Hoops Tonight - LeBron James & Anthony Davis lack effort, Nets "fall apart" vs. Bucks

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so far. We are going to dive into that embarrassing effort in the second half from the Lakers, particularly from their stars Lebron James and Anthony Davis in Denver getting above five up to three and two um. Also, for those of you guys who missed it earlier tonight, we did do a video breakdown of the Brooklyn Nets in their game in Milwaukee. You can find that on our YouTube feed. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any

more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S. You guys don't miss show announcements as well as the footage breakdowns that I do. And the last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get over to YouTube to finish him. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, so big one for Denver, Big second half. Um, this game was one in fast break and there's a lot of good uh nuggets there

and there's a lot of bad lakers there. I wanted to focus on Nicola Yogis for a minute here because you know, one of the themes for this particular show in tonight is how deceiving box score numbers can be. Um. You know, I can't tell you how often I get frustrated with an Anthony Davis game, for instance, and he will have a eight, and you almost feel bad because you're like, why are you You can't be like he

sucked or he didn't play well because he had and eight? Right, But then you when when you really back away from the game and you think most NBA games are ending somewhere around one ten to one oh five. Is something along those lines, like twenty five points isn't changing a basketball game necessarily? Eight rebounds isn't changing a basketball game necessarily if both teams are getting rebounds. Right. The reality is is there's all of these different elements in the

game of basketball that impact winning. And that's something that we talked about a ton on this show. And Nikola Yokich is one of those guys that his impact goes so far beyond what he does on the box score um In in the Bubble, Anthony Davis was a better basketball player then Nikola Yokich. He outplayed him in that series in the Western Conference Finals. Yes, Lebron James closed the deal with an epic fourth quarter in Game five, but Anthony Davis was the best player in that series.

And everything that he did on defense and knocking down jump shots in isolation, knocking down jump shots from the perimeter, and just in general what he has in terms of chemistry rolling to the basket with Lebron on amounted to a player that was more impactful than Yoki's was at that point. Two things have happened since then. Nikolai Nikola Yoki has gotten better, which we'll talk about more here in a second, but also Anthony Davis has completely nos dived.

He lifted up the trophy. And I don't know if he's just too cool for school now, or if it's been about the injuries, or if it's been he's put on too much weight or whatever it is. He told everybody he couldn't shoot because he heard his wrist last year, and then his wrist is fine now and then guess what, he still can't shoot. So there's been a weird diversion of paths there between those two players. And one of the big reasons why is everything that Yokich does that

goes beyond the box score. And I mean, I've been critical of Yokich in the past for being a bad transition defender and struggling to defend on the perimeter and five out situations when teams really space them out and try to make them make them pay for their lack

of quickness and all game long. I was blown away with the effort that Nicola Yokos put in running the floor on both ends, and I tweeted out several clips that kind of demonstrate this that you can find on my Twitter feed, and it's like the shot goes up and Yokich will just turn and sprint the other way

as fast as he possibly can. And his fastest sprint is not nearly as fast as most perimitive players, which is what will get him into some issues and specific matchups as we've talked about, but it will absolutely outrun lazy bigs, and there are a lot of them in the league, and Anthony Davis has been one of them in terms of his sprinting up and down the floor in transition and then offensively in transition. Yokich I've talked so much about what he's done passing the basketball and transition.

That's one of the most underrated parts of his game, getting the rebound and starting the break with a live dribble or throwing outlet passes to get people open down the floor. That's always been an underrated element of his game. But in this particular game, he was killing Anthony Davis just running the floor, not even with the basketball. So

much of their great transition offenses, Yokich initiating things. He was finishing transition plays tonight and with it was the same old story that you'd see every time Anthony Davis or uh misses a layup or went for a rebound and thought he got pushed a little bit and tried to exaggerate the content contact. Yoki sprints down the floor, a D jogs back, a D points at another laker

and says, hey, pick up, pick up Yoki. Yoki gets the ball on the block against a smaller permitter defender, and it's a bucket or it's a foul, and those are like little things that don't or it's a bucket, or excuse me, it's a double team and a kick out to a shooter or something along those lines. Those are all these little details that don't necessarily show up in a box score that go that deeply impact winning.

And when those details aren't tight and all you're giving is twenty five points on you know, ob dunks or finishes in the role, or the handful of occasional ISOs and the handful of contested rebounds that you grab, it just doesn't have as much impact as a player that on a possession by possession basis does the things that the position needs. And one of the things that is vitally important from a big man in today's NBA is

that he runs the floor. Um, and I wanted to give a bunch of credit to Anthony Davis there because or excuse me, to Nicola Yokes there, because this this is a weakness that I have been really hard on him about, and you can actively see him attempting to address that weakness just simply by turning and running his ass off every time he has an opportunity to in transition, Like look at what Joel embiad has been doing this year, Like this is a weakness that I've been complaining about

with all these bigs. And you've got Joel Embiid complaining to refs and falling down and not getting back, Anthony Davis complaining to refs and falling down and not getting back. And Yokich, who's a worse athlete in any of them, just sprinting his ass off every single time and helping his team as a result. Um, I was really impressed by hand tonight. He's he's so much better than Anthony Davis. Now it's it's honestly embarrassing for a D. How much better he is than a uh than a D at

this point. A couple other specific nuggets that I wanted to talk about for Denver Bruce Brown. I sung his praise as a bunch after he lit up the Warriors the other night. You know, this is a textbook like connective tissue type of player. When you're playing alongside his superstar.

Like I've always said, they're like these lists of responsibilities that need to be fulfilled, whether that's spotting up, not just as a shooter, but attacking closeouts, running the Florida transition, guarding on the ball, guarding off the ball, boxing out when you get a switch against a bigger a bigger offensive player and you need to keep him away from

the rim. Okay, now you're not in a box out, but you have to crash from the perimeter to help secure a readown one of your teammates is engaged in a box out. There's all these different things, and Bruce Brown, it's just great at all of them, and he's improving. He started this season shooting from three, and then he went forward from four for six again tonight. That was like his one big weakness was that he couldn't consistently hit the three point shot, and now he's hitting that.

He was such I told you guys coming into the season, k C. P and Bruce Brown were such obvious seamless fits with Yokis, with the way that their games compliment what he does on both ends of the floor. He runs the floor and transition. He can run invited inverted pick and roll with Nicola Yo Kitchen, operate out of the short roll. Now he can knock down threees. Obviously, he's a great defensive player, plays with a great deal

of fire. He was talking trash to Lebron James tonight, and you know, my like I've always had, I've always been confused as to why players would celebrate knocking down spot up threes when like you're defender went to go help on another person because you're basically just a cog in a play at that point, you know. But I admire the fire, and it's fire that that team needs, and fire that the Lakers could use a little bit more of. Um Jamal Murray, he hasn't really shown his

scoring pop yet. Um the pull up jumper in particulars what's not falling for him right now, But that will come back. And that's the one thing that you just don't have to worry about with Jamal Murray. He's an incredibly skilled player. He's going to get to the point where he has his rhythm back and he's knocking down

his pull up jump shot. He's getting finishes at the rim, which is what I would really want to see from the guard coming back from a c l A at Two really nice dunks in this game, one on a backcut and half court set, another one in transition where he kind of went up and actually pump baked and pulled the ball back down to wait for a defender to go by, and then went up and dunked it. So you're getting plenty of of athletic pop out of him.

He's finishing at the rim. The stuff with the jump shots gonna come along in time, and most importantly, that natural chemistry that he has with Nicola Yokich is there.

He had a really fun play there and the I believe it was in the third quarter where he kind of drove and got way too deep behind the backboard, and he just knew that he had drawn Anthony Davison help, so he knew that with how small the Lakers are elsewhere on the floor, if he could just elevate and get a pass over a d then it would be a bucket, and he kind of like jumped off of one leg, turned in midair and just threw it up in the air over Anthony Davis's arms, knowing Yokis would

be waiting, and Yokis like caught it at ten feet and made like a little floater. They just have like their their skill sets complement each other so well that as he gets his scoring pop back, things are going to get even better for Denver as things go along.

I'd like to say that that their defense took a step tonight because their defense has been an issue, but the Laker offense is so horrific and they still can't hit a three that I don't necessarily think that that's the best way to gauge that, especially with how poorly Lebron James and Anthony Davis are playing, Which is where we're gonna go next with the Lakers. They had good stretches of basketball in this game. They're a really nice run at the end of the second quarter where there

are stops and getting out in transition. Lebron comes out to start the fourth quarter and just puts his head down and goes to the rim for back to back and once and then hits the three. All of both of those runs, the run that they had at the start of the fourth that got the game back to seven, and the run they had at the end of the second that got the game back to tied before halftime, including a flurry of a six oh run right before the buzzer. Both of those were fueled by Lebron James

and Anthony Davis hitting the Jets. Because everything in the about the way this team was structured depends on those two guys being top ten players, specifically Anthony Davis being a top ten player and Lebron James being a top five player one of the best perimeter initiators in basketball. That's how the resources have been allocated. Don't get me wrong.

Their personnel is not very good right now, and that has a lot to do with the RUSS situation, which we'll get to in a minute, But lab On James and Anthony Davis also are not holding up their end of the back and their end of the bargain. Neither of them has played like a top ten player to this point. Um A. D has been super inconsistent defensively.

He's like lights out, just erasing everything in that second half the other day against Portland, and then jogging up and down the floor against Denver, and then there will be like these two little spurts like end of the second quarter, start of the fourth where he's making plays going out of his area. We talked a little bit about out of area plays earlier tonight with Brook Lopez.

That's such an important detail for the dominant defensive big, not just the standard traditional defensive big that we have around this league. He's not running the Lakers came into this game, according to Cleaning Glass, with transition defense in the league. That to me is largely on Anthony Davis not running up and down the floor, and a little bit of Lebron James as well, because he can go through these stretches or he doesn't run either, but he

hasn't been able. Lebron in particular hasn't been able to make his pull up jumper. I think he was two for eight again from three tonight um specifically off the dribble. It's so important for him because defenses will start to treat him like Russell Westbrook. If he doesn't, that'll be fine. I have no doubt that Lebron's jumper will eventually come around, but even he hasn't been great because he goes through these stretches where he just isn't putting his imprint on

the game. This game was winnable. It was fifty fifty four at halftime, and then to start the third quarter, Anthony Davis hits a short turnaround jumper to put them up fifty six fifty four, and then Denver immediately goes on a seven oh run, and in the seven oh run, Lebron James through a pocket pass at Anthony Davis's foot and then literally did not even attempt to enter the frame in transition defense as Jamal Murray ran out for a dunk. Then he drives to the basket and smokes

a lamp right at the rim. Then he gets lazy with the entry pass two at Davis on the short roll and turns it over again to Aaron Gordon and they run out the other way. He's on this particular play.

He jogs back on defense to start, makes no attempt to get back into the frame, and then the last second he offers like a lazy contest on a corner three that goes in like like there was a seven oh run with three turnovers, a miss lay up into awful transition defense possessions that was literally almost entirely Lebron's fault.

And so you're in a winnable game on the road and you just tricked off a seven oh run to start a quarter, not because your shot wasn't falling, not because your teammates didn't do their jobs, not because it's Troy Brown Jr. Instead of Gordon Hayward or Troy Brown Jr. Instead of Buddy Healed. You went on a seven oh. The Denver went on a seven oh run because you Lebron James, We're bullshitting for a two minute stretch to

start the third quarter of a winnable game. And so then you go the rest of the third quarter, things get ugly. But then you come out in that fourth quarter and you play like Lebron and you go on a run and you get it back to seven, and then immediately Denver pulls away again because you're having to exert enormous amounts of energy to make up for your

own sloppiness. So, like we're gonna spend some time here in a minute talking about Russell Westbrook and whether or not I think he's gonna come back on Friday in some details about the trade and things along those lines. None of that matters if Lebron James and Anthony Davis don't start playing like top ten players. It's just, it's

just it doesn't matter. I've talked a lot about, you know, Lebron, excuse me, Rob and Geenie investing in this era, and look at like like there's a whole bunch of topics that we can get into on that front. But there's no point in investing in this era if Lebron ja Is and Anthony Davis aren't gonna consistently give solid effort.

If Lebron James and Anthony Davis are going to figure out what the hell is going on with their jump shots and start knocking down the same shots that every one of the great superstars in the league's making right now, what if I What have I told you, guys, are the two most important skills in the league. On defense, it's perimeter defense. On offense, it's pull up jump shooting.

If you can't as a primary ball handler knocked down a pull up jump shot, which is literally the shot that almost every single defensive scheme is designed to give up, you're not gonna win any games. And right now, Lebron isn't good enough, Anthony Davis is not good enough. It's just not fair to point fingers at the supporting cast when the top guys are not holding up their end

of the bargain. And yes they're there are going to be teams out there that have better role players, but they didn't trade the house for Anthony Davis expecting a top five player they like. They the Lakers let Alias Randall go hoping that they'd have room to sign Lebron James and another stock. The Lakers have allocated their resources in a way, and yes, Russ should bring back a couple of quality role players, but they have. They have allocated their resources in a way that depends on Lebron

James and Anthony Davis playing great, and they simply have it. Now. It's only been four games, So let's move forward under the assumption that Lebron James and Anthony Davis are going to figure things out and that the Lakers will eventually invest in that, because if they're not, then we need to have an entirely separate conversation about trading everybody, because if Lebron James and Anthony Davis aren't that good, then

what's the point of any of this. But let's move forward under the assumption that Lebron James and Anthony Davis are gonna figure things out. So would Russell Westbrook have helped the Lakers on either end of the floor tonight? I don't think so. I mean, he hasn't been good

as a primary initiator. In fact, he's been bad. He's been bad and off ball offense, and what he's done on the defensive end is better than what he did next year, but it's not up to the standard of what you're getting from Troy Brown Jr. Or Juantaskano Anderson or even Lonnie Walker. Right, So at this point, Russ wasn't the magic fix Tonight, I tweeted out before the game. I said, there's gonna be a lot of people on Twitter tonight or just in general sports talk. They're gonna

say things like the Lakers made Russ the scapegoat. He wasn't what was wrong with their Lakers. A lot of people are gonna take victory lapse on that front tonight. I saw it coming a mile away. Russ was never the issue with the Lakers. Yes, he's a bad basketball fit. Yes, there are a half dozen reasons why it's clunky, and we all saw those things before the trade was made. That I remember vividly the vast majority of Laker fans being like, why did they do this? This is obviously

not going to work. We all knew that was going to happen. But that wasn't what caused this ship to sink the way that it's been sinking. It was the players that they sent out in the deal. They lost Kyle Kuzma and excellent wing in this league, and they lost contagious called what Pope, an excellent wing in this league. And then in the ensuing salary carnch because of how much money they took back, they lost Alex Crusoe, an excellent wing in this league. That's why. That that's the why.

That's the real scapegoat here. If there's one thing that I hope happens at the end of all of this, it's that the proper amount of blame falls at the feet of Rob Polinka and Genie Buss because they did this. You know, yes, Lebron James and Anthony Davis pushed for us, but any basketball mind would have did. JJ Redick said it again tonight. J J. Reddick was like, did anybody out here think this was gonna be a good fit? Did anybody see this? Like before the trade? Did anybody

see that happening? There was kind of like an outrage when the trade was done. Rob Polinka, professional basketball talent assembler, should have been able to look at that and been like, Lebron, look, you're my guy. I respect the input. Russ isn't gonna work here, man. Any good GM in the league would

have done that. In the ensuing trade, they hemorrhaged three of their best defensive wings that all had great offensive fit and continuity with Lebron, and they sent him out the door and replaced him with Russell Westbrook, who literally is the worst player out of those four players. So and as a result the loss of those good players the influx of the lesser player, you end up with

a team that doesn't have nearly enough talent. So in this in this specific case, I expect the Lakers to play Russ on Friday, and I think that's a bad idea. Russ isn't gonna be able to fix this particular mess. The reality is at this point the team is being actively set up to fail. They sent him out there tonight against Denver with a roster that wasn't good enough. Now we talked about Lebron and Nady have to be better,

but the rosters so not good enough. And what's so so ironic about it is all the Lakers have done has made themselves look incredibly desperate, which actively sabotages their trade leverage. You know, I joked on Twitter earlier today, the Lakers are gonna end up picking from the same set of deals, if not worse than the ones they

turned down this summer. The ones they were looking at this summer was, you know, San Antonio, we're looking at you know, Doug McDermott, maybe right and um and maybe a traded player exception out of it and maybe you save a first round pick. Or we're going to Charlotte and it's gonna be Gordon Hayward and and uh, you know, Terry Rosier or Kelly U Brad Jr. And Gordon Hayward

like some combination of players from Charlotte. Or it's gonna be Buddy hild and Miles Turner, or it's gonna be boy and Magdanovich and a couple other role players from the Jazz. Those are the players that were available this summer. They turned them down because they wanted something better or the ability to negotiate a better position for the picks, because they convinced themselves, despite a year of evidence, that

the rust thing would work, and it didn't. And now they're in this position where when they're calling these teams are gonna be like, you know, I would ask for more. I'd be like theyrowing a second round pick to place like I mean, like the Lakers are desperate. They've undercut their own position. Now, let's let's try to end this on a on a positive note. So Lebron and a d have to be better. I believe they will. I don't think Lebron James forgot how to shoot. I think he.

I think the entire Laker team is in their head with the jump shots. I've seen this happen before. Many of you guys who have played basketball at any level have probably seen this before. Shooting is contagious because a lot of players struggle to distance themselves from shot result, even from within their team. And so when the team is five for five from three and you're shooting on the wing a wide open three. In the back of your head, you're like, are we gonna be five for

twenty six? You know, it gets in your head, And I believe that's affecting Lebron as well. I believe it's affecting Anthony Davis as well. Anthony Davis had a three pointer in the first half where he caught the ball completely unguarded at the top of the key, like completely unguarded, and he like hesitated and like lurched and like pump faked and then shot even though he was completely unguarded and ended up hitting the backboard before it hit the rim.

Like they're they're all in their heads right now. So let's pretend that Lebron James and Anthony Davis figure things out, they start playing at there at the higher level, if you make a trade, what ends up happening is you start to slot players better, so instead of Lonnie Walker being your third best player. And by the way, Lonny Walker has been a rare bright spot. Can't hit the three to save his life, but he's been much better defensively than he was at any point in San Antonio.

He's getting into the restricted area five times per game and making sixty five percent of him. So he's been all the downhill stuff they wanted from Russ but never got. So he's probably been their third best player. Austin Reaves is fine, but he's probably your fourth best player. You know,

Patrick Beverley is fine, he's your fifth best player. But all those guys are playing above what their ability is if you bring in let's just say, for the sake of argument, Buddy yielded Miles Turner just because it makes it easy. Now, all of a sudden, Buddy healds your third best player instead of being, you know, when he was in Sacramento, maybe their second best player. Right, Like, he's slotted properly a lot more off ball wraps off of Lebron in a d when he's running picking rolls

with Anthony Davis. Now you slop Miles Turner in at number four. Now, all of a sudden, Lonnie Walker is your fifth best player. And some of his limitations like being a little undersized, struggling to handle the basketball, sometimes struggling to shoot the basketball, Suddenly those limitations matter a little less because he's your fifth best player instead of

your third best player. You know, Austin Reeves, I really like as a role player, he's better on a team when he's the seventh best player than one of your five most important players. That's just the reality as you slot players. You know, we talked all the time, there's all these responsibilities have to be filled on the court. The stars come in and they take huge chunks of responsibility, but then there are these significant roles that need to be filled. And when you have guys that should be

playing smaller roles working more significant roles, they're underqualified. They struggle. But then when you take Buddy Heald has been in a bigger role in the last couple of years in Sacramento before he got traded, and he slot him into one of those smaller roles, he does well. Now I'm slotting Austin Reason, Patrick Beverley into even smaller roles they can they can succeed better. I think everything starts to slot better. And then this is the final part of it.

A lot of Lebron James and Anthony Davis's issues are effort related. That seven oh run that Lebron gave up to start the third quarter was literally him not caring. It was not a skill thing, It was not a basketball thing. He didn't care enough to come out and attack the game in the third quarter. Maybe if you give them a legitimate basketball roster, he'll care enough to try to impact the game. I've talked a lot of

Lebron's career. He's one of the uh most like up and down type of leaders that you could have because put him on the Lakers and he's like the best dude you could possibly have in that spot. He's going to help you through the ups and downs of the regular season. He's going to completely invest in the defensive end of the floor. He's gonna have a firm understanding of how to navigate a playoff run. You know, he

trailed in a couple of those series. He knows how to look those guys in the face and be like, I've been here before. He knows how to navigate the chess match when you get into the games of the series five, six, and seven. Lebron is such a good guy for those spots. But then when you put him in a situation where he doesn't believe he can be a bad leader. You can have sloppy stretches of basketball.

He can be passive aggressive, you know. You know it's funny because Lebron was like, Oh, I'm not gonna say what you want to say about Russ. Well, what did he say after the first game? Oh, we don't have a bunch of snipers on this team. That's kind of passive aggressive. That's kind of the kind of stuff that

he'll do. So maybe, just maybe, if you surround them with better talent, Lebron James re engages Anthony Davis, starts to to get in shape and start to figure some things out, and then you start to look like a better basketball team. But if you're not going to if you're not going to make the deal, they're just gonna continue to lose basketball games. They're gonna get more and more behind where they need to be in the standings to survive in the West. And then by the time

you do anything, it'll be too late. Like like if they if they wait another week, that's that's completely inexcusable. This deal needs to be made yesterday, or trade trade Anthony Davis. And you can't trade Lebron this year, but trade him next year. Like if if you don't, if you're not going to invest in this core, then it's time to blow things up. That's kind of where I'm

at at this point live on AMP. For those of you guys who are listening on YouTube or in the podcast feed, remember that on amp is where we are going to be live first. That is the first place you can get our post game breakdowns. For those of guys who don't know how to track that down, I have all the information on my Twitter feed. You can find the links there and follow the show. We're going to be breaking down Bucks Nets a tough game. You know,

the league is unforgiving. If you're playing bad basketball. You don't get to have a two or three game stretch of cupcakes to fix all of your problems. The Sixers and we're not gonna get to them tonight because I haven't had a chance to watch that game. Will get to them later. Um. But like the with with the Sixers, it's like they're playing bad basketball. They're bad in transition, they're struggling with some things. It's like you get the Raptors and you get your butt kicked. Oh wait, now

you have them again on Friday. So if you play the same type of basketball, you're just gonna get your butt kicked again. The Brooklyn Nets not playing good basketball. We talked a lot about this on yesterday's show. You know, in defense, in defensive rebounding percentages, one of the dead last in in uh transition defense off of turnovers, they're they're really really bad, and a bunch of different areas

of the game. And it's like he hit the Bucks tonight and you lose this game and guess what's waiting for you tomorrow. You got Luka don Chits coming to town. This is just the reality of the NBA in this era. There are no easy games. So okay, the Detroit Pistons are coming to town. You're getting Kaid Cunningham, You're getting Jade and Ivy, You're getting Boy and Vigdanovitch. You're getting a lot of talent everywhere around the league. And if you play bad basketball, you were going to lose games.

This particularly, We're gonna spend plenty of time on Broolyn here in just a second. I wanted to talk. I wanted to start with Milwaukee. You guys know my rule.

We talked about the winner first. Uh. This was it was a weird game because it was the probably the strangest first half of basketball that I've ever seen Janice play, mainly just because you know, Janice's thing is like Janice doesn't He will have blowboys and he will beat people off the dribble from time to time, especially when defenders start to get fatigued. But you don't see him, uh,

you know, just go around people. Usually goes through people, and so it's not so much about seeing a wall and then that being enough to stop you honest, you just hope that over the course of the game you might be able to cause him to miss some layups and things along those lines. But usually he's constantly trying

to plow through that wall. And in that first half, it was like he'd kind of look at Claxton or he'd look at Ben Simmons and then he would just dribble over the wing and do a dribble handoff Withdrew Holiday. He was very intentional about trying to get Milwaukee's offense running. And you know what was funny is, uh Brooklyn also played a good half of basketball. They out rebounded the Bucks in the first half. You know, Kyrie Irving had put in a great effort on the glass. He had

nine defensive rebounds. I think in the first half. There was a lot of good things. They made some threes everything was looking good for Brooklyn, but then there was this kind of weird cloud hanging over the whole thing that was, like, where when is Janice gonna try to

Janice his way through this game? And man, he hit the Jets there to start that third quarter, and Brooklyn just had absolutely nothing they could do with him, and kind of all of you Celtics fans out there who were watching that game probably had some PTSD watching him just bulldozed through every single Brooklyn Net getting foul calls, dunking the basketball, finishing at the rim NonStop, and next

thing you know, Brooklyn's ten point lead is gone. You end up losing, and Janice walks out of the arena with the smooth forty three, four and five. The best player in the world by a significant margin, in my opinion, tried for all of ten minutes in this game and executed a Brooklyn Nets team that still has a lot of problems. But we're gonna get to that in a second. Brook Lopez, um, I believe he had six blocks when I checked. I'm not sure if you got another one

before the end of the game. Didn't shoot the ball well, Brooken Brooke and Drew Holiday in particular, are having bad offensive starts to the season and it's really causing some

issues for the Bucks in spot up shooting. Um. You know that they have they finished below again from three in this particular game, that could not a shot to save their life in the first half, and that that was my biggest weakness for Milwaukee coming into this season, and it's definitely something that they're going to have to

address over the course of the season. I think that once Joe Ingles can get out onto the court, and once Chris Middleton is back out onto the court, that will go a long way to helping with that particular problem. But here in the early portion of the season it's going to be an issue for them. But if you're if you have weaknesses in certain areas of the game, you can make up for that by having strengths elsewhere. And both Drew holiday in brook Lopez had excellent defensive games.

Brook Lopez particularly, you don't get six blocks by camping underneath the basket. You get six blocks by making what I call out of area plays. It's the it's the you have a defensive responsibility on your team, and that defensive responsibility might require you to do you know this particular rotation or that particular rotation, but Brooke in many cases was going out of his area and outside of

his responsibility to make plays. And that that's how you end up with six blocks from people aren't even expecting you to be there. And again, you can make up for a lot of spot up shooting issues and problems on that front. If you are blocking shots at the rim, they give it like this, six blocks, three offensive rebounds. That's six shots you took away at the rim on one end, and three extra possessions you generated for your team on the offensive end of the flour. That's the

nine possession swing. So over nine possessions, that's that that that is the difference in this game based on a you know, a one point per possession type of offense, and the Bucks are probably gonna do a little bit better than even that. And so again, those are those little things that this team is committed to that will carry them through poor shooting, you know, because Brooklyn shot poorly as well. But this is a Brooklyn team that shot poorly and doesn't have those fundamentals to fall back

on that can carry them through games like this. So I want to give Brooklyn some credit. They they did have a much better defensive effort in the first half. I had a feeling coming into this aim that they would look good to start by. My biggest concern for them would be the length of the game and whether or not that can maintain that effort. We talked a lot about this in last night's show The when it comes to or two nights ago, it might have been last night. It was the last night we were talking

about the Warriors. When it comes to defensive effort, it does. It's not something you fix overnight because you're building habits. You're building connective tissue between you and your teammates in terms of communication and understanding when to rotate and where to rotate. Things along those lines, and most importantly, conditioning.

It is really hard to do those things. The box out so sprinting back in transition defense, the extra defensive rotations, the I don't have a man to box out, but I'm going to crash from the perimeter to secure this rebound. All of those things are not fun, so you have to convince yourself to do them. But then there's the

next phase, which is the conditioning element of it. Being capable of doing that for an entire thirty two minute game for you if you're a starter or maybe a little bit less of your role player, but in addition to having the energy to do all those things that you love to do. On offense, both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant missed a bunch of shots that they normally make in this game, particularly in that fourth quarter. Kadi had a really good look coming off a pick and roll,

wide open pull up three that he missed. Kyrie had kind of a jab step on Grayson Allen on the right wing that he makes frequently, especially when he's in a groove like he was in. Royce O'Neil missed a wide open three. There was a Katie post up on the right block where he had drew and he elevated, he was wide open and he just missed the shot.

You know, fatigue will inevitably play a role until Brooklyn builds a consistent effort on that end of the floor over games and games and games to where they build the conditioning and then it just gets baked into who you are, just like it is for Milwaukee, it's baked into their basketball identity. We do all these little things and so we can shoot twenty from three and win a basketball team against Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving because we have all these little details in our game that are

completely baked it. You know. I thought there was a really really interesting, uh, kind of like soliloquy from from Jeff Van Gundhy that you guys might have heard if you were listening to the ESPN broadcast where Joannice ripped through Roy sonny Old Kevin Dury for an and one transition lay up. I believe it was in the fourth quarter, and and he basically just said, like like, if you're going to beat the Bucks, you absolutely have to put your body on the line. It is a non negotiable.

You cannot possibly beat that guy, Johannice Antenna Coombo unless you were willing to for forty eight minutes in a regular season game or for seven games in a playoff series. Every time he's barreling down the lane towards you, you have to chest him up and take the contact. As soon as you start to get out of the way and start reaching at the basketball, he's going to beat you every single time. He's too big, he's too strong, he's too athletic. He makes every damn lay up, he

shoots free throws. Well enough. Now, you can't beat that unless you're willing to do that. And I thought it was really interesting that Jeff Van Gundy laid that out because Brooklyn was willing to do it for a half, and I would argue a half that Janice wasn't being very physically aggressive. But then over the course of that game they fell apart because they weren't willing to do it for forty eight minutes. And it might not even have been about will It might have been about conditioning.

But they have a long way to go on that front. The Nets out rebounded the Bucks in the first half, and they finished the game down fifty four to thirty seven and rebounds, which is absolutely insane. So that that's how quickly when they let go of the rope it was over for them. And and this is this is the last thing I'll say about it. This is not

the Lakers. The Lakers have legitimate talent deficiencies. After Lebron James and Anthony Davis, they have a lot of players that wouldn't even make rotations for good teams around the league. They to try hard even to compete in these games. Brooklyn is very talented. Yes, Jeff and Gunny pointed out they have some thin players. That's true. Kyrie Irvingston, Kevin Duranston, Nick Claxton is than they have some thin players on the roster, but they also have a lot of length

and athleticism and a lot of talent. They have more than enough to construct a damn good basketball team. Alright, So here's the plan for the rest of the week. Tomorrow, Brooklyn hosts I Believe Dallas Um. We're gonna be going live on AMP immediately after that game. That's the only show tomorrow. So if you want to see tomorrow's show, make sure that you get on AMP. It will be re released on YouTube later in the evening. Then on Friday morning, we're gonna be breaking down the Warriors game

from Thursday night. Okay. Then we're taking Saturday and Sunday off and getting back into things on Monday morning. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys support, and I will see you tomorrow night and day. By the volume