Hoops Tonight - LeBron James & Lakers fall to Clippers, Kyrie Irving & Mavericks stay alive

that you guys can get these shows. So the Los Angeles Lakers decided shockingly to play Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the tail end of a back to back, But they showed up to the arena and didn't bring their games with them until the second half, and unfortunately, they dug themselves in way too big of a hole.

The Clippers notch a very important win for seeding in the Western Conference, putting them in the poll position to get that five seed and end up in a matchup with the Phoenix Suns in the first round, and suddenly the Lakers are looking at potentially a trip through the play in tournament, which always carries a certain amount of risk.

And then we're also going to touch on the Dallas Mavericks down thirteen in the second half against the Sacramento Kings team that also kind of surprisingly played all their guys and they ended up notching a huge win on the strength of an improved defensive effort in the third quarter and Kyrie irving in some shot making heroics in the fourth quarter. So we're going to dive into both those games and all the ramifications. 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 so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, All right,

let's talk some basketball. So there was a very specific reason why I thought Lebron James and Anthony Davis should play in this particular game. I don't believe in playing with fate. I mean, the Warriors were playing damn good basketball in twenty one going into the play in tournament, very similar to this Lakers team. They finally ditched playing

specific lineups that were giving them problems. They went back to their core Draymond at the five, and had a ton of success and won fifteen of their last twenty games, getting healthy going into that playoff run after kind of a bizarre steph Curry tailbone injury put them into a predicament in the standings, and you know, everyone would have thought the Warriors were the most dangerous team going into that tournament. The Lakers kind of limped into that tournament.

Lebron had just barely got returned to the court, Anthony Davis, that just barely returned to the court. But here's the thing. It was a wild, crazy game and Lebron ended up hitting a three to win it, and then all of a sudden, they're in this do or die game against Memphis, who's just a big, physically imposing team, and next thing

you know, the Warriors are home on their couch. That's the risk of the play in tournament, even though the Warriors were arguably the best team in that play in tournament. But that's just you know, single game sample sizes, crazy things can happen. You just saw that in the NC

Double A tournaments. Too much shooting variants, especially in the modern NBAS with the way that teams rely on ball handling and shooting, there's just a lot of risk, and I thought Lebron and Anthony David were uniquely equipped to win this game against the Clippers. I do not think the Clippers are very good. I took them off of my top tier of contenders. I took them off of my teams that I believed could win a championship. I had eight teams, I shrunk at to seven and took

the Clippers off of their A couple of reasons. They have no real rim protection. That was a problem, Paul George being out obviously a significant issue for them in shot creation. And they just especially with the aging of that roster and a lot of their perimeter players not being overly quick. They've got a lot of wings, but guys that can't really move their feet very well. Their wings more in name only rather than in actual performance.

And you know, I just don't really think the Clippers are that good, even with as well as Kawhi Leonard has been playing, and even with the natural basketball fit of Russell Westbrook. And I just thought the Lakers could win this game. I thought if Lebron James and Anthony Davis played even with fatigue, that if they brought the necessary effort, they could win. And they just completely and

utterly totally mailed. In the first half of this game, Lebron James played literally what I believe to be the worst half of basketball he's ever played. He had three points, four turnovers. All four of his turnovers were pick sixes that immediately led to buckets on the other end for the Clippers. From a schematic standpoint, there was a very specific thing that happened to the Lakers that happens to

the Lakers every once in a while. The Lakers are one of the best equipped teams to beat switching defenses. Why because when you can beat switching defenses at the rim versus through pull up shooting, you're gonna win those battles more times than not because it's just higher percentage

shots around the rim. And when you can get switched on too smaller defenders and back them down into the basket, and now you're either finishing at the rim over smaller defenders or kicking to wide open shooters as they're having to double and swarm you around the rim. You can have a lot of success against switching defenses as the Lakers, but it requires Lebron James and Anthony Davis attacking those switches with physicality and trying to get to the rim,

which requires effort. Those of you guys who remember the game that Lebron hurt his foot in the game where he kind of popped his foot, finished the game, dominated the Dallas Mavericks in the post, and then ended up taking a month off. If you guys remember, in that game, it was a very similar dynamic. Dallas came out switching a ton of screens and Lebron James and Anthony Davis

refused to actively attack those switches at the rim. Instead, they passed out of those switches and lesser players tried to take shots. Very similar dynamic in this game. The Clippers were constantly putting smaller defenders onto Lebron James and he would not back them down to the post. He was just trying to float through the game, hoping that the strength of the roster, and that's just never going

to be the case. And so that's why it was super disappointed, because again, like, look, the Clippers won this game, and I want to give them a ton of credit. They attacked the Lakers from the opening tip, immediately came out to a big lead. Russell Westbrook was playing with a ton of energy, as you would have expected in

this situation, and Norman Powell was fantastic. He was arguably the best player on the floor in this game, and they had a lot of good But the reality is, it's like I said earlier, I don't really view the Clippers as much of a threat, and I think this is a team that, without Paul George and with some of the other weaknesses on the roster, that the Lakers can beat when they play. And that was what was frustrating.

You saw that in the second half. Suddenly Lebron's like, okay, now I'll start trying, and the Lakers locked in defensively. They were ignoring Russell Westbrook and he started to miss those same shots that he made in the first half. Anthony Davis lingering around the rim on Zoobach. They were able to press up with Jared Vanderbilt onto Kawhi Leonard and kind of get the ball out of his hands.

There was a late run in the third quarter where Lebron switched on to Kawai and had some success defending him in individual defense, and they went on a massive run and turned a twenty four point lead into a seven point lead in a matter of minutes, and it just didn't matter because they had dug themselves in too big of a hole. And that's what was so frustrating. I really genuinely felt like the Lakers were in a good position to win this game and they mailed it in.

And what's annoying about that is the only purpose to playing Lebron James and Anthony Davis because there was risk. There was enormous risk. They're older, Lebron's older, They're both dealing with injuries. By playing them, you actively risk their bodies.

But it was a risk reward factor. You're better than the Clippers, go beat the Clippers, then you get a week off because then you probably get to rest against the Jazz, and you could take Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and maybe even Saturday off. That was the trade off. But if you were going to mail it in, now you're taking all the risk on the body without any

of the advantage down the line. And now they might have taken that risk in this Clippers game only to have to play in the play in tournament anyway, if they can't go beat Phoenix on Friday and beat the Jazz, on Sunday Lebron James after he checked out of the game there in the late fourth quarter, he went down and he sat down next to Anthony Davis and you can visibly see him multiple times say that's my fault, and he's right again, he's the leader of the team

and it's I don't just blame Lebron. I thought Anthony Davis also wasn't overly physically engaged in that first half. The Clippers double teamed him on hilmost every catch. Tylu I thought had a really good game plan in this particular game, the way he doubled Anthony Davis on his face side. We talked about this a lot. Double Anthony Davis in the face. He won't beat your defense by making the kill pass. He'll just make that quick pass right back out to the wing. And he did that

a lot. D'angela Russell would like make the post entry, they'd trap him in, double him on his face. He'd just kick it back out Tod Low and there's no advantage. Right Meanwhile, Austin Reeves is standing completely unguarded in the week side corner. And if Anthony Davis handles the double with strength and makes that pass. He can beat the

double team. We talked about that, like the difference between kind of sneaking and doubling Anthony Davis from behind and the way he can kill that versus doubling Anthony Davis from the front and the way that he can really struggle with that. Also, Tylo made a really smart adjustment going completely away from Russell Westbrook in the second half. Russell Westbrook came out guns blazing in that first quarter, started four for seven, had some assists, but then he

started turning the basketball over. Then he started missing all those same shots because he's not a very good jump shooter. Russell Westbrook was actually a minus one in this game. It was a big part of the run that the Lakers went on in the third quarter. Tylo went away from him, went to Norm Powell, didn't go back to Russ the rest of the game. It's a very well

coached game, solid win for Tylu. But again, if the Lakers approached that with the requisite effort, energy and focus to start the game, they are a better basketball team than the Clippers. I feel very strongly about that. I know some of y'all might not might not agree, but I feel very strongly about that, and they mailed this

one in and it's really unfortunate. I do want to talk about one bass keball thing that I thought was glaring from this particular game, and that was the Lakers point of attack defense, because they go on this massive run right in the third quarter, they cut it down to seven or eight points or whatever it was, and then Norman Powell comes into the game and just starts

obliterating the Lakers defense at the point of attack. Now, when we talk about point of attack defense, that has to do with stopping dribble penetration, and there's two different ways to do that, because it's in pick and roll or an ISO and ISO more frequently you'll see it in semi transition. A lot of Laker missed shots would lead to Norman Powell dribbling the ball up the floor and then just hitting the jets and beating someone off the dribble. Right, But it's in individual defense. Point of

attack defense is sliding your feet and flattening out drives. Right, You're not going to completely contain the ball, but if you can force it to be a diagonal route that kind of cuts through the paint but kind of goes back out to the perimeter. That's great defense. But if it's a straight line drive and they get a head of steam going downhill, you're gonna engage Anthony Davis at the rim, which is going to cause all sorts of

havoc on the backside, whether that's kicking the shooters. Zoobak killed them on the offensive glass in this game, and usually he kills Anthony Davis by burying him in position battles. That wasn't the case in this game. He killed the Lakers on the glass in large part because of Anthony Davis getting pulled away from the rim in rim protection

situations because of dribble drives. And then the second part of it is in pick and roll, and it's about fighting over the top of screens with physicality once again, so guys can't get completely downhill. The Lakers had a horrible point of attack defense in this game, and the reality is, as we look closer at it, that's their one big weakness. I talked a lot about how after the deadline we have to learn about the Lakers from scratch.

They're effectively a brand new team. Still to this day, I see people on Twitter complaining, Oh, why are the Lakers getting so much attention. Why are the Lakers getting so much attention? They're different team now, So whatever you thought over the previous year and a half about what they could and could not do, is it completely irrelevant anymore? They have coming into night tonight. They have the second

best record in the league post deadline. They were seven and one when Lebron James played seven and one in their last eight games, best defense in the league, and a top five rebounding team, and they had two guys like coming in this back to back Lebron James played at a top ten level and then Anthony Davis has been playing at a top ten level for over a month now. They are a legitimate, bona fide championship contender.

That's why they're getting talked about. And yes, also they're the Lakers, and they get a lot of attention obviously, but they're playing at an extremely high level. But in this stretch I've been trying to learn about them, and there's been a lot of good Jared Vanderbilt and what he can do defensively, Ruby Hotchemer as kind of a mix up that can guard some of the bigger forwards,

and a better offensive option. The offensive skill in the backcourt and the different punches that Austin Reeves and D'angela Russell and Dennis Schroeder can throw. The dynamic of Lebron James and Anthony Davis that we've been seeing for years, and what they can do when they're both engaged on both ends of the floor. Tons of good. But there's one thing that has stood out bad to me from

the beginning. They have one guy on the roster at the guard position that can consistently stay in front of the basketball, and that's Dennis Schroeder, and he had a pretty rough night tonight. But Deangela Russell not a good point of attack defender, Austin Reeves average at best point of attack defender, Maliked Beasley not a good point of attack defender. Troy Brown Junior not a good point of

attack defender. And so they're constantly giving up these driving lanes and it's blowing up their defense and causing them all sorts of problems. Now, to be clear, every team has weaknesses. The Milwaukee Bucks they really struggle with half court shop making, so they're not a very good half court offense. That issue gets exacerbated for them in the playoffs when teams are allowed to be more physical with Jannis.

We've seen that time and time again. We saw that big time hurt them in the Boston Celtics series whenever they couldn't get out in transition. The Boston Celtics still to this day struggle with decision making and execution decision making. In the flow of the game, they're making good rim decisions.

They have a lot of guys that are capable of making good decisions, but too frequently the entire team loses sight of the right way to play and they can spiral into a really negative direction, and then they can really struggle with execution at the end of games from time to time. Although they've had a better season than they did last year. The Sixers, just like the Lakers, really bad at the point of attack and bad in transition defense. The Nuggets bad defensive personnel at every single level.

The Sun's extremely thin on the wing, and they're bad at the point of attack. Joshua cogis really their only there. They're only good point of attack defender. The Warriors, they are an incredibly small and unathletic team compared to the rest of the league. And then the Lakers, like we've been talking about bad point of attack defense, and they also can struggle in transition. So it's not a death sentence. It's not a death sentence because all of these teams

have weaknesses. We haven't had a perfect team in the NBA really since since the Warriors in twenty seventeen, in two and eighteen, right, all these teams have weaknesses. You go down the line, you know, the twenty nineteen Raptors not a great playmaking team. The twenty twenty Lakers had were really poor three point shooting and half court offense team. Twenty twenty one Bucks poor three point shooting and half

court offense team. You get the drill. Win a title with a weakness, but you have to have your strengths overcome that weakness. And when you mail it in and dig yourself in that big of a hole, you're gonna run into that problem. It's hard to overstate how much the simple dynamic of the Lakers being incapable of containing Norman Powell on the drive and that third quarter ruined their comeback because they had they had complete control of that game, They had solved Kawai, they had pressured the

shooters enough to get them to start missing shots. They had a lot of stuff figured out except for the simple fact that they couldn't guard Norman Powell. And then guess what incomes Bones Highland and he starts causing them the same exact problems in pick and roll, getting downhill too easily and knocking down shots and layups as he gets downhill towards the wren. So again, they can overcome it.

It's not a death sentence, but that's their weakness. If the Lakers end up losing a playoff series, I believe it will in large part come down to their guards and their inability to contain the basketball. And that's matchups become an issue right as they're starting to look at specific teams that they might have to play. You know, if they end up in that sixth seed, that's a big point of attack team. That's a lot of deer, in fact, deer and fox attacking you downhill. That's a

lot of Molique monk attacking you downhill. That's something that they're going to have to deal with, right So it's something to keep an eye on with them. As is always the case with basketball, matchups end up determining everything and if you end up catching a matchup where your strengths aren't as strong as they usually are, and your weaknesses are on display and can get attacked. You can end up in a lot of trouble in a seven

game series. Last note on the Lakers before we move on, if I wanted to go glass half full, their defense was frightening in that third quarter with Anthony Davis on the floor again, they bought a lot of leeway in the point of attack when they're with their starting groups right because with Lebron, Anthony Davis and Jared Vanderbuilt on the floor, they're so long and athletic, and they have such a high basketball like you on that back line that even if the guards are having problems, they can

contain that. All that is why the Lakers have the number one defense post deadline despite having a bad point of attack defense. They're excellent everywhere else defensively, they're excellent on the wing defensively, and they're an excellent rim protection team with good health defenders. So they're gonna they're gonna still be an effective defense, but that point of attack

thing is going to become an issue. The other big positive once again, Lebron James in that second half, I thought looked fantastic after what was the worst half that I've seen him play in ages. In the first half, he was knocking down jump shots all over the floor. He was bullying all of the Clippers players to the rim. You saw that dynamic like again against switching defense is just attack the rim. That's literally all you have to do.

You're bigger, you're stronger, you're more athletic. You're gonna cause them a boatload of problems there. It was just too little, too late. They didn't get into that until late in the game. But Lebron does look good. I'm still optimistic about the Lakers. I'm just genuinely disappointed at having made the decision to put their bodies on the line tonight. They didn't actually bring the effort to make that worthwhile. But show out to the Clippers. They wanted their revenge game.

You know that they've dominated this matchup for a long time. There's no rivalry between the Lakers and the Clippers because the Clippers just whooped the Lakers ass every single time. I genuinely believe the Lakers are a better team now post deadline, but they need to demonstrate that on the court, you want to flip the script with your rivalry with the Clippers, Go beat them. You're better than them, Go

beat them. So maybe maybe don't just float through a basketball game and put yourself in a position where you're gonna lose. But I mean, the Clippers are destined for a first round exit against Phoenix. They just they just don't have enough advantages in that series. Good on them for winning this battle for the five seed. I'm impressed with their competitiveness and their want and fire to get this done. But they're they're headed for a quick loss

in that first round series in my opinion. Also, I mean, I talked a lot about bad Lakers in this one. I want to cut them slack. Kawhi Leonard played twenty four minutes in that second half. He did so because he hasn't played since Saturday. Okay, the Lakers have played what that was, I believe, their fifth game in seven nights or fifth game and eight nights, I believe. So it's been a different level of physical exertion for the Lakers. That certainly played a role. But that's how much better

I think the Lakers are than the Clippers. I think there's so much better than the Clippers that if they actually brought even just a portion of effort with all that fatigue, they should have been able to beat them. All right, let's move on to Kings MAVs. So this was looking like trouble for the Mavericks in that early second half. Once again, the Kings in a game you wouldn't have thought so on the tail end of a

back to back this late in the season. The Kings beat the crap out of the Pelicans last night, you would have expected them to rest their guys tonight. Nope, played everybody and tried to beat the MAVs, and they were up thirteen in the second half, and it was this close to look him like they were gonna let

go of the rope. But honestly, I was really impressed, especially like the story of this game is Kyrie Irving in the fourth quarter, his shot making, bombing threes, that super crazy hierarching three in the left corner right in front of the King's bench. Obviously, Kyrie's fantastic, We're gonna talk about him here in just a minute. But I thought the game turned in that third quarter on the defensive end of the floor. If they just swarmed on

the basketball. They every time Demonus Sabonis caught the ball in the post, they just swarmed him and did a good job of flipping the angles that they were double teaming from. Because Sabonis is such a smart player, he always has a feel for where the doubles are coming from, Sabonis was confused. He was constantly looking around trying to identify where the ball, where the doubles were coming from. He was getting the ball knocked loose, so he wasn't

putting the passes on time, on target. And then you know, you saw some of that back to back affecting their legs as well when they just couldn't knock down the open threes that they were generating. Dead giveaway for fatigue on wide open threes is hitting the front rim, and you'd see Kevin Herder hit the front rim on a shot. You'd see Davion Mitchell hit the front rim on a shot. You'd see Keegan Murray hit the front rim. Right, That's

that's always the dead giveaway. They ended up shooting just thirty two percent from three in the game, and then Kyrie Irving just an absolute masterclass in that fourth quarter nineteen points you know, I saw once again people talking about the Kyrie Irving trade, and again there's always a

difference between the trade and the player. I came into the same issue with the Russell Westbrook thing like, don't get me wrong, Russell Westbrook and his struggles certainly exacerbated some problems for the Lakers because you couldn't bring a certain level of talent to overcome the talent that went out. But it was the outgoing talent that damaged the Lakers.

Just It's plain and simple. It was the loss of Kuzma, the loss of KCP, the loss of Alex Carusoe that undercut the Lakers to the point where they couldn't even hover around five hundred with Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the floor. That was the biggest problem. Similar thing with the MAVs has nothing to do with Kyrie Irving. Just like how the you take Andrew Wiggins off the Warriors,

suddenly they become an untenable, small and unathletic team. Right you take Doria Finney Smith off of the Mavericks, they overnight become an untenable, unathletic and undersized team. It's just a fact and you know, I get the one thing I want to point out here. Kyrie Irving has been fantastic since coming to the MAVs. He's been undeniably their best player. He has resoundingly outplayed Luca since coming to

the MAVs. He has played like a bonafide superstar, and I'd argue he's been their best defender on the perimeter since coming to the MAVs. In the games that I've watched, and you see it in the numbers, they have been outscoring teams resoundingly with Kyrie Irving on the floor since the trade and just getting bludgeoned every time he's off the floor. He's won three games for the MAVs without

Luca Entirely. Kyrie has played like a bonafide superstar and has done everything that he's been asked to do since coming to the Mavericks. So if you're telling their story, you talk about ownership, you talk about the front office. Mark Cuban had this lame ass quote that he put out today basically saying that he blamed Jalen Brunson's parents

for the fact that he didn't sign with them. No, you tried to pay him like twenty million a year when he is a bona fide all star guard that even the Nicks goot for a discount at the whatever it was twenty five million a year average. Like in the NBA, if you do what Jalen Brunson can do, you're worth thirty million. End of story. Ask you know, ask Jamal Murray. Jalen Brunson is every bit as good

as Jamal Murray, if not better. And Jamal Murray's making thirty plus million a year no matter what you make, you sign him because you can trade him. Losing the asset for nothing was completely inexcusable. That was step one in their demise. And then obviously they gave up a ton of assets for christeps person because there's been other mistakes along the way, but that Jalen Brunson one was a gigantic mistake. And then as a result, you had

to go get a replacement for Brunson. In the process give out, give up your best athlete and your best perimeter defender who also can knock down a three point shot when he's wide open. That's what did them in. But I mean, like the Kyrie fit is perfect. Luca obviously has a lot to kind of look back at after this season in terms of his attitude, in terms of his defensive approach, in terms of the way he

cares for his body. There's a bunch of stuff that Luca's got to evaluate after the season because he's plateauing. Luca is plateauing for sure as a player. There's stuff that he's got to figure out. But the Luca Kyrie partnership is perfect basketball fit. And you've seen that offensively with how well this team can score the basketball with the two of them on the floor. They all they have to do is supply them with the requisite sizing

athleticism in the front court. This year's pointless. I mean, they're not completely out of it. They've got a tough game against the Bulls coming up, I think on Friday, and then they play the Spurs, So you've got to find a way to beat the Bulls. And then Oklahoma City has Utah and Memphis, so you've got to beat the Bulls and then beat the Spurs, and then you need okayc to lose to at least one of Utah and Memphis for them to get in. But even if they do get in, they get in as the ten seed.

Then you run into the issue where you've got to go on the road in the playoffs against either Minnesota or New Orleans, which is going to be two teams that are gonna have massive physical advantages over Dallas. So it doesn't really bode well for them there either. But I am not down on the Mavericks long term because they have two of the best offensive players in the

league in a straightforward path to fix this roster. But make no mistake, they are in this predicament because of Mark Cuban, and they are in this predicament because of the front office. It is not because of Kyrie Irving. And if you're blaming Kyrie, it's because of some other narrative goal that you have. He has been so freaking good since coming to the MAVs. Ask any MAVs fan, anybody who's actually watching that team do you blame Kyrie? You won't find a single one because because he's held

up his end of the bargain. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. The game plan is of right now, we're taking tomorrow off. We're gonna be back with Friday. On Friday with Carson to kind of break down a bunch of scenarios going into the weekend, and then if I'm not mistaken, we're going Saturday morning covering the Friday night slate, and then on Sunday afternoon. We're not one hundred percent sure exactly what we're doing, but we're gonna do some kind of live show after

the end of the slate on Sunday. I believe all the games end at about three pm Pacific times. To keep an eye on that, don't don't forget to follow me on Twitter to get show announcements. Just you guys know when it's coming. But yes, I appreciate you guys so much, and I will see you guys on Friday morning. The volume