tatum is going to go toe to toe with the best players in the league and be at that level, nobody's beating these guys. Four times out of seven. The Celtics have five different rotation players right now that are shooting at least forty percent from three on at least four attempts per game. They look like

a well oiled machine. How could you not be higher on them even than what we thought going into the season, stock falling the Celtics competition out in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks, they had a nice bounce back win against the Pacers or another team that's off to a rough start. We'll be talking about them later on in the show. They had four starters score twenty plus points, got one point three to six points per jump shot in that game,

so a nice little bounce back game. They defended super well. They gave Tyres haliburt in a nightmare game, but as we saw on opening night, they're just miles away from Boston right now. The Sixers, they got a big win in Indy. Kind of a weird game. The Indy had a late lead, they kind of combusted down the stretch. Tyres Alliburton somehow ends up syncing like a double pump three to send it to OT. But then the Sixers end up winning in OT. But they also in that game.

One last shout out. Andre Drummond had a couple of huge defensive plays at the end of regulation where he was coming up to the level of the screen and just being active with his hands on the ball handler. I think he got a strip on Nemhard and then another strip on Tyres Halliburton, two huge stops at the end of the game that gave him a really good chance to win. But they're one and two, and Paul George and Joel Embiid are still not healthy and not on the floor together, so it's hard not to be

at least a little bit discouraged by that. And then the Bucks they follow up their impressive win against Philly to start the season with two really ugly losses at home to the Chicago Bulls and then on the road in Brooklyn. Same issue in both games, a lot of limited defensive personnel on the floor in these lineups, like

the starting lineup has been okay. They played one hundred and fifteen possessions, they have won sixteen off rating, they have a one eleven defensive rating that's plus five net. That's fine. Obviously, you want it to be better. You want Damon Giannis led units to just wax everybody that needs to be like and they did last year. Damon Giannis led units were i want to say, over ten over plus ten in net ratings. So they were good

last year. But they're not playing too well to start the year, but it's the bench units that have been rough. Anything with Bobby Portos on the floor has been really difficult to deal with. Defensively, he's just lost all over the place. Last night in the Brooklyn game, they just completely got annihilated in that early stretch of the fourth quarter, and Pat Connoton was the guy they were going at every time. Dennis Schroeder and Cam Thomas were just going

at Pat every single time. He had this really ugly play where he there's a defensive rebound. There was right in his face like he should have grabbed it, and somehow he didn't grab it and then committed a flagrant foul on Dennis Schroeder. So it went from should have been Bucks ball to now the Bucks are shooting or now the Nets are shooting two free throws and they get the ball back. He just had an absolute disaster to shift to start the fourth quarter. All of those

bench units, they're just incredibly slow. They're not getting enough production out of them, and then when the starters came back and they just have these effort issues. Like one of the first possessions after Dame checks back in the game in the fourth quarter, he gives up a tip dunk in the left corner because he's not boxing out and the man just runs right by him and gets

a tip dunk. It just it just seems like there's that same funk that kind of sat over this team last year where they just seemed like they could lose on any given night to any given team, is still there, and you know, you know how it goes like that, then they'll turn around and beat the shit out of a good team two nights later. But it's just it's kind of a just a bizarre vibe that kind of centers around that team. And to me, it really comes

down to the athleticism piece. And we were hoping that Gary Trent and Delon Wright would kind of help address this a little bit. But when you're slow and you're old, the league is super athletic now and with these younger teams, like if you bring poor effort, if you play lineups and have a bunch of slow footed guys, like you're

just gonna get killed. And so it like, as we look look back and we look at how Philly looks right now, we look at how Milwaukee looks right now, we look at how the Knicks look right now, we look at how the Pacers look right now, it's hard not to feel extremely confident if you're in that Boston and Celtics locker room, or if you're a Boston Celtics fan, that they're not going to get back to the finals, because just everybody else is stumbling out of the gate,

and the Celtics are whooping everybody's ass. And they ended up in one close game and they just turned into an unbeatable half court machine in the final few minutes of the game, and they got out of there with the wins. So definitely stock falling for the Eastern Conference competition for the Boston Celtics, stock rising the Los Angeles Lakers. The Western Conference gave them a brutal schedule to start the year. They played the Minnesota Timberwolves and then the

Suns and the Kings back to back. They ended up going three to zero. Once again on the strength of their offense, which is something I talked about coming into the season. That was what made them so good at the tail end of the year last year. Remember, from basically their last forty six games of the season, they were the third best offense in all of basketball. They had a one twenty offensive rating through that first three games of the season. That's in the league, again, obviously

small sample. One to six offensive rating in the half court according to Cleaning and Glass, that's also an awesome number. That was fourth in the NBA. Ironically, though, with all the talk about them shooting more threes and everything I talked about in preseason and everything about JJ Redick, here they're in real games and they've kind of stylistically just landed on the same type of offensive approach as last year, which is like everything's in the paint and then taking

wide open threes out of it. They're twenty eighth in three point attempts per one hundred possessions, so they're not generating a ton of threes. Yet they're still a top five offense, which again is what I talk about all the time. It doesn't matter if you shoot threes, it's just who can get the most high quality shots. The Lakers don't shoot a ton of threes, but they're scoring a lot because they're number one in points in the paint per one hundred possessions with the five point lead

over the second place team. The Lakers butcher teams in the paint that is where they drive the majority of their offensive success. So that's what's kind of funny, is like they went from Oh, we're gonna shoot more threes, blah blah blah, and now they're just playing the same way they did last year. Now there are a couple of major changes to the way that they are actually going about that paint to great attack on offense. One,

they have switched some of their lineup configurations. So in the past, they used to pair Austin with Lebron and d Lo with AD because Delo is a better playmaker and when Lebron's off the floor, you need playmaking, right and the Austin Lebron two man game has been really good, so there's been that was kind of the driving force behind that configuration in the past. This year they flipped it. Now Austin's running with AD and Delo's running with Lebron.

It feels counterintuitive for the short term, right because Delo is legitimately someone that in the large sample last year just looked like a better fit with AD. But I like the idea of investing in the Austin AD pairing because I do think that we are going to finally get that d' angelo Russell trade this year. So the future of this team is Austin and AD units with Lebron off the floor, those units needing to float themselves.

They're about minus two per Lebron off AD on lineups right now are minus two per one hundred possessions in the early going, which is not bad. They're floating around even that's okay. Again, this team has always had big splits with Lebron on and off the floor, so they can hover around even with Lebron off. I think that's a win. But that's the main difference in the way that they're pairing the lineups. The other big change is

how often they're playing through AD. He's got a thirty percent usage right that's the highest he's had since he's come to the Lakers. He's shooting nineteen field goal attempts per late per game, that's the highest since he's come to the Lakers. So a lot more usage for Anthony Davis. And he's been on an absolute tear. Like if you're if you're asking, like, who are the standout players in the league. The guys that have just been absolutely shredding

everybody to start the season. In the small sample, it's Jason Tatum and Anthony Davis. Those are the two guys that have been kicking everybody's ass to start this particular ironically number six and number seven on my player rankings come into the season that have been the most impressive. He had completely dominated the Wolves game. He had thirty six and sixteen, totally took that game over in the

second half. He had twenty in the second half against Phoenix two, a lot of late game surges from Anthony Davis. Then he hit the biggest shot of the game against Cremeno, picking Pop three over Demonasibonas had another thirty point night in that one. He's been a monster on defense in every single game, playing like the best player in the league right now. Is thirty four points and eleven rebounds per game with four steals and blocks a game on

sixty seven percent tru shooting. Lebron got off to a somewhat slow start as he eased his way into things this season, but then he had that crazy run at the start of the fourth quarter of the Kings game that he had like sixteen points in three minutes as he turned what probably should have been a loss into a win. He's at twenty three points, eight rebound, seven assists on sixty one percent trough shooting. Austin and Ruey

have both been excellent. They're getting thirty five points per game out of those two guys, and they're both defending well to start the year. But the main reason why my stock is rising slightly with the Lakers is the encouraging stuff from their bench groups. They are dominating the minutes with Anthony Davis on the bench. So far, they are plus fifty in sixty four possessions with AD on the bench. And that was again over the years, when AD is hurt or when AD's out, they've to put

together kind of like coherent lineups. Hasn't been the case so far this year, all because of the play of Dalton Connect and Jackson Hayes in terms of guys producing off the bench. As we went into the season, if you guys remember I talked about depth being the main issue for this Laker team. The starters are good, that Austin dil Ruiy lebron a d That lineup's good. They're gonna win a lot of their minutes with that particular unit. Right Gabe Vinson is a solid backup guard. Van Do

when he's healthy is a solid backup forward. But beyond that and Vandal's got his own health issues, everything's a question mark. It's like Max Christie's very young. Is he gonna be able to produce? Dalton Connects a rookie, Is he gonna be able to produce? Jackson Hayes is a player with some really big weakness. Is he gonna be able to produce? Like who's gonna be able to produce from this bench group? And the two guys that have really stood out so far as Dalton Connect and Jackson Hayes.

Dalton Connect has been great so far. He's brought this like aggressive movement shooting. He's flying off the screens and looking to shoot right away. He's making good reads when he's coming off the screens. He brings real downhill athleticism in transition. Hasn't really stuck out as a bad piece on defense yet, although I think he will have some ugly moments there in the large sample. And then Jackson Hayes's finishing really well on cuts and rolls. He's six

for seven from the field on cuts and rolls. He has five offensive rebounds. He's been active on the glass STI fouling at an obsurd right six point one fouls for thirty six minutes. That he's been really solid so far too, and so they've been able to hold their own with ad on the bench. The other big exciting thing is the early returns on the JJ Reddick coaching process. They look incredibly sharp on both ends of the floor.

One of the big things that before we get into some of the specifics, JJ is actively coaching, and this is something that I begged for last year. Darbnham got made fun of all the time for having his hands in his pockets, to call him hot pockets. They made all these jokes about it, but it was less about the body language and more about the fact that, like, what are you doing to help your team win the game? Like the players are out there doing everything they can

to win the game. Yes, I get it, you did whatever you did before the game in terms of game plan and preparation and scouting and all that sort of stuff. Now we're in the game, though, what are you doing to help the team win? On a possession by possession

during the game. Is super active on the sideline, talking to the refs all the time, talking to the players all the time, talking about schematic adjustments he can make over the course of the game, emphasizing game plan details that are not being executed, positively reinforcing game plan details that are getting executed. He is active on the sidelines and it's leading to a lot more organization on a

possession by possession basis. Their offensive organization in general was already pretty solid last year, but it's gone up a level or getting two or three beautiful after timeout plays every single game, really smart concepts that are getting their best players going with an advantage. The defensive organization has been really exciting so far. Their game plans have been smart,

very nicely curated to each specific opponent they're playing. They're doing a much better job at chasing teams off the three point line than they did last year. They're performing well on the margins too. That's a big coaching piece. They're rebounding well on both ends. Last year they were not a good offensive rebounding team. They're forcing more turnovers and scoring on them. Last year that just was not

a margin for them. They're taking really good care of the basketball now, like they just look like a really well coached team. Now does that mean I think that they're suddenly a top tier contender. No, of course not. They still have their personal limitations. We saw their personal limitations in the Sacramento game. They should have lost to Sacramento,

the same issues that they've always had. When Sacramento came up in that second half, Ad really struggles to handle Sabonis just because Sibonis is stronger and quicker than him. And then two, the guards for Sacramento are so fast, and the athleticism for the guardcore for the Lakers is one of the biggest weaknesses on that roster. And so when they turned up pressure, when they turned up the pace, when Sabonis started going at Ad, the wheels kind of

came off and the Lakers really lost control of that game. Well, Lebron just stole it. Lebron came in in the fourth quarter and led a twenty one to nothing run and stole that game. Like, the Lakers still have their personnel limitations. The difference is is because they're well coached now, they have a little bit more ability to pull out that type of That's the hallmark of what makes a team different. This team different from last year's team. You have two

top ten players and you're well coached. That will allow you to cover for some of your weaknesses in the large sample. It's a big part of why I said before the season, I think this is a fifty win team if they stay healthy, if Lebron and ad both play at least, you know, sixty five to seventy games, because the infrastructure is better now than it used to be.

But yeah, if they want to win the Western Conference, they're gonna have to upgrade D'Angelo Russell into a really good athlete that can play both ends of the floor at the two, because when you get into the smaller sample, all of a sudden, your personnel weaknesses get much harder to hide. But heading into a tough five game road trip, now they're at Phoenix or at Cleveland, at Toronto, at Detroit, at Memphis, we're gonna learn a lot more about this

team over the course of that stretch. I think three and two would be a huge win for the Lakers. If they got back into LA at six and two, I think that that's a really nice start to this season. I don't think they're world beaters. I don't think they're in that top tier contender tier. I don't think their personnel is good enough, but they're sharp, and sharp teams can win games in the regular season, and that's what they've done to start the year. So shout out to

JJ reddet Stock. Following the Denver Nuggets owing two out the gates after a super disappointing loss at Homes to the Los Angeles Clippers. Once again, Michael Porter Junior, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon just not providing any offensive pot for this team. They are combined twenty eight for seventy nine from the field for only eighty points so far this season. Jokic looks amazing. He completely dominated the Clippers game when he was on the floor, and his three point shot

looks great. So like, if you're looking for silver linings as a Denver Nuggets fan, they're two main things that I look at. One. Christian Brown looks like a great replacement for KCP with the starters you've won. His minutes in both games, he's been a positive. He's been super active screener and cutter. He's actually producing more points per game individually than Michael Porter Junior, which is obviously a negative on Michael Porter Junior that he's got to figure

out I've got to figure out. But the second piece of that is that's legitimate production for a guy that we all think is a limited offensive player. So far, he's been in double figures both games, so like, he's been productive. He's been doing his job. He's a more versatile defender than KCP. And by the way, KCP is off to kind of a rough start in Orlando. Now, I think KCP will be fine in the long run. He's going to hit shots. It's a new team for him to a lot of different things. He's got to

figure out not getting the same types of opportunities. But like as of right now, the Christian Brown swap in for KCP with the starters has looked like a move that was somewhat savvy by the front office. The second big like kind of upside. The second big silver lining if you're a Nuggets fan is Jokic's jump shot looks great. He had seven threes against the Clippers. He's eight for fifteen from three on the season. As I've talked about so much, that's such an important part of his game.

The pick and pop is a great way for Jokic to generate offense without having to work as hard as he does when he worked closer to the basket, not just for shooting threes, but driving closeouts where he can then weaponize his playmaking ability. It's just an important part of what is a ceiling razer for yoks I've said this before, but Jokic as a mediocre to inconsistent three point shooter is the best player in the league. Jokic with an elite three point shot is the best player

in the league by a mile. That is the big differentiator for him. Obviously, only two games, very small sample, but that to me is a super encouraging start to the season for Nikole Jokic. The the other starters, though, those are the two silver linings. Everything else for the

Nuggets has been an absolute tire fire. Obviously, Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Have been bad, but that's especially extending into the bench units when they get to the stretches of the game when Yokic is off the floor, they are falling apart to a much greater extent than they did in years past, and a very very on a very very basic level, on a per one hundred possessions basis. This season. In years past, they've

hovered around minus eleven. So when Jokic's off, they lose those minutes by about eleven points per one hundred possessions this year so far, again only two games, they're losing those minutes by forty three point three points per one

hundred possessions. That is untenable. And it's because when you're staggering starters with bench players, and the starters aren't playing well, and the guys that you're bringing it off the bench that you're needing to provide firepower aren't playing well, you're not going to get anything out of them. Right, Like Julian Strather hit some shots, but Peyton Watson and Julian Strather combined have scored seventeen points through two games. That's

not firepower. That's not a contribution. Russell Westbrook. Some of this is part of the Russell Westbrook experience, right. Like I said before the start of the year, Russell Westbrook has a higher ceiling than Reggie Jackson, for sure, but he has a much lower floor. The bad RUSS games are so damaging. And you got two bad RUSS games to start theories, two for eighteen from the field, one for nine from three a lot of the usual Russ mistakes where he's missing box out's bad off ball defense.

The Nuggets are minus thirty seven in forty minutes of game time that Russell Westbrook has played. That's a total disaster. Now, to be clear, Russ's ceiling is way higher than Reggie Reggie Jackson's. There will be many games this year where Russ is awesome and many and there will be a few times where you win a game because of Russ, So Nuggets fans, it's not all like this, There's going to be good times, but this is part of the experience.

The Russ experiences wild oscillations back and forth between downright damaging and impressively good. And that's kind of the experience. That's why, like Reggie Jackson, you're not gonna get the highs, but the floor is a little bit higher, and like that's the thing. Like it just that's the one part of like making this type of move is it just comes with a lot of volatility that comes with it.

You almost, if you're Michael Malone, you almost hope by the end of the year that it turns more into like a let's see if Rouss has it tonight thing and if Russ comes out and he's sloppy in undisciplined and not paying attention, maybe a bail on him for that game and give him a longer leash in games where he's sharper and he has it going. But like, he's been pretty bad to start the year. And as a result, there's been twenty four minutes of Nuggets basketball

with Yokach on the bench and they're minus eighteen. So they're just hemorrhaging leads when Yokich is on the bench. So like the other thing with the backup with the bench units is Dario sar It's has just been real, like actually really bad on both ends of the floor, like getting cooked on defense, not providing anything on offense. Sarage is a good player. I think he'll be fine in the long run, but he's not off to a good start. So here's the deal. Are the Nuggets this bad?

Obviously not. Michael Porter Junior will play better, Jaal Murray will play better. Jamal Murray in particular kind of has a habit of coming into the seasons out of shape and playing his way into shape. Right, Nicole Yokitch is still the best player in the world and Mike Malone is a good coach who will patch war together a bench that at least isn't completely terrible. Right, they'll find a footing, but at this point they don't look even close to the favorite to win the conference that I

said they were before the season started. Now, I never thought they were gonna get the one seed or anything. I thought they'd be above the play in I thought they'd be in that like two, three, four, five range. But like I picked them to win the conference, they don't look like a team that can win three playoffs series at this point, they look far away from that. So again, small sample, we'll see, but it's hard not to be at least a little bit discouraged with how

the Nuggets look to this point. Also, Nuggets fans, I'm going on with Adam Mars from DNVR tomorrow on his All NBA podcast to talk about the entire league, but I'm sure we'll be talking a lot of Nuggets, so make sure if you guys follow Adam keep an eye out for that particular episode. Stock Rising Evan Mobley is averaging eighteen points and nine rebounds here in the early going. He's hit three threes and seven attempts doing a lot

more work on the ball. You u to rate in the first three years of his career was right around twenty percent this year so far, obviously in small sample usage rate of twenty five percent, so a substantial increase in how much he's involved in the offense. The main thing is he's run twelve ball screens so far. That's four per game. He ran less than one ball screen per game last year, zero point seven ball screens per

game last year. So they're going to a legitimate change in their offensive approach to give Evan Mobley more touches with the ball in his hands starting from the perimeter. Now, these are inverted ball screens, right. Inverted ball screens function in a unique way for two reasons. One, the guy guarding mobilely is typically a bigger forward. Bigger forwards typically don't spend a lot of time in their career navigating screens,

and so they are big targets. If you set a good screen on him, you can get them caught on them, right, That's what causes That's the first half of what makes inverted ball screens hard to guard. The second piece of it is guards don't spend a lot of time at operating as the screen defender. In ball screens, usually it's the inverse, right, they're the guy chasing the guard over the top. They're really good at navigating screens, but they don't know how to help when their man screens as

well as forwards do. It's inverted ball screen. It's literally an inversion of defensive responsibilities. And when you invert defensive responsibilities, you start to make people do things that they're not comfortable with, and so they're getting a lot of really good stuff out of it. They're getting one point per possession so far through the twelve attempts, we're seeing a couple of different specific dynamics take place. One, the forward

is typically ducking underneath the pick. So when he ducks underneath the pick, Evan Mobley can either one take a pull up jump shot, which he's been shooting his pull up jump shot pretty well to start the year. Or two it's a runway if he goes underneath the screen. Now there's a gap between Evan and the defender. Went underneath the screen, so he can attack get downhill. He's got a head of steam before he runs into the defender, which he can then into momentum that he can get

closer to the basket for an easier shot. The second piece of that is when the guard screens for Evan Mobley. In many cases the other guard will linger or help. In cases like this, Evan Mobley can use it as an opportunity to get the defense in rotation. There was a layup that Donovan Mitchell got on a inverted ball screen where Mitchell went to go screen for him. Evan went downhill, Mitchell's man followed him on the hedge, there's two on the ball, kicked it back to Mitch hard

close out. Mitch beat him off the dribble, got into the basket for a layup. That's a really really interesting wrinkle to this offense that I'd love to see continue to develop over the course of the season. He's still struggling a little bit with short range finishing. That's always been a weakness of his and his career. He's just six for eighteen on floaters, hooks, and layups so far.

But the jump shooting piece is super encouraging. Remember, guys, Evan Mobley's development is the number one swing factor in everything Cleveland is trying to accomplish in this era. He comes an All Star level player, we're looking at a contender in the last few years. If he doesn't, this team isn't going anywhere. So it's hard not to be at least a little encouraged by the growth that we're finally starting to see out of Evan Mobley stock falling.

Tyrese Haliburt twelve points per game in less than four assists per game on thirty nine percent true shooting to start the year, had a zero point night against the New York Mix the other day. He's really struggling to put the ball in the basket himself on the ball, and that is the issue because it is the give and take of every playmaker, right. You have to demonstrate your threat to score to warp the defense. If you

warp the defense, that unlocks your playmaking. And when one of those elements is failing you, it's just like for really good scorers that don't see the floor well. If you don't pass the ball well enough to loosen up the defense on you, you're not going to get the opportunities in single coverage. You need to actually score the basketball.

It's a give and take, right. He's shooting just five for nineteen as the ball handler pick and roll when he takes shots just five for nineteen, he's just seven for thirty on jump shots, he's just five for twenty one on off the dribble jump shots, and he has six total made shots at the rim in three games. And so this is then turning into a trickle down effect towards starting to effect his playmaking, which has been

non existent to start the year. And the worst part about it is he's starting to look a little bit like he has the yips. He's had some bad body language. The end of that Sixers game, there were these like close up shots of his face after he'd make a mistake where he looks kind of like flabbergasted, like he's

just kind of in a weird spot. He had this really weird play at the end of regulation where he was coming off of a ball screen on the right wing and Andre Drummond was up at the level and right in his face and he just like wasn't paying attention and exposed the ball out and Drummond just knocked it out of his hands. Critical turnover at the end of the game. He just now he's salvage and he ended up phitting this crazy like double pump, like prayer three point shot to send the game to OT, but

they ended up losing a ot anyway. And like he's just the engine that makes this whole thing go, and like he's had moments, he had some good playoff games. Sure he had some good stretches at the end of last year, but he just hasn't been able to like really reach the level he was at before he heard his hamstring. And that's concerning because the guy before he heard his hamstring looked like a guy who was on

a like legit star trajectory, like superstar trajectory. That's how good I was, averaging what fourteen assists per games, fifty to forty ninety guy leading one of the best offenses in the league. He looked like like a like a transcendently great player in the making, and then he pulls his hammy and he's been something less than that ever since.

And again, it's small sample size to start the season, but it's hard not to be once again at least a little bit discouraged about how he looks stock rising the Golden State Warriors, but Jason, they just lost to the Clippers. Steph got hurt, Andrew Wiggins and the Anthony Melder both having back issues. How could you be higher on them than you were to start the season? Well for starters. The MRI's back on Steph and it appears

to be super mild. It looks like he's going to be reevaluated on Friday, so I doubt they lose him for more than a week or so. Right, So not too worried about Steph. The injuries to d Anthony Melton and Andrew Wiggins both appeared to be somewhat mild as well,

so I'm not super concerned there. But the main thing is the depth has bared out in a way that shows the Warriors have a much higher floor than all of us anticipated going into the season, which makes them more well positioned to be aggressive than they were last year.

The additions that they made this offseason have given them a deep rotation of solid basketball players, a ton of speed on the perimeter that can cover ground and guard, and then two lots of guys who can actually do a decent job of generating offense within the Warrior system. Beyond death right, we talked about Buddy Heald a lot. He's been an absolute shoe and fit. He had a

really nice first half against Clippers. Struggled a little bit in the in the second half, but like Buddy Hild's had a pretty good start to really good start to the season. The Anthony Melton can run action and run it well. Brandon Pizemski can run action and run it well. Obviously, Jonathanminga brings a little bit of that firepower. There's a lot of guys that can run offense for this team

and generate quality shots. That, combined with their enormous amount of perimeter speed and just overall depth of athletic talent, has given them a really high floor. I mean, guys, they beat the shit out of Portland in Utah. They beat Portland in Utah so bad that even after last night's loss, they have the best net rating in basketball right now. That's how high their floor is. That's going to help them win a lot of regular season games.

They're going to have a very high win percentage against the bad and mediocre teams in the league compared to the rest of their peers, especially in the Western Conference. That will help them stay afloat in the standings. Now, they still have their top end talent limitations. Steph has been okay to start the year, but he hasn't produced like a superstar yet, Like he hasn't had a game

with over twenty points in a single game yet. But although I thought he looked fine, Like I was watching the Clippers game this morning, in that middle portion of the Clippers game floory where he with a clip when the Clippers took their first double digit lead, we went on a floory where he kind of erased it where it's like, oh, yeah, like Steph is still that guy, you know what I mean, Like it's in there. But then he got hurt obviously in that kind of disrupted

that momentum from really lasting. But beyond Steph is the issue. Beyond Steph, they have no star level firepower. Other teams in the West just have more. Let's just look at a real basic level, who are the second and third options on these Western Conference teams? For the Lakers, it's Austin Reeves and Lebron James, pretty damn good second and third options. For the Suns, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal

pretty damn good second and third options. For the Nuggets, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. They're not even playing well right now, but those are pretty solid second and third options right Oklahoma City Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, Memphis Desmond Bain, Jared Jackson, Junior Minnesota Julius Randall and Mike Conley, the MAVs, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, The Kings, Demarta rosen In the Leak Monk, the Pelicans, de Jonte Murray and Andrew Wiggins. For the Warriors, it's Buddy Healed and

Andrew Wiggins. Like it's not even close in terms of firepower off the top star compared to the rest of the teams in the West. So that's what's exciting, is like, you've got a ton of depth. You've got like what twelve thirteen guys that are legitimate NBA rotation players. You've got a perfect dude at the top, and you're really good at defense, and you're really well coached, and you just have a super high floor. What that means is

you're gonna stay aflow in the standings. If you stay afloat in the standings, and you've got that kind of depth, because most teams are gonna want to go down to an eight or nine man rotation by the time they get to the playoffs anyway, right, you can you can afford to make a consolidation trade. Now, the Warriors have two major weaknesses in my opinion, in terms of personnel.

One that secondary shot creator. You got to have somebody on this team that is a reliable, dependably good offensive player next to Steph like every night twenty something points. Like you gotta have somebody like that on the roster. That's the main target they've got to figure out. The second piece is they're a little bit matchup depend with their front court. Zubos really did a number on them last night because he's huge. I think he had like

twenty three points and eighteen rebounds. Anthony Davis has always given their frontline issues. You'll get like all these big front lines have a tendency to give the Warriors some issues because they're a little undersized. So they could really use another backup center who's big, like a legitimately big and strong backup center, and they could really use a legitimate secondary shot creator. Well last year, it just that they weren't good enough in the regular season to actually

justify that level of aggression. If they continue to stay afloat in the regular season with this machine that they've got run in And this is where like in the depth piece, what brings in the depth is you bring in three really good rotation players at discounts this summer. Yeah, you lose Klay Thompson, but you bring in to Anthony Melton, you bring in Buddy Held, you bring in Kyle Anderson. You've got the depth to be able to take a few players and package them for somebody else and not

have to worry about nuking your own depth. That is what makes me excited about this particular team. They are deeper than they were last year. They have a much higher floor than they had last year. That will keep them afloat in the regular season and gives them more flexibility to make some sort of trade. To put it really simple, going into the season, I didn't think that they were I didn't think that they had a like a real championship upside. They did not make my contender list.

I had eleven teams in the contender list. I had four top tier contenders and I had seven like if things go right contenders. The Warriors were not on that list for me. I had them as a play in team. Now I actually think that they have a shot if they hit on a deal to enter into that puncher's chance tier, to enter into that top eleven, because they have the resources to make a deal, and their floor is so high that I don't worry about them as

a regular season team like I don't. I would have thought coming into the season they would have been fighting for the nine or ten seed all season. As long as Steph doesn't miss too much time, I think there'll be I think they'll be in that five to six range they like because they just have such a high floor with how much depth of talent in their organizational excellence. Again, that organizational excellent we're talking about this with the Lakers.

They win margins. They know how to win basketball games institutionally, and that is what creates that margin for them. There's personal limitations there. Looney got his butt kicked by Zubach last night, right like Kaminga still is super inconsistent up and down. There are personnel weaknesses there, but there are personal weaknesses that can be addressed, and there's such a depth of quality role player talent on there that it raises their floor to the point where I think that

they're a little bit more of a threat. So again, as long as they can hit on a deal, I think they can enter into that tier with like Memphis and the Lakers and the Suns and all those teams that are kind of like middle of the pack Western Conference teams. That was not something that I thought going into the season. Stock falling the Sacramento Kings. I've watched both of their games so far, and everything comes down to consistency. Third quarter against the Lakers was a thing

of beauty. Defensively, great ball pressure. They're disrupting LA's offensive flow and keeping them out of their sets into late in the shot clock, great rotations, no one's open for very long, active hands, they're forcing deflections, getting great contests on three point shooters. They held the Lakers to eighty two point one offensive rating in that third quarter while getting out in transition, while scoring. They were just cooking the Lakers the way that they always have over the

course of the last few years. Then in the fourth quarter, it just is a completely different basketball team. They give up a one point fifty seven offensive rating to the Lakers. Now, obviously there's there is a Lebron flurry in there, but for the entire quarter, they could not get a stop, there's no ball pressure. Their back line was super disjointed, and Lebron was picking them apart as a passer, just like beating every single help with just like a headfake.

The same exact thing happened in Minnesota too, Like they defended well, they take a lead, they let their foot off the gas, Minnesota get back into it. They take a lead, Minnesota get back into it. They take a lead, Minnesota get back into it. Then all of a sudden, you're in a crunch time game. Anthony Edwards hits a jumps, draws a foul, and you lose, and like that. That's

that's the thing. It's like, I've never seen a team like this, where like when they are good, they look so so so good, but then they can look like legitimately like basement of the Western Conference bad at other times. It's a really bizarre kind of feeling around this team. But again only two games. Want to give it some time.

You're also fitting in a new piece. The only other thing that really stood out to me is they're very small, Like Julius Randall just had a size mismatch basically regardless of who was guarding him in that in that first game of the season. That is a legitimate personnel weakness. They are very very small on the perimeter compared to their peers in the conference. Stock rising the Orlando Magic your top five jump shooting team of the early part

of the season. Orlando Magic once again very small sample size one point one points per jump shot so far. That's fifth in the NBA. Remember they were below one point per attempt last year, ranked twenty fourth in the NBA. Palo and Franz are shooting a combined sixteen for thirty six from three. Franz is like lighting up the nets. He's at ten threes already. Remember how poorly shot last year. That was such a huge important thing for him to

work on this summer. Jalen Suggs is shooting great. Gary Harris is shooting great and all this is before Kntavio's called what Pope has really even found his groove. Yet. The defense looks great too. They did a number to Jimmy Butler on opening night. They're fifth and defense and sixth and rebounding so far. They just ran into a buzz saw on Memphis the Jay Huff game. Jay Huff played so well in that game. He got a new

deal out of it the very next day. So, like, by the way, that's something that's gonna happen a lot in the NBA this year because there's so many good teams. Like there's twenty good teams right, Like, there's roughly thirteen of them out West and there's roughly seven of them out East, and like anytime they run into each other, the home team is gonna have a legitimate chance to win, even if they have a talent deficiency. Memphis is really really damn good, and Memphis is Memphis might even be

more talented than Orlando. They've got some really good shot creators off the top. That's just the NBA this year. We're gonna see a lot of teams go on the road and lose games to media. Well, we think our mediocre team is because the middle tier in the NBA is so so good this year. One more quick and then we're done. Stock rising the Dallas Mavericks. Yes they lost to the Suns. Guess what. It's gonna be hard to win in Phoenix. I think the Lakers are a

better basketball team than Phoenix. I think the Phoenix should be favored tonight. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Phoenix beat the Lakers tonight for the exact same reason I was just talking about with the magic in Memphis, Like, it is hard in the NBA to win on the road. So Jason, they lose to the Spurs, or they beat the Spurs and they lose to the Phoenix Suns. Why are you so optimistic about Dallas. It's the style of offense that has me excited, and they're still adopting it,

like this is gonna take time. They haven't even statistically produced offensively yet the way they're capable of. Same thing happened to the Lakers last year. Lakers, remember two years ago they were a four out one in brute force offense, very similar to what the MAVs were last year. Then at the start of the year they went five out. It was super clunky. It took them a long time, but they hit their gear in January and suddenly it

was like a completely different team. Every Lebron offense had been bad since since he came to the Lakers because they were so heavy on defensive personnel, and suddenly they had one of the best offenses in the league. When everything clicked into place, that's the type of investment Dallas is making. When you're looking at the big picture here, I had a lot of mass fans out they're playing the same way that they did that it was the same stuff we ran with Tim Hardaway Junior. No, it's not,

it's not. I've watched both teams very closely. You're doing a lot more action, a lot more involvement of all your stars, a lot more ball in player movement, a lot more having your center at the top of the key operating as a passing volcrum with off ball action happening around them. That is a different offense than what you ran last year. It's a great thing. It's going to take time. They're going to have to figure shit out. They're gonna have bad games. They're gonna have nights where

they miss a lot of shots. They're gonna have knights where there's turnovers. They're gonna have nights where it looks clunky. But in the long run, that is an investment that will pay off for Dallas because that is the variety that will make them more resilient offensively when they get into the postseason. All right, guys, let's get into our film session for today again, I've got eighteen clips free you. We're gonna be bouncing around to a bunch of teams

around the league. Let's get into our film session for today again. I've got eighteen clips for You're gonna be bouncing around to a bunch of teams around the league. If you're listening on the podcast feed, you're going to want to head over to YouTube to see that part to actually get the visual representations of what we're talking about.

All right, our first one here, this is a great example of off ball action that doesn't necessarily result in and assist, but that results in an advantage that still ends in a bucket. So, as you can see our setup here, we have Tray Jackson Davis in the post against Zubas. We're gonna get a split cut here. What that means is Kaminga is going to set a screen for Steph to come off and then he's going to cut off of it. So as you watch, because he

sets this off ball screen, Kaminga's looked off. Now this action is useless now because Kminga is now looking or excuse me, Tray X and Davis is now looking to score. So Trace Jackson Davis has taken his eye off this action. He's looking to score. But just because you ran the action,

Kevin Porter Junior stepped out on Steph to help. That means Jonathan Kaminga has a free crash to the rim on what would have been his cut had it been a more traditional post up, had Trace been looking to pass the basketball instead, Trace looks to shoot and he misses. But Kaminga's got a straight runway to the rim for a tip dunk literally stemming off of this off ball action with Steph that drew two to the ball. So once again, part of the gravity that Steph has but two.

That's why offball action is so important. It extends beyond spacing even to offensive rebounding, just anything you can do to get the defense in rotation. Really good defensive possession for the Clippers here. I've talked a lot about how the Clippers just have so much speed on the perimeter. Watch this speed. So we got Buddy hild sprint up the floor. Watch the transition defense, stop the ball, turn him to the sideline. We got to close out. We

need to close out here, James Harden close out. Sharp Or Junior stays attached to Buddy Heeld. After he gives up the ball, a lot of guys they'll pass boom and then Kevin Porter will a lot of guys in this position will relax and then the shooter will relocate and get open. No, Kevin Porter's staying attached. Were Kevin Porter's denying the ball. Now we're swinging the ball to across the court. Look at the close out from Terrence Man. He's there on the catch. Kevin Porter's there on the catch.

They're flying around and making sure none of these openings are there, switching off the ball to take over and opening another switch off the ball. Good communication. Kevin Porter stays attached on the cut. Now all of a sudden, there's five seconds on the shot clock and no one's open. Now Steph has to throw up a prayer notice off ball to Derek Jones Junior. It's remind a little bit watch Derek Jones stay disciplined, stays attached, no openings. Really

really good defense from the Clippers. They look so sharp defensively on the perimeter to start the year. This is a really example, a really good example of beating what's called strongside zone. So basically, when you have a player do what James Harden does here, which is like, this is the strong side of the floor, right, this is

where the ball is. James Harden is straight up ignoring his man to zone up, meaning he's basically just guarding this entire area of the floor as a third defender, and Steph beats it by hitting Gary Payton just cutting along the baseline. Really nice work from the Warriors to beat a strong side zone. I thought this was a really nice low man rotation from James Harden that I wanted to shout out. You could tell that they're putting him in low man situations a lot to try to

keep him engaged off the ball. He had a couple ugly ones, like he had a possession where he let Andrew Wiggins just jog right along the baseline and get over here and hit a three. But for the most part, he's been pretty good here at just playing good health defense. And again, all it is about reading the play. He's a low man. He's not too worried about Gary Payton taking a jumper, so he had a ball screen. Kai Jones comes up to the level off. Kai Jones comes

up to the level. There's a pocket pass here, but notice how James Harden identifies it. He's running right now. He's gonna start running right now, sees the screen coming, he sees Kai up at the level. James is making his rotation right away, and he gets in there and knocks the ball away and gets a steal. Really nice lowman defense from James Harden. There's another level to a low man rotation though, so watches Steph is pointing to Buddy Heel to be the low man in this rotation.

Buddy makes the rotation as the lowman over. But then Steph makes what I call windshield wiper rotation, meaning basically, as Buddy's rotating, he's rotating. If Buddy helps. Chris Dunn is wide open, right, but Steph makes the rotation too and gets into that baseline passing lane. So now watch Buddy and Steph again full speed from here. There's your shooters on the weak side. They're switching because there's an interchange, right,

So there's your interchange switch. But then lowman rotation steal. Nice work from Steph. This is a fun example of like you can tell something something that Golden State has practiced a lot, which is double teaming and rotating out of it. But The specific thing I think is really smart here is how quickly they get out of the double team. So a mere coffee sets a screen. Steph is on the ball. They don't want Steph to be

in a switch with James Harden. James Harden has been kicked cooking smaller guards on switches a lot in this season. It's been something he's been targeting a lot. So Andrew Wiggins comes up in double teams hard double Kaminga rotates up. So now the only pass that's open is the skip pass to done. But on the double team, as soon as James Harden picks up his dribble, Boom. As soon as James Harden picks up his dribble, he's no longer a threat, right sil threat sil threat, not a threat.

Notice how Steph immediately when James picks up his dribble starts making his rotation. I'm gonna slow it down again. Watch Steph. He's watching James threat threat threat, pick up the dribble, not a threat, Rotate back, boom, Kaminga shoots up the line, Steph rotates down, waves Pajemski in. Now he's back on Derek Jones Jr. Advantage is gone That is a beautiful example of the proper way to double team and help a star that's or one of your

weaker defensive players that's in a disadvantageous position. Again, pressure push out as soon as he picks up his dribble, immediately start your rotation. It's a pre rotation, if that makes sense. This next stretch is the incredibly damaging stretch of basketball from Pat Connaton in the in the Brooklyn Nets game. And this is all in reverse order because I ended up going back and adding the other clips, so these actually happened in reverse order in the game.

But these are the mistakes that he made. This one was one of the weirder plays I've seen. So it's a long rebound, that's Pat Conninson's ball right, Dennis Schroeder's running in. That's Pat Connaton's ball right like he should get that doesn't get it, and then whax Dennis Schroder in the face and commits a flav or foul. So instead of getting the defensive reebound and going the other way, the Nets get two free throws and possession of the ball.

That was really damaging. This was a point of attack defense possession on Cam Thomas that I didn't like. I just thought he was way too passive. So as we fast forward, here we go to Cam Thomas. There's no pressure. We're sitting off and letting Cam get comfortable, which allows Cam to just easily come off of the screen into this area and shoot an easy pull up three over the top. You have to with these really good pull up shooters, disrupt their handle, disrupt their pocket, disrupt their base.

You've got to be more physical and apply more ball pressure. That's just that's just not good defense. And then this next one here against Dennis Schroeder, it's just clear the side get the matchup they want. Okay, we like pat content against Schroeder. I'm just gonna beat him off the dribble and get to the basket and draw an easy foul. And just like that, like it was like it was

like one after the other. It was just it was just such a bad shift for that Bucks bench unit to start the fourth quarter and they completely lost control of the game. So then Dame comes in, right. See it's four point game, right, four point game. This game is is this is a hold on. This is one more content play. The Dame one is next. I apologize. So this is no man's land from Pat. So this

is again I've had him in reverse order. So this was early at the start of this run, it was a four point game, and by the time all four of these defensive mistakes from Content happened, it's a twelve point game. That's how quickly things turned around. Look at this week'side defense. Who's Pat guarding like he's not low man, but Bobby's the low man, so he's got to be over here, but he's way he's caught in no man's line. This is like that limbo we talked about all the time.

This has helped defense. Limbo. You're not helping on the ball, and you're not helping off the ball. Easy kickout pass for Schroeder. It's bad close out, gives up middle penetration, he gets all the way to basket for a layup. Just really rough defensive shift. So now Dame comes back in the game. You're trying to regain control. Dame is guarding here in the corner. Watch the corner crash cam Thomas takes I think a pull up three here. It takes a short jump shot. But look at Dame, like,

what's Dame doing. You're not helping, you're not tracking, your man just goes right behind him for an easy tip dunk. Like the Bucks are gonna just keep getting kicked around by these young teams on these nights when they don't engage defensively like that. You've got to be sharper because you're not as athletic. If you're not as you can't you can't be the worst execution team and the worst athleticism team. You're gonna get beat a lot if you

play that way. Here's that incredible stretch of offensive basketball from the Boston Celtics at the tail end of the Pistons game. Here's the inside seal from Tatum to Al Horford. Real basic action to beat switching. Right here comes Horford. We're expecting a switch, so he wants to screen the bottom side, kind of gets that inside forty five degree angle,

creates inside seal. Tatum just throws the easy pass over the top that forces the help from the week side, and now we have our week side two on one. And remember, that's the foundation of everything that makes Boston great. If they can create these week side two on ones, they're just always wide open threes for really good shooters. Drew Holliday hits the three. This transition kickout pass from

Jalen Brown is ridiculous. Get the rebound. Watch Jalen Brown's push here in transition nasty behind the back move, gets into the paint, draws three bodies, kick out the Alahifford pass pass rotate easy, wide open three for Drew Holiday. Boom games tied. Here's that top block play I was talking about. So again, they're setting up off ball action, but Tim Hardaway Junior is playing on the high side.

This is called top blocking. He's trying to stop Tatum from flashing high to go get the basketball off of a Horford screen. But Tatum smartly just cuts out of it and gets really good post position out of it. See because Hardaway was basically conceding that inside cut, Tatum gets an easy layup. That's bad defense, but also just a really nice counter to a coverage from Jason Tatum. And then this was just this was just insane. A

backscreen gets kay Cunnyham wide open. You think you're dead to rights, watch this block from Derreck White that is in a two point game with less than a minute left. That is a waning type of play from Derek White. That stop the Pistons from tying in that game, and then Jason Tatum goes down and ices it on the other end. All right, last, before we get out of here, let's talk about these inverted ball screens with Evan Mobley. This first one here again, notice the defender here, Jalen

Durn's going way underneath the pick. Because he's going under the pick, Evan Mobley can easily set into his pull up three off the dribble, which he is been shooting well to start this year. The second one, he's going to draw two on the ball, So once again Durren's on the ball. When Mitch sets the screen, he draws the help because this guy's just thinking I've got to

be there. Otherwise Mobley's gonna get downhill. That allows Mitchell this wide open close out at the top of the key and it gets all the way to the rim for a lamp here. Again, if you have another way to get the defense in rotation, that's a huge advantage because certain matchups might swing in each depending on who you're playing where those advantages are harder to come by, and if you have more ways to generate the advantages,

it mix for a more resilient offense. Having Evan Mobley also be able to generate advantage makes your offense more resilient. This is why I've been harping on it with the Dallas Mavericks and they're playing style. You want to have more people involved so that you have more resilience on the offensive end of the floor. Last one, this is where you see that runway that I talk about. When Mobley gets the screen, Notice the defender, Tobias Harris in

this case, goes under. Because Tobias goes under. Now we've got a solid like seven or eight foot gap here that allows Mobley to get ahead of steam. When he gets ahead of steam, by the time he drops that shoulder, now look where he is. He's eight feet from the basket, and then he can just turn easily over his left shoulder for a short range hook shot he's able to get. I'm gonna watch it. I want you guys to watch it full speed again, looking out easily he can get

downhill because the defender goes under. The pick from that two man game where he's inverting it. It's a nice little wrinkle in the Cavs offense to start this year. All right, guys, That is all I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. I've got a little bit of a crazy day schedule wized tomorrow, so we're just gonna do a really short episode tomorrow morning, but then we'll be back with a

bunch of breakdowns on Wednesday. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show, and I'll see you 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 get t a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.