The volume, from the football playoffs to college and pro basketball to the rush of hockey. What a time to be a sports fan. It's all happening and you can get in on all the action of all the sports you love at Draft Kings Sportsbook. But so many sports. Every day is game day at DraftKings. That means unlimited opportunities to place your first bet, and DraftKings makes it easy.
How easy?
Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the Draft Kings Sportsbook app and pick your team and place your bet. One of my favorite bets to look at right now is the NBA Championship picture. I have three teams in the same tier. I have Boston, Oklahoma City, and Cleveland all in the same tier. But Boston's at plus two fifty, the Thunder at plus two sixty five. The Cavs are at plus eleven hundred, So some nice value there to help get you started. Here's
something special for all new customers. Bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets. Instantly download the Draft Kings Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's code hoops, that's hoops. For new customers, to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks
DraftKings the crown is yours. Gamble problem called one eight hundred gambler in New York called eight seven seven eight hope en y or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine Connecticut help us available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction VOYD
in Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co. Slash audio. All right, well good do you tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, Oh love you guys are having a great week. Well, we got to cover about three or four nights of games, so I thought the best way for us to do that today is going to be five big takeaways from
the weekend. You guys are familiar with this format, We've done it before. We're gonna be bouncing around the league. Talk a little Boston Celtic, some Grizzlies, some Timberwolves, some Lakers, and some Cleveland Cavaliers. You guys know the joke before we get started. To subscribe to the Hoops and O YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys don't miss announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few
wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpfulf you leave a rating and a review on that front, and then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so that we can hit them in our Friday videos throughout the remainder of the year. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Number one, the pathway for the Boston Celtics to get out of their mid season slump is through not settling. The Celtics absolutely
smashed the Golden State Warriors. Ain't oracle yesterday. It was ugly right away, right when Steph Curry went to the bench. That offense has enough trouble scoring even with Steph on the floor, but when Steph goes off the floor, it's an absolute catastrophe. There was a Buddy Heeled and Dennis Schroeder led unit that completely fell apart, and then when
Steph came back, they couldn't regain controle. The Celtics defense was super sharp all night with their game playing discipline, did a great job, unstaff did a great job in everybody else, and really, the Warriors without Jonathan Kaminga are just utterly devoid of offensive talent and the Celtics just took care of them. The Celtics also shot the ball well. They were fifteen for thirty six on catch and shoot jump shots for one point twenty five points per attempt,
and they just utterly dominated the game. But I want to zoom in specifically on the concept of settling because, as we know, the Celtics have been in a little bit of a funk right They are eight and seven in their last fifteen games. That's about a month's sample where you're playing about five hundred basketball Now. It's difficult because they're still top five in offense and defense in that span, because in their wins they've been so damn good.
It's just they've had these ugly losses. But what has happened in the losses in those seven losses in that fifteen game span. Their defense has actually been pretty good. It's a one oh four point nine offensive rating that is doing them in in those situations. Their offense has really stalled out at times. Right, so we need to zoom in on this offense. And you know with the Celtics again, their matchup attacking offense they are did. They refer to it as a killer whale offense, especially against
teams that are doing a lot of perimeter switching. It's gonna be a lot of like Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum attacking these matchups out of the post or in ISO situations. In ISO situations, they pretty standardly turn into wing ISOs with the floor spaced out, usually you know, occupied corners, guy in the weak side wing and usually like something like a guard in the dunker spot with some off ball movement. Right in those situations, one of
two things usually happens. Either Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown will be physically aggressive downhill to start a drive and kick possession, or they will settle.
For some sort of off the dribble jump shot.
Okay, now, to be clear, settling is it reminds me of when when I was young when people analysts used to be like, why doesn't Lebron James drive to the
basket every time? And it's completely unrealistic because for those of you guys who have played basketball as a downhill type of player, it's exhausting to beat people off the dribble every single time down the floor, especially as you get older, right, And so settling is a part of basketball in the sense that like, if you can find a way to create a shot for yourself that is reasonably efficient, but that isn't going to take a ton of energy, that's a great thing for you to supplement
your offense with in a way that's going to prevent you from getting worn down over the course of the game. And as we enter into this discussion, I want to be clear, I don't think Jason Tatum should never take iso jump shots. He absolutely should. He's gotten a lot
better at him. He's having his best season shooting them since the twenty twenty year, right, So, like you want Tatum taking them on occasion, I think there's a time and a place, Like I like when he gets centers on switches and centers are playing back on their heels, that's a great time to go to that little like in and out type jump shot there. When he gets smaller players on him though, and they're press him up a little bit more, I almost prefer him trying to
be physically aggressive downhill towards the rim. There's kind of like a time in a place for that sort of thing, right. But I thought it was interesting because as as you just look in at the film in that game last night, through the first three quarters, because the Warriors put all their starters, their good players on the bench in the fourth quarter. In the first three quarters, the Celtics spran sixteen ISOs, and on nine of those sixteen ISOs they
settled for ISO jump shots. In seven of them they attempted to get downhill. On the nine settles, both Tatum and Brown each hit like a tough fade away. Jalen Brown hit like a tough left over left shoulder fade over Kavan Looney, and then Tatum hit like a little right shoulder fade in some traffic, and then Jalen Brown hit a really tough bank shot kind of around like the lane line on the left side of the floor.
In the second half, those are their only three bucks in nine possessions, so six points and nine possessions or zero points sixty seven points per possession on the set n possessions, or they attempted to drive downhill in those switches. They made two easy catch and shoot threes on kickouts, They made two easy layups on drop off passes, and then Jalen Brown hit kind of like a tough step through floater against Buddy. Healed very pump faked, and then
went towards the rim and made a floater. So they got twelve points on seven possessions, or one point seven to one points per possession, or almost three times as efficient. Now, again that's a small sample. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like you won't have games where Tatum and Brown are hitting those off the dribble jump shots and guys are missing some of the catch and suit kickouts that will happen in the playoffs sometimes when things
get tight again. This is not meant to be some sort of like sweeping declaration that they should never take a pull up jump shot. It's just about an order of operations. There's this clear evidence in these seven losses that you're not scoring the basketball right and that your offense has some tendency to cool off in those situations.
The best way to revert to that.
Again, we are talking about how to get back to the point where the Celtics are playing championship basketball, which they have on occasion not consistently enough over the last month. In order for them to get back on track, they've got to get back to the identity that won them the title. It's a simple philosophy, right, It's the philosophy that changed from the year that they went to the finals in twenty twenty two and the year they won it two years later, which was the relentless pursuit of
great shots. Meaning if there's a certain situation, you're tired on this specific possession, you just need to get an easier look, or it's a late clock situation, you need to create something out of nothing. By all means lean
on your greatness as an individual shot maker. But if the Celtics are going to be good enough to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers and be good enough to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, they are going to have to get back to the identity that carried them last year, which was Tatum and Brown being physically aggressive on switches trying to get downhill so that they can draw multiple defenders and break down the defense where they're aggregate talent can
be in advantage again the Celtics. What makes the Celtics as dominant as they were last year isn't just Jalen and Jason, they are the original hunters at the head of these offensive possessions, but it is the aggregate talent, the ability to pop the ball around. The fact that all eight guys in their core playoff rotation are good shooters, close out attackers, decision makers, ball handlers, passers, that is
what ties it all together. And the more they settle, the more they rely on their own individual greatness, the more that they play downhill aggressive, they rely on the strengths of the roster. One last note on this front.
In the fourteen post ups against the Warriors last night, the Celtics scored on nine of them, a pretty clear indicator to me that like when you bake in physical aggression, it's more aggressive, it's more effective as well, and so I think that's going to be the key for the Celtics moving forward as they try to dig out of this little rut that they're in the middle of the season, not settling downhill. Physical generate higher quality catch and shoot
looks that will help your shooters get out of slumps. Again, every single Celtic except for Peyton Pritchard is down year over year as a three point shooter. That means you got to get these guys out of slumps. And the only way you're gonna get them out of slumps is by generating them.
Higher quality looks.
And the only way you're going to generate higher quality looks for them is through physical aggression at the point of attack when you're in those matchup hunting situations. Number two, Jaron Jackson has become one of the most underrated players
in the NBA. I think part of it is the fact that he plays with John Morant, who is one of the biggest and most you know, kind of like famous and kind of resident young American stars in the league, right And I think part of it is the way that Jaren came into the league.
Came into the league is more of like a shot blocking prospect.
You guys might remember a few years ago when the Grizzlies were first starting to kind of get a notoriety. You'd have these crazy five six block games from Jaron Jackson. That was kind of like his original stamp that he put on this league.
Right.
He also has kind of like an ugly looking jump shot. As he leans really far forward, it almost looks like a more set version of his floater, And I think that's part of why people kind of underrate him a little bit. But he has become an absolute monster to deal with on the offensive end of the flour Memphis got a very impressive come from behind victory against the
Minnesota Timberwolves yesterday. Their offense stalled out several times early on as the Wolves kind of controlled things, but Jared Jackson completely dominated the fourth quarter of this game, and he did it by absolutely frying one of his peers at his position. And Julius Randall started the fourth quarter
just repeatedly going right at him. He posted him up on the right block, spun off of him, got right to the bucket, he caught like a little cross screen in the lane, got him into trail position, finished a little and one right at the front of the basket semi transition. In a kind of a transition push. When the defense is and set, he just drives right at Julius Randall out of the left slot, bumps him off and makes a little floater in the lane. Did the same thing to him in the half court on a
play where he chained multiple counter moves together. That really is the thing that makes Jaron Jackson so difficult to guard as a downhill player. So he's very big and strong and has a good first step going both ways.
But when you slide over and you cut him off, you have to absorb contact right and a lot of guys on that first bit of contact are going to gets so badly dislodged that Jaren can just go right back up to the basket, by the way, on that transition kind of that like semi transition drive on the
left wing. That's literally what happened to Julius Randall. Hit the Jets got him good with that shoulder, bumped him off, and he went so far back that Jaren was just basically able to step through and shoot a little floater around like seven eight feet. That was pretty uncontested. But let's say that you actually side over and you absorbed that contact well, like Julius Randall did on the half court slot drive off the left end in the fourth quarter,
where he did absorb that contact. Well, Jaren's gotten really good at chaining together counter moves and just go in the opposite direction. It actually reminds me a little bit of Shake Kilders Alexander the way that he can do it, where it's like he'll probe one way, get cut off, counter move, probe the other way, get cut off counter move,
probe the opposite way. And basically every time with Jaron Jackson, he's bumping you with that shoulder every single time that he gets makes that dribble move, and he's hitting you and dislodging you, and eventually he's just gonna get either close enough to the basket to shoot, or he'll dislodge you so much that he can get to a shot earlier in the possession. But it's all about his ability to spin over both shoulders while controlling the basketball and
hit behind the back moves. Because again, if you're facing this way and I'm leading with my right shoulder and I need to get back the opposite way. In contact situations, I can't dribble in front of me. If I dribble in front of me, I'm probably just gonna turn it over. Someone's gonna hit my arm. I'm not gonna be able
to dribble in that kind of traffic. I need to get to my opposite shoulder while protecting the basketball, and the only two ways to do that are to spin over that left shoulder or to go behind the back and then lead with your oppice shoulder right. And so it's one of those things where like he's just literally just hitting you like a battering ram, just changing direction each time as you cut him off. And then he's
got the floater to tie it all together. He's taken one hundred and twenty nine hooks and floaters this year that he's hitting at fifty four percent. So it just is has made him into a very very difficult player to deal with as just a downhill matchup attacking forward. And again that's not even a mismatch. He's doing that to Julius randall Right, a guy who's one of the other bully ball players in the league at his position.
He was great down the stretch too. He had this ridiculous move in transition in like a bunch of traffic and like just a straight runout situation where he did a behind the back move and like made a floater in traffic, and then he iced the game with one of the biggest buckets in crunch time, another post up against Julius Randall on the right block where he just turned over his left shoulder and hit a little right
handed hook shot. He finished with fifteen points in the fourth quarter, including three rebounds, a block, and a steal. The Wolves have this tendency where their offense can really
fall apart at the end of games. We're we're talking about it in a minute, but one of the things that happens is like so many guys are getting ignored that it turns into like this kind of like onslaught at the rim where it's like, well, or Julius will drive into traffic and shoot like through six people and miss a shot, but like Rudy Gobert will come flying in and slap out the basketball, and then Jada McDaniels will come flying in and he's trying to grab an
offensive rebound, and like they try to make up for not being guarded by just crashing the glass like absolutely crazy. And when they do that, it can be a lot to deal with athletically as a team, and you have to have waves of athleticism to deal with that. Jaron Jackson was great in those scrums at the end of the game. That's also part of why Memphis went with some two big looks. You know, goes with so many two big looks and Zachi d he had a lot
of success in this game just setting good screens. And he's doing the thing too that like the Gortat thing where he rolls into the lane and kind of clears out space for his ball handlers to get into the paint. Brandon Clark, we saw this in years past before Brandon Clark got injured. But the Brandon Clark Jaron Jackson combo together has that layers of athleticism around the rim that allowed them to fight in those contested rebound situations. One
last Guy wanted the one last guy. I wanted to shout out there to that Joam Morant who just at the end of these games continues to just find ways to create offense. He hit like this crazy and one driving to the right where he had dug down on nasried and made a wild floater, and then hit a pretty tough little like one of his little patented step back eurostep one legged floaters along the left lane line.
And again Memphis' offense has been tricky in certain spots this year, especially in crunch time, and a big part of it is going to come down to the shot making of guys like Jaron Jackson, guys like Desmond Baine, Guys like John Moran. Right, and like Desmond Bain hit a big movement three on a play where Jada McDaniels was trailing him at the top of the key. It was a big part of their comeback in that second half.
That's the kind of shot making that you need against these elite defenses that can really make things difficult in the paint for your driving kick attack.
Right.
So just something to keep an eye on as we move forward from Memphis number three. We are close to the deadline now, and I think we can all agree that the Julius Randall experiment has been a massive failure. If you guys remember what I said at the time of the deal, it had an obvious financial upside, and that was kind of the political kind of like description of in house of what they did, like, oh, we're doing this because we need to have long term flexibility.
And it had some basketball upside, right, Like Julius Randall is in theory a better on ball type of player than Karl Anthony Towns, and they don't really have a good on ball option off of Anthony Edwards. So it's like, oh, maybe this will work out, but it obviously came with a ton of risk in that the cat fit was just so much better as a shooting threat between Rudy.
Gobert and Jaden McDaniels.
And so we looked at it at the time of the trade and it's like, this has an obvious potential to make them way worse, but it has some potential to make them better. And it comes with this financial you know, kind of you know back end to it, where you gain flexibility by getting off of Karl Anthony Towns's deal. Right, So, like that is the case for why they did it, but there was an obvious downside,
and the downside has just come to the service. Two realities about Julius Randall on this team have become abundantly clear to me through the first half of the season. One, there just isn't that much offensive upside with him as an on ball player. He's fine on ball player. He's getting you know what, nineteen points of games, fifty eight ish percent true shooting. He's been a post player that's
generating about one point two points per post up. It's it's not like he's been awful on the offensive end of the floor, but like it's not exceptionally high volume and it's not exceptionally high efficiency. And so with that being the best thing that he provides, it just hasn't been the upside that it needed to be for this whole thing to work out. If this was going to work out, you needed something like twenty five points per game from Julius Randall on sixty percent true shooting, and
that just hasn't been the case. He hasn't been able to produce enough or efficiently enough to make that trade off. Fourth it and then two, he's just an absolutely brutal off ball offensive fit. He's converting spot up possessions at
just zero point nine points per possession. Among the thirty six players in the NBA to log at least one hundred and fifty spot up possessions this year, Julius Randall's zero point nine points per possession ranks thirty fourth, so the third worst in the league among reasonable volume in spot up possessions, and it's totally compounded by the Rudy Gobert thing. Gobert was just a total offensive nightmare against
Memphis last night. Every time he was left alone and given the basketball, he just runs like an awkward deer into traffic and throws some bullshit up that has no chance of going in. They fed him in the post against Jaron Jackson, right under the rim, like a deep post catch, and he got smothered and blocked by Jaron Jackson. He got blitzed on a late possession fed to Rudy.
Gobert on a short roll four on three, had a wide open kickout read to the right, instead threw a terrible pass to a baseline cutter that just went right out of bounds. He had this big offensive rebound late and instead of getting the ball to somebody, he just threw it out of bounds. Like just absolutely brutal on the offensive end of the floor from Gobert. And then you're putting him next to you have Julius and then
the guy next to him is Jada McDaniels. Which, by the way, that same list of thirty six players who have attempted at least one hundred and fifty spot up possessions this year, the one that Julius Raynal ranks thirty fourth in well Jada McDaniels ranks thirty second in. So you have two of the very worst spot up players in the league flanking probably the worst offensive starting center in the league, and as a result, every Timberwolves game at the end devolves into the exact same thing, which
is Anthony Edwards playing hero ball. And sometimes they still win like that because they defend well enough, and you know, they've been going with nas Reid a lot in closing closing situations. He's been able to make big plays, made several big plays down the stretch last night, and maybe Aunt hits a couple crazy step back threes like he's done from time to time this year, and maybe you
get out of there with the win. But like in order to win four playoff rounds, this offense just has too much of an ability to grind to a halt because your three, four and five are all completely incapable of playing off the ball offensively, and two of them can't play on the ball offensively, and one of them can play on the ball offensively but as just an
incredibly mediocre offensive player. So it's untenable, and like, look, it's really difficult because you're a second Apron team and if you trade Julius Randall for salary that you end up keeping, then you undo some of the upside of the financial flexibility that you get from the Karl Anthony Towns trades. So like, even if I discuss trades, I get there are ways, from what I understand, there are ways, even as a second Apron team, to jerry rig the
trade system to where you can still aggregate salaries. And even if you like, I'd like, I'd love to see what it looks like to turn Julius Randall and Mike Conley and you know, maybe one other salary into Zach Lavine. You know, I'd love to see that. I'd love to see what it looks like to see Aunt and Zach with Jaden and nas Reed with Gobert and just see if it can come together. But like, why would any of us think that's gonna happen when the entire purpose
of this destructive trade was for financial flexibility. So I just it just kind of seems like a really tough spot, and it seems like this is heading for a relatively mediocre season with a mediocre finish, and that just feels like a step backwards after what.
They accomplished last year.
Number four, the Lakers look like a team that is losing belief. They had a really ugly loss at the Clippers on Sunday night, and it looked like so many other Lakers games this year where for a certain amount
of time they're competing. There's a really nice baseline drive for Max Christy out of the left corner where he goes right at Zubach and goes right around him, athletic up high finishes at the rim, gets it to forty three forty one with about seven minutes left in the second quarter, and over the next ten minutes of game play, just ten minutes, they get outscored twenty nine to eleven, and they're down by twenty getting blown out by a
good team once again. And the thing is, so many of the same issues that have plagued them all season plagued them in that game. Possessions where you're just not running action like oh, it's big, big possession, they're on a run. We're down thirteen, we need a bucket. We're up the floor and into our offense, but like we're just going to stand around and we're gonna have a ball screen with Austin and Anthony Davis with no off
ball movement, no action flowing into that ball screen. Just the easiest way for defense to defend a ball screen, just a static ball screen at the top of the key. Or okay, let's try to run some offense, but no one knows where to go, and Max Christy and Dalton connect are meandering around the floor as Anthony Davis is losing as cool and jacking up a mid range jumps.
I video of all these clips, you can go to my Twitter feed at underscore Jason LT and I did a full film session on this run from the start of the run all the way through the finish of the run, where I kind of like laid out video examples of all these things so you guys can see them there again at Underscore Jason LT. But like not running offense, Lebron and Austin just throwing the ball away because they're not being careful or they're not being patient.
There's a play where Austin's been running with Ruey pick and pop all season. Ruby always pops when he screens with Austin, and he, like Austin, threw a pass into a gap as if Ruy is gonna roll, and it's like, obviously, Ruey's gonna pop. He's been popping with you all season.
Lebron trying to force a pass to a cutter that's just not open that then then not getting back in defense and giving up a dunk to a mere coffee as he's just literally just just hemorrhaging a four point swing with sloppy effort in transition on defense and a sloppy decision making as a ball handler, giving up precarious switches that they don't need to and then not having
a plan with how to deal with them. There was one where Kawhi Leonard gets Gabe Vincent in the post on the left block and Ad is hard helping on the middle side, and Gabe is overplaying that middle shoulder from Kawhi, so Kwai just easily spins off of him, and there's no baseline help because Ruy's like not paying attention, all glued up to Zubas, So it's like, one, you're
giving up this precarious switch. I think that one was a transition cross match, which happens, by the way, like I don't care what your defensive scheme is, you will end up in precarious switches just because how basketball works, you have to have a plan for what to deal with there. And we've talked about this, like in other games,
I've seen them. Austin Reeves gets stuck in the post with god who was it, it was bam Adebayo and Ruey and ad are crowding him on both ends and they're closing out the shooters and they're doing their jobs, and then when they don't do that, when they leave the guy on the island, he gets beat consistently. They have a plan. Okay, Gabe, you have Kawhi Leonard on you. We are going to be helping hard from the baseline side.
So Ruey needs to know Gabe's in this situation. He's got to almost like zone up or just be very capable and ready to rotate in that position, which means Anthony Davis maybe as that one pass away guy is is big and long enough to crowd and like dig down and recover. But then there's going to be a week side two on one that you have to count for with somebody ready to rotate on the backside.
You have a plan for it.
But it's also in rebounding situations they gave up a bunch of offensive rebounds on switches. That was where they were getting brutalized by if you can Zoobach, and it's like, okay, if you're gonna end up in a switch. And again, by the way, like the Lakers have been trying to cut back on that, they still do a ton of it. Like they were switching just Rui ad action. So as soon as they switch any rue Actually, now you've got
Ruey on Zubach, and Ruey can't handle Zubachi either. But like in those situations, like I don't expect Rui to be able to box out the biggest center, one of the biggest centers in the league, just like I don't expect Jason Tatum to do it for the Celtics. The Celtics aren't asking Jason Tatum to go one on one against opposing centers when he's guarding a center and he's in the in.
The paint rebounding. It is a team effort.
I saw plays where Rui's fighting for position and Zubac has him sealed and a long rebound comes off the back of the rim, and the other four Lakers are just standing around watching Zubach grab the ball over the top. When you end up in those mismatches, you have to have a plan for how to deal with it, both in your help and recover and in your rebounding situations and beyond that plan, it has to be done. I
know that plan exists. There's been a lot of criticism of JJ Reddick, and like, I don't disagree that it's been a less than perfect season from him, but a lot of this is like he's telling the guys what to do. They're talking a big game behind the scenes, they're in the pressers saying all these things about how they want to do this stuff, and then they go out there and they don't do it, and it's like a prerequisite they are not talented enough to not be a good execution team.
I could go on.
I have so many things on this list, like Austin and Max botching switches. They botched one in the second half where where Derek Jones Jr. Just slipped out of his screen and it's like, Austin and Max, that should be a switch. It's been a switch all season, and yet they continue to botch these switches and give up easy dribble penetration or over the top passes. It was an over the top pass to Derek Jones Jr. Easy
drop off. He missed a floater, but Zubos got in there dunk because they had to rotate on the weak side. It's just guys not executing. Everybody on defense all game just looked lethargic and a step slow. Anthony Davis, he had some drop coverage possessions where he's just not protect the rim. He was in his own possession where he just got absolutely torched by Norman Powell. Like he's just not playing very good defense this year compared to what
he's done in the past. The backside rotations. This is the play I want to I wanted to kind of like use as a final example. So it's a hardened zubotch ball screen. Max Christie's on Harden eighties on Zubach, Ad comes, Harden comes off the screen. Max is chasing, and Harden kind of dribbles along the left lane line and slows down for a second. Max chases and follows. But instead of Anthony Davis recovering to Zubach when Max was right there, Ad calls for a switch, which, by
the way, probably shouldn't have been a switch. But whatever, this used to be your primary defensive scheme. So how would you handle this?
Right? Harden dribbles Anthony Davis out towards the left wing.
Zubach immediately tries to post up Max Christie. Now what you do in this situation when you're fronting the post, which is what Max is doing. Max tries to front the post. In this situation, you want backside help to shrink the passing window. Right, So like the way you beat a post front is you try to drive that elbow into the guy post fronting you to to push him down into the ground so we can't jump, and you want to create an over the top passing angle.
But that angle can get shrunk by another defender coming in from this side, shrinking that window, and then there's a two on one on the weak side. If you execute it properly, you can force a really tight space speed, make him catch in a double team where he's frantic, and then if the other guy rotates, well you can take away any sort of easy opportunity out of that. But in this case, Austin was the guy who was bracketing with Max and Lebron was the guy who was rotating.
But Austin was a step slow. Max went to front, Austin did nothing. The pass was in the air. Suddenly Austin goes to rotate. At that point, Lebron's job is to rotate to the cutter Austin's man. Lebron was a step slow, wasn't paying attention, and then he did finally rotate, but he was too late and it ended up in a dunk. So again, they know what they're supposed to do. They know what they're supposed to do, and they're just not doing it. Anthony Davison, Max probably shouldn't have switched
that screen. But whatever, you end up in a bad switch. We have a plan for that. We're fronting the post, we're bracketing from behind, we're rotating. Except for Max did the fronting the post part. Austin was too late on his bracket and Lebron was too late on his rotation. That's just basic execution details that are limiting the Lakers'
ability to be successful. There's just no consistency in their effort or in their execution, despite the fact that they've been talking that big game and it just continues to be the biggest barrier to their success and again, like there's personnel weaknesses that need to be addressed, and a lot of those things are kind of coming to the surface now as Lebron and Ad haven't been playing super
well and Austin hasn't been playing super well. But the reality is they're not doing themselves any favor with just basic basketball controllables where they're not doing their jobs all right. Lastly, number five, the Cleveland Cavaliers have shown a little bit of their dark side the second Oklahoma City game. Oklahoma City be the shit out of them. Now, that was going to be a difficult game to win, regardless of the Isaiah Hartenstein injury. Oklahoma City has way more of
a perimeter identity. That's where the majority of their talent is. And of course they continue to bring out good players. Brandon Carlson just steps into that game as a backup center and just starts hitting threes. But like, the perimeter talent is there, Okayse's always going to be a buzz saw at home, especially in a game like that where they really really are locked in for even the playoffs. It's just that's gonna be a really tough game to win.
That said, I thought the game fell apart for Cleveland because of a concerning approach, something that was completely under their control. Oklahoma City completely ran away with that game with a run that spanned the late first quarter in the early second quarter. It was close, close, coast coast close, and then the wheels just completely came off. And in that stretch it was a lot of bad offense, losing their pace, not getting out in transition, and then settling
for a lot of pull up threes. There was a sequence at one point in the run where Oklahoma City, excuse me, where Cleveland, on back to back to back possessions just took off the jubil threes early in the clock. Donovan Mitchell did it, Karris Lavert did it, even Evan Mobley did it.
And it's like those are the kinds of things.
Where like there's clearly I don't want to call it multiple personality because like there I do believe that basketball
players can change and become better. But like a good part of what's happened for Cleveland this year is like guys embracing roles and playing within what the playing within what the team needs them to do right, And Kenny Atkinson has implemented a lot of like basic principles that weren't there last year in terms of running the floor, chasing higher volume three point attack, diversifying their offensive approach, to playing through multiple points of entry, all these different
things to try to make life easier for them. But at the end of the day, like if Donovan Mitchell takes a bunch of bad shots in a big playoff game, they could lose. If Karris Lavert takes a bunch of
bad shots in a playoff game, they could lose. If there's an ugly side deep down there that has been part of these guys' personalities in the past that could rear its ugly head, And like that was the one thing that was a little concerning to me out of that game, other than Donovan Mitchell just really struggling with lou Do. Like lou Dort has just done a number on Donovan Mitchell in these two games, and it's it's
started to affect him a little bit. But like in general, I think one of the big things for us to watch with Cleveland when they get into the postseason is their offense getting stagnant and them not relying on the same things that they thrived on in the regular season. In terms of pushing pace, moving the ball, and hunting great shots. I did think that that was a very very ugly offensive stretch from Cleveland in.
That blowout loss. All right, guys, that is all I have for today.
As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with more breakdowns, probably some trade deadline stuff as well.
I will see you guys.
Then the volume.
What's up guys.
As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.