Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: LeBron & Lakers SLOPPY vs. Durant & Suns, Paolo's 50, Bucks-Celtics

profit Boost token. Pick a pregame NBA player prop to boost, and if that player leads the league that night in points plus rebounds plus assists, you win a share of the one million dollars in bonus bets. Download the Draft Kings sportsbook GAP and use code hoops that's hops. That's code hoops to win a share of one million dollars in bonus bets. If your player is King of the

Court only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler in New York call eight seven to seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine and Connecticut help is availble 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. Void in Ontario. One NBA prop Bet profit boost per customer tokens expire at the start of the final NBA game each day when offered. Use token on pr stat Leader to receive equal share of one million dollars in non withdrawable bonus bets that expire in one hundred and sixty eight hours. Additional wagering restrictions apply for additional terms and responsible gaming resources see DKNG dot co slash b ball. All right, well, come to

Hoops to night here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. If all of you guys are having a great week so far, got a quick show for you today. I'm just gonna do three instant reactions to games from last night. The Milwaukee Bucks hanging with the Boston Celtics for about two and a half quarters before they lose control and

the Celtics pull away. The Phoenix Suns get their second consecutive impressive win versus teams that I think are in the playoff tire in the Western Conference, in the Dallas Mavericks in the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be reacting to Lakers suns from last night. And then paloupon Caro goes for fifty against the Indiana Pacers. But I'm more interested in the way that he closed that games. We're gonna break down all three of those games from

the perspective of both teams. You guys have the drop before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast few Wherever you get your podcast onner Hoops Tonight, don't forget it's helpful if you also leave a rating and a review on that front. And the last, not least, keep dropping mail

bag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll keep getting them getting to them. This week. I think we're planning for a mailbag that I'm recording on Thursday that's going to air on Friday, So I'll probably do a combination of YouTube comments and a tweet for that one as well. All right, let's talk some basketball, So Bucks Celtics really interesting game was back and forth for about two and a half quarters. The Bucks do have some advantages in

this matchup, and they showed them like Jannis. Al Horford I thought did a good job on Giannest, but Giannis won some battles, particularly when he got ahead of steam and was really able to get downhill and at that point there's just not enough athletic tool available to al Horford's kind of make up for that runway when Giannis is on it. He also did a lot of damage to Boston's guards in the post. When Boston would do some switching, particularly Derek White, Giannis would be able to

kind of pivot towards that. Basically, Jannis has this unique ability to where he can turn over his right shoulder and didn't really even look to shoot. He just like turns over his right shoulder and sees if you step out of your stance, and as soon as you step out of your stance, he'll step through and he'll just go up and dunk it. He won't even have to take a hook or a fade away or anything like that. He'll just go up and dunk it. He did some

damage to the Boston guards that way. Dame had so success getting downhill against the Boston biggs and pick and rollers because they're not as fast as him. And they won some battles, right, They won some battles on defense too. They did a nice job on Tatum. I thought Gary Trent Junior did a really nice job against Jayson Tatum

in this game. Like specifically, Gary Trent his the thing that he's good at on defense is attacking the basketball, and Jason Tatum is very much a rhythm player, likes to kind of get his dribble going side to side and kind of get to that flow with his jump shot, and Gary Trent was doing a nice job just kind of disrupting that rhythm by not trying to contest Tatum up top, but trying to bother him during his gather,

trying to disrupt his rhythm. Torrean Prince did a nice job on a couple of Jason Tatum switches too, So they forced Jason Tatum into his first rough offensive game of the season. He had just fifteen points on sixteen shots.

I think he made four of his first six, and then he went two for ten down the tail end down the stretch of the game, so good defensive effort from the Bucks there, but still even with all of that, they were just kind of in the game going into the late portion of the third quarter, and then the Bucks let go of the rope and they started getting

out worked. A few Celtics players in particular, started to really outwork them, and that's a concerning part which I'm gonna get to in a little bit, but specifically on the Boston front, Derek White, Peyton Pritchard, and Jordan Walsh made a lot of big hustle plays and they turned the game around really quick, and all of a sudden, the Celtics are up by thirteen in the early part of the fourth quarter and the game is over. The Bucks were up by one with less than two minutes

left in the third quarter. That's when the hustle plays started to tilt towards Boston. There was a long rebound to the foul line where Gary Trent Junior was right there and he let Pritchard out jump him for the rebound. Gary Trent's a bigger, better athlete, He's got to go get that basketball. Pritchard beats him to a fifty to fifty ball ball gets worked around, Derek White hits a

three in Giannis's face on the left wing. By the way, Derek White was just incredible down the stretch of this game. He had another pull up three on the next possession

against this like switch with Bobby Portis. There's like an exchange in a switch right where like you're dribbling against a defender that's up on you, and you go through the screen to the next defender, and there's an interchange there where the first defender is kind of coming off of you as the second defender is getting ready to come up, and there's a gap in between that switch where you can find some space to shoot a pull up three. Bobby Portis was just sitting back on his heels.

He switched out on to Derek White. But Derek White is a good pull up shooter, and he just walked and he had just hit a pull up three over Yannis. Bobby Portis was too slow. Derek White rose up and hit another huge pull up three. He had a couple of big defensive plays down the stretch of this game.

Derek White was just insane. So Derek White makes this just unbelievable defensive play on the next possession, so he hits the pull up three over Bobby Portis that go down to the other end and there's a ball screen with Damon Giannis and Dame's getting downhill and Derek White corowls and contains Dame, but Giannis is rolling behind the

play and Dame drops it off to Giannis. After containing Dame, Derek White turns in walls up in stonewalls Giannis and teda kompo with the head of steam at the rim. It was one of the best defensive plays I've seen a guard make, considering the talent that he was like single handedly stopping a Dame Jannis ball screen. It was insane. Very next possession, Jordan Walsh does a nice job taking

advantage of the way the Bucks were defending. The ball got worked around over to the right wing Giannis and Bobby Portis or the two guys kind of on the back line of the defense, and they decided to ignore Jordan Walsh in the weak side corner. Now, if you're being ignored in the weakside corner, you basically have three jobs. Right, if it gets skipped to you, you need to either hit a three ar attack to close out. Right, if the ball makes its way towards the rim, and there's

enough space for you to cut along the baseline. You need to cut along the baseline right to try to make yourself available in the dunker spot. And then the last piece of it is if the shot goes up and you're in the weakside corner being unguarded, you better not just jog your ass back on defense. You got to crash the offensive glass. And Jordan Walsh just came right inside. I punished Bobby Portis and Giannis for ignoring him, and he gets an offensive rebound, put back another hustle play.

On the very next offensive possession for the Celtics, there's another loose ball that's right there for the taking for the Bucks, and Peyton Pritchard just shoots the gap once again in front of Garry Trent Junior and gets another loose ball. Pritchard also added one of his like kind of iconic it's becoming iconic at this point, end of the first quarter, end of the third quarter buzzer beaters as he hit like a little step back jumps out on the right wing. He was insane in this game.

But then the game, the play that really put the game out of reach was another kind of sloppy play from the Bucks. It was in the early fourth quarter ball screen with Jalen Brown on the left wing, and again, like the Celtics shot pull up jump shots pretty well in this game, but at the same time, like every time he put two on the ball against Boston, it's

pretty much a disaster. But Bobby Porti has made the cardinal mistake of putting two on the ball by blitzing Jalen Brown on a ball screen on the left wing. But when he blitzed Jalen Brown, he didn't actually contain Jaylen Brown, and Jayalen Brown split the blitz, got Downhill, drew Pat Content in help, and then it was just a wide open three for Peyton Pritchard, who his money and knocked it down. All of a sudden, they're up

thirteen in the game is basically over. So it's fascinating to me because like Milwaukee made some plays in this game, they had some advantages, they stayed in for a while, but at the end, Boston was the smarter basketball team. They were the more well coached basketball team, they were the more organized basketball team, the more disciplined basketball team, And it's fascinating because you're already at a talent advantage

a disadvantage. If you're Milwaukee, right, you can't afford to be at a talent disadvantage and at an execution disadvantage. This has actually been a long standing basketball theory of mine. That's why I don't believe that teams can flip the switch. The only teams in NBA history that I have ever successfully flipped the switch have been defending champions that have monumental talent advantages that are uniquely able to be lazy

during the regular season. There has never been a team that like the Milwaukee Bucks, that is just another contender that has not won a championship recently, that is trying to make this happen. There's never been a team like that that has been sloppy and undisciplined and then suddenly been able to turn it on at the end of the season. The reason why is there's a huge difference between what is habitual behavior and something that you're just doing on any one single possession or any one single

stretch of possessions. Habitual means it's instinctual, you have a habit of doing it, regardless of what the surrounding circumstances are even when you're just kind of engrossed in the flow of the game, you just have a natural ability through your habit to do the right things right. That is something that you practice. That is something that starts from the very beginning of the season, at the start

of training camp. This is why I'm such a big believer that the team who wins the trophy is almost always a very high seed, and why I think it's important to attack the regular season from start to finish. Even though we think of the regular season is long and every game's not super important, and we need to manage our bodies and load management and all this stuff.

That's all great. The team who wins the trophy attacks the regular season from the start to finish, and that's because that is how you establish the habits that will carry you down the line. For serious basketball teams like the Boston Celtics, excellence is a habit. Every effort detail, every closeout, every box out, every transition sprint, every loose ball that becomes available. There is an expectation bread in camp that those things are a requirement, and so they

become habitual and consistent right every execution detail. These are the mental things right. You're spacing attentiveness to the defensive game plan, meaning as you get your scouting report and how you guard each individual player. What you do in specific coverage is that sort of attention to detail decision making when you're driving the ball to the basket, making the right play, going for great shots instead of good shots.

There is an expectation bread in camp from day one that those sort of things are a requirement to be on the floor if you play for the Boston Celtics. For less serious teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, they're constantly looking for reasons and excuses to cut corners right because they want to conserve energy and make sure everyone's ready when they get to April. But as a result, they do not have those habits. So what happens is they end up in high leverage games. The end up in

important games. Right, last name was an important game for the Bucks. For the Celtics three to zero. You can lose that game, nobody cares, or the defending champs your favorite to win the title by mile, that's not an issue. Right, Milwaukee needed that game. They started one and two. They're coming off of two really embarrassing losses. To the Chicago Bulls and the Brooklyn Nets. The Brooklyn Nets game in particular was legitimately embarrassing for them, not a good look. Right,

They needed this one. So they end up in this high leverage game, need this game. And so then suddenly they can kind of like impersonate a serious team, right, and they do all the right things, and maybe they can do it for a quarterer, maybe they can do it for two quarters, maybe they can do for three quarters. But almost always in games like that, the team that is habitually disciplined and habitually works their ass off on every single possession, that team has a habit of maintaining

that through the long run. And the team that is less serious, where those things are not a habit, eventually they let go of the rope like they hang on for dear life, and they're like, yeah, we're hanging with the Boston Celtics. We can do this. And then suddenly they let go and then boom, within a couple of minutes, you're down thirteen. Because the serious basketball team is relentless with their execution and their effort. The Celtics did not need that game last night nearly as much as the

Bucks did. Neither team needed the game, but the Celtics certainly didn't need it as much as Milwaukee did, and yet they worked harder down the stretch. Peyton Pritchard beating them to loose balls, Jordan Watsh beating them to loose balls, Derek White making second and third efforts on defensive possessions. That, to me, is what is always super fascinating about the reality of building habits from the early part of the season.

The Bucks got outworked in that game, and that's something that cannot happen in a matchup against the Boston Celtics. Good win for the Celtics four to zero. Again, it's just like in the Celtics game, or excuse me, just like in the Pistons game, just regardless of what happens through the first few quarters, having those brief spurts of excellent two way execution down the stretch of games to put them away and get one in the win. Colum Lakers Suns almost as bizarre as the game last week.

The Sons come off to a great start in the game last week. They're cooking, They're hitting every shot they take. Lakers got off to a similar start in the first quarter this one, they take an eighteen point lead. Anthony Davis is just cooking everybody, and then the Suns go on their big run and they kind of slowly walk the Lakers down. The second half turned into much more of a back and forth type of game. The Sun's really put on a pull up jump shooting clinic. In

this game. They made thirteen pull up jump shots. That's the most they've made in any game yet this season. They went eleven for twenty one from the mid range, so well over a point per possession on mid range jump shots. That's obviously like a great sign of just elite shot making. Kevin Durant was surgical down the stretch of this game. He hit three mid range jump shots in the final four minutes of the game. That's always the scariest thing with Phoenix, right, you end up in

a close game with them late. They just have such a shot making advantage, right, and even if you do everything right on defense, they might just hit shots and you might just lose. Right Like we had a game the first game of the season where the Suns stole a game from the Clippers just because KD hit a completely smothered right shoulder fade away over a double team. So like that's some of the reality of the threat that Phoenix presents the teams, Right, I wanted to talk

about Ryan Dun for a little bit. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Suns in the big picture in a second, but I want to talk about Ryan Dunn for a second because didn't I think he only played like fifteen minutes, but he was everywhere in the minutes that he played. He helps to swing the physical dynamic of this matchup into something that's more manageable for

the Suns. So, like, the Lakers have won four of the coming into last night, they had won four of their previous six matchups against the Phoenix Suns because of a specific matchup problem. They're just so much bigger and stronger in the front court. So then the Suns have this issue where it's like if they play centers, whether it's you know, last year Nurkicen U Banks or this year it's nurkicen plumb Lee, the Lakers can just spam pick and roll because nurkis Plumbley and U Banks last

year couldn't really switch onto good perimeter players. Right, So when they spam pick and roll. It's just like whether it's Ad and Austin Reeves, or it's Ad and Lebron, or it's a d Indiangela and Russell, the Lakers can just consistently get to their comfortable kind of like shot

attempts that they get in ball screens. And then if the Suns go small and they go with a bunch of perimeter play and Kevin Durant at center, then all of a sudden, it's like Anthony Davis and Lebron James just start bullying in the post because maybe they can find somebody to guard Lebron, but then Ad goes off, or maybe they find someone to guard a d but then Lebron goes off right, and it just turns into

a physical match, a mismatch in the front court. Ryan Dune dramatically increases the physical profile of their lineups, both with centers on the floor and without centers on the floor, and it just makes it so much tougher for the Lakers to bouldoze them the way that they do. How many times in this game did you see Ryan done stonewall a big man rolling to the rim or end up on an island against Lebron, James Lebron tries to power through him, and he just holds his ground and

plays physical defense. I love that quote that I heard from The Sun's broadcast from Kevin Durant talking about how his favorite thing about Ryan Done is that he commits fouls. And he talks about how like young players that come into the NBA are like timid and don't want to be physical with the existing pros, and like Ryan Done, just like it's fouls, and that to me is like

a competitiveness on the defensive end of the floor. I actually run into a similar issue with the high school kids that I coach, right, Like, I'm a grown ass man. I'm six six, I would two hundred and thirty pounds, and I play basketball all the time. So like when I'm going against high school kids, they're at a huge

physical disadvantage against me. But like most of the time when I'm trying to play against them, whether it's just like a little bit of fun king of the court at the end of practice or whatever it is that we're doing, the guys like don't want to touch me. They don't want to be physical, they don't want to

like play defense. But there are a handful of guys that have come through that program in the four years that I've been coaching there who like, they don't care that I'm older, they don't care that I have a lot more experience playing the game. They're like, screw this. I want to try to win whatever it is that we're doing, So I'm going to be physical, I'm going

to try to defend. And there are a couple guys that come to come to my mind in the time that I played, and those guys tended to be higher level players in our program because it's a way they're wired. It's a physical competitiveness, it's a willingness to get dirty, it's a willingness to get into a rock fight. And Ryan Dunn, you know, he has a highould already commits almost seven fouls per thirty six minutes to start the season.

That's gonna be something that keeps his minutes somewhat limited until he can be a little bit more picky with it. But like he is a legitimate athletic weapon that the Sons can lead unleash on their opponents, not too much. He can look at the box score last night, he only had seven points one rebound in his steal in a block, but I thought he was dominant in the minutes that he played. Another part of it, too, is

he just takes a lot of hits. Like if you allow him to take a lot of the hits on those roles, in those drives, in those post ups, that alleviates where and tear that goes on Kevin Durant over the court of course of the season, on Royce O'Neill over the course of the season. It gives you the ability to go smaller without being as physically limited. There's so much upside to Ryan Dunn's growth this year and again, Like he's scoring at a rate of nineteen points per

thirty six minutes when he's on the floor. That's really good. He's shooting fifty two percent from the field and forty four percent from three. He's converting spot up possessions at one point three to three points per possession. This seas in some of these shots he's hitting or contested. He had a couple contested corner jump shots last night. Like he has transition athleticism that awesome, like kind of swallowing reverse layup that he had, Like he's turned himself into

a useful offensive player. And that's just I mean, you could make the you could make the case he should play more. The Sun's closed with Plumbley and Royce O'Neil yesterday, and I get it, like Ad had been torching Royce O'Neil in the post, so Buddhenholzer went back to plumb Lee to make sure they had enough size to match up with Ad and Royce O'Neil. Also, like just is a little bit more like sharp in the drive and

kick game than Ryan done. So, Like, for instance, Royce O'Neill had a really nice like close out attack where he hit a floater in crunch time his big shot in the game last night, right like that game was closed. There's a lot of different ways that could have swung one way or the other. That was a huge shot that Royce O'Neil made, like driving the close out. But there's a case to be made that maybe Ryan Dunn should have started or closed that game at the five

instead of Plumbley. Right with how bad their centers have been, there's a case to be made that that's the type of direction that the Suns can go or should go at times. But most importantly, Suns fans should just be very excited when you get that kind of quality rotation piece in the late first round like that, that's a

huge win for your franchise overall. With the Suns still a bit inconsistent with their offensive approach, everything still swings on their willingness to make simple reads and try to play advantage creation, advantage extending play, finishing basketball versus two man game, like just kind of like focusing on shot making, right, Like they're at their best when they don't settle and they get advantages, expand advantages and get wide open catch

and shoot threes in layups. Right last night, they were at their best when they were skipping the ball and pick and roll to those week side two on ones or when they would draw iso double teams from Kevin Durant. So they were the Lakers were getting picked apart by just basic guard guard screens for KD. That was getting D'Angelo Russell onto KD, and then KD would either score on d' Angela Russell and single coverage or draw a double team and they'd work it around and end up

getting a wide open shot. But, like I thought, Katie just did a wonderful job managing that dynamic in crunch time yesterday, as he just completely picked the Lakers apart. But so far, for the most part in the aggregate, the Suns have done a good job. They have sixty nine percent of their made baskets so far have been assisted. That's a huge increase from last year, and I think that's going to be the biggest indicator of their success.

They can keep their assist percentage in the high sixties, that to me is a sign of them playing with the right offensive approach. And they still haven't really got Devin Booker going. He's off to a slow start this year, so like there's still a level that they can get to on the offensive end. A couple of impressive wins in a row for the Phoenix Suns. The MAVs and the Lakers are, in my opinion, two very good playoff teams,

and the Suns got them both. On the Lakers front, kind of an interesting reversal of lineup success last night. Like throughout the first three games of the season, the Lebron led groups with eighty off the floor have been kicking butt and have built huge leads for the Lakers that they've been able to ride to wins. But and then the AD groups with Lebron off have been less good. They've been actually a very slight negative. I think they were going into last night like minus two per one

hundred possessions. Right last night, it was the AD led groups that were completely dominant and the Lebron led groups were just hemorrhaging leads. And for the Lebron led groups, there were like two driving forces behind that, in my opinion. One the young players for the Lakers last night had their first really bad decision making game, Like Dalton Connect, I thought took some really bad shots. He took like a bad transition kind of running shot that wasn't open

against Bradley Beal. He took a heavily contested early shot clock three on the left wing. Like one of the things with Dalton Connect is it's like, dude, you're getting guarded like euro lights out shooter. So even if you're not necessarily getting lots of shots up, you were doing a lot to help the team. So don't feel the need to just shoot for the sake of shooting. Be aggressive when it fits within the flow of the offense, but at the same time, like trust that what you're

doing is helping the team generate space right. And then Max Christy. I've been talking about this forever with Max. Like Max is a really interesting defensive player. He's talented, but a couple of things he even though he gets good contests on jump shots, he doesn't bother the base or the pocket enough. So there's just going to be a lot of I talk about this all the time. Like real NBA scores, they don't care if a hand's in their face. They professionally make shots with hands in

their face. You have to find a way to disrupt their rhythm before the shot. And so Max has a lot of possessions where he's like this, getting a good contest on somebody, but the shot goes in because he's getting bumped off and his bass is not strong enough to really like disrupt the offensive player's base. But that, to me is just a person like an athletic limitation.

That's not something I really get on him for. To me, it's the fact that every time he puts the ball on the floor, he gets like a little worked up on the type of shot that he's looking for. He drives with the intent of doing something for himself, whether that's like the big one yesterday. He kept trying to dunk on everybody. It's like, dude, you're not going to get a lot of like athletic dunks over Mason Plumbley

and Kevin Durant. They're seven feet tall and Plumbies. There's a play where Jackson Hayes was wide open for a drop off and he tried to like dunk on Mason Plumley with like no runway, no advantage, no nothing. He got absolutely smothered. The Kevin Durant one, It's like, yeah, okay, you were there, you had a little bit of a step. You could have gone up and finished on KD. But it's like that was a contested rim attempt versus one

of the better rim protecting forwards in the league. Just move the damn ball and make the right play and try to make something happen. So the young players for the Lakers definitely had their first example of like not showing poise when they went on the road last night. But for the record, Lakers fans got to get used to that when you've got really young, inexperienced players in your rotation, it will be consistent that they are inconsistent right like that that's the thing like it will, there's

not going to be. Veterans are really good at finding what works and replicating it, finding what doesn't work and cutting that out, trimming the fat. Young players will like do something that works twice and then instead of doing it again, they'll do something different, or like they'll do

something that doesn't work and they'll keep doing it. Like, the young players always struggled to kind of differentiate between that process on a possession by possession basis, and so some of that you just got to get used to. But by far the biggest factor in those Laker units struggling was that Lebron just played one of his worst games as a pro. He was just three for fourteen from the field, just eleven points, absolutely no lyft or

burst at the rim. So I'm kind of looking at that as a silver lining for the Lakers, Like, Lebron played the worst game he'll play all season, and the Lakers had a very good chance to win the game on the road against a good playoff team in the Phoenix Sun. So like, and the exciting part too, is Anthony Davis just continues to look like an absolute monster.

He's making a legit push in the early part of the season to try to enter into that top tier, superstar tier with Jannis Luca and Nikole Jokich and Shake Gildas Alexander. Now you need to maintain that level over a much larger sample. No one's gonna give you that credit over four games. These are guys that do it for sixty seventy games a year, right, But through four games, thirty three points, twelve rebounds, three blocks per game on

sixty four percent trough shooting. Just an absolute monster everywhere. On defense, made a couple of insane defensive plays last night. He blocked Kevin rant twice, including smothering him at the rim once that Anthony Davis is insane. One last note on the Lakers. In the last two games, their personnel limitations have been on display, with the Kings consistently attacking D'Angelo Russell, with the mar De rozen down the stretch

of the game. Just in general, their lack of guard athleticism and how they really struggle against really fast guards that can get the ball moving both in transition and in dribble drive situations. That was abundantly clear. And then in the Suns matchup, same sort of thing, like if KD was going against Gabe, they had at least a fighting shot. If KD was going against Austin, they had at least a fighting shot. If KD was going against Ruey,

it was at least a fighting shot. When DLO was out there and they got d LO on a switch, it just felt like a bucket or a foul every single time down the floor. And that's two games in a row where DLO is getting relentlessly picked on. And like, some of this is like JJ's doing a lot more switching with d LO. But here's the thing. If you don't switch, you've got to do things like hedge and recover and double team, and those are areas where Dlo's lack of effort in his inability to cover ground in

rotation can be an issue. So, like, the thing is is like as much as I like d Loo and as much as I think he does so much good for this team, and he really is an offensive weapon and the Lakers have won a lot of games because of him. A big part of that early run in this game when the Lakers took an eighteen point lead was d LO. I'm aware of all of that, but when push comes to shove, and things really slow down in the half court and they're playing against good teams.

Dlo brings a unique deadly come i should say, damaging combo, which is one he's relentlessly attacked on defense, and two his offensive game doesn't really seem to consistently translate when it gets really physical, really intense against good teams. It's a lot of like in the free flowing parts of the game where he has success, or against teams that

aren't particularly big and athletic on the perimeter. Just time and time again, it's Bruce Brown kicking his ass in the Western Conference finals, or it's him going for zero points in a first round game against the Nuggets last year. Just routinely, in these really big, important, physical games, he just struggles to do enough offensively to make up for the fact that he is by far one of the

most limited defensive players in the league. And so like, just to me, like, even though I think the Lakers are a serious team, and even if they don't make a change, I think they win fifty games this year. As long as they stay relatively healthy, the Lakers are good. This is something I've been consistent about ever since the

late January. This year. They are not going anywhere. They're not winning four playoff rounds until they get an upgrade at that two spot with D'Angelo Russell, and we'll see how that shapes out over the course of the season. But those limitations have been on display over the course of the last couple games. Really quickly, because I only a five minutes, I want to talk Pacers magic. Paolo goes for fifty in this game, really had his jump shot going. He had seven pull up jump shots in

this game. But what really impressed me was the way

he played down the stretch of the game. I talk a lot about the idea of basketball players understanding what their superpower is, Okay, and what I mean by that is like for bigger players, like it's cool to work on advanced skills training, it's cool to work on tough shot making, and there's important importance to those sorts of things, right, Like tough shot making is a coverage beater with if you're going against a drop coverage and sagging way back

in a deep drop and your big set's a good screen, you're coming off to the elbow, like, you gotta take that shot. That's what the defense has given you, right, like there are times where it's a coverage beater. It helps you rescue possessions when there's a few seconds on the shot clock or a few seconds on the game clock, and then big time in the playoffs when you run into bigger, more physical defenses. In the rim is kind

of shut off. The ability to hit over the top shots is an advantage, but for guys like Polo, the biggest advantage he has by far is the simple fact that he's one of the biggest, strongest, most athletic players in the NBA. That is his superpower. That is what needs to be his primary focus. That is what needs

to be his bread and butter. And I thought it was a huge sign of maturity last night from Paolo that in a game where his jumps was on fire, he leaned almost entirely on his physical gifts to dominate the game. Late on offense, he had three consecutive bullyball possessions where he went right through aaron Ne Smith. Then he goes on a short role possession, goes right through Ben Sheppard at the basket, gets an in one, then

he goes right through aaron Nee Smith again. He was just powering through those guys not settling again, if you got a different defender on you, maybe you need to. But he's so much bigger than Annie Smith, and obviously on the short role with Ben Shephard, he just did what the defense didn't want him to do, which is to use his size and strength to power through the

mismatch that he had. From there, that's when the Pacers started double teaming him, and instead of trying to force the issue or taking bad jump shots over double teams, he got rid of the basketball and played rotation advantage creation basketball. That's when they started getting wide open threes

and then Anthony Black the game winner. Same sort of thing they were spamming, this kind of like horn set ghost screen thing for with KCP, where KCP would basically just set a quick ghost screen for Paolo at the top of the key at the end of the game, and as he kept drawing two on the ball and they just played advantage basketball out of it. And then Anthony Black ends up hitting the game winner out of the left corner that puts him up three with I

think it was less than a minute left. But then even on defense, like Pascal Siakam had been doing major damage to Orlando guards in the post in this game, even hit a pretty tough fade away over Pallow down the stretch. But Paolo got two key stops against Pascal Siakam down the stretch. There's a fade away that he like smothered and forced a bad miss, and then a dribble drive where he flattened the drive out, pushed him behind the backboard and actually forced him into a turnover.

So like again, hit a bunch of pull up jump shots, scored a bunch of points. All that's cool, fine and fancy, But down the stretch of the game, he played like a savvy vet and dominated the game with his physical gifts, punishing size mismatches to get easy shots around the basket, taking advantage of the defense loading up on him to give his teammates opportunities to capitalize, and weaponizing his athletic gifts on the defensive end of the floor to make

the opposing stars uncomfortable. Just a dominant performance from Palla Boncaire. I also wanted to shout out Anthony Black. Jamal Moseley ended up having to rely a bunch on him in this game, especially late because Franz Wagner ended up leaving the game with an illness. He was brilliant defensively, got a big deflection in his steal on Andrew nemhard On like kind of a little high post entry at the top of the key towards the end of the game.

Then he made two huge offensive plays. He ran a cleared side ball screen in crunch time where he engaged the screen defender and made a simple pocket pass to Wendell Carter Junior, who drew a foul. Like that's him generating offense in the half court, generating points for his team. And then on that final play when Palo draws two on the ball, swinging swing, big corner three gotta knock that down, and he had just missed one in the right corner a few possessions earlier, knocks it down. Orlando

gets to win. Really really impressive stuff from the second year player Anthony Black. One note on the Pacers. I talked a lot about yesterday how a bad Tyres Saliburton here looks early if you're looking for silver lining. I thought down the stretch of this game that Tyres was

pretty good again. Orlando is one of the very best defenses in the league, and down the stretch of this game, he generated wide open three after wide open three, I ended up making one of his own that tied the game, but there were a couple of others that he generated that were just missed. And I just look at that as like a tiny little sign of optimism against the defense of that quality, given how poorly he's played to start this year, that he was able to generate some

quality shots down the stretch. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. For the record, Cavs fans, I'm very aware that you're four and ohn you got a big win against the Knicks. I am planning a deep dive on the Cleveland Cavaliers for tomorrow. I'm just still working on it and I'm not finished with it yet. Then I was on some time constraints today, but we will do a deep dive on the Cavaliers tomorrow. I

will see you guys then. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops 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.