Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: LeBron DROPS 42, Lakers BEAT Warriors, Mavs-Celtics, Rockets-Wolves

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Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see d KNG dot co slash audio. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody hopeful. If you guys are having a great week, got a jam packed show for you tonight. We're hitting four games from the Thursday nights late. Lebron just puts on an absolute masterclass against the Golden State Warriors with forty two, seventeen and eight.

We're going to be breaking down that game from the perspective of both teams. Anthony Edwards who's had a couple of really explosive scoring games as of late, just goes absolutely crazy on the Houston Rockets in the last eight minutes of the fourth quarter. Another brilliant game from him. I want to talk about some of the specific ways

his athleticism is so difficult to contend with. After that, the Dallas Favericks beat the Boston Celtics in Boston tonight as the Celtics continue their uneven play throughout the season, and a really nice impressive version of small ball from Dallas. They're going to be talking a lot about small ball and what makes it work in tonight's show. And then lastly, at the tail end, Nicole Jokic another triple double and

a win against the Orlando Magic. We're going to talk about the concept of inverted pick and roll and what makes that so difficult to guard as he was just eviscerating the Orlando Magic big men in traffic by running them through screens all night long. It's gonna be a fun one. You guys are the job. Before we started to subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels, you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter

at underscore jcnlts you guys, don' miss announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast tonight. It's also super helpful if he leave a rating in a review. On that front, we also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're we're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there. And the last about at least keep dropping

mail back questions. At the tail end of tonight's show, We're gonna actually record our mailbag, So drop questions in the chat and our producer Paul is gonna actually send them to me and we'll hit about ten to fifteen minutes for a worth of questions right at the tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I've been experiencing a bit of deja vus with

Lebron James as of late. I've been talking a lot about this concept of belief and how much it matters when you're trying to win a championship, because playing championship basketball is hard. Have you seen Lebron take some hits in the last few games. Have you seen him end up on the ground, have you seen him skying for rebounds. Have you seen him making low man rotations that he

wasn't making in the past. You're seeing Lebron like really exert himself because it is hard, and you absolutely we must believe that you can actually win the trophy in order to get a level of desperate commitment to what it takes to play winning basketball. I don't want to sit here and pretend like Lebron has had no belief all season, but we have to be honest. We've all

seen Lebron give poor defensive efforts where he literally looks like he knows his team isn't very good. We've seen him look dejected at times in the postgame locker room. He's also had stretches where he's looked locked in and played very well, but they've been fewer and further between over the last couple of years as a in large part because it hasn't. I mean, we all know this

Laker team. It's like, yeah, they got a chance. Maybe if Lebron and Ad play amazing and some role players out kick their coverage, so to speak, maybe they can get it done. But there was never any like true belief that there was this like clear championship ceiling there for that team. This isn't just a locked in and engaged Lebron we're seeing right now. This this is a Lebron that actually truly believes he has a great chance

to win the title. And I'm actually excited, especially for Lakers fans, because it's been a long time since we've seen this. Last time we saw this guy was probably twenty twenty one, right the year that they lost in the first round of Phoenix. Lebron is one of the greatest competitors of all time. Don't let the benevolent attitude

fool you. This guy is a maniacal competitor and when he sees an opportunity, he locks in on it and he's literally going to make sure that everything that he can do in his power, everything in his control, he's going to take care. Forty two seventeen and eight Tonight one of the best rebounding games of the season from Lebron as he's had to anchor these small ball groups

without centers. Just another level of shot creation we've seen from him in the last couple of like the last three four games, We're seeing incredible defensive rotations, communication, an attention to detail, and his playmaking remember those stretches this year where it kind of felt like Lebron was coasting through games mental and just kind of throwing the ball

all over the court, and like he just didn't really

seem invested mentally in the game. Like he's looked so laser focused every single time I've seen him in the last week or so, and it just looks like a different, more maniacally obsessively invested in this group version of Lebron James, and that to me, he's exciting on a bunch of different levels beyond just this is the guy that I became such a big fan of growing up, and the guy that dominated the league for a decade and a really fun thing to watch when you're rooting for the

team that he's playing on. And so like, I'm just excited to be a part of another opportunity to watch Lebron James when he actually feels like he has a real chance to win the title. I'm super excited to see how it could potentially affect Luca. Luca's got a lot of motivation right now, as he just had a franchise pretty embarrassing fashion bail on him right at the beginning of his prime and so he's gonna have a

certain amount of motivation from that. But I can't imagine a better ecosystem to take Luka Dancij out of and plug him into then the greatest basketball player of all time, as mentally engaged, as physically engaged as he's been in almost a half decade. And I think it's going to bring a level out of both of these guys, Luca to Lebron in the form of the belief that he has reinstored for him, and Lebron to Luca in terms

of the example that he can set. And I think it's gonna lead to some really special basketball from this group. I want to zoom in on some x's and o's from tonight. I want to talk about the concept of small ball. You know, we're gonna be talking a lot about Mark Williams over the course the next couple of weeks.

And for those of you guys who missed it, we did a scouting report on Mark Williams earlier today, So just go to our YouTube channel scroll a little bit further back you can find the full breakdown of everything Mark Williams. I'm not going to get into him tonight, but one of the reasons why, like I didn't understand a lot of pessimism coming out of that deal because there's a lot of pessimismsunding. You know, Mark Williams is

not a good defender, and that's true. Mark Williams is twenty three and he has absurd physical tools, but the the guy, he just has a lot of work still. He's pretty raw, needs a lot of work in terms of rounding out what he needs to be a good defensive player. And there will be games this year where Mark Williams looks really bad on defense and the Lakers

defense looks really bad. But one of the reasons why I wasn't super concerned about that was there was a huge upside by making this kind of deal, by going for a center that is on a cost controlled rookie contract as opposed to a you know, an extension that's a fifteen twenty twenty five million dollars deal, like a guy like a Nicholas Claxton, a guy like Robert Williams, a guy like Nikola Vucevich, a guy like Yaka pertl Right, some of these other options that the Lakers were looking at.

By virtue of going for a cost controlled player and the two options there obviously that we saw were Walker Kessler and Mark Williams. By going after a guy like that, you can just package a couple of them contracts. That's what they did. They packaged Dalton connect And who, by the way, was like periodically in the rotation for the Lakers this year, but had his minutes messed with a lot. And I was pretty consistent that I didn't think he was a playoff rotation player yet, even though I believe

in him long term as an offensive prospect. But you ship him out, you ship Cam Reddish out. You didn't lose any of these same guys that have been playing amazing basketball as of late. The only perimeter guy that's like kind of a regular rotation player you lost is Max Christy. He's a huge loss. Dallas fans are gonna

love him. But there's subtly underneath the surface here, even dating back to the Knicks game when Anthony Davis didn't even play, there is a group of seven guys here, eight guys really if you count Jackson Hayes, who's been playing some pretty damn special basketball. And it's because they have more size on the perimeter, more defensive talent, more rebounding talent more than we've seen on this roster before, because Dorian Finney Smith came in in the deal, and

because Jared Vanderbilt's healthy now. So now you're seeing these lineups that have Lebron James, Dorian Finney Smith, Ruey Hotchamura, Jared Vanderbilt on the floor. And even the guards, guys like Gave Vincent, guys like Austin Reeves, they compete, they do their job. Austin was guarding tonight, gave Vincent was guarding tonight. In order for small ball to work, there has to be a commitment athletically to the details. You need several things in order for small ball to work.

You need a shot creation because you're gonna create a lot of space, and you're gonna have these good perimeter players operating in space against a mismatch right, and you need guys that can either consistently beat that coverage one on one or consistently get the defense in rotation, either by drawing a double team or by beating that guy at the dribble and drawing in help from there. You

gotta have guys that can finish the play. Extended vantages, drive, closeouts, play that driving kick sequence through to fruition for those wide open catch and shoot threes and the stuff at the rim. So that's what you need to make it work on offense, and then on defense you have to be able to switch, contain the ball, that crowding mismatches, getting into passing lanes, making the floor feel smaller for the player that's trying to attack your weakest defender, and

then out that you have to rebound you're smaller. Everyone's got to crash, everyone's got to be flying in and tapping at the ball, and there's just been excellent production in every single one of those categories. Lebron and Austin are just in one hell of a rhythm right now. And like Austin had a nightmare shooting game, both of them cooled off pretty bad in that second half, but they still did enough. Both guys did a good job getting to the foul line in the second half as

ways to kind of just squeeze extra points out. But both of them were generating advantages, generating buckets for themselves all like they've been playing just fantastic basketball over the course of the last couple of weeks. And then off of that, Gabe Vincent's hitting shots. Riachimura is making plays. Jared Vanderbilt through his offensive rebounding and just his activity is maintaining himself as a threat on the Dorian Finney

Smith knocking down shots. Everyone is doing their job within that advantage, extending and play finishing, and then on defense, just by virtue of having more good defenders on the floor, by virtue of having more good defenders in the rotation, there's just better talent in this switching scheme. Containing the ball being in the right place, is making the efforts you need to close out defensive possessions. And that's the last part. Rebounding, they're gonna go small. You've got to

fly around for rebounds. Your perimeter players have to have dominating rebounding efforts. Lebron James and Jared Vanderbilt too, forwards had thirty one rebounds in this game, thirty one of them. You want to know how small ball works when you got guys that are small that play huge, and Jared Vanderbilt and Lebron are two of those guys. Austin Reeves, even your small guys have to battle. Austin Reeves only had four rebounds, but he had two of the biggest

rebounding sequences of the night. What I thought was the play of the game. This crazy play where it's a high point right around the left lay line. Draymond's got positioned on the rebound. Austin comes flying in and just barely gets a piece of it, keeps it alive just long enough for Jared Vanderbilt to get it. Jared Vanderbilt can grabing go all night. He was getting rebounds and instead of having to give the ball to someone to run against ball pressure, he just would bring the ball

up to floor. Jared Vanderbilt huge defensive rebound, throws a beautiful bounce pass in transition to Dorian Phinney Smith for a dunk. A remarkable play that captures the difference in the personality of this team compared to the pass because of Dorian Phinney Smith coming in in the trade. Jared Vanderbilt getting healthy. You just have more talent in those positions,

and your small guys are scrapping too. He also had Austin got another huge contested rebound out of the left kind of corner area, just running to a loose ball. Loose ball that was going that way. No one was there. Austin beat everybody there. Those are things. Those things are non negotiable. When the Lakers switching defense look terrible, even with Anthony David in the early parts of the season, it mostly came down to that. It mostly came down

to guys not being willing to do that work. And so that that is why I'm like kind of high on the Mark Williams move because to me, this inevitably is a small ball team. Maxi Kleiba is like a really solid small ball center, a guy that like will also be able to help anchor these minutes. He's not going to be healthy until most likely early April, but that's another option that continues to anchor that idea. We're gonna talk about it in a minute, but they're a

buyout destination. There is potential for even more two way talent to join this roster. And when I look at the Mark Williams move, I look at it as like, Yeah, there's gonna be lineups out there that are Luca at the point with probably Austin and Mark Williams is going to be out there and they're gonna run a lot of pick and roll and they're gonna score a million points. And they'll also give up a million points on the other end. But like, those lineups will still be good

because they're going to be extremely difficult to guard. And then they're also going to small ball looks. They're going to be able to throw out lineups with Luca and Lebron in Austin, but with Dorian Finney Smith and Vando next to them, and they'll run spread ball screens with Jared Vanderbilt or with Lebron and have Vanderbilt operate as a cutter along the baseline, and those lineups will be able to get enough stops because when Lebron is playing hard,

he's a very good defender. Dorian Phinney Smith very good defender. Jared Vanderbilt is an amazing defender. Like, they're going to have looks that they can go to. Now, are there are there weaknesses here? Of course, they're a little thin on the front line for massive centers. They're going to struggle with Jokic type a type of bigs right, and that arguably is the kind of player they should be looking out in the looking for in the buyout market.

Is just the best, big, bruising type of center that they can find. But like I look at this Lakers team that has many different shapes that they can take. They're playing such great basketball right now, and they managed to pull this off without giving a way any of those players that are playing such great basketball right now. And then you're gonna bring in this Luca Mark Williams dynamic that just gives you an entirely different punch that you can throw. Not to mention, like, let's talk about

that second half. Lebron and Austin started to fatigue. The Warriors went small. Guess what. The Warriors are the original small ball team. They're very good at it too, and they up to their defensive pressure, they up to their rebounding effort, and they wore the Lakers down a little

bit in that second half. Obviously, there was a little bit of the Lakers pulling back, and there's some of that natural push and pull that happens in NBA regular season games, but the actual tangible thing that was affecting the Lakers was Lebron and Austin started to fatigue a little bit. This is where Luka Doncic is like the trump card for that. Luka Doncic is going to just make everything so much easier in that situation where a defense really tightens the screws and Lebron and Austin start

to show some of their lumps. Playing great, but Lebron's forty and Austin obviously has some athletic limitations. Luca is the second or third best basketball player on planet Earth, and specifically because his superpower is you can't pressure him and force him to speed up. You can't keep him from getting to his spots. You can't keep him from either getting a shot that he likes for himself or

a shot that he likes for someone else. And that is going to add a layer of resilience to that group as they go through stretches like what they did in that second half. The Lakers are playing great basketball, man, and they're the premier buyout destination in the league. I literally can't even believe the reversal of fortune here over the course of where I felt about this team over the course of the last few months and where they're

at now. Obviously, I'm not going to make any sort of declaration about where they land in my contender tier, not until I see a lot of basketball with Luka doncicin Mark Williams on the floor, certain point, I just want to be like, let's not overthink it, guys, they're gonna be really fucking good. Like they're they have this incredible identity, and these two guys aren't even there yet.

And it's the walking thirty point triple double guy and the dude who can go for twenty five and fifteen on any given night, and and that's that's just a massive influx of talent on the Warriors front. Obviously, we didn't see Jimmy Butler in this game, and I thought they've generally played pretty well. In the stretches of the game where they had Steph Curry on the floor, they

were minus three and steps minutes. They got beat up pretty bad by the starters in the opening stretch of the game, but every other stretch of the game they competed with the Lakers starters and played well. But then you just kept going to these bench groups and it's like Pat Spencer and Brandon Pajemski and it's like Pat Spencer's a really cool story. I mean, I don't know why the hell he went off the like off a handle on that and one against Lebron like that was

that was a pretty funny sequence. But like, that's it. Pat Spencer's a cool story. Probably shouldn't be the secondary shot creator on your bench unit if you have serious championship aspirations. Brandon Pazemski really like him as a prospect. Had a rough shooting night tonight, especially at the foul line, But he's a guy that does a lot of little things well. Probably shouldn't be your primary shot creator on a bench unit. And so like, this is the beauty

of having Jimmy Butler coming into this equation. In addition to anchoring those starting units with more talent on both ends of the floor, he just gives you a much better chance to survive those minutes you watched them. You saw they couldn't get good shots. That was the problem. They scrapped and they made plays here and there, but time and time again, that Laker defense was able to

contain those guys. And so that's exactly why I'm so excited to see what Jimmy Butler looks like in this context. Like Steph, what he take thirty took damn your forty shots tonight, Like he's having to do everything right now, And that's exactly why you had to do what you did.

was off the charge. Remember, Houston is probably one of the few teams in the league, probably the team that's best equipped actually to handle Anthony Edwards's power In athleticism, again, Anthony Ewards brings this unique combination of incredible athletic mobility, but he's just built like a refrigerator, and so he's just incredibly difficult to handle his like straight line power. Right. But here's the thing, even though the Rockets have a lot of athletes that have power like ant is just

a complete other level of athlete. In three plays that I wanted to quickly kind of like highlight to demonstrate this, he had an and one on Dylan Brooks coming down the left lane line on like a eurostep where Dylan Brooks went with the verticality, but he wanted to foul Ant, so he came down on top of him as easy call for the ref basically pushed Ant down backwards and at like a forty five degree ankle from the angle from the ground while falling down, somehow gets the strength

to literally get a line drive jump shot off that bank's end. Just an incredible demonstration of strength that he has. Then he has his play on the left corner area after an offensive rebound where he's got Cam Whitmore on his high side and Jalen Green in front of him. Again, these are two A plus athletes that are bracketing Anthony Edwards and basically a double team, but Ant is an A plus plus plus athlete and he just ripped right through them and got an easy and one layout. And

then lastly that step back three over Dylan Brooks. Ellen's doing a great job playing the jump shot and getting it. Still gets a great contest, but Ant just goes to a shuffle stepide It's basically the step back with that extra shuffle step at the end and takes like a twenty seven footer with his momentum going away from the basket. But his legs are so damn strong that he just goes straight up and down and gets such great lift that it's just this easy, breezy flip of the wrist

at the end. And he's become such a damn good shooter that like, that's a good shot for him. This is why I'm so high on Anthony Edwards in the big picture. He has the physical tools to overcome literally any surrounding circumstance. There isn't an athlete in the NBA that can stop Anthony Edwards from at least getting a decent look at a pull up jump shot. And again, he's gotten so good at making them that even a tough pull up jump shot is still a good look

for Anthony Edwards. When he combines that with improved playmaking, improved defense, and honestly just a little bit Betters construction to take advantage of his downhill ability, the sky is the limit for this kid. I also wanted to shout out Jalen Clark. He's been getting minutes over the last

couple of weeks with some injuries. He had seventeen points tonight doing his job on offense beeding low man help he had a steady dose of jack Landale, who was playing backup center for the banged up Rockets scene tonight. He had a steady dose of jack Landel on him, and jack Landil was just helping everywhere, and so he just kept ending up in the corner. He had three

three's out of the corner. He had a really nice bucket on a back cut where jack Landiel was getting ready to double team nase Red on a post up and Jalen literally identified it and like looked like a sprinter along the baseline eighteen foot from the basket, just like waiting for the gun to fire, And as soon as jack Landiel went to hard double, you just shot down the baseline. And a lot of times you want to do that as a as a smaller player simply

because you want to have a running start. Remember when you play NBA two K, they had that vertical jump metric. Like big guys can work out of the dunker spot without much of a running start because they could just get up off the grip so quick off two feet and they have such a high standing reach. These athletes that are on the perimeter, they need a running start to be able to finish over bigger players around the basket. I just thought he did a really nice job beating

that low man help. The Wolves have won seven out of nine, and by the way, in that span, Anthony Everwards is averaging thirty two points, six rebound, six assists on sixty two percent true shooting six assists per game. Made two beautiful feeds out of double teams late in the game for a wide open three from Nasried at the top key that he missed, and then another double team that led to a wide open three for Mike Conley that ended up making and that basically put the

gameway really special basketball from Anthony Edwards. Let's move on to the Dallas Mavericks, who get a big win on

the road against the Boston Celtics. They pulled away with a small ball group to end the first quarter, Kyrie Irving, Spencer, Dinwiddie, Olivia, Maxon's prosper Max Christie fresh in from the Lakers, and Naji Marshall, and as I talked about earlier, that can work as long as your shot creators do a good job of consistently scoring one on one or starting driving kick sequences with advantage creation, and as long as you have guys finishing plays by finishing those driving kick sequences.

And as long as on defense you can contain the ball and you can rebound, you can win playing small ball, and they just played better small ball than the Celtics did in that end of the first quarter group, Jalen Brown had a couple of bad turnovers trying to dribble through traffic. He had to post up against Max Christie right around like the semi circle. Max Christy's skinny, He's a guy you can go through. Jalen settled for a tough fade away and missed it. But on the other end,

Spencer Dinwiddie is attacking the rim. He gets two driving layups, shoots a pull up three, but it comes after those driving laps when he's in rhythm and he has more separation. Spencer was great in this entire game, but it was really good in that stretch starting driving kick sequences too. Big time like dribble, penetration and spray out. Sometimes just simple stuff like I've got a nice on the right wing,

we got a player on the left wing. We're in four out one in spacing, which is pretty typical for driving kick stuff. And the guy who's getting the left wing is kind of sitting around the nail. Spencer just takes two hard dribbles towards the middle, gets that guy to commit, throws a swing pass its Naji Marshall pump bake drive left. Naji Marshall ends up hitting a bucket.

Sometimes it can be something simple like that. When a team is loading up on you, your job is just to create the advantage so that the players off of you can finish those plays. Right. Chris tops porzingis on the other end, posting up. Naji Marshall settles for really tough right shoulder fade away that he misses. Tatum comes in. He's being really aggressive towards the rim in that late first quarter stretch, but even he was sloppy. He missed

a couple of layups, he had a turnover. The mass were just playing better small ball, and they just built a nice little lead. They drove and kicked better, they switched and contained the ball better, they rebounded better. They just did a better job then the Celtics did, even though the talent would lead you to believe that the Celtics should. And this has been a recurring theme for the Celtics and we're gonna talk about that in a minute.

But Dallas has played better than then tonight. Klay Thompson was fantastic in this game. The Celtics were really hesitant to switch with him all night. And this is a acceptable strategy with shooters, like you can do the switching

thing for off ball action. But in theory it's great, but there's just it leads to a lot of mistakes, right Like if you switch and the guy passively switches, meaning the guy that's switching on to the shooter just as a step late, he can find some separation and take a jump shot there. Sometimes people completely botch switches. You can get separated and lose that connection body to

body and it can cause problems. But the problem is if you stay attached and you lock and trail, that puts you in the situation where you're vulnerable to drop

coverage shots. So if they're not switching and they have their big sitting back and he's coming off of that action, if the guy's in trail position, there's movement jump shots that are open in the gap between the guy that's chasing him and the guy that's sitting back there in that drop coverage and it was weird because even there are even a lot of sequences in off ball action that didn't involve bigs where the Celtics were hesitant to switch and they would just have like Derek White, stay

attached to him. But Clay was getting a lot of opportunities against those Boston drop coverage looks, and he's still one of the greatest movement shooters of all time, and he just got hot, and he just eviscerated their drop coverages all night with little movement jump shots in that

gap between the screen defender and the trailing defender. And by the time Boston adjusted, they tried switching with the big, they tried rotating off ball with a different perimeter player, it just didn't matter because Clay was in too good of a groove at that point. Twenty five in this game, the MAVs led by as much as twenty seven in this game, is a really nice win for them on the road. And the Celtics are just so obviously so bored.

I was talking about this with a Lakers fan buddy of mine earlier today, but like to me, the Celtics are so obviously the least motivated team in the NBA.

This year, and they have such a difference between when they play with force on both ends, when they're defending like crazy, weaponizing their athleticism, and then on the other end of the floor just attacking, attacking, attacking and getting great shots and just picking teams apart, versus their like games where they play with less force and it's like they're just not defending the way that they're capable of and they're settling for a lot of bad jump shots.

And it's been like a lot of both mixed in. It's not even like, oh, here's ten good games, here's ten shitty games. It's like they go into Cleveland and put together one of their most complete efforts of the season, and then they come home and lay an egg against a Dallas Mavericks team that doesn't have Luca or Anthony Davis and a Mavericks team that's spiraled without Luka Doncic this season. And so, like again, I'm gonna say the same thing I've been saying about it with the Celtics

all year long. I know that championship upside is in there. I still believe in them. They's still my top tier championship contender. I still have them above the Oklahoma City Thunder. But the problem is is they're playing with fire by playing a lot of bad basketball mixed in with good basketball. When you play bad basketball, your habits aren't as sharp

as they are when you're consistently playing great basketball. If your habits aren't as sharp, then when you run into adversity in a big playoff game, you don't have the same level of that habitual championship basketball that you can lean back on to help survive those moments. It feels a little bit like the Celtics are leaning on their talent this year instead of their relentless execution, which is how they won the title in addition to the talent

that they had. And so again, it's not over for them. It's not like they're on a different tier than Oklahoma City or Cleveland. I still view them as the clear championship favorite, but we have to be honest about the fact that they're playing with some fire this year. Lastly, Tonight briefly on Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets. An absolute masterclass from Nikole jokicch puts up twenty eight points, ten rebounds in twelve assists thirty one minutes, did a ton

of damage as a pick and roll ball handler. In tonight's game, he kept running goga bitadz through these inverted ball screens all over the floor, a lot on the right wing, a little bit at the top of the key. And one of the things I talk about a lot

when it comes to inverted ball screens. And again for those of you gus who don't understand what that is is typically a ball screen is a perimeterive player handling and a big player setting the screen, and an inverted ball screen the big players handling, and you've got a perimeterive player setting the screen. And what it does is it reversus defensive roles. They're like, how many pick and

rolls have you watched in the NBA this year? And most of them look roughly the same, right, like the guards chasing over the top, the big is somewhere waiting on the other end, either up at the level of shitting further back in a drop coverage, and all of them look the same. And they have a certain kind

of like pattern that these guards have done their entire lives, and a certain pattern that these bigs have done their entire lives. You know, how many ball screens NBA centers have defended since they were playing high school basketball. Do you know how many ball screens guards have defended since

they were playing high school basketball? Now, flip it and the big guy is handling a ball handler through balls through screens, and the small guy who's now in a position to help is having to help on a massive ball handler when he's never done that before, not in

any sort of substantial context. Right, and again, it was so funny to watch Goga Patadze struggle with this comes off of an inverted ball screen from Michael Porter Junior in the first half along the right wing, and Gogo Patazz goes under but he by the time he actually meets Nikole Jokic, it's only like five feet from the rim.

Nikole Jokic has like what thirty forty pounds on him and just has a head of steam and just easily bumps into him, and Goga goes flying back and he just gets an easy lap of Jokics running with ahead of steam against a player five feet from the basket. There's nobody in the league that could stop him there.

But like, how do you get Jokic into that situation where he's running with the ball into a static player or a backpedaling player five feet from the basket by forcing that player to run through a screen that he has no idea what to do. The had one in

the second half. Its top skey in the third quarter where Goga goes to run over the top of the screen and Jokic rejects the screen, and Goga literally had his back turned to Jokic while Jokic was driving past him the other way because he has no idea what he's doing. He has never defended ball screens. He doesn't know how to get that top foot over while keeping his chest square to the defender. He doesn't know that.

You can't just commit to going over to the top of the screen against any good ball handler, because so many of those end up being rejected by the ball handler as soon as they know you commit to the screen, it's just cross right back over and you're going right to the basket. But that's the beauty of the inverted ball screen is it just puts defenders into compromising positions, and in order for it to work, you need to have a big that can both dribble, shoot and pass.

And you're not going to find a big an NBA history that did that stuff better than Nicole Jokis. Brilliant game from him. Michael Porter Junior also put up thirty Really some of his best work. Just that every part of his game going was doing a ton of work off the dribble in the screening actions, just keeping his dribble alive so that he could get to spots and

take advantage of people over pursuing him on screens. Made great reads in his off screen possessions all night, Like got free for a bunch of backdoor buckets, just like it got a nasty dunk off one too, Just like getting the defender to overplay the screen and then pushing then just pushing him out of the way and going back towards the basket, finding openings for threes in transition. Just a really nice game for Michael Porter Junior. Nice went for the Nuggets over a reeling Orlando Magic team.

All right, let's get into our male bad questions again. We're gonna go for about ten to fifteen minutes and then we'll be done here. From Doyle, I disagree with you about the Jimmy trades. Steph isn't the one that will benefit KAMINGA is going to be the true benefactor. Love everything you do, Thank you. So I agree in principle, just simply because that's what slotting is, right, Like, Steph to me is not the same player he was in twenty twenty one. And I want to be clear, like,

do I think Steph's efficiency will improve after Jimmy starts playing. Yes, it will because he won't have to take as many bad shots. But Steph does have a little bit of an issue getting separation at this point in his career,

and that's a real thing. And a lot of Steph's value at this point comes from just the way he's guarded, which is something I spent a lot of time talking about in the Jimmy Butler video on Wednesday Night, Like Steph, Steph is going to be guarded in such a way that he has such a high offensive floor even if he does go you know, six for nineteen from three or six for two, twenty for three, whatever it was that he went tonight.

depended on offensively. Jimmy Butler comes in. He is that dependable high floor offensive player. All of a sudden, you can kind of pick and choose who plays well. Every great basketball team is the same story. It's you got your reliable offensive guys, and then there's like five other dudes where it's like who's got it tonight? And yeah, on the nights where all five of them suck, it

can go dark for any team in the NBA. But like sometimes these two guys get going, and then these two guys get going, and then these three guys get going, and it's like this guy is seventeen when he normally averages eight, and this guy had twenty three tonight when he normally averages fifteen. That sort of variety is like totally normal. That is what you expect from those players.

They just can't be dependent on or you're gonna be constantly you're gonna be constantly frustrated with what you get out of it from TK. Assuming Luca, Austin Reeves, Lebron, and Mark Williams are the four starters, who should be the last starter? And why so? I thought a lot about this. I expect JJ Reddick to go with Ruby Hachimura. I would personally go with Dorian Finney Smith for a

very simple reason. I would want to deploy him against the opponent's best perimeter player, and then I would effectively have Austin Reeves defending as a defending the second best perimeter player. Luca is defending your third best perimeter player. Lebron's your low man. Mark Williams is in ball screens, right, So like that to me makes the most sense. If you bring Ruby Hotchi Mura in, you're probably going to

more of a switching look, and that's just not gonna be good because that's going to put Mark Williams on the perimeter a lot. Charlotte almost exclusively used Mark Williams in a deep drop because he sucks at defending on the perimeter. He's not good at defending around the basket either, but at least around the basket. He's going to block some shots. His size can be a problem, and he's

a very good defensive rebounder. Right, So ideally, by putting Mark Williams in that starting lineup, you have to run drop coverage with him, and that means that you have to ball screens, not switch, which means you've got to have somebody that's willing to defend on the perimeter and

chase over the top of screens. A perfect example is like in tonight's game where Ruy Hatchamura and Dorian Finnis Smith are both starting, and again we all know Lucas going in for one of those guys who started on Steph Dorian Phinney Smith, Right, Dorian is not ideally suited to be that type of player. I like Dorian better is a switching guy who's kind of all over the floor, not navigating screens as much. But he also can do that, and he certainly can do it a lot better than Ruy,

So that to me is an easy solution there. You start Mura, or excuse me, you start Dorian Finney Smith. Then also, Ruy's scoring is going to be of more value. On the bench, you can imagine a universe where you know, Braun and Dorian Finney Smith come out and gave Vincent and Ruy Hachimura come in, and Ruy has more opportunity to be aggressive with that bench group. Right. Is it possible for Mark Williams and Jared Vanderbilt to start at the same time and their offense not fall apart? I

don't think so. It's more just you can make it work. To be clear, there's a certain amount of like rapid cutting and movement on the interior where guys can remain a threat even when there's multiple players that can't shoot from the perimeter. But it certainly is a lot more difficult, and I just think Jared Vanderbilt is going to be more anchoring the small ball groups when Mark Williams is off the floor. Do you think the Lakers This is from JM and thank you for the donation as well, Jams.

Do you think the Lakers can win the championship this year? Now that they have two all time great matchup hunters and Luka Dancic and Lebron James. This is the thing that makes me so excited about this team. What you saw in that second half is a smaller version of what happens in almost every single NBA playoff game. A certain point, we're playing against a really good team that's playing desperate basketball, and when hit gets top, they're gonna

ratchet things up. They're gonna get more physical, they're gonna pressure the ball, they're gonna be more aggressive in terms of their coverages, and everything's gonna get really difficult, and it's gonna become an absolute slow down, fistfight. And in that situation, you can't have two better rock fight basketball players on the offensive end of the floor than Lebron

James and Luka Doncic. Especially Lebron James that legitimately, again is very small sample size, but in the last week has been playing at the level that you see the top five players in the league play at. And I mean, if Lebron can maintain that, we need to have an entirely different discussion about the potential that this that this team has after acquiring DeAndre acquiring DeAndre Hunter, have the Cavs leapfrog the Celtics for the best five man lineup

who should be considered the favorite in that conference? Love the videos. I have not had the Cavs leap Frog Boston after that trade. I do think it's a smart move from them in that it avoided getting rid of any of their most valuable assets. The players they traded out are a little bit redundant. For instance, Karris Lavert is redundant with ty Jerome now that Ty Jerome has kind of come to the surface as one of the

best backup guards in the league. Carris has got some defensive talent and does a lot of things well, but he's a little bit more redundant then George Kniang. DeAndre Hunter is just a much better player than him, so it's a talent add DeAndre Hunter. One of the big things I talked about in our trade deadline reaction today is like he's just got scoring chops and a lot of times in the playoffs when things really bogged down, it's about the guy that can take that skip pass

from Donovan Mitchell. But he's got an A plus athlete closing out at him and he needs to score there, like create a bucket for himself. And DeAndre Hunter has been one of the better pull up jump shooters in the league this year. He's got the ability to put the ball on the foard and make plays for himself. I like that he gives you more physicality and size on the perimeter, which is obviously important for a Boston

team that constantly is looking to attack mispatches. All of that is great, but I still think that Boston, as you guys saw when they went into Cleveland the other night, and as we've seen throughout this entire season, they just have this level they can get to when they really tighten the screws on defense and the Jays just get super physically aggressive on offense, where it's just tough to deal with their talent. And again, I think we have to be honest about the fact that Boston is just

completely past this regular season process at this point. They are a April May June type of team, and so I think that there's some real difference and just what we can expect from those teams in the regular season. Now.

As far as do they have a chance, of course, they do them a five game lead in the standings, so as long as they play mostly as good as they've been playing to start the year, they're going to be the number one overall seed, which means when we get to late May game one of the Eastern Conference Finals, is going to be in Cleveland. You ride a raucous crowd to a two zero series lead, you got a really good chance to win that series. So like, of course they can win. I don't think Boston is like

the head and shoulders favorite to win the conference. I just think they're the favorite, and I think that their talent is a little underrated at this point because they're dealing with some regular season malaise. Who was carried more Rob Polinka by Nico or Ringo Star by Paul John

and George. I did this segment for Microsoft Today where we talked about like overcoming adversity, and I did the whole thing on Rob and Paul, our producer, texted me right after and he's like, you should have just made Nico Harrison the start that segment. Oh man, All right, let's see, last time the Celtics won the title, the

Lakers won the next season. That's super interesting. What do you think is the biggest question mark for the Lakers going forward whether or not they can put together a reasonable defense with Mark Williams at center, Which is gonna come down to whether or not they can find a a defensive scheme that kind of works with that group, and they're gonna have to find lineup construction that pairs somebody that can chase over the top of screens with Mark so they can keep him in a deep drop.

And then coaching is going to play a big role. They've got to somehow pretty quickly. They have to pretty quickly develop Mark into a useful defensive player, and that's gonna be tough. What's going on with the Trailblazers. They are on fire, young players finally taking the next step, playing really good defense. Tomani Kamara has been one of the most impressive young defensive athletes that we've seen in

the league this year. They're getting good shot creation from Anferny Simon's and Scoot Henderson's playing the best basketball of his young career. Their fun team, and I was kind of expecting them to be more sellers at the deadline, and I think they just played too well for that to be the case. All right, well we got one here from EGO donated five dollars, Thank you so much. Do you think Lucas saves Lebron's legs come May? This is huge for a real run. Lebron can coast a

bit without the offense tanking legs in May June very important. Yeah, there was a play. There was a play where Lebron was posting Brandon Pizzimski along the left lane line and he shot a bank shop that went off the corner of the backboard. It was a pretty ugly miss, and it was just so abundantly clear that he was exhausted. And Austin can leverage the athletic gifts and these bursts. That's why I think the manager Nobili comp is such

a great comp for Austin Reeves. But like both of them have a kind of a tendency to run into a wall at a certain point because of Lebron's agent, because of Austin's athletic limitations, and Luca just has the

ability to overcome that. And I think it's a really underrated aspect of this that Lebron's going to be able to devote energy to the defensive end of the floors as a product of the U as a product of the load that Luca can take on the offensive end of the floor From maxim Sold, the Nuggets run more of their offense through Michael Porter Junior. No, I don't think so. Go ahead a great game tonight. I was really impressed by the off screen work that he did.

But the problem with MPJ is he's another one of those guys that can kind of run into a wall in terms of athleticism, where like you saw this against Minnesota and all the Minnesota matchups. We even saw this a little bit in the Miami series in the finals. But like when teams can kind of physically pressure him and make him rush and feel a little bit uncomfortable,

his game falls apart. And there are just more reliable offensive players in terms of Jamal Murray in particular in a playoff setting, even Russell Westbrook, who has an athlete when he's in a small role, can leverage himself as things get more intense. I think that it's there's obviously MPJ is always gonna have his role, and on nights like tonight, when he's really got it, you want to

keep going to him, keep going to him. But I don't see it as a I don't really see it as a as a you know, foundational offensive concept, if that makes sense. A couple more, if Ben's his If Ben Simmons gets bought out, what's the team that is perfect for him? I mean, I suppose it would have to be a tea. Then he's a little like a four with some size. I'd be an interesting one for

Golden State maybe, Like Ben Simmons is kind of like a Draymond Green esque drible handoff, roll into space kind of guy.

You still see it from time to time where you'll make a play, you'll get dunk, he'll you know, slide his feet on the perimeter and make a play. But still is super gun shy around the basket as a finisher. I don't really see him as a guy that I ever want playing meaningful minutes in a serious basketball game. What's your take on the first game with Aaron Fox on the Spurs. I haven't watched that one yet, Off to check it out later. Why does Austin Reeves look

so bad at times? I think Austin has had some bad games this year when he really gets attacked on the defensive end of the floor. And he also, kind of, like Michael Porter Junior, can get a little bit messed up by specific types of matchups, physical types of perimeter players that can pressure him. But I've also seen him overcome that type of matchup, and like, here's the thing, Like, this is why Austin Reeves like to me, that twenty point per game, fifty forty ninety guy, That to me

is the Austin Reeves experience. So the way it manifests itself is a lot of twenty seven point nights and a lot of thirteen point nights, right like, and a lot of that's going to have to do matchup to match up. But I think Austin Reeves played a lot better tonight than the shooting percentages would tell you. Consistently, got to the foul line, had that big bank shot in crunch time. I thought that was a big shot. I Austin's one of my favorite players that I've ever

rooted for. All Right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. As always, a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. As of right now, the plan is to go after a game on Saturday. I'm not one hundred percent sure yet because I think it depends on whether or not Luca plays. So we'll figure that out and I'll let you guys know. But keep an eye on my Twitter feed at our sport jsonlt for show announcements, and I'll let you guys know when the next show is.

If we don't go on Saturday, then obviously we'll be back on Monday for our power rankings and our usual routine from there. Again, sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and supporting the show. I'll see you guys next.