Hoops Tonight - LeBron James DOMINATES, LA embarrasses Zion & New Orleans, Tyrese Haliburton will be "all-time great," Giannis upset

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restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. Terms at sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com slash Basketball terms. All right, wellcun hoops and I hear at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody for the last time. I hope all of you guys have had a great day. We've done two additional videos today. Earlier today we did add Brendan Klean from Lockdown Suns on the show, and we did a deep dive on the Phoenix Suns. You

can find that video back there. We also did a breakdown of Pacers bucks that you guys can find on the feed. In this video, we're just gonna talking about the Los Angeles Lakers behind just a phenomenal performance from Lebron James thirty points on twelve shots, four to four from three, eight assists, zero turnovers as the Lakers go

up by forty plus. He sits the entire fourth quarter, dominant performance for the Lakers, who are heading to meet the Pacers on Saturday in the NBA Cup Championship Game. We're gonna break it down. You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel would mean a lot to me if you guys would scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under

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lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So you know, sometimes there's this thing that can happen in a basketball game where one player reaches such an insanely high level that it actually SAPs the other team of confidence, and it actually trickles down the roster and then everybody just starts playing poorly. It's not to say that there isn't a team effort, but sometimes there's just a way of a player can carry himself to where it seems

to sap the other team of belief. It's like snatching their hearts, so to speak. Tonight, Lebron James snatched the heart of the New Orleans Pelicans early and often from that slip that he had down to Herb Jones, that post up where he drew the fall, just proving like, hey, your main guy, Yeah, he's too small, he can't guard me right, And then to oh, you're gonna drop back and give me this shot, Well, I've been working on and I'm shooting over forty percent on it this year.

I'm knocking it down. Oh your best player, Zion Williamson. Yeah, I know how to read his game and I don't trust his ability to knock down an outside shot. So I'm just gonna beat him to spots right outside the restricted area and take charges and sap him of his

confidence and completely remove him from the game. He dominated every single facet of this game, honestly, like nine for twelve from the field, four for four from three, zero turnovers, eight assists, thirty points, didn't even play the fourth quarter. It was I'm completely at a loss for words. I've been saying this all season long, but you know what have I said? The Lakers got hit by a really unfortunate string of injuries, right. They lost all their high

motor athletes. Cam Reddish got hurt, Rueya Tchamura got hurt, Jared Vanderbilt didn't start playing until a couple of games ago. The bottom fell out in all of their athleticism, and suddenly it's like Austin and Dilo look on athletic right, you know, because they're not playing alongside other high motor athletes Lebron James and Anthony Davis, they can ebb and flow in their effort during the regular season. So when they wouldn't bring effort, they would look really really bad.

And I kept saying, like, these are really important archetypes that they need give them time, Like Lebron looks great, And what did I always say? Like Lebron looking great is actually more of a positive trend and is more meaningful than anything having to do with some of this O the other stuff that we've seen right now, Do the Lakers have some stuff to work out before the postseason in terms of that two and three spot, Yeah,

which we'll talk about in a little bit. But within the regular season, I just concerned with the stuff that I was seeing earlier. This is just natural ebbs and flows that you see during an NBA regular season that kind of tends to go around with your strength of schedule and with your injuries. The Lakers have played one of the toughest schedules in the league this year. They've played like twenty three games, and eighteen of them have

been against teams that are five hundred or better. And so when you look at the kind of ball that they were playing, some of the injuries that they had, they looked a little less capable than what they really are capable of doing. Right, But the big silver lining under all of that was Lebron was playing some of the best basketball of this late phase of his career, and that matters more to this team's ultimate ceiling than

anything else. I think he's playing at the highest level that he's played since the twenty twenty season when they won the title in that season. Now, again, the scoring is down a little bit, right, He's at twenty five points per game, but that has way more to do with just the way the team is organized from the stand point of having two skill guards that are taking

a lot of shots. Right. They're also in a five out system this year for the majority of their offensive possessions, which is more read and react and more shares the load among the rest of the players in the team. But he's actually shooting his highest true shooting percentage since twenty fourteen, when he was with the Miami Heat. He's

shooting over forty percent from three. His jump shots worth like like like a point of one point one points per shot, which is like over twenty percent higher than it was last year. He's just playing at a much much higher level than he has in the last couple of seasons, which is a very very encouraging note for what this Laker team can eventually achieve. Like, here's the thing. If they keep racking up wins, which again they're going

to have to maintain this level of play. They do have an easier schedule down the stretch of the season that will help. But if they can maintain this level of play, he has a chance to enter into the MVP conversation with the job that he's doing on both ends of the floor. I wanted to hit a couple of specific things that he did in this game. I thought the job he did on Zion Williamson removing him

from the game changed the dynamic early. Zion Williamson's dribble penetration and his ability to pass the basketball is one of them the most important elements of that Pelicans offense and Zion is such a weird player type that there's only a handful of guys that really can defend him well.

But Lebron's one of them. Because he's not bigger and stronger than Lebron, hed Lebron has the ability to anticipate his movements and to beat him to spots, and that has gone a long way in this particular matchup, and he's consistently looked pretty good guarding Zion on the ball the over the top shooting. One of the things I've talked about with the Pelicans is they're an aggressive ballscreen defense.

They bring Jonas Valenciunas up to the level in a lot of cases, and they're really aggressive in help with Zion and Brandon Ingram on the backside. And the Lakers have some issues with weak side shooting, which we'll talk about because the shooting actually turned around for the Lakers in a big way in this game. But one of the most important elements to this Laker offense succeeding against

elite defenses is over the top shot making. Why does that matter because we talk about spacing all the time, right and one of the best ways to beat spacing issues is to shoot over the top spacing primarily has to do with your ability to find driving lanes and to get into the rim. And so when teams pack the paint, you have to beat them with the jump shot, either at the ball or on the weak side with kickouts. And I thought his over the top shooting went a

long way right. Like, the game kind of got off to a weird start, Lakers defense dominated early, Pelicans came back on some turnovers, and the Lakers were doing a bad job of boxing out. The Pelicans were crashing a

lot out of the corners and getting offensive rebound put backs. Right, Lebron hits a freaking heater in that second quarter and just builds that double digit deficit back up and as soon as it got there again, that was where the Lakers kind of regained their confidence and just ran away with the game from there. And then in that third quarter, I thought he did a really nice job. You know, we talk a lot about Tyrese Haliburton and playing with

pace and playmaking. That's a lot of what Lebron was doing in that third quarter, bringing the ball up with like real verve, like getting downhill, causing all the Pelicans to kind of coalesce around him, and he's dumping it off to D'Angelo Russell for three. He's throwing kickout Passesorian Prince in the corner every single time Anthony Davis breaks open at the rim. Here's another lob oh d Lo makes a back cut off of a backscreen. Lebron hits him off with the bounce pass like he just was

torching them by making plays, but he was. Those passes become available as a product of his rim pressure in the amount of pace that he was playing with. Took care of the basketball too. Obviously, the zero turnoversus is important with that Laker defense. I can struggle sometimes when they're defense. They've actually been better in transition this year than they were last year, which is going to be vitally important for the Tyrese Haliburton matchup, obviously. But I mean,

here's the thing, guys. The Lakers are on the rise, eighth best record in the league now, despite their injuries, despite the schedule, They've won three straight games against five hundred or better teams. They have nine wins against five hundred better teams, which is now tied for the most in the NBA with the Boston Celtics. They have the third best defense in the league over the last ten games.

And this shooting progression thing is a real deal, because do I think the Lakers are a good shooting team. Probably not, but I think they're an average shooting team. Austin Reeves is a good shooter. Daniel Russell is a good shooter. Torrian Prince is a good shooter. Lebron James for the majority of his career outside of last season in twenty fifteen, good shooter. Right, Like, They've got guys off the bench bench that can knock down shots. Gabe Vincent is a good shooter. Ruey hot Chimura is a

good shooter. They have shot atrociously bad this season, and

that's the thing. Like, I don't expect them to be one of the top ten three point shooting teams in the league, but they should be in the middle, right, And so what led the lot in this to this positive regression, in my opinion, is gaining confidence from their leader and then driving energy and confidence from their defense, and that flowing into better shot quality and just overall, you know, like just the attitude and energy that they

play with. And I think that's gonna be important because You're gonna see more and more teams do what the Phoenix Suns did in that second half, do what the Pelicans did tonight, which is packed the paint and forced guys to knock down shots, which they did. Now, again, don't overreact to regular season trends in either direction. Am I here? What did I say before the season? I said I saw the Lakers as the fourth best championship contender,

behind the Nuggets, the Bucks, and the Celtics. Right, I've swapped the Celtics and the Bucks because they think the Celtics are playing some better basketball. But I had the Lakers at number four. Okay, I'm not like after their bad start, where what were they five and seven at one point? If I remember correctly, three and five? There were somewhere below five hundred there after, like eight to ten games or something like that. I said, I don't

change my opinion about the Lakers at all. Still in the same spot, I don't think this team can win a title unless one of two things happens. Either Anthony Davis takes an offensive leap back to where he was in the bubble, which he's capable of doing, or they make a trade at the deadline. I believe they will make a trade, and I believe that trade will push them over the top into that conversation with the Nuggets and Celtics. But again, you don't overreact to regular season trends.

There will be a stretch again soon where the Lakers have some guys banged up and they play some tough games on their schedule, and their effort goes down a little bit and they'll drop three out of five games, because that's just what happens in the NBA regular season. But this team was awesome after the deadline last year, was awesome in the postseason, and I do believe that

they're capable of being awesome again this season. It just if they're going to reach the Nuggets level, if they're going to reach the Celtics level, in my opinion, they're going to have to push their chips in and upgrade that D'Angelo Russell position into a really good two way player.

But that's again a problem for the deadline. If they have their health, especially with those athletes, if they have Ruyatcha Murray and Cambrettis and Jared Vanderbilt available and healthy, they're gonna win a lot of regular season games, and a lot of the issues they had early was a lack of athleticism which stemmed from injuries to a core position group, which was under discussed in my opinion, in a lot of platforms. I wanted to do one last shout out for Anthony Davis because he gets a lot

of criticism for his offensive inconsistency, which I think is legitimate. However, that was just a ridiculous defensive performance. I swaar just in the third quarter. He blew up like six plays at the rim what looked like easy layups that he turned into misses. And like, again, his defensive consistency has to be factored in here, Like a night like what ad just had defensively is worth a twenty five thirty point scoring night, you know, Like if you get twenty

seven out of CJ. McCollum, is that more impactful than what Anthony Davis did defensively tonight, Like that's up for debate. And again, those are just the kinds of things that we have to factor in when we're having these conversations like Anthony Davis, like heller h Hell or high water,

He's going to be impactful. There's a scale there, some nights he's less so than others, but like when he's locked in defensively, it's one of the most impactful things that you'll see from a player in this league, and his ability to anchor that Laker defense and on the glass. I'm not gonna talk about the Pelicans tonight because it's just not the right night to talk about him. They like, there's not really anything you can take away from that.

They're six and four in their last ten games, but they're three and four in their last ten games against anybody that's not the Kings. They've had their number, but they've had some bad losses too, like the lost of the Bulls. They're like, I want to do a deep dive on the Pelicans. I just want to wait a little bit until a different night. Tonight's not the night. The simplest way to break down this particular game was that the Bucks just could not guard Tyrese Haliburt no

matter what they tried. Every time they tried low drop, he rose up into a pull up three and he beat them with that. Every time they tried high drop, he consistently made that pocket pass to Miles Turner, who was amazing in this game, catching and finishing at the rim also was amazing on the defensive end of the floor, protecting the rim. He hit some shots in picking pop situations as well. Miles Turner was fantastic, and that to me is like the one of the most fundamental pieces

of beating that specific coverage. In the high drop. It's like a softer version of putting two on the ball, and so as that pocket pass is opened, that player has to be able to score and make reads out of it. Miles Turner was fantastic, but low drop he beat him with the pull up three, high dropp he beat him with the pocket pass. When they switched, he was able to score on Brook Lopez. And then when they went to the zone, the Pacers did a good job of getting the ball to the middle of the floor.

Bruce Brown did a really nice job making those little pop shots in there. He's been good at that shot since he was with the nets and that middle of the floor, not just the mid range shot making, but having a player there that can make quick decisions is a fundamental part of scoring against a two three zone. And the Pacers just executed extremely well against every single coverage the Bucks used, and it just came down to Tyrese Halliburton and the fact that the Bucks couldn't do

anything with him. It was interesting too, like down the stretch, they go to the zone to just try to make somebody else beat them, right, but again, against a team with that much offensive skill, it's not easy to get stops of the zone defense. And that's when we saw

Bruce Brown get off. Literally there were two random possessions in that zone stretch where they went to man, and on both of those possessions, Tyree's just beat him in they came of the high drop coverage with brook Lopez, he just beat them with that pocket pass to Miles Turner. And then it's like then down the stretch, brook Lopez just switches right and Tyree's just quickly just tells everybody go to their spot. They run two guys at the corner,

two guys of the wing. Tyree's goes to the top of the key Boom boom hits him with a move to the right, gets all the way to the rim, get into Brooks body to protect the basketball, and finishes on the right end of the rim. You guys might remember to play at the very beginning of the game where Brook Lopez switched, he went to the left side. They cleared the side this time that everyone went away

to give him the entire side of the floor. Hit him with the same kind of dribble combination, got all the way around him and finished on the right side of the rim, and then late he'd the final play the dagger on that left wing. It was a high drop coverage possession and he kind of pulled the ball out to the further to the left, which caused Brook

to go with him. His on the ball defender basically peeled off, and that's when he hit that step back, which he's been doing a lot against Biggs when they come out in that coverage, especially going to his left, especially on the left wing. He can get a lot of separation with that, and he handles the ball really well with his left hand, hits the step back three and that really fundamentally is the problem. You can't run any coverage against him because he is a counter for

all of it. Right if you run any sort of aggressive coverage, so like a blitz or a high drop or a show or a double team, in any sort of switch situation, he's going to be each with the pass. If you run a low drop. He's going to beat you with pull up a three point shooting may two

of them. You guys might remember the play. Or he was talking to Dame saying like I can do that too, right, Like that's what he did on those possessions, basic lower drop coverage, coming over the top of the screen, knocking down a pull up three when they switch. He can beat bigs on switches. He's been beating bigs on switches like damn near a point and a half per possession

all season. He's just outrageously good at organized modern NBA offense and like still hasn't turned the ball over this week. He's confident and cocky and talking shit and like, guys, this is the this is you know, sometimes in the NBA we see guys take a leap, right, You're like, oh, look at Austin Reeves, Like this was a guy who was undrafted, probably should have been in a early second round pick, but certainly not any sort of lottery guy.

Holy shit, he's like a really good NBA player, right, Or you're like, it's like Daron Fox, he's taking a leap this year, Like he's gone from like, you know, a lower level star to like one of those guys that's kind of like just below the superstar level, right, you know, like we see these rises that take place in the NBA, but every once in a while we see an all time great rising from the pack. Right. We just recently saw this with Nikola Jokicch and it's like,

holy shit, nobody can guard this guy. And we are literally watching that with Tyres Haliburton. This is the guard version of Nikola Jokicch. Nobody can guard the guy. He is every single play type. When you make him a score, he's scoring well over a point per possession, every single play type. When you make him a passer, he's passing to guys in good position and they're like little things

like Obi toppin Limited player with the Knicks. But he's found a role on this team just by running his damn lane and transition that ridiculous reverse lob that he caught from Tyres Alliburton. If you watch Isaiah Jackson has a nice contest of Dame at the rim and you see Obi top and just starts sprinting off the left side of the floor, just running as fast as he can,

and Tyree's gets the ball every single time. Someone is open up the floor, he makes the kick ahead pass leads him perfectly towards the rim for the reverse dunk. This is the rise of an all time great. That is what we are watching. It's like everyone's talking about the Steve Nash comparisons. It's like Steve Nash plus like real scoring, aggression, more, you know, athleticism in terms of

lateral quickness. He's got. The jump shooting is insane. Obviously Steve Nash was a great jump shooter as well, but it's like that, but just stretched out into like more of a dynamic athletic player. Right, It's like, get on board, guys. This is this is not just another hot streak. This is a guy that all of the best players in the NBA are struggling to guard right now. Is he gonna light everybody on fire to the extent he did

the Bucks? Probably not, because the Bucks have some issues at the point of attack, which we'll talk But the meat and potatoes of what he's doing is replicable at all levels of the NBA. Even made some defensive plays in this game, which he's been a bad defensive player

this season. But as a team, the Pacers are kind of rounding into form, and that, to me is the key because outside to that third quarter run, if you go back to the first half of this game and both halves of the Boston Celtics game, they're playing good defense. They're playing good defense. And I talked about in our

Pacers deep dive last week. I think it was after the Heat game, if I remember correctly, I talked about how like they have the personnel to at least be okay because of all their speed, and like they do have guys who can defend at the point of attack, like Bruce Brown and Aaron Nesmith who's been amazing in these last two games. And so like they've got guys who can take the top, top end personnel. They have speed off the ball, Miles Turner can protect the rim.

They are capable of being a better defensive team than they've shown to this point in the season. They've shown it this week and it's led to wins and now they have an opportunity to play for the NBA Cup on Saturday. Now, the offensive glass is still an issue. That was something that was an issue all game, and obviously in the long run, that's gonna be something they're gonna have to address by just more wing basically upgraded

versions of Obi top and Aaron Niesmith. Right, but those are big picture conversation about the Indiana Pacers right within the scope of this season. They can defend better than they have and the offense is completely and utterly unguardable. And Tyrey Saliburton is playing like a superstar and he's here to stay. Guys, this is not a short term thing. Jump on the bandwagon this dude. He's on the Steph track. He's on the Jokis track. He is headed towards top

tier superstardom. That is what we are seeing. Just outplayed Jason Tatum, Jannisintennan, Kuombo, Dame Lillard all in this week in high stakes games. And not to mention he's got some of that Steph thing going on, where like he's just incredibly fun to watch. Like I said, a shout out a couple of other quick pacers, Miles Turner, like I said, amazing in this game, protecting the rim and

working out of the role. Aaron Nesmith, his possessions on Chris Middletony just flat out he raised him from the game. On Giannis, I thought he did a pretty good job. He's giving up a ton of physical advantage there, and Giannis got him a few times, but for the most part, he picked him up full court, applied ball pressure, disrupted his rhythm, got some stops. I thought he was really good.

And then that bench group that Isaiah Jackson with TJ McConnell and Ben matherin, like that group is defending really well, and the TJ McConnell's just organizing them and making good plays. And TJ McConnell is deceptively like like he's a guy that, like a lot of people don't think of as a great athlete, but he's super fast and like he can beat people off the dribble, and that to me is like the start of it. Right, it's beating people off

the dribble. He's got a good little ten foot drifting fade away, and then he's a great passer and that just gives him the ability to organize that unit. And then all of those guys are flying around on the

defensive end of the floor. This again, I said after our last Pacers deep dive that right now they're just an exciting team, but if they want to make some real noise, they have to defend better than they have they have this week, and suddenly they just beat the two best teams in the Eastern Conference and they're gonna have a chance to play for the NBA Cup on Saturday. On the Bucks front, if it looked to you like the Bucks couldn't guard in transition, that's not just a

Pacers issue. Like we saw this all this game, not just on missus and steels, but made baskets. The Pacers are just running down the floor and getting wide up in shots. They're not getting matched up. They're not sprinting back. Bad transition defense principles right, Like transition defense is simple. You sprint back basket first, then you fan out. You match up with anybody in a transition play. You don't look for your man, you look for any man when

you settle. If you can get back in time and you have opportunities to switch back to your matchup, great, But in transition pushes you have to just get matched up. You have to communicate. They're not very good at it. And by the way, Milwaukee allows opponents to play in transition on eighteen percent of their possessions, which ranks dead

last in the NBA. Significant issue in this game. And then the point of attack defense is something I've been I'm not the only guy, but everyone's been preaching about all season, which is like, can dam and Malik Beasley defend well enough at the point of attack to give your defense a chance to be good enough to compete for a title? And the answer is no. To put it simply, I've said this about the Bucks and the Lakers all season, like upgrades at that point of attack

position is what their season basically hinges on. And if you think about it, like against over the the dregs of the regular season, you can be a good defense if you're good on two of the three levels. Now, what are the three levels of defense? Point of attack, ball screen defender, weak side defense like rotations and help side, right,

those are the three layers. The Bucks are excellent at the rim in their pick and roll defense, and they're excellent in rotation and in help right, so, and then the fourth level would be defensive rebounding, right, But I'm just talking about actually guarding the plays themselves, But defensive rebounding is an important element of that, right. But the Bucks are great on those two levels, but they're really

weak at the point of attack. And that can give you a good defense, or at least a passable defense over the course of the regular season. But against these types of teams, you have to be great at all three levels. And that's why, like, like, it'll be really interesting to see who wins this Lakers Pelicans game, because the Pelicans are excellent at the point of attack, excellent in help, but bad in terms of their rim protection in ball screen defense. Because of Jonas Vallecunis right, the

Lakers have players for all three levels. Now that Jared Vanderbilt is healthy, like you're gonna see Jared Vanderbilt on Tyres Alliburn. They're good in health, They're good at the ram. They've been one of the best defenses over the last month in the league. I have to look, but last time I checked, they were like third in the league over the last ten to fifteen games. So the Lakers are going to be interesting a challenge for Tyres, but

we'll see when we get there. But you to have any hope of guarding Tyres Haliburton, you have to be good at the point of attack. You have to be good in your ball screen defense, and you have to be good in help. And I thought that you just saw a pretty clear example of the fact that the Bucks could not defend at the point of attack. Tyres Alliburton was getting wherever he wanted and that was where

everything broke down for this team. And then lastly, on the Bucks front, like Dame talked about this, he was like, hey, we're fifteen and six, but like, I haven't even really got going yet. I don't even have my three points shot yet. Like I like, this is gonna get crazy, And like I tend to agree in the sense that, like Dame has started to shoot a little better as of late, we're starting to see more flurries like that

flurry he had to start the second half. But in the big picture, he just hasn't been good enough, and this team will not be a championship contender unless Dame can get back to where he was last season. That is an app a loop prerequisite. Now I still believe he will do so, but we're now over a fourth of the way through the season and he's still not to that level. And so the onus is on Dame to figure his stuff out there. Because Giannis is having

the best season he's had since his title year. Giannis is incredible so Dame's got to meet him at least near that level for this team to get where they want to go. All right, guys, that is all I have for this video. I will be back tomorrow with the Nerd sessh. Guys. We're gonna bounce around the league and hit a bunch of topics. I will see you guys then. As always, I appreciate your support. See you tomorrow. The Volume